The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 1991 — #TBT

In my own version of Throw-Back Thursday, I’m going to start posting articles from my publishing past. In 1991 I wrote a feature story for The Village Voice about the literary renaissance that was unfolding largely in Downtown venues, particularly the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I called it guerrilla poetry. This was the first in-depth article on this scene, long before New York magazine put Edwin Torres on its cover. I still consider many of the poets and novelists I wrote about — Miguel Algarin, Tracie Morris, Mike Tyler, Paul Skiff, etc. — to be some of the most talented people I’ve had the honor to meet, let alone write about.  Nuyorican Article

Riot at OCMA

Evelyn McDonnell, Tracie Morris, and Alice Bag

Tracie Morris and Alice Bag had never met before they joined me for “The F Word Vol. II” panel last night. And yet the pieces they presented — Tracie’s improvised exegesis of 1950s Hollywood femininity and Alice’s excerpts from her memoir Violence Girl — complemented each other fiercely. It was an emotional night at the Orange County Museum of Art, with an attentive audience of second-, third-, and no-wave feminists.

Following is an approximation of the remarks I made to launch the panel.