Miguel Algarín

Miguel Algarín Jr. (11 September 1941), is a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and retired Rutgers University professor of English.

Algarín was born in Puerto Rico and was educated and raised in a culturally-minded household. The love for all things involving culture always prevailed in his family. He received his primary and secondary education in New York and later went on to college. He developed a love and understanding of the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare's antique tales were the force which motivated Algarin to strive to oneday have a place of his own where he could tell the story of where he lives. Eventually, Algarín became a professor of Shakespeare, creative writing and United States ethnic literature at Rutgers University.

In 1973, Algarín was using the living room of his apartment in Manhattan as a gathering place for poets and artists. By 1975, there were so many poets and artists gathering and reciting their works in the apartment, that Algarín decided to look for a more comfortable location.

Algarín, Miguel Piñero, and other poets rented a location on East 6th Street and named it the Nuyorican Poets Café. In 1980, Algarín purchased a building on East 3rd Street to expand the café. The Café is now a non-profit organization that offers programs which include poetry and prose readings, theatrical and musical performances, and visual arts exhibits. It is one of the key cultural institutions of the Nuyorican Movement.

Nuyorican Poets Café. Photo: Shankbone

The theater has won over 30 "AUDELCO Awards" and was honored with an Obie grant for excellence in theater. Of the screenplays read in the theater, 40 have been turned into films. The Latin jam session which is celebrated at the Café has been a weekly "Critics Choice" at the New York Press for six consecutive years. The Café also has a radio broadcast on WBAI, where Algarín starts the broadcast with his signature "We're live from the Nuyorican Poets Café". Algarín edited with Miguel Piñero Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings. He is the editor of Action: The Nuyorican Café Theatre Festival and co-editor of Aloud. Among his award winning poetry books are Time's Now/Ya Es Tiempo and Love is Hard Work.

Algarín holds the status of Professor Emeritus for his more than 30 years of service to Rutgers University. He has received three American Book Awards and the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer's Award at the 2001 National Black Festival. In the movie Piñero, about the life of Miguel Piñero, directed by Leon Ichaso and starring Benjamin Bratt, Algarín is portrayed by the actor Giancarlo Esposito.

Algarín retired as professor from Rutgers University, but continues as the executive producer of the Nuyorican Poets Café's theater and is currently working on a piece of literature titled "Dirty Beauty".

• Mongo affair: poems. Nuyorican Poet's Café. 1978. 
• On call. Arte Público Press, Revista chicano-riqueña, University of Houston. 1980. ISBN 978-0-934770-03-3. 
• Body bee calling from the 21st century. Arte Publico Press. 1982. ISBN 978-0-934770-17-0. 
• Time's Now/Ya Es Tiempo. Arte Publico Press. 1985. ISBN 978-0-934770-33-0. 
• Love is hard work: memorias de Loisaida. Scribner. 1997. ISBN 978-0-684-82517-5. 

Editor

• Miguel Algarín, Miguel Piñero, eds. (1975). Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings. Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-02967-8.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
• Miguel Algarín, Bob Holman, eds. (1994). Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8050-3257-4.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)
• Miguel Algarín, Lois Griffith, eds. (1997). Action: The Nuyorican Poets Café Theater Festival. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82611-0.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)