La Bodega Sold Dreams and Unpublished Poems / Miguel Piñero / 1985
Miguel Piñero was one of my favorite poets in undergrad. My writing sample for my graduate school applications was an essay I wrote comparing and contrasting “A Lower East Side Poem” with Javier Zamora’s “Instructions for my funeral.” I was eager to read LBSD to see how well his other work stood up to selected poems I had access to then, and to see whether I would even still connect to the poems in the same way. LBSD did not disappoint. Even unpublished poems like “Obreras” bring a vision and muscle I find lacking in so much contemporary work. “The Book of Genesis According to St. Miguelito” make clear a political vision in a fiery and funny way most contemporary slam poets could never. 5/5