The Puerto Rican Literature Project

The poet, dancer, and singer Carmen Maria Pursifull was born in 1930 in New York City, New York and died in 2015. She was the daughter of a Spanish mother and a father from Utuado, Puerto Rico. Pursifull spent her younger years as a ballroom dancer in New York City during the 1950’s, often partnering with the popular dance instructor Killer Joe Piro to teach the mambo and chacha. She also performed as a singer with the Ray Almo Band, touring the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico Later, Pursifull moved to Champaign, Illinois, a transition she often explored in her poetry. Pursifull is the author of Probing the Depths of Mind & Matter (Hawk Productions, 2007), World of Wet (Hawk Productions, 2002), Brimmed Hat with Flowers (Hawk Productions, 2000), The Many Faces of Passion (Hawk Productions, 2000), Elsewhere in a Parallel Universe (Hawk Productions, 1996), Manhattan Memories (Esoterica Press, 1989), The Twenty-Four Hour Wake (Red Herring Press, 1989), and Carmen By Moonlight (1982).

Works Cited

“Carmen M. Pursifull.” Poets & Writers Directory, Poets & Writers, www.pw.org/directory/writers/carmen_m_pursifull.

Zimmerman, Marc. Defending Their Own in the Cold: The Cultural Turns of US Puerto Ricans. University of Illinois Press, 2011.