Works by
Miguel Algarin
(Poet)
[September 11, 1941 - ]

Anthologies

• Action: The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theater Festival (1997), Lois Griffith and Miguel Algarin, eds.
  For nearly twenty-five years, poets, writers, artists, actors, directors, and an ever-growing audience have flocked to New York's landmark Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a breeding ground and showcase for some of the most original and energetic new works of theater being produced today, as well as a community gathering place. Now, for the first time, twenty original plays, monologues, and performance pieces that debuted at the Nuyorican are gathered together in this book. Featuring the works of such well-known writers as Miguel Pi'ero, Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, and Ntozake Shange, as well as emerging names such as Frank Perez, Eugene Rodriguez, Gloria Feliciano, and Janice Astor del Valle, this anthology brings together a dazzling and potent chorus of talented voices. Action gives readers a front-row seat for some of the best theater in America and celebrates diversity in the dramatic arts.

• Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (1994), Bob Holman and Miguel Algarin, eds. -- Winner American Book Award
  As the 'New York Observer' writes: 'The poetry corpse is stirring,' it's beating heart is 'a big, dark, brick-walled loft on Third Street and Avenue C called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe'. Welcome to the inside of the explosion! Everyone is in here ' from founding poets Miguel Pi'ero, Pedro Pietri and Piri Thomas to Reg E Gaines, Edwin Torres, Paul Beatty, Hal Sirowitz, Carl Hancock Rux, Maggie Estep, Patricia Smith etc. etc. The classic underground poetry anthology.

• Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings (1975), Miguel Algarin and Miguel Piñero, eds. with Gil Mendez, photographer
  The publication of this collection of poetry marked an important literary and cultural event. It was the first attempt to collect the poetic work of emerging New York Puerto Rican writers, who define themselves as Nuyorican. The anthology was edited by two of the writers who have played a leading role in fostering and supporting literary activity by this generation. Algar'n intended his introduction to the book as a Nuyorican poetic manifesto postulating the emergence of a new poetry with its own poetic and ideological principles. Algar'n is the founder and proprietor of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe in New York City.

Biography/Memoirs

• Survival Supervivencia (March 31, 2009)
  Miguel Algarin, literary mastermind, once again invites you to view the world through his personal memoir, juxtaposing happiness with sorrow. With an introduction by Ernesto Quionez, acclaimed writer of "Bodega Dreams", Survival Supervivencia spans Algarin's complete collection of published work over the past 35 years. Through raw prose and brutal honesty, Algarin's poetry takes the reader through an intimate, autobiographical journey that spans his entire life. From his introduction to writing and his insight on New York City life to memories and reflections on loved ones that have passed, Algarin leaves no stone unturned as he bears his soul for all. Survival Supervivencia is a historical tour de force of Algarin's life; public and private.

Poetry

• Love Is Hard Work: Memorias de Loisaida/Poems (1997)
  An exponent of contemporary Latino literature and the founder of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe+a7, a poetry salon in New York City, presents a cycle of poems redolent of the sights, sounds, and culture of the city.

• Time's Now/Ya Es Tiempo (1985) -- Winner American Book Award
  Miguel Algarin, poet of contemplation and action, presents his first book on the intimate relationships we foment as individuals, nations and children of a silent god. Openly political, blatantly blunt, religiously irreverent, Time's Now/Ya es Tiempo takes us from the most recondite comers of the soul through the streets of New York and to other battle fields -- this time in Central America -- and finally to union with the Godhead.

• Body Bee Calling from the Twenty-First Century (1982)
  Algarin's book is a psychic-poetic odyssey into the bionic 21st century. These poems sin, like those of his master, in their breadth, indomitableness, irrepressiveness. But all that is in this book of poems is not Walt Whitman. There's something of Edgar Allan Poe also. And Algarin, from within his 'aleph' of the Lower East Side, encompasses the world in its spatial - Rome, Houston, New York - and temporal dimensions - the past, today and an imagined twenty-first century. But that whole cosmos is seen from the 'aleph' that is his body.

• On Call (1980) -- Winner American Book Award
  A book of poems on the cutting edge of cultural innovation. On Call is the model of Algarin's esthetics; it transcends the search for identity, roots, heritage. On Call reaches down into the recesses of our calloused sensitivity, awakens us and, in so doing, makes us part of the poetic process.

• Mongo Affair (1978)
  A popular early work by a founding Nuyorican poet, Mongo Affair is the experience of our chemical-electrical, physical breakdown and the love and hate for the tar and concrete jungle of Manhattan.
  
  Click here to order Mongo Affair from Nuyrocian Poets Cafe.

Movies

• Poetry in Motion (1982)
  Ron Mann, director with Amiri Baraka, Helen Adam, Miguel Algarín, and Ted Berrigan (DVD)
  Award winning director Ron Mann filmed over 75 poets and writers for what AMERICAN FILM called "the Woodstock of Poetry". Ginsberg, Burroughs, Baraka, Giorno, Ondaatje, Bukowski, and Di Prima are just a few of the "beat" poets featured for the first time in this groundbreaking film. Through the spoken word they reinvented language giving a fresh, loud voice to an era contending with major change. Like Walt Whitman before them, these poets felt their world deeply, and sought the assemblage of words to bemoan its injustices and celebrate its multitudinous beauty. For younger generations Poetry in Motion is one of the few remaining documents that capture the genius and innovations of post-modern American poetry. Home Vision Entertainment is proud to present this well-crafted documentary on DVD for the first time.

Other

• Song of Protest (1985) by Pablo Neruda and Miguel Algarin