Poet of the Day: Martín Espada

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Martín Espada's Poetry Foundation biography notes that he "has worked as an attorney, salesman, clerk, telephone solicitor, gas station attendant, bouncer, bartender, and printing plant bindery worker; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, professor of English." Espada was born in Brooklyn in 1957, and his first book of poetry included photographs taken by his father. I enjoy his careful use of lineation to surprise readers, as in "For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts where my cousin Esteban was forbidden to wait tables because he wears dreadlocks" (yes, all of that is the title).

"Rules for Captain Ahab’s Provincetown Poetry Workshop" is available on the Poetry Foundation website.
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