The son of a political activist, Martin Espada
was born and reared in New York's impoverished East Side
neighborhood. He grew up participating in demonstrations for social
justice. After becoming a lawyer, he worked as a tenants’ rights
advocate, but he also wrote and published poems in the tradition of
Pablo Neruda and the poets of the Nuyorican scene. Espada’s work
has won the Paterson Poetry Prize and the PEN/Revson Fellowship,
the Gustavo Myers Outstanding Book Award, and the Independent
Publisher Book Award, Currently, he teaches writing at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he writes essays, edits
anthologies, and continues to write poems.
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