Words from Poet, Martin Espada


“Poets can play so many different roles. We are used to the idea that poetry accomplishes nothing, accustomed to feeling powerless and helpless as a poet. And that point of view is encouraged by a certain element in the poetry community that invites meaningless poetry. You write meaningless poetry, of course it’s not going to have any effect on the world, and so the thing to do is to establish meaningless poetry as a standard, to write poetry that caters only to the obscure and self-indulgent. A poet can do so much more, and if you travel around the world you see the effect that a poet can have on their society. A poet can be a teacher, a historian, a journalist, an organizer, a preacher, a caretaker, or a bard. And a poet can be a political activist, one who participates in the great changes that the world is always going through.”
- Martin Espada, poet
Quoted in Brooklyn Rail, April 2007


Martin Espada: “In order to write poems, you have to make yourself very vulnerable. There are many poets today who are afraid to take risks, who are terrified of expressing emotion openly. They are terrified of appearing vulnerable on the page. They are ultimately afraid of being accused of sentimentality. That’s the greatest crime in our contemporary world.”


Rail interviewer: “You have to be a cool customer.”


Martin Espada: “Exactly. Detached, hip, cynical and absolutely invulnerable. And we all know that’s a dishonest pose.”