The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Jesús Papoleto Meléndez was born in New York, New York in 1950. The poet, playwright, teacher, and activist grew up in the East Harlem neighborhood. In 1973, he was among one of the founding members of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He has worked as an educator for over 30 years, starting as a teenager in New York’s Teachers and Writers Collaborative and Poets-in-the-Schools educational programs. In 1980, he moved to California, where he taught through the California Arts Council’s Artists in Communities and Young at Art programs, as well as other public school programs in San Diego and Los Angeles. He also coordinated the California Poets in the Schools for the San Diego area. In the mid-1990s, he moved back to New York, where he taught through the Teachers and Writers Collaborative and at Boricua College. Meléndez has received numerous awards and grants, including the 1995 Artist for Community Enrichment (ACE) Award; the 2001 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in poetry; the 2004 Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award; the 2006 Universes Poetic Ensemble Company Award; the 2006 Reverendo Pedro Pietri Poetry Award; the 2011 Union Settlement Association Innovation Award; and the 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. His publications include Casting Long Shadows (1970), Street Poetry & Other Poems (Barlenmir House, 1972), Concertos on Market Street: Poems (Kemetic Images, 1993), PAPOLíTICO—Poems of a Political Persuasion (2Leaf Press, 2018), and Very DrunkLove Poems & Other Acts of Madness / Borracho: Poemas de amor y otros actos de locura (2Leaf Press, 2020), among others. Meléndez’s poetry has been published in various anthologies, including Pa’lante a La Luz–Charge Into The Light (Rogue Scholars Press, 2018), Word, An Anthology by A Gathering of the Tribes (2017), and ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets (Arte Publico Press, 2017). 

Works Cited

Castillo-Garsow, Melissa, editor. ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets. Arte Publico Press, 2017, p. 401.

“History & Awards.” Nuyorican Poets Café, https://www.nuyorican.org/history-awards. 

“Jesús Papoleto Meléndez.” Poets.org, https://poets.org/poet/jesus-papoleto-melendez.

“Jesús Papoleto Meléndez.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jesus-papoleto-melendez.