Pedro Pietri

From http://www.poets.org/

Poet and playwright Pedro Pietri was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on March 21, 1944. Three years later, his family moved to Harlem. He attended public schools in New York City and was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War from 1966-68.

His publications include Illusions of a Revolving Door: Plays (1992), The Masses are Asses (1984), Traffic Violations (1983), Lost in the Museum of Natural History (1980), Invisible Poetry (1979), and Puerto Rican Obituary (1973).

His work has also been included in anthologies such as The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature (ed. Eduardo del Rio, 2002); The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (ed. Alan Kaufman, 2000), The Latino Reader (eds. Harold Augenbraum and Margarite Fernandez Olmos, 1997), Inventing a Word: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Puerto Rican Poetry (ed. Julio Marzan, 1980), and The United States of Poetry.

His honors include several New York State Creative Arts in Public Service grants and a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. A resident of New York City and prominent Nuyorican poet, Pedro Pietri died on March 3, 2004.