Miguel Algarin is the “poet laureate” of Loisaida – also known as the Lower East Side – and founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City, where he has nurtured the spoken and written word for nearly three decades. Through the Cafe Algarin helped cultivate the popular “slam” poetry movement. Colliding the gritty topics of urbanity with the art of literature, Algarin’s Cafe as provided a venue for words to jump from the page to the stage.

Since 1974, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe as captured the flavor of the streets serving as a haven for poets, writers, thespians, performance artists, musicians, visual artists and hip-hop renegades, running the cultural gamut from acclaimed theater productions to hip-hop open mikes to celebrations of salsa and merengue music. The Cafe’s living room hosts the freshest art to immigrate to New York City, from not only the Caribbean and the Americas, but from all over the world.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafes a stage of words made visible. Situated in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Loisaida, the community, is a mixture of various ethnic backgrounds: Puerto Rican, Dominican, African-American, Ukrainian, Polish and Irish, to name a few. The community also hosts a great number of artists. This diverse energy is reflected in the performances of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Algarin, along with the emerging artists of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe bring their talents to the forefront, dazzling audiences with their vibrant presentations. Mixing the traditional arts of oral story telling and classical poetry with the edgy raw rhythm of the hip-hop influenced streets creates the soulful heartbeat which is the Cafe.

Recognized as a long-term cultural worker of the Lower East Side, Miguel Algarin’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe has become a Loisaida institution. The Cafe and its milieu have provided a blueprint for the development of the international slam poetry movement that first surfaced in Chicago.

Algarin holds a Professor Emeritus for more than 30 years of service to Rutgers University where he taught Shakespeare, Creative Writing, and United States Ethnic Literature.

Algarin is the author of more than ten published books of poetry, the editor of several anthologies, and an accomplished writer for television and theater. He received six American Book Awards and was presented with the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer’s Award at the 2001 National Black Theater Festival. He is the sole translator of Pablo Neruda’s Songs of Protest.

Algarin continues to work and reside in Loisaida. He is currently developing a massive piece of literature entitled Dirty Beauty, which represents the culmination of more than three years work. The book deals with religious, political, erotic and psychological themes.

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