Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe

East Village

New York City

Art & Culture | Bars

Poetry Slams, Open Mics, Jazz, Hip Hop, Theater and More at this Multi-Cultural Arts Institution

Nuyorican poets cafe performance east village

Nuyorican poets cafe exterior east village

Nuyorican Cafe live performance east vilage

Cuisine:

Price:

Features:

About Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe

& why it made the Carpe City list

The Nuyorican Poets Café has long been a home for groundbreaking poetry, music, theater, and visual arts. The Café champions the use of poetry, jazz, theater, hip-hop and spoken word as means of social empowerment for artists as diverse as the city’s population.
Founded in 1973 by writer Miguel Algarin and a long list of fellow writers and community workers, the first Nuyorican operated out of Algarin’s living room.
Now, the Café is at 236 East 3rd Street, a building purchased collectively by the founders in 1980. It’s full of murals and art, as well as flyers for past events – you can really feel the eclectic neighborhood there!
“We must listen to one another. We must respect one another’s habits, and we must share the truth and the integrity that the voice of the poet so generously provides,” wrote Miguel Algarin.
The Nuyorican boasts an OBIE for Excellence in Theater and over thirty Audelco Awards (which honor African-American theater and dance companies). It’s also been selected for distinctions by Zagat, Time Out, New York Press, the Municipal Arts Society, the Manhattan Borough President, and more.
Allen Ginsberg called the Café “the most integrated place on the planet.”
John Leguizamo credits the Nuyorican with the launch of his career; he would try out material there. In 2011, the Café honored Leguizamo with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Carpe City Trivia

What is a Nuyorican?

In 1975, Miguel Algarín co-published a poetry anthology called Nuyorican Poetry. In his introduction, Algarin defined what Nuyorican means. He wrote: “The experience of Puerto Ricans on the streets of New York has caused a new language to grow: Nuyorican. Nuyoricans are a special experience in the immigration history of the city of New York.”

Immigration has always played a key role in the cultural history of New York, and the Village specifically. In 1950, the United States classified Puerto Rico as a commonwealth, launching a wave of immigration. Puerto Ricans settled in East Harlem and the Lower East Side (which used to extend up to 14th Street, before anyone started calling that area the East Village). Many Nuyorican artists and community members were among this group of immigrants and first-generation New Yorkers.

About those Poetry Slam...

The Slam history at the Nuyorican is long, storied, and very much still in progress. Slam Poetry is a competitive performance art that takes poetry off the page and puts it in front of an audience, with all the noise and force of theater. Slam poetry is rooted in the history, art, and experiences of people of color, and was originally popularized at the Café, though now it’s an international sensation, with competitions and events around the world.

In 1996, the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Slam Team was profiled in a feature-length documentary. SlamNation, directed by Paul Devlin, follows Nuyorican poetry slam founder Bob Holman and the poets of the 1996 team as they compete in the National Poetry Slam held in Portland, Oregon. It’s clear in the documentary that, though the poets are competing against each other, their various rivalries ultimately serve to create a family, and to inspire the poets to engage more, to write better, and to perform their best.

Check out Nuyorican’s poetry slam info and schedule here.