Urayoán Noel
Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Urayoán Noel is the author of the poetry collections Transversal (2021), a New York Public Library Book of the Year also longlisted for a PEN award; Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (2015), a Library Journal Top Fall Indie Poetry selection; Hi-Density Politics (2010), a National Book Critics Circle Small Press Highlights selection; and Kool Logic/La Lógica Kool (2005), an El Nuevo Día Book of the Year. He is also the author of several books in Spanish, including Boringkén (2008) and the performance text EnUncIAdOr (2014). Noel’s other works include the DVD Kool Logic Sessions (2005, with composer Monxo López), the artist’s book and web installation The Edgemere Letters (2011, with artist Martha Clippinger), and the critical study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (2014), winner of the LASA Latina/o Studies Section Book Award and an honorable mention in the MLA Prize in Latina/o and Chicana/o Literary and Cultural Studies. Noel is a contributing editor of NACLA Report on the Americas and Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, and a former contributing editor of Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas. He has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Howard Foundation, and CantoMundo. He lives in the Bronx and is an associate professor of English and Spanish at NYU. Source
ode to coffee / oda al café
(after Juan Luis Guerra)
from Africa to a Caribbean hill
de África a las lomas del Caribe
to the smiling ruin of our cities
a la feliz ruina de ciudades
anoint the neural vessels we refill
al matorral neural en donde vive
until your acid muse drowns our pities
tu agria musa que ahoga soledades
return us to our tribe that grew dark beans
devuélvenos al semillero isleño
cut through the grease of our late-night omelets
metaboliza la grasa nocturna
and warm this empty diner by the club
trae tu calor a nuestro desvelo
where luckless lovers stare at tiny screens
haz que el amante no muera de sueño
and poets brew old socks into psalmlets
tu borra es poema que embadurna
while dreaming it rains coffee from above.
y sombría tu alegría de cielo.
Published:
2016
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Chicano Poetry
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2024
Themes:
Bilingual
Food
Poetic Form
Literary Devices:
After Poems
A poem where the form, theme, subject, style, or line(s) is inspired by the work another poet.
End Rhyme
when a poem has lines ending with words that sound the same
Imagery
visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work
Juxtaposition
the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect
Ode
a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter