Background
Hernández Cruz was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico.
Hernández Cruz was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico.
In 1981, Life magazine named him one of America"s greatest poets. Early years
In 1954, his family moved to New York City and lived in Spanish Harlem. There he received his primary and secondary education.
He began to write poetry while attending Benjamin Franklin High School.
Poetry career
During his high school years he wrote various poems, including "Snaps". In 1969, Random House published his collection Snaps and the following year his poetry began to appear in various publications including Evergreen Review and the New York Review of Books.
In 1970, Hernández Cruz worked with New York"s "Poetry-in-the-school" program He moved to San Francisco in 1973 and served as a visiting poet in various colleges.
Hernández Cruz received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
In 1981, the April issue of Life magazine proclaimed Hernández Cruz a National Treasure when they included his name among the greatest American poets. He is the first Hispanic in the United States to have this honor bestowed on him. He tweaks syntactic conventions of English and Spanish to communicate his own voice.
He was Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Allen Ginsberg wrote about Snaps:
Poesy news from space anxiety police age inner city, spontaneous urban American language as Williams wished, high school street consciousness transparent, original soul looking out intelligent Bronx windows.
Hernández Cruz is a distinguished member of the famed Nuyorican school of poets (also referred to as the Nuyorican Movement). He tweaks syntactic conventions of English and Spanish to communicate his own voice.
He was Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
