Martín Espada



Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Latino poet, and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.

Life and career
Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was introduced to political activism at an early age by his father, a leader in the Puerto Rican community and the civil rights movement. Espada received a B.A. in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a J.D. from Northeastern University (Boston, Massachusetts). For many years, he worked as a tenant lawyer and a supervisor of a legal services program. In 1982, Espada published his first book of political poems, The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero, featuring photography by his father. This was followed by Trumpets from the Islands of their Eviction (1987) and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands. Espada is the Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts.

In 2009, Espada performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

Martín Espada lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife Catherine Gilbert Espada and his son Klemente Gilbert-Espada.

Awards and honours

 * Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, for Poetry, and Alabanza: New and Selected Poems
 * Robert Creeley Award
 * Antonia Pantoja Award
 * Independent Publisher Book Award
 * Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award
 * PEN/Revson Fellowship
 * NEA Fellowships.
 * Massachusetts Artist's Fellowship
 * Paterson Poetry Prize
 * United States Artists Fellow Award

Works

 * Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990).
 * City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993)
 * Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996)
 * A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (2000)
 * Alabanza: New and Selected Poems (1982–2002) (2003)
 * The Republic of Poetry (W. W. Norton & Company, 2006)
 * The Trouble Ball: Poems (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011)