Listen to the Full Interview Here:

DS: Can you tell me about the sometimes unusual choices you make in regards to punctuation, line arrangement and spacing? It’s clear that it’s not random, that there’s a method to your madness. Can you explain that madness— or that method?

JPM: It was cultivated over a long period of my career, but it started because I really didn’t know how to use punctuation. You’ve got to consider my generation of Puerto Ricans —although I was born here—they were speaking Spanish and had to learn English. But I didn’t have to learn English, I had to understand English. I was living in an English world, but still, it was a mystery. I like it, because to me, it’s organic, it’s not egotistical. Things came out of discovery, out of a lot of pain and suffering, not as “I can do this or that.” But because I couldn’t understand grammar. Now I do. I understand the power of a semicolon.

This interview was recorded and edited by Alli Salwen (Editorial Assistant). It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is an award-winning New York-born Puerto Rican poet recognized as one of the founders of the Nuyorican Movement. He is also a playwright, teacher, activist and actor. The author of Concertos On Market Street (1993), Papolítico, Poems of a Political Persuasion (2018), and Borracho (Very Drunk) Love Poems & Other Acts of Madness, A Bilingual Edition (2020), Meléndez’s work has been anthologized in numerous magazines, literary journals, and textbooks, and he is the recipient of numerous awards. Now an elder statesman of the New York poetry scene, he has become a mentor for emerging poets and writers. Meléndez has embarked on an acting career and as a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild, has appeared in various film, television and commercial productions. His most recent portrayal was in the Netflix film, The Good Nurse (2022), starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, directed by Tobias Lindholm. His other works can be found here.

Danny Shot (Associate Poetry Editor) was the longtime publisher and editor of Long Shot arts and literary magazine, which he founded along with Eliot Katz in 1982 in New Brunswick, NJ. Born in the Bronx and raised in Dumont, NJ by German Jewish refugees, Danny graduated Rutgers College in 1980 with a B.A. in English. Shot’s poetry has appeared in: bum rush the page (Def Poetry Jam), Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Henry Holt), and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth), among other anthologies and numerous journals. Shot has read his poetry throughout the United States. He was featured on the television show State of the Arts, NJ in July 2018. His play Roll the Dice, co-written with Lawrence Kelly was performed at the NYC Theater Summerfest in September 2018. Danny is currently Head Poetry Editor of Red Fez, an online magazine (www.redfez.net). He spent over 30 years as a NYC public high school teacher, serving in the South Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn. Mr. Shot lives in Hoboken, NJ (home of Frank Sinatra and baseball) where he was the most recent poet-in-residence of the Hoboken Museum. WORKS (New and Selected Poems) was published in March 2018 (CavanKerry Press).