The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Pedro Pietri, also known as “el Reverendo,” was a poet, playwright and community activist born in 1944 in Ponce, Puerto Rico and died in 2004. He was raised in East Harlem’s El Barrio in New York, New York. After Pietri was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, he returned home to New York, and became politically active, joining the Young Lords. Pietri was also heavily involved in theater and off-Broadway circles in NYC. He is the author of Illusions of a Revolving Door: Plays (Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1992), The Masses are Asses (Waterfront Press, 1984), Traffic Violations (Waterfront Press, 1983), Lost in the Museum of Natural History (Ediciones Huracán, 1980), and Puerto Rican Obituary (Monthly Review Press, 1973). His work has also been anthologized in The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature (Pearson, 2001) and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999). In recognition of his work, he was awarded grants from the New York State Creative Arts in Public Service and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Alongside Miguel Algarín and Miguel Piñero, he was one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1973; and he was also the co-founder of El Puerto Rican Embassy, an artistic initiative that advocated for Puerto Rican sovereignty and crafted symbolic Puerto Rican passports.

Works Cited

Acosta Bel, Edna. “Pedro Pietri”. EnciclopediaPR, 11 de septiembre de 2014, enciclopediapr.org/content/pedro-pietri/.

“Pedro Pietri”. Poetry Foundation, 2023, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pedro-pietri.

“Pedro Pietri”. Poetry.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poet/pedro-pietri.