Aloud
From New York to Nashville, Boston to L.A., a bohemian rhapsody of rap swagger is spreading across the land. As the New York Observer writes: "The poetry corpse is stirring," its beating heart is "a big, dark, brick-walled loft on Third Street and Avenue C called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. It's democratic, multicultural . . . sometimes funny, sometimes ribald. It has the vitality of vulgarity." So welcome to the inside of the explosion. We are, as Bob Holman declaims, "at the house for the tradition that has no home but your ear." Miguel Algarin, one of the Cafe's founders, knows there's an urgency among us: "We must listen to one another. We must respect one another's habits. And we must share the truth and integrity that the voice of the poet so generously provides." So here they are - everyone from founding poets Miguel Pinero, Ntozake Shange, and Piri Thomas to Maggie Estep, Nicole Breedlove, Mike Tyler, Reg E. Gaines, Edwin Torres, Paul Beatty, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and a hundred others. The publisher of Robert Frost is happy to proclaim that the poetry franchise has come back to the people.