I forgot our flag
should always be
at half mast.
When the towers came down we were told to go shopping.
And we did.

- Excerpt from
Diary of a Patriotic American
by Magdalena Gómez

I am La Jibara
you accuse
of maligning
the race
the reason
why we are
not appreciated
in upscale
neighborhoods
I am too Puerto Rican
too loud
don’t sit right
and drink beer
out of the can;
I am the one
who calls a hole
in my pants:
air conditioning.

- Excerpt from
A River of Recuerdos
by Magdalena Gómez

MAGDALENA GÓMEZ - POET

" Ms. Gómez' writing is ferocious and compassionate, resolutely political and proudly Puerto Rican, full of vivid emotions, sensually exalting and confrontational. Laugh, weep and get incensed: her poems are all incendiary devices for the heart and intellect."
-Fred Ho, Composer, Musician, Author

Magdalena Gómez began writing poetry at an early age, and hit the NYC poetry scene while still in high school in 1970, reading in beat venues such as Cafe Wha?, Speakeasy, The Village Gate, The Pit, The Cedar Tavern, Chumley’s, Off the Beat N’ Path (Hoboken), Washington Square Park, in bars, cafe’s, church basements, lofts, often as a featured reader and as part of the open mic scene. Underground poetry matriarch, actor and bike riding Brighton Beach mermaid, Emilie Glenn featured Magdalena in her living room salon readings on the lower East Side and the West Village. Emilie facilitated Magdalena’s first public reading at an all male gay review theater on l4th Street, Dramatis Personae, on a Sunday afternoon in Spring, 1970. She’s been a performance poet ever since. Cited as part of the Nuyorican Poets Vanguard by scholar and poet, Louis Reyes Rivera, Magdalena received loving guidance from Louis, Sandra Maria Esteves and Pedro Pietri, but remained an outsider of any poetry “movement”, for which she is so grateful. “There still is no box into which I fit, and I like it that way.” A community of poets and loyal fans and friends sustained her. She once received a letter from poet Barbara A. Holland (the most widely published unknown poet in the world) which stated: “I would crawl through a NYC sewer to watch you perform.”

“I don’t slam, I jam. Poetry is soul jazz that erupts from the relationship between poet and listener as their inner worlds connect into a’ha’s from the oo-la-la’s inherent in the sensuality of speaking and listening. It is not simply spoken word art it is the very act of living when we make contact, impact, and finally land in each other’s territory, crossing the boundary between you and me, them and us.”

Fun Trivia: In 1965, twelve year old Magdalena (who had been colonized into Madeline by teachers who couldn’t pronounce or spell her name) read a poem about racism on the NYC based Alan Burke television show, precursor to the type of programming that morphed into Maury Povitch and Jerry Springer. Magdalena was on the same show with Christine Jorgenson, the celebrated, transgendered person who had the courage to come out publicly with grace and regal dignity. “Christine was beautiful and made me feel like I was an important poet, although all I had written as a sappy, albeit indignant, rhyme about isolation and racism. I’ll never forget her.”

"You have a wonderful way of giving voice to so many different groups in our society and doing so in a way that builds connections, encourages understanding, and enhances our capacity for empathy."
-Gregory S. Prince, Jr., Hampshire College, President

"Magdalena's poetry is a powerful presence. It fills the room and draws the audience in until they transcend the act of listening and instead experience the words. If you are a phony or a faker it will make you jump and squirm with its pin pricks of blunt truth. If you are a person of heart and spirit, you will be seized with the uncontrollable urge to jump up laughing and cheering."
-Sara Littlecrow-Russell, Poet , Attorney, Leverett, MA

For bookings, workshops and more information: atabex49@yahoo.com

• Recent Poetry Performances Include:
• American Professional Society on Abuse of Children, Hollywood, CA, August, 2004
• University of Pennsylvania, 2003
• Ordinary Women Anthology 25th Anniversary reunion, Sol Goldman Y, NYC, 2003
• Boston University, 2003, 2004
• American Friends Service Committee, 2002, 2003, 2004
  
• University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2003, 2004
  
• Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.2004
  
• University of Washington at Tacoma, 2004
  
• Northampton High School, Northampton, MA 2004
  
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, 2004
  
• BAAD! Ass Women's Festival, 2004
  
• Oberlin College, Ohio, 2004
  
• Carlito's Cafe (Art for Change), NYC, 2004
  
• Amherst Regional HS, Amherst, MA, 2003
  
  (Extended list available upon request)
  
  
  

Magdalena with friend and collaborator, composer and baritone saxophonist, Fred Ho - photo by: Robert Espier

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