Pedro Pietri: Selected Poetry

Description

"There was no one in this country as ferocious, as brilliant, or as necessary as Pedro Pietri. In these days of growing inequality it is to his rebel vision I turn to for hope and for strength. A towering poet, absolutely peerless, explosively talented, a pioneer, and iconoclast, and activist, to whom the entire spoken word movement owes a debt beyond calculation."-Junot Diaz "One of the great American poets of the twentieth century, a leader of the Nuyorican poetry movement that ignited at Miguel Algarin's Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. Perhaps the most progressive and at the same time funniest poet of the period."-Amiri Baraka Pedro Pietri's often playfully absurd poems chronicle the joys and struggles of Nuyoricans-urban Puerto Ricans whose lives straddle the islands of Puerto Rico and Manhattan-and define the Latino experience in urban America. By turns angry, heartbreaking, and hopeful, his writings are imbued with a sense of pride and nationalism and were embraced by the generation of Latino poets that followed him. Pedro Pietri: Selected Poetry gathers the most enduring and treasured work among his published books, Puerto Rican Obituary, Traffic Violations, and Out of Order, along with a generous selection of his previously unpublished works. Pedro Pietri (1944-2004) was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and raised in Manhattan. In the early '70s he was a featured poet at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Juan Flores (1943-2014) was a professor and director of Latino Studies at New York University, and author of many books on Puerto Rican and Latino culture. Pedro Lopez Adorno is a professor in the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies of Hunter College since 1987, and a published poet.

Pedro Pietri: Nuyorican poet and playwright Pedro Pietri was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1944, and raised in Manhattan. In the early 1970s, he co-founded the Nuyorican Poets Cafe with Miguel Pinera, Miguel Algarin, and others. He died of stomach cancer in 2004. Juan Flores: Juan Flores is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and director of Latino Studies at New York University. He is the recipient of the Casa de las Americas Prize and the Smithsonian Institution Latino Legacy Award. His books include: From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity published by Columbia University Press. Pedro Lopez Adorno: Pedro Lopez Adorno, born, Puerto Rico, 1954. Author of 13 books. He has been a professor in the Department of Africana and Puetro Rican/Latino Studies of Hunter College since 1987.

"In this charming and powerful posthumous volume, Pietri, a co-founder of New York City's legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, shows off the sharp, surreal sense of humor he employs in writing on the social and political issues affecting New York City's Puerto Rican community ... abundant joy and imagination that may inspire the reader to pick up a pen: 'the magic of / writing poetry,' Pietri declares, 'is not knowing / how to do it / right or wrong!'"--Publishers Weekly "Like 'Howl,' [Pietri's poetry] became a cornerstone of new consciousness for a group of outsiders ready to declare their independence from the mainstream--in this case, the group Pietri himself helped name as Nuyoricans ... much of his best work remained unpublished or buried in small-press magazines. Editors Juan Flores and Pedro Lopez Adorno have thankfully gathered a substantial amount of Pietri's uncollected work in this book"--Gerald Nicosia, San Francisco Chronicle "'They worked / They worked / They worked / and they died / They died broke / They died owing / They died never knowing / what the front entrance / of the first national city bank looks like.' Pedro Pietri wrote 'Puerto Rican Obituary' in 1969, after having served in Vietnam. There's no mention of that war in the poem, but there's a strong sense of futility, death, and disaffection that must have been informed by witnessing the violence of war and then coming home to unfulfilled dreams. "Obituary" is the first poem in City Lights' new collection of the late poet's work, much of which is otherwise only available in out-of-print or photocopied editions. I hadn't heard of Pietri before reading this collection, which is a shame because he strikes me as the Ginsberg of the Vietnam era--combining politics, race, and the personal in performative poetry. His lines are propulsive and witty, especially in the playful 'Telephone Booth' series, which reads like a flirtatious midnight conversation: 'because I do not / want to make / future generations / lose sleep I / will do my very best / not to influence / anyone regardless / of what a nice ass / they seem to have.'"--Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review "Pedro Pietri: Selected Poetry gathers the most important poems of the author's classic books. ... The result is 240 pages of brilliant writing that delivers one of the sharpest looks into the Nuyorican experience ever offered ... [A] collection like this should be read and celebrated, because it ensures that his legacy as spoken word innovator and his status as of the most explosively talented and unique voices in 20th century poetry is recognized and exposed to new readers."-PANK