Afflict the Comfortable: Martin Espada at the Poetry Foundation

Kevin Canfield interviews Martín Espada at The Poetry Foundation. An excerpt follows. For the full text, click here:

In a sense, this anecdote encapsulates Espada’s poetry career. Over the course of almost 20 collections of poetry, essays and translations, Espada—a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his 2006 collection The Republic of Poetry—has proved to be the voice of the underdog, a resourceful writer motivated by both personal and political concerns.

“In many of my poems that go beyond the law, I see myself as an advocate, speaking on behalf of those who don’t have an opportunity to be heard,” he says, from his home in Amherst. “Whereas this is a somewhat controversial position to take in the poetry world, in the world I come from as an attorney it was a very natural thing to do.”