Nuyorican Poets Cafe
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is a multi-ethnic cultural center in the Lower East Side of New York . Its poetry events made it very important for the international spoken word and poetry slam scene.
It is the center of the Nuyorican art movement in New York and hosts cultural programs in the fields of poetry , music , hip-hop , video art , visual arts , photography , comedy and theater . Significant cultural influences came from the Puerto Rican-Latin American and Afro-American communities. It works as a non-profit organization and is mainly financed through its events.
history
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe emerged around 1973 from a literary circle in the home of Miguel Algarin, a writer and professor at Rutgers University . When his apartment could no longer accommodate the growing number of participating poets and artists, Algarin rented a former Irish pub on East 6th Street in 1975, which was christened The Nuyorican Poets Café . The ever-growing audience and the desire to expand one's cultural programs, led the present building in 1980 to purchase Alphabet City , located at 236 East 3rd Street between Avenue B and Avenue C .
program
The cultural center sees its mission in creating a multicultural venue that provides a forum for artists, exhibitions, and performances from various arts - especially those that are underrepresented in American culture and the media. The founder Miguel Algarin commented on the cultural-historical context:
"The Philosophy and Purpose of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe has always been to reveal poetry as a living art. Even as the eye scans the lines of a poem, poetry is in the flux in the United States. From Baja California to Seattle to Detroit, from the dance clubs with rap lyrics booming to the schools where Gil Scott-Heron plays to the churches where poetry series thrive to community centers with poets-in-residence and coffeehouses throughout the whole of the nation, the spoken word is on fire. "
“The philosophy and purpose of Nuyorican Poets Cafe has always been to bring poetry to light as a living art. Just as the eye searches the lines of a poem, poetry in the United States is in flux. From Baja California to Seattle to Detroit, from booming rap lyrics clubs to schools where Gil Scott-Heron performs, from churches where poetry ranks flourish, to community centers with poets-in-residence and coffeehouses everywhere throughout the country, the spoken word ignites. "
poetry slam
The café became known in the USA and Europe primarily for its poetry slams, which were organized by well-known poetry activists such as Bob Holman and Saul Williams . Authors from this circle of poets have toured the USA, Europe and Germany on various occasions, individually or as an ensemble. For example, a Nuyoricans ensemble of poets toured London and other cities in Great Britain during a three-week tour in September 1994 with a total of 16 performances.
After authors like Bob Holman could also be seen performing in German literary houses in the early 1990s , the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Goethe-Institut New York are holding a German-Nuyorican Poetry Festival in New York from November 14th to 18th, 1995 . German participants included the rap poet Bas Böttcher , the Swiss performance poet Christian Uetz , the poets Durs Grünbein and Elke Erb and the later Düsseldorf slam organizer André Michael Bolten.
The anthology Aloud! Published in 1994 by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman . Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe became one of the best-selling poetry collections of all time. The editors received the American Book Award for this .
Film documentaries
In 1994, Nuyorican Poets Cafe was the subject of a 14-minute documentary entitled Nuyorican Poets Cafe . The film received the award for "Best Documentary " at the New Latino Filmmaker's Festival in Los Angeles (California) in 1995 .
Two years later, in 1996, director Paul Devlin made a full-length documentary called SlamNation through the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's poetry slam team . The film showed the 1996 Nuyorican Slam Team with Saul Williams, Beau Sia, Jessica Care Moore and muMs preparing for and traveling to the US National Poetry Slam in Portland, Oregon. In its sequences from the National Poetry Slam, the documentary also shows appearances by other important American poets such as Marc Smith , Taylor Mali and Patricia Smith.
Books and CDs
- Burning down the House - Selected Poems from the Nuyorican , Soft Skull Press 2003
- Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café , ed. by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman. Holt Paperbacks 1994, ISBN 0-8050-3275-4
- Nuyorican Symphony - Poetry Live at the Knitting Factory , ed. by Paul Skiff and Bob Holman, CD, Knitting Factory 1994
Individual evidence
- ^ Website of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
- ^ Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café , p. 8
- ^ Slam Poetry - Rear Guard of Modernism , Boris Preckwitz, Hamburg 2002, p. 54
- ↑ History of Slam ( Memento from August 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Slam Poetry - Rear Guard of Modernism , Boris Preckwitz, Hamburg 2002, p. 62