Poet David Tomas Martinez, former gang member, to appear at the NYS Writers Institute Tuesday, May 1

Columbia University professor's poetry addresses street life, poverty, masculinity, drugs, and violence.

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David Tomas Martinez

ALBANY, NY (04/26/2018) (readMedia)-- .

EVENT DETAILS:

David Tomas Martinez, teenage father, former San Diego gang member, and prize-winning poet, will read from his works and participate in a Q&A 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 1 in the Performing Arts Center's Recital Hall on the University at Albany uptown campus.

Earlier that same day, Martinez will give a craft talk in the Standish Room, Science Library, also on the uptown campus. Free and open to the public, the programs are cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute, the Writing Center of the UAlbany English Department and the student performance troupe, Phenomenal Voices.

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Albany, NY - Prize-winning poet David Tomas Martinez is a former San Diego gang member and teenage father whose work addresses themes of street life, poverty, masculinity, drugs, and violence in the barrio, and the redemptive potential of art, poetry, and self-knowledge.

Martinez, named by poet Tony Hoagland as "one of the most exciting and visceral poets of his generation," will read from his works and participate in a Q&A 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 1 in the Performing Arts Center's Recital Hall on the University at Albany uptown campus. UAlbany students will join Martinez on stage to perform their own spoken word poetry. Earlier that same day, Martinez will give a craft talk in the Standish Room, Science Library, also on the uptown campus.

Currently a professor of creative writing at Columbia University, Martinez is the author of the new poetry collection, Post Traumatic Hood Disorder (2018). The New York Times praised the work: "In his second collection, Martinez has fun with the high-low mash-up that characterizes so much poetry today - one poem here is called 'Footnoting Biggie Lyrics Like "Why Christmas Missed Us"' - but he also includes tender love poems and searching personal reminiscences."

His previous collection was Hustle (2014), which BuzzFeed named one of "The 14 Must-Read Works of Chicano Literature." It received the New England Book Festival's prize in poetry, the Devil's Kitchen Reading Award, and $10,000 as honorable mention from the Antonio Cisneros Del Moral Prize.

Diego Báez, reviewer for Booklist, wrote, "Martinez creates a hybrid universe in which T. S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson drink malt liquor. From the tattoos of gangbanging brothers to the spiked fruit of canyon cacti, Martinez revels in the extraordinary contradictions that arise when poetry arrives stomping, chanting, and slinging urban grit against the polished facade of the ivory tower."

Martinez's work has been published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Tin House, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Oxford American, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

These events are cosponsored by the Writing Center of the UAlbany English Department and the student performance troupe, Phenomenal Voices.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at www.nyswritersinstitute.org

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