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I'm honored to be introducing
Urayoán Noel tonight.

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Ura is a literary citizen par
excellence, a poet, performer,

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scholar--

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sorry, that's
better-- translator,

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an associate professor of
English and Spanish at NYU.

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He's the author of
the critical study

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In Visible Movement,
Nuyorican Poetry

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from the Sixties to Slam,
published by the University

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of Iowa Press in 2014.

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It was the winner of the
Latina/Latino Studies Book

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Prize from the Latin
American Studies Association.

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And several books of poetry
in English and Spanish,

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the most recent of which
is Buzzing Hemisphere,

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Rumor Hemisférico,
University of Arizona Press.

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Forthcoming is a translation
of the Chilean poet Pablo de

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Rokha from Shearsman Books.

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He's also produced poetry in a
range of alternative formats,

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including the artist's
book, the digital archive,

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and the multimedia installation.

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A contributing editor to NACLA
Report on the Americas, Noel

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has been a fellow of the Ford
Foundation in CantoMundo,

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and his creative and
critical writings

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have appeared in BOMB,
Contemporary Literature, Fence,

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Lana Turner, Latino
Studies, Small Acts, and in

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numerous anthologies.

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Originally from San
Juan, Puerto Rico,

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Urayoán Noel earned his BA from
the University of Puerto Rico,

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Rio Piedras, his MA from
Stanford, and his PhD from NYU.

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What it is to be
American, to be a citizen,

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gets contested generation
after generation

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for different
populations, especially

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in relation to borders
and territories.

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And Ura's poetics
are centered in how

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identity containment
and contamination are

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the figurative basis of the late
capitalist American sublime.

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In an article about
Ura, Kristin Dykstra

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writes, "I am
writing technically

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about a thoroughly
American writer,

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but one who happens to have
been born in San Juan, Puerto

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Rico, another American
city long left off

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the maps of the mainland,
and consequently out

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of our knowledge bases
about American culture.

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While activists have explored
platforms for independence

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and resisted the nation's
colonizing embrace,

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another facet of
this problematic

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involves the reluctance
of mainstream US culture

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to acknowledge that
Puerto Ricans have

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a significant place, resistant
or otherwise, in the nation's

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history."

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He is ur American, uber
American, and gay American.

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A little bit Willie
Carlos Williams,

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and a little bit Willie
Colón, his work relishes

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in amalgamating the currents
of sound and meaning making

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of Americanism as a moving
target or a constantly shifting

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organism formed by the
endless antimeaning machine

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of capitalism.

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Ura's favorite material
is the sound flotsam

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of punk, the vernacular,
and market noise.

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And I'm just going to read
a little bit of-- he's

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just fantastic.

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"After a few palabras
and true dats,

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we explore poets, channel
Dora, no map, no app,

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surveying ahora, where are
the bodegas and laundromats

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amid the loft
conversion ziggurats?

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What gives a place
its iconic aura?

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Hint, it's not about ironic
flannel, artisanal cupcakes,

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or IPAs, a meme workshop,
or a hashtag panel

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for zombie PhDs and MFAs.

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Our dream streets broadcast
on a bat channel whose bat

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signal reverberates for days."

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Ura's poetry exalts in the good
fun of signs, signs, signs.

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But he's also making a careful
critique of our overreliance

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on a corrupt system for meaning.

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He has an incredible
ear, and his poetry

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gives me the visceral
pleasure I derive

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from music, the goosebumps,
for what my pulse hungers.

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I also deeply value
his commitment

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to preserving the traditions
of the Nuyorican poets,

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both as a practitioner
and scholar.

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In this respect, he is
a singular human being

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and artist.

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His latest collection,
Buzzing Hemisphere,

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published here by the
University of Arizona Press,

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is an impressionistic
illustration of the racial

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and class based
mélanges of New York.

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This book is not so much
concerned with identity

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as selfhood, but as soundscape.

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Adopting the strategies of
both the 20th century modernism

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and the verbal dexterity
and play of Nueva York,

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Noel writes about the liminal
space of his American identity

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while delighting in the
fragmentation and tension that

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emerges.

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He's also a captivating
reader and performer,

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and we're so lucky to
have him here tonight.

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So with no further
ado, Urayoán Noel.