About this listing
A popular forum for poetry slams
Place Details
Borough : Manhattan
Neighborhood : East Village
Place Matters Profile
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is one of New York's famous poetry venues.The Lower East Side has long been home to artists and revolutionaries, and is famous for its many generations of immigrant communities. Following World War II, due to the inexpensive housing and an atmosphere of social tolerance, the neighborhood became the East Coast home for the Beat Movement (1950 to mid-1960s) including poets and writers such as Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Gregory Corso, and Diane Di Prima. (1) At the same time that the Beats were establishing themselves, the neighborhood also became racially integrated when large numbers of Blacks and Puerto Ricans moved to New York City from the U.S. south and from Puerto Rico (among its Spanish-speaking inhabitants the neighborhood is called, Loisaida--the Spanish phonetic spelling of the Lower East Side).
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe first opened in September 1974 to provide a forum for the voices of the many poets living on the Lower East Side.
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The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is one of New York's famous poetry venues.The Lower East Side has long been home to artists and revolutionaries, and is famous for its many generations of immigrant communities. Following World War II, due to the inexpensive housing and an atmosphere of social tolerance, the neighborhood became the East Coast home for the Beat Movement (1950 to mid-1960s) including poets and writers such as Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Gregory Corso, and Diane Di Prima. (1) At the same time that the Beats were establishing themselves, the neighborhood also became racially integrated when large numbers of Blacks and Puerto Ricans moved to New York City from the U.S. south and from Puerto Rico (among its Spanish-speaking inhabitants the neighborhood is called, Loisaida--the Spanish phonetic spelling of the Lower East Side).
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe first opened in September 1974 to provide a forum for the voices of the many poets living on the Lower East Side. Informal readings held in 1972 in Miguel Algarin's apartment became the catalyst to set-up a formal venue and create a center for poetic events, or as Algarin describes, he wanted to get everyone out of his living room.(2) The original space was at 505 East 6th Street between Avenues A and B, at a former Irish bar, the Sunshine Cafe. The writers, poets, and playwrights who were part of this scene were young new talent including Lucky Cienfuegos, Miguel Pinero, and Bimbo Rivas. Puerto Rican transplant, master poet Jorge Brandon, “El Coco Que Habla,” (1902-1995), who also lived in the neighborhood and was known as "the father of Nuyorican poetry," became a mentor to many of the young poets. Brandon had been reciting poetry on the streets since the 1940s, mixing traditional Puerto Rican forms like the decima, with urban subjects concerning New Yorkers. These young poets, the generation that came after Brandon, went on to become popular in the contemporary literary scene--Pinero's play, Short Eyes, was the first Puerto Rican play produced on Broadway (3) and also received an Obie and was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play of the 1973-74 season (4); and poets such as Victor Hernandez Cruz, Sandra Maria Esteves, and Tato Laviera have published numerous books.
The mission of the Cafe as stated in the poetry anthology, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, has been to “reveal poetry as a living art”(5), in addition to showcasing poetry in a context outside of the confines of academia. Poetry has generally been considered an elite art in this country; in Puerto Rico (where many of these young writers or their parents were from), most of the poets were from the upper class. Many of these new writers were from the working class. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe was an effort to broaden the audience and appeal for poetry. Class issues as well as themes of a political nature influenced some of the poetry. Many of the writers who were part of this scene were also part of the Civil Rights movement, the politics of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, and protests against the Vietnam War. While universal themes of love and daily life were expressed in the poetry, a good deal of the writing was poetry of resistance and of creating an identity.
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe became world famous for its poetry slams. Poet Bob Holman first bought the slam competitions to the Poetry Cafe in 1989, and he remained there as emcee of the slams until the mid-1990s. Holman had seen the slams in Chicago, where they had been created by construction worker and poet Marc Smith. But while the slams may have been born in Chicago, it was in New York City at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe that the slams became popular. Holman feels the New York City environment and the Cafe's influence have made slams what they are today. The multicultural ambiance, along with the mixing of Spanish and English languages, could only have come from the Cafe. Influential writers and poets who had their start as slam poets include Maggie Estep, Willie Perdomo, Paul Beatty, and Reg E. Gaines.
