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Volume 1 Issue 1 (2003)
Tato Laviera
Tato Laviera (b.1951), one of the most influential and enduring
voices in Puerto Rican poetry in the U.S., gave a rousing performance on the
final evening of the Latinos 2000 conference. We were fortunate enough
to have videotaped that performance and now offer it as part of our first issue
of Encrucijada/Crossroads.
Tato Laviera's poetry and plays traverse the cultural and linguistic
borders that separate Spanish and English. As one of the key figures in the
development of the Nuyorican sensibility in literature, Tato's poetry encodes
the history of the Puerto Rican Diaspora as a way to remain culturally mobile
between the island and the mainland. His work documents the lives of those who
have arduously carved a Caribbean space out of the concrete urban jungle. The
Afro-Caribbean rhythms that pulsate in his poems fuse Spanish, English, and
Spanglish together in an intoxicating articulation of transnational and transcultural
identity.
Published works include:
La Carreta Made a U-Turn. Houston: Arte
Público Press, 1979.
AmeRícan. Houston: Arte Público
Press, 1985.
Enclave. Houston: Arte Público
Press, 1985.
Mainstream Ethics-Etica Corriente. Houston:
Arte Público Press, 1988.
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