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Jan 16, 2025 | 
3quarksdaily.com | Martin Espada |Jim Culleny
The Owl and the Lightning- Brooklyn, NY No pets in the projects, the lease said, and the contraband salamanders shriveled on my pillow overnight. I remember a Siamese cat, surefooted I was told, who slipped from a window ledge and became a red bundle bulging in the arms of a janitor. This was the law on the night the owl was arrested. He landed on the top floor, through the open window of apartment 14-E across the hall, a solemn white bird bending the curtain rod.
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Aug 9, 2024 | 
vqronline.org | Martin Espada
At the Save America rallies, after the damnation of the criminal aliens breakingacross our borders and 1,900 percent more murders, he would ask the crowdsif he could read a poem. This has to do with immigration, he’d say. The crowdswould whoop and yip. He’d read “The Snake,” words stolen from a song, fromthe hand of a dead Black singer who could not snatch it back, a jazz fablespun on vinyl, a tale from the fabulist of Greece centuries before Christ.
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May 18, 2024 | 
poetryinamerica.org | Martin Espada |Steven Allardi |Stephen Breyer |Jill Lepore
Long before he won the National Book Award, Martín Espada worked after school in a factory making legal pads. Espada, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, economists Natasha Sarin, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers, historian Jill Lepore, and actor John Turturro join Elisa New to reflect on social mobility, and what connects manual labor with the raw materials of poetry and law. Interested in learning more?
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Mar 4, 2024 | 
yalereview.org | Martin Espada
Martín Espada ralph dennison jr. (1989–2014)paterson, new jersey This was the first day of class in Developmental English at the community college. Your marker squeaked across the board, jolting the students at 8 a.m.: What are your hopes for this course? What are your concerns in this course? Ralphie wrote in his notebook: I want to major in Business Management. I want to open a soul food restaurant in Paterson with my sister. I am afraid I won’t finish the semester.
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Feb 16, 2024 | 
northamericanreview.org | Martin Espada
—headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 23, 2023The white balloons rise in the 100 block of East Willard Street. Some of the white balloons float the word Justicia into the sky. The officers in the white cruiser saw Eddie hop the curb and would senda bouquet of words into the sky above the 100 block of East Willard Street,words bumping as they spiraled through the clouds: driving erratically,they said, lunged with a knife, they said, multiple commands and shots fired.
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
channel3000.com | Martin Espada
State AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWashington D.C.West VirginiaWisconsinWyomingPuerto RicoUS Virgin IslandsArmed Forces AmericasArmed...
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Sep 23, 2023 | 
3quarksdaily.com | Martin Espada |Jim Culleny
Portrait of a Real Hijo de Puta - for Michael Not the obscenity, but a real ten year old son of a whore, locked out of the apartment so mamá could return to the slavery of her ancestors who knew the master's burglary of their bodies at night, mama who sleeps in a pool of clear rum; and the real hijo de puta poses with the swim team photograph at the community center, bragging fists in the air, grinning like a cheerleader with hidden cigarette burns, a circus strongman who steals cheese and...
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Sep 20, 2023 | 
poetryfoundation.org | Martin Espada
A city boy, I always wanted to go fishing. The DiFilippo brothers brought me
to a secret lake where we cast our lines into the dark, the barbed lures
spinning. I snagged a monster in the lake. I fought the monster and my reel
jammed. One of the DiFilippo brothers said: That’s not a fish. We waded
into the water and dragged a rusty box spring onshore, festooned with
the lures of failed fishermen. We plucked them off the coils and dragged it
back.
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Sep 11, 2023 | 
vqronline.org | Martin Espada
Viejo San Juan, Puerto RicoThe iguanas slither from the branches of trees splintered by the hurricanes. The iguanas crawl from the cracks in the ground split by the earthquakes. The iguanas rise from brown floodwaters that carry bridges to their doom. The iguanas multiply through the night of blackouts in hospitals and morgues. The iguanas burrow beneath roads to bury their eggs in the lungs of cities. The iguanas slap their clawed feet as they churn the earth of the farmer’s field.
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Sep 11, 2023 | 
vqronline.org | Martin Espada
For LaurenThe other teachers warned you: She will curse you out. She said: I thought you would be just another white bitch, but you’re not. You heard Isabela improvise a bilingual trumpet solo of obscenities to blast the faces of the boys circling Jorge in the hallway, the giant who would never hit back, who told everyone in your classroom to pick up their trash on the way out.
