A BIOGRAPHY OF MIGUEL Algarín

BY NANCY MERCADO

Founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café and chronicler of the Nuyorican Literary Movement, Miguel Algarín was a writer, editor and a professor of English Literature for over thirty years at Rutgers University. He also served as chair of the Puerto Rican Studies Department.

Algarín was born on September 11, 1941 in Santurce, Puerto Rico. At the age of nine, he migrated with his family to New York City, where he presently lived until his death. He completed his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1963, his Master's degree in English Literature at Pennsylvania State University in 1965, and his Doctoral studies in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University several years later.

In 1975, Algarín opened the doors to what would become the Nuyorican Poets Café located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. For at least two years prior, however, he often held impromptu poetry salons in his living room. These were the seeds from which the Poets Café would eventually develop. Algarín founded the Nuyorican Poets Café with writers Miguel Piñero and Lucky Cienfuegos. In over thirty years, his leadership turned the Café into one of the most renowned cultural institutions in the United States. For his work in theatre, Algarín and the Café received numerous accolades in articles appearing throughout the US and abroad. Awards received include: a Bessie Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement, an Obie Grant for Excellence in Theatre, over thirty Audelco awards, and the National Black Theatre’s Larry Leon Hamlin Producer's Award (2001). The Nuyorican Poets Café, a multi-artistic venue producing poetry readings, poetry slams, theater plays, musical concerts and dances, became the stepping stone from which major artists and writers such as Patricia Smith and Paul Beatty emerged.

Algarín studied the traditions of American poetry and also the Beat and Black Arts Movements of the time, becoming friends with many of its writers and artists. Early in his writing career, he established the now defunct Nuyorican Press, where he published his first three books: a poetry collection, Realidades (1970), a book of short stories, Spread Your Cheeks (1975), and another poetry collection, Mongo Affair (1978). Around this period, Algarín collaborated with Miguel Piñero to gather and edit the first English language anthology of Puerto Rican poetry, titled Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings (1975). With this publication, he and Piñero codified the literature being written by Puerto Ricans in New York City (at the time) as Nuyorican, and introduced it into the American literary canon. 

Algarín also studied theater and wrote his first three plays during this period, Olu Clemente: The Philosopher of Baseball (1973), Apt 6-D (1974), and Sideshow co-written with Miguel Piñero in 1975.

In his continued academic pursuit as a doctoral student, Algarín studied Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s work. This culminated in his acclaimed English translation of Neruda’s Song of Protest published in 1976 by William Morrow and Company. During his early years as a Pprofessor of English at Brooklyn College and New York University, his knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare flourished. Consequently, in addition to courses in creative writing and ethnic literature in the United States, Algarín taught classes on Shakespeare throughout the tenure of his professorship at Rutgers University. He became one of the seminal Shakespearian scholars in the United States. 

In 1979, Algarín co-founded Arte Público Press. The Press’s editor and publisher, Dr. Nicholas Kanellos, described their encounter: “So I got together with some of my Nuyorican friends we were publishing: Miguel Algarín, Tato Laviera, Miguel Piñero, and we brain-stormed forming a publishing house. And we founded Arte Público Press in 1979” (Kanellos 2011, 1).  Continuing his writing career and with his newfound association to Arte Público, Algarín went on to complete four more volumes of work in the next three decades, published by the Press: On Call (1980), Body Bee Calling from the 21st Century (1982), Times Now/Ya es tiempo (1985), and Survival Supervivencia (2009). He wrote his fourth play, an adaptation of his book: Body Bee Calling from the 21st Century in 1982. In 1985, Times Now/Ya es tiempo received an American Book Award. Today, Arte Público Press, under the umbrella of the University of Houston, Texas is the largest publisher of Latino literature in the United States. 

Throughout the years Algarín published with Arte Público Press, he also created works published by other larger companies. In 1994, Algarín collaborated with Bob Holman to edit the second anthology of Nuyorican work, titled Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café and published by Henry Holt and Company. This anthology, however, not only included works by Puerto Rican writers in the U.S., but also included all writers who performed at the Café. No longer would the term “Nuyorican” be used to signify a particular group of people or culture, for it had become a marker for anyone who read their poetry at the Café. Algarín also received his second American Book Award for the anthology that year.

It was during the 1990s that the Nuyorican Poets Café underwent its most expansive growth as a cultural establishment. Renovated with new board members and fully staffed, Algarín propelled the Café into international prestige. With Bob Holman hosting the famed Friday night Poetry Slams, Algarín hosting a live weekly radio show from the Cafe, and ongoing theatre productions, workshops, films, and an array of other presentations, the Café garnered international acclaim as one of New York City’s most important cultural institutions. 

