Martín Espada's eighth poetry collection, The Republic of Poetry, is forthcoming from WW Norton in fall 2006. His previous collection, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems (2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book. Other awards include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, an American Book Award and the Robert Creeley Award. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

His first appearance in the Indiana Review, in Volume 14.3, included four poems: “To Skin the Hands of God,” “Cusin and Tata,” “The Savior Is Abducted in Puerto Rico,” and “A Taste for Silk and Black Servants.” He next appeared with two poems in Volume 19.1: “Because Clemente Means Merciful,” and “The Sign in My Father’s Hands.” His poem “How I Became the Rare Iguana Delicatissima of the Caribbean” appeared in Volume 25.1. Our current issue, Volume 28.1, contains “The Caves of Camuy” and “The Face on the Envelope” by Mr. Espada.

Martín Espada's Homepage
Martín Espada at Modern American Poetry
Martín Espada at Poets.org

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