The Puerto Rican Independent Arts Scene has seen a boom in all its facets and literature is no stranger to this. With online services like Createspace and independent publishers like La Impresora, authors of all fields have found platforms that allow them to publish their works. Seeing how many writers are slowly deciding to take power into their hands and take the solo route, it is only fitting that we celebrate young up-and-coming and/or independent poets who are building their path on their own.
(picture found in the writer’s Facebook page)
Pedro J. Moreu Vicente is an aspiring literature professor. He is currently a graduate student in the Master’s of Arts in English Education program at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM). He has been published twice in Sábanas Magazine, once in Spring 2016 and again in Fall 2016. In the Voces Showcase Series Poetry Slam, held at La Tertulia in Mayagüez, Moreu Vicente placed second after performing three poems. Moreu Vicente’s interests include writing poetry and short stories as well as academic research relating to the Renaissance and the Romantics. Moreu Vicente has been part of the UPRM Water Polo team since 2015. Other interests are going to the beach, listening to music, hanging out with friends, and reading. He is currently featured in the anthology Vox: 5 Años de la Voz del Pueblo.
(picture found in the writer’s Facebook page)
Grimaldi Oyola Pérez was born on July 29th, 1991 and was raised in Trujillo Alto until the age of 17 when he graduated from Colegio Nuestra Señora del Carmen. He then developed independently in Río Piedras where he about the different art forms. He graduate from the Universidad del Este, where obtained an associate degree as to become a pharmacy assistant in order to continue to his pharmacy studies. In 2015, he published his novel Recetas para la demencia cotidiana which received an award from the Universidad del Este for creative writing on May 2016. Its sequel, Citas con la demencia cotidiana, and his first poetry book Paredes Delirantes, are part of the demencia cotidiana universe. Currently he is editing his psychedelic western Goldy and last February he published his novel Violetta, a fantasy chronicle hybrid. He also published his latest poetry book Los hurtados inspired by the work of Bolaño and Borges, which he wrote in Baltimore.
(picture provided by the author)
Ana Portnoy Brimmer is a poet and performer, creative nonfiction writer, ARTivist, and recent graduate of the Creative Writing spectrum of the Literature Master’s program at the Department of English of the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Campus. Ana is the recipient of the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship, for a Latinx writer of literary promise and leadership, awarded by Under The Volcano International. She is also a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation-VONA/VOICES Fellow in Poetry, an Under The Volcano Fellow in Poetry and Journalism, and a Las Dos Brujas Writing Workshop Alumna in Poetry. Her work has been published and featured in Kweli Journal, Poets Reading The News, Project Censored, The Acentos Review, Moko Magazine, Under The Volcano/Bajo el Volcán: The Best of Our First Fifteen Years, Vox: 5 Años de la Voz del Pueblo, among others; it is forthcoming in Centro Journal and Puerto Rico en Mi Corazón (a collection of broadsides published by Anomalous Press) and is being considered for publication in a number of other platforms. She employs poetry and writing as tools for activism, her creative work being socio-politically committed. Ana is the daughter of Mexican-Jewish immigrants; she was born in New York, but was raised, and currently lives, in Puerto Rico.
(picture by Hemphillian Photography)
Fernando Rodríguez Ayala is a father of two and the first president and founder of Vox Populi: Puerto Rico. He’s performed poetry across Puerto Rico, Europe and in parts of the U.S.A. throughout the years, eventually creating Vox Populi: Puerto Rico as a free space for artists to perform and develop their skills. He currently resides in Sabana Grande.
(picture found in the writer’s Facebook page)
Ismael A. Santiago Vázquez raised in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, Ismael A. Santiago Vázquez, also known as Topo, is a young poet living in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. He is also a musician who has been a member of the short-lived punk band Topo Negro, Rabo Cojo, and currently in Jauría. In 2014, he won first place in a poetry competition for Seguros Múltiples. He has been published in the first anthology of the Antología Artística Revolucionaria and Vox Populi: Puerto Rico’s Vox: 5 Años de la Voz del Pueblo. Topo is a philosophy student and lover of all things punk rock.