AmeRícan poet historian

de Stephanie Álvarez, William Luis

Collection of thirteen essays, an introduction, and a foreword, by fifteen established and emerging scholars. Known as a Nuyorican poet, Laviera is more appropriately celebrated as an AmeRícan writer of national and international prominence. As a whole, the essays discuss diverse aspects of Laviera's life and substantial body of work that includes five published collections of poetry, twelve written and staged plays, and many years of political, social, literary, and healthcare activism. Tato Laviera's poetry celebrates working class people and their culture, regardless of ethnicity. He is the inheritor of the Spanish oral tradition, with all of its classical formulas; the African oral tradition, with its connection to music and spirituality ; and the performance imperative of the beat poets.