Another anthology was created and published during this decade as well. In collaboration with Lois Griffith, Algarín assembled a compilation of theatre work, performance pieces, and monologues debuted at the Café in the anthology Action: The Nuyorican Poets Café Theater Festival, published in 1997. That same year, Algarín produced his seventh collection of poetry that memorializes his personal life and the life of New York City’s Lower East Side. In Love is Hard Work: Memorias de Loisaida, Algarín recounted intimate experiences as well as everyday occurrences in the neighborhood where he lived on the Lower East Side, one of the more dynamic neighborhoods in the City.

Twelve years passed before Algarín produced another volume of work. The pause, in an otherwise productive run, could be attributed to the loss of his mother in 2000, Maria Soccoro Algarín. She was a great influence in his life, and had introduced him to the arts and to culture through classical music and opera. Algarín possessed a great love for her, and for a time after her death, he was unable to produce any work. In 2006, he retired from his professorship at Rutgers University, retaining the title of professor emeritus. 

After a twelve-year hiatus from publishing, in 2009 Arte Público Press published Algarín’s Survival/Supervivencia, a collection of poetry and prose. It is the last volume of work he published. Algarin was awarded the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement this year, making him the first Puerto Rican/Latinx to receive the honor. For his myriad achievements, Algarín was celebrated in several events organized in his honor. In 2015, he was recognized at Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, part of the City University of New York, and in 2019, he was honored at Cardinal Cooke Center in New York City, where Miguel Piñero’s family was in attendance.

Miguel Algarín’s hard and constant work pushed him forward, and he rose through academic ranks with distinction. He turned his ideas and wishes of creating a venue (a cultural institution where the underclass could thrive as artists and writers) into a reality. He provided a space where all could tell their stories, where those who had no voice could all have a voice. 

From the inception of get-togethers and poetry readings with friends in his living room to spontaneous poetry readings in a building without heat (purchased with the help of his mother), to the naming of a new identity for Puerto Ricans in New York City and a new literary genre, to the formalization of that genre into an American literary movement, the Nuyorican Literary Movement, to the transformation of that space into one of the seminal cultural institutions in the United State, the Nuyorican Poets Café: Miguel Algarín transformed himself from a Puerto Rican boy of modest means into an icon of American letters. An innovator, a Shakespearean scholar, a professor, a poet, Algarín accomplished all of this by sheer work and sweat throughout his life, a life lived enthusiastically, a life that in the end Algarín filled with abundance. Miguel Algarin died on November 30, 2020.

References:

African American Literature Book Club, “Miguel Algarín,” “African American Literature Book 

Club,” July 2, 2020: https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php author_name=Miguel+Algarin.

Algarín, Miguel and Miguel Piñero. 1975. Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican 

Words and Feelings: New York: William Morrow and Company. 

Algarín, Miguel. 1978. Mongo Affair: New York: Nuyorican Press.

–––––. 1980. On Call. Houston: Arte Público Press.

–––––. 1982. Body Bee Calling from the 21st Century: Houston: Arte Público Press.

–––––. 1985. Times Now/Ya es tiempo: Houston: Arte Público Press.

Algarín, Miguel and Bob Holman. 1994. Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café: Henry 

Holt and Company.

Algarín, Miguel and Lois Griffith. 1997. Action: The Nuyorican Poets Café Theater Festival: 

New York: Simon and Schuster.

Algarín, Miguel. 1997. Love is Hard Work: Memorias de Loisaida: New York: Simon and Shuster.

–––––. 2009. Survival/Supervivencia: Houston: Arte Público Press.

Arcos Communication, “Work,” “Miguel Algarín.com,” July 20, 2020: https://www.miguelalgarin.com/concerts.

Latino Rebels, “Latino Rebels NYC Event to Help Latino Legend Miguel Algarín Appears in 

New York Daily News,” “Latino Rebels,” July 13, 2011: https://www.latinorebels.com/2011/07/13/latino-rebels-nyc-event-to-help-latino-legend-miguel-algarin-appears-in-new-york-daily-news/.

Nicholas Kanellos, “LATINOPIA LITERATURE ARTE PÚBLICO PRESS,” interviewed by 

Tia Tenopia, Latinopia.com,” May 1, 2011: http://latinopia.com/latino literature/latinopia-literature-arte-publico -press/.

Nuyorican Poets Café, “History and Awards,” “Nuyorican Poets Café.com,” July 21, 2020: 

https://www.nuyorican.org/history-awards.

Poetry Foundation, “Miguel Algarín,” “Poetry Foundation,” July 22, 2020: 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/miguel-algarin.

Stacy Abramson, “Miguel Algarín Nuyorican Poet,” “Story Corps,” June 21, 1998:

https://storycorps.org/stories/miguel-algarin-nuyorican-poet/.