The Puerto Rican Literature Project

The poet and professor Carlos Vázquez Cruz, also known as Eniocuadrado or Tite, was born in 1971 in Caguas, Puerto Rico and raised in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. He obtained his BA in secondary education in Spanish from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, his MFA in creative writing in Spanish from New York University, and his PhD in Romance languages from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a founding member of El Sótano, a literary collective, and currently teaches Spanish at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. He has received several awards for his work, including the 2020 PEN Club de Puerto Rico Premio Nacional de Antología Creativa, 2014 Premio Nuevas Voces of the Festival de la Palabra of Puerto Rico, the 2022 Beca Letras Boricuas, and a 2023 bronze medal for the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Spanish poetry book at the International Latino Book Awards. Vázquez Cruz’s work has been influenced by figures such as Aristóteles, Juan Bosch, Marosa Di Giorgio, Rosario Ferré, Ángela Hernández, Clarice Lispector, René Marqués, Manuel Ramos Otero, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, Ana Lydia Vega, among others. His work has been published in Distrópika, Los rostros de la Hidra: antología de revistas y poetas puertorriqueños del S. XXI., Puerto Rico indócil: antología de cuentos puertorriqueños del siglo XXI, and the Journal of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, among others. His works include Inimaginado (2003), 8% de desk-cuentos (Cambridge BrickHouse, 2006), Dos centímetros de mar (Tiempo Nuevo, 2008), La mirilla y la muralla: el estado crítico (Sótano Editoriales, 2009), Sencilla mente (Sótano Editoriales, 2010), Malacostumbrismo (Erizo Editorial, 2012), Ares (Isla Negra, 2014) and Silente, (Isla Negra, 2022). 

Works consulted:

Vázquez Cruz, Carlos. Interview. Conducted by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, 23 Dec. 2021.