Week 5

As a poet, essayist, translator, editor, and attorney, Martín Espada has dedicated much of his career to the pursuit of social justice, including fighting for human rights and reclaiming the historical record. His critically acclaimed collections of poetry celebrate—and lament—the working class experience. Whether narrating the struggles of immigrants as they adjust to life in the United States, or chronicling the battles that Latin Americans have waged against their own repressive governments, Espada has given voice to otherness, powerlessness, and poverty into poetry that is at once moving and vivid. He is the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry and several books of essays, the translator of Puerto Rican poet Clemente Soto Vélez, and the editor of influential anthologies such as El Coro (1997) and Poetry Like Bread (1994).

Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York. His greatest influence is his father, Frank Espada, a community organizer, civil rights activist, and documentary photographer who created the Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary Project. Espada earned a BA in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned his JD from Northeastern University. For many years he was a tenant lawyer; his first book of poetry, The Immigrant Iceboy’s Bolero (1982), included photographs taken by his father. His subsequent books, including Trumpets from the Island of Their Eviction (1987), Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990), and City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993), received significant attention. Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996) won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Often concerned with socially, economically, and racially marginalized individuals, Espada’s early work is full of engaging narratives. Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990) won the PEN/Revson Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Though defiantly and insistently political, his work is also known for its gentle humor. Richard Blanco has commented, “Espada’s poems continue to define the role of the poet as an emotional historian. Like Whitman, Espada stirs in us an undeniable social consciousness and connectedness.”