Background
She grew up in New York City where she left high school after her first marriage in 1946, ending her formal education.
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Carmen Pursifull
Edit ProfileCareer
Since late 2009 she has been a local public television personality in the Champaign-Urbana area. Born Carmen Maria Padilla in New York City, she was the youngest of five children to a Puerto Rico-born father and his Army bride from Barcelona, Spain. This thrust her into the center of the Latin dance craze of the time.
She became a featured vocalist with Latin American bands in New York City, belonged to American Federation of Musicians Local 802 (Greater New York City), toured widely in the United States, and had extended engagements in the Caribbean including the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico with Miguelito Valdés and His Orchestra in 1953 and with Ray Wallis and His Calypso Band at the Virgin Isles Hotel in Saint Thomas, United States. Virgin Islands in 1954.
At his suggestion in 1970, Mississippi Pursifull began keeping a diary to ease her adjustment from New York City to Midwestern life.
Her writing soon took on rhythm and metaphor, and she joined the newly formed Red Herring Poets workshop, and eventually became its official Matriarch. She is self-educated, obtaining her graduate equivalency diploma in 1979.
She has published over 650 poems in the United States and internationally in academic and other refereed poetry journals, has published ten book-length collections, and has read her poetry extensively in academic and community arts settings in Illinois and surrounding states and on the local broadcast media.
Since October 8, 2009, Mississippi Pursifull reads her poetry on a weekly half-hour prime time television show on Urbana Public Television. Book-length collections of the poetry of List of Puerto Rican writers Zimmerman, Marc, United States. Latino Literature: An Essay and Annotated Bibliography, MARCH/Abrazo, 1992.
Live reading poster, 1953 show business photograph, and 2003 photograph with Illinois Government.
Rod Blagojevich and Poet Laureate of Illinois. Hawk Production"s link (subject"s home page).
Membership
Thereafter she was a member of a New York City interpretive dance troupe, and in 1950 at age twenty she was recruited by Frank "Killer Joe" Piro to partner with him teaching Cha-Cha-Cha and Mambo at the Palladium Ballroom at 53rd Saint and Broadway in Manhattan.
