Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo is Sandra María Esteves’ third collection of poetry. Her first book of poems, Yerba Buena (1981), was revolutionary in establishing an urban Latina woman’s choice and esthetic. Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo takes all of the rhythmic, bluesy potential and the women’s poetic militancy of Yerba Buena and brings them to full, resplendent, funky bloom. In this volume she blends the oral tradition with the literary tradition in a fusion of spiritual, blues and women’s poetics.
“Esteves speaks with punch and politically-astute vigor about the realities of the urban poor. More importantly, however, the poetry draws a big distinction between one being economically poor and spiritually and culturally repressed.”—Poetry Flash
SANDRA MARÍA ESTEVES is a poet and arts administrator who has published six collections of poetry, including Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo (Arte Público Press, 1990), Tropical Rain: A Bilingual Downpour (African Caribbean Poetry Theater, 1984) and Yerba Buena (Greenfield Review Press, 1981). One of the founding poets of the Nuyorican poetry movement, as well as one of the first Puerto Rican/Dominican women to publish a volume of poetry in the U.S., she is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Arts Review 2001 Honoree from the Bronx Council on the Arts, the 2000 Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award from Amherst College, the 1992 Edgar Allan Poe Literary Award from the Bronx Historical Society and a 1985 Poetry Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She continues creating art, teaching writing workshops, presenting poetry readings and lecturing at universities and cultural centers throughout the U.S.
Learn more at sandraesteves.com.