What exactly is a slam poetry competition? The basic format features recited poems, done in teams or individually, which are rated by randomly selected audience members on a scale from 1 to 10. After the poem is read these judges hold up cards with a number on it. A "poetry slam" started out as a competition, and did not imply a style. Many cultures have competitive poetic traditions--the trovadores of Puerto Rico try to outdo one another in controversias and concursos; in Arabic countries poets duel in the sung oral poetry of zajals; in the royal courts of Japan, poetry matches called utaawase were held; and in India and Pakistan, there is the tradition of mushaira. Slams may be the urban American counterpart of these traditions. Currently the term "slam" has taken on a stylistic meaning as well--the style has "become owned by a youth culture, hip hop influenced culture, where African-American and other immigrant voices are directly heard."(6)
In 1981 the Cafe needed more space for its activities and moved to its current site which at the time was an abandoned tenement building that had formerly been a private gathering spot for musicians. In 1983 it closed for a short time for renovations and then it only sporadically sponsored events. It officially reopened in 1989, following Miguel Pinero's death. Pinero's death was a catalyst for Miguel Algarin to get the Cafe going again. He comments, "His death showed me the need to move on."(7) The main area of the venue, called the Open Room, was and remains the focus for the Cafe. After entering the Cafe through an undistinguished exterior, one walks past the bar to the large, cavernous, but intimate Open Room decorated in brick where the performances take place. The Cafe hosts ongoing weekly poetry slams and for eighteen years it was host to a live broadcast featured on WBAI , Nuyorican Poets Cafe Radio Show. In addition the Nuyorican hosts plays, art shows, comedy (the troupe Nuyorican Rule performs there monthly) and musical events, such as the Thursday night Latin Jazz Jam Sessions.
Additional Note:
What is a Nuyorican? What does the term mean? Although used in different contexts, it is derived from the Spanish word, neorriqueno, meaning New York Puerto Rican, and this was shortened to Newyorican. The alternate spelling, Nuyorican was coined by Miguel Algarin, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Outside the poetry world, the term Nuyorican may carry different shades of meaning depending n the individual, but it generally refers to one born or raised in New York of Puerto Rican heritage.
The term has its origins in 1974 when Algarin and his friend and fellow writer, Miguel Pinero were at an airport in Puerto Rico. They kept hearing the word "Newyorican," or its Spanish equivalent, used in reference to them. Algarin remembers, "They were looking down on us. We were Puerto Rican talking in English, and that to them was contemptuous. I thought, 'Well, here they are on this island, under a master who speaks English.' Not only did we speak good English, but we were presenting a play on Broadway, we were writing for TV, and we were famous in Europe, but for them, we were just Newyoricans. They were passing judgment on us."(8) Soon after, back in New York they were putting together an anthology of Puerto Rican poets in English and decided to call it a collection of Nuyorican poetry. They changed the spelling because Algarin felt, ". . .I am not new anything, I am not neo, that is an intellectualism."(9) So he coined the alternate spelling, Nuyorican, and within six months after the book was published, the name had caught on and quickly became widely-used. The irony is that Miguel took an existing word, neorriqueno, and gave it a different spelling, only to describe himself, but for many identifying as "Nuyorican" has become a proud reclamation of identity and traditions without renouncing their distinctiveness from the Puerto Ricans on the island.
Endnotes
1. Ann Charters. "Beats." In Encyclopedia of New York City. Kenneth Jackson (ed.). Yale University Press: New Haven, 1995, p. 93-94.
2. Interview with Miguel Algarín, April 16th, 2004.
3. Interview with Miguel Algarin, April 16th, 2004.
4."Puerto Rican Aesthetic Concepts." Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez. Pg. 123-128. Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Literature and Art. Edited by Francisco Lomelí. Arte Público Press: Houston, 1993.
5. Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, edited by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman, Henry Holt & Co.:NY 1994, pg. 5.
6. Personal communication with Bob Holman, April 22nd, 2004.
7. Interview with Miguel Algarin by Elena Martinez, 4/16/04.
8. Interview with Miguel Algarin, pg. 40, by Carmen Dolores Hernandez, in Puerto Rican Voices in English: Interviews with Writers. Praeger: Westport, CT. 1997.
9. Ibid
Author note: all special punctuation marks for Spanish have been omitted because the website software can not reproduce them correctly.
