Latino poetry is a branch of American poetry written by poets born or living in the United States who are of Latin American origin or descent[1] and whose roots are tied to the Americas and their languages, cultures, and geography.[2]
Languages
The work is most often written only in English and Spanish, with flourishes of code-switching and Spanglish.[3] However, Latino poetry is also written in Portuguese and can include Nahuatl, Mayan, Huichol, Arawakan, and other indigenous languages related to the Latino experience.[2][4] The most prominent cultural groups that write Latino poetry are Mexican-Americans and Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and Nuyoricans, Cuban-Americans, Dominican-Americans, and Central Americans.
Among the major Latino lyric poets writing today are MacArthur Award winner Sandra Cisneros[12] (author of the American Book Award-winning novel The House on Mango Street) and Richard Blanco, whom Barack Obama selected to write his Presidential inauguration poem.[13] In How to Love a Country, Blanco, born of Cuban exiles, writes in a mix of English and Spanish about the trauma of immigration and exile, especially for those whose lives are entwined in DACA or who live as DREAMers.[14]
Other important works of poetry on American immigration and the Mexican border include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments (1971-2007) and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1999) by Juan Felipe Herrera.[21][22]
History
During the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Latino poets, artists, and activists formed bilingual literary journals, magazines, publishing houses, and cultural centers to disseminate their poetry, honor their cultural legacies, and advance social justice for Latino communities.[23] Until they created their own publishing venues their works were not available. Examples of Latino founded early publishing platforms include: the performance venue Nuyorican Poets Cafe (1973); magazines such as Corazon De Aztlán (1972), Revista Chicano-Riqueña (1973),[23] and Chiricú (1976); and independent publishing house Arte Publico Press (1979), which brought bilingual authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Miguel Piñero, Pat Mora, and Nicholasa Mohr into the mainstream.[24][25]
However, there are many scholarly forums for the dissemination of research and teaching methods related to Latino poetry. Since 1968, there are many institutes and programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States that teach Latino literature as a counter-narrative to classes deemed "Eurocentric."[30] In addition, the largest language and academic literary associations feature post-graduate level panels and events on developments in Latino poetry, such as the Modern Language Association, Latin American Studies Association, American Comparative Literature Association, and the American Literature Association, among others.
^The FSG book of twentieth-century Latin American poetry : an anthology. Stavans, Ilan. (1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. 2011. ISBN978-0-374-10024-7. OCLC650212679.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^Lindstrom, Naomi; Agosín, Marjorie; Kostopulos-Cooperman, Celeste (1998). "A Cross and a Star: Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile". World Literature Today. 72 (1): 110. doi:10.2307/40153566. ISSN0196-3570. JSTOR40153566.
^Rivera Montes, Zorimar. "Towards a Poetics of Statelessness innovation and resistance in the work of Urayoán Noel, Giannina Braschi, and Lawrence la Fountain-Stokes". UPR, Rio Piedras.