The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1981 and raised between the San Juan sector of Villa Borinquen and the town of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. He is the author of the book The Life Assignment (Four Way Books, 2020) and the winner of the 2011 and 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Scholarship. In 2012, he was also awarded a mentorship fellowship from the organization Queer Art. Maldonado obtained his BA in English with minor concentrations in art history and architecture from Tufts University, and a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. His work has been influenced by poets such as César Vallejo, Federico García Lorca, Gwendolyn Brooks, William Carlos Williams, Lucie Brock-Broido, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Julia de Burgos, Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Urayoán Noel, Yara Liceaga, and Marigloria Palma. Maldonado’s work has appeared in platforms such as The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, The Offing, PEN Poetry Series, The Rumpus, Washington Square Review, The Common, the Poetry Society of America, Guernica, Boston Review, Poetry, Kweli, Denver Quarterly and DIAGRAM. For several years, he was the co-director of the 92NY Unterberg Poetry Center. Currently, he resides in Brooklyn, New York City, and serves as the Academy of American Poets's president and executive director.

Works Cited

Maldonado, Ricardo Alberto. Author Questionnaire. The Puerto Rican Literature Project, 2024.

Maldonado, Ricardo Alberto. Interview. Conducted by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, 19 Jan. 2022.