I am a visual and performance poet, and one of the remaining original founders of the Nuyorican Poets’ Movement, a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are of Puerto Rican descent and who were brought up in New York City during the late 40’s and 50’s, as a means to validate the Puerto Rican identity and experience in the United States.
With the publication of his first volumes of poetry, Casting Long Shadows (NY, 1970), Have You Seen Liberation (NY, 1971) and Street Poetry & Other Poems (Barlenmir House, 1972), Meléndez’s poetry emerged at the inception of this movement. His play, “The Junkies Stole The Clock,” (1974) was the first production of the NY Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre’s Nuyorican Playwright’s Unit.