The Moor of The Bronx by Ricardo Nazario y Colón

In his latest work “The Moor of The Bronx” our unapologetic Nuyorican story teller Ricardo Nazario y Colón weaves untold blood stained and government food poems of survival, resilience and celebration of life in the Bronx.  The hardness of bullets and red bricks encase the aroma of familia y comunidad. The sprayed painted murals holding space for junkies, pushers and growing young people who held their ancestors’ wildest dreams, while dodging violence, hunger and displacement as they planted their roots on broken sidewalks.

He describes “the borough always on the alert, another black man hunted” as he reimagines anti-hero Larry Davis, also known as Adam Abdul-Hakeem. He highlights the ongoing moves of families at midnight when the rent was due in the El Building. Both Larry and the required migrations pay homage to the resilience of black and brown urban communities’ insistence on living visible and memorable lives while chocking on assimilation, as masterfully describe in Benevolent Assimilation.

The Moor of the Bronx is a testament to urban chaos and survival. In these times of racial reckoning, division and uncertainly, we need the medicine that Ricardo serves in each of his poems. In order to embrace our shared humanity, we must listen to the lived experience and honor the grit of our mostly invisible and discounted heroes.

–Marta Maria Miranda-Straub, Author of Cradled by Skeletons: A life in Poems and Essays, A bilingual memoir.