Portada / Front Page
El Sol Latino January 2022
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UMass Amherst Professor Martín Espada Garners National Book Award for Poetry for “Floaters” AMHERST, MA | UMASS AMHERST - Office of News and Media Relations | November 18, 2021 – University of Massachusetts Amherst English professor and poet Martín Espada has won the National Book Award for his book “Floaters,” a collection of poetry that runs from scathing socio-political commentary to homages of family and love. Espada was recognized in the poetry category. His collection was named a 2021 finalist in October. A five-judge panel chose “Floaters” for the National Book Award, which was announced today. “Floaters” takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross the Rio Grande at the U.S./ Mexico border. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and Angie Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande, and allegations posted in the “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group that the photo was faked. “I am sometimes struck speechless. You sometimes wonder if words are going to be enough,” Espada said. “But then you write the next poem. What choice do we have? Silence is not acceptable.”
Espada bears eloquent witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and today he sings the praises of Central American adolescents kicking soccer balls over a barbed wire fence in an internment camp founded, he says, on that same bigotry. He also believes that times of hate call for poems of love – even in the voice of a cantankerous Galápagos tortoise. The collection ranges from historical epic to achingly personal lyrics about growing up, the baseball that drops from the sky and smacks Espada in the eye as he contemplates a girl’s gently racist question. The poems have been described by reviewers as “both sardonic and breathtaking” and “a work of grace-laden defiance.” The Chicago Review of Books named “Floaters” one of the “12 Must-Read Books of January.” “Martín Espada is one of the most important poets of his generation, and with good reason,” said UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy. “His poignant and powerful work touches our souls. He is a shining light in the arts and humanities on our campus, and his extraordinary writing and commitment to social justice is an inspiration throughout the world.” Espada has published more than 20 books as a poet, essayist, editor and translator. Other collections of his poems include “Vivas to Those Who Have Failed,” “The Trouble Ball” and “Alabanza.” His honors include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, a Robert Creeley Award, a National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, a PEN/Revson Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Earlier this week, Espada also was named in the inaugural cohort of the Letras Boricuas Fellowship, a new award created by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund. It aims to enrich and sustain literary tradition in Puerto Rico and across the U.S. diaspora. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1957, Espada earned a B.A. in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a J.D. from Northeastern University. As an attorney, he served as supervisor of Su Clínica Legal, a legal services program for low-income, Spanish-speaking tenants in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
UMass Amherst English professor and poet Martín Espada
Espada has dedicated himself to the pursuit of social justice and fighting for the rights of Latino/a communities. He cites his greatest influence as his father, Frank Espada, a community organizer, civil rights activist and documentary photographer who created the Puerto Rican Diaspora Documentary Project.
Angel Nieto … Cuando un amigo se va continued from previous page again. In 2008, after living in the United States for nearly 40 years, he added citizenship of the United States to that of his native Spain in a moving ceremony in Boston where he was accompanied by his wife Sonia and granddaughter Jazmyne. Humble, modest, and retiring, Angel avoided the limelight, preferring instead to shine the light on his students, community members, and his wife. But his goodness and kindness finally caught up with him and he could no longer avoid the accolades he so deserved: in 2019, he was selected as one of “Hidden Legends of the Paper City,” organized by Pa’lante, a youth-led Restorative Justice Project at Holyoke High School. A permanent exhibit honoring the 26 individuals selected for this honor is located at the high school, and a banner with Angel’s likeness hangs on Main Street in Holyoke. That same year, he also received the Antonia Pantoja Distinguished Achievement Award from the Latino Scholarship Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, a fund that he and other community activists had helped establish 20 years earlier. Teacher, poet, published author, visionary, community organizer, fixer of anything needing repair, avid gardener, artist, early feminist before men
defined themselves as such, “honorary Puerto Rican” and lover of the island, and the very best father and grandfather imaginable, Angel Nieto was a man of many talents and multiple dimensions. He was predeceased in Spain by his sister María Alicia and brothers Mariano and Antero. He is survived by an adoring family, including his wife, children, and grandchildren, as well as his brother José Ramón Nieto Romero in Spain, his sister-in-law Lydia Cortés from New York City, along with several other inlaws and nieces and nephews in New York, Spain, and Puerto Rico. An Amherst area resident for nearly five decades, Angel died on December 18, 2021 of congestive heart failure in hospice care at home. He was surrounded by Alicia, Marisa, Jazmyne, most of his 12 grandchildren, and his ‘Sonita.’ A scholarship in his name to benefit Latin@ students has been established at the Community Fund of Western Massachusetts. Checks can be made payable to the Community Foundation of Western MA with Angel Nieto Scholarship noted in the memo line. Gifts online can be made at www. communityfoundation.org Memorial guestbook at www.douglassfuneral.com
