|
|
|
|
Orfeito
Ricardo Nazario y Colón
Orfeito is a sweeping bilingual poetry collection inspired by the enduring Orpheus tradition—from classical mythology to its Black Atlantic reinterpretations. Through interconnected poems, Ricardo Nazario y Colón follows a Puerto Rican boy whose journey carries him from the island to New York and beyond, where family history, migration, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, first love, grief, memory, and cultural inheritance converge into an intimate coming-of-age epic. Moving effortlessly between English and Spanish, the collection is rich with music, myth, and spellbinding storytelling, revealing how identity is not inherited whole but forged across borders, languages, and generations.
What Others Say About Orfeito
In this collection, Nazario y Colón reenvisions the story of Orpheus, offering us an epic hero of the Nuyorican style. Bilingually lyrical, raw, and vulnerable, Orfeito offers a portrait of the quiet silences filled with meaning that bring us to the depths of love, sadness, and the endurance of the human soul.
—Roberta Hurtado, PhD, professor of Latino Literature and Culture, SUNY Oswego, author of Decolonial Puerto Rican Women's Writings
Ricardo Nazario y Colón's latest book of poems, Orfeito, weaves his rich cultural and spiritual DNA as a Nuyorican and as a gifted storyteller. His verses entice the senses and leave stretch marks on our hearts. He skillfully takes us on a rich and diverse journey, awakening our shared humanity. In "Piano Lessons," Orfeito adamantly claims his identity as a "Negrito." His irreverence in "Three Wide" is refreshing, and his love and loss of India in "Salt Between Them" is beautifully visceral. If you are a human being, you must savor this book as if it were the last piece of chocolate left on earth.
—Marta Miranda-Straub, author of Mermaid Musings: Diving in the Margins
These poems, a lyrical Bildungsroman that recounts the life and loves of Orfeito, belong in the pantheon of Puerto Rican migration stories and Nuyorican tales. They should sit right there on the shelf next to René Marqués' classic play La Carreta, the short stories and essays of José Luis González, and the memoirs of Esmeralda Santiago. With all the longing and amor patrio of Rafael Hernandez's Lamento Borincano, Nazario y Colón chronicles filial, domestic, and erotic love, and translates the story of Orpheus' constant searching for Eurydice into the story of the Puerto Rican diaspora.
—Jeremy Paden, author of how to recognize god's chosen
|
| |
Invierno en Nueva York
On his first Christmas
in Nueva York,
Orfeito estaba muy excited
porque había nevado
la noche anterior.
When he got up,
he noticed that there weren't any presents
under the tree.
“¿Mamá, y mi regalo?”
“I am sorry, Orfeito,
Santa got locked out
because titi cerró
el fire escape window gate.”
Orfeito went to the window
and drew snowmen
on the frosted panes.
|
Details and Ordering
Publication Date: September 1, 2026
Format: Softcover, 6" x 9"
ISBN: 978-1-961127-26-5
Price: $19.00
|
About the Author
Ricardo Nazario y Colón is a poet, storyteller, and cultural critic whose work moves between the Bronx, Puerto Rico, and the Appalachian South. A co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, his writing explores migration, memory, race, and the layered histories of place. Born in the South Bronx and shaped by a life lived across multiple regions of the United States, Nazario y Colón's poetry reflects the complex intersections of Nuyorican, Caribbean, and Appalachian experience.
His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and engages questions of colonial history, diaspora, and cultural inheritance with a lyrical voice that is at once intimate and expansive. He is also among the contributors to Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, a landmark anthology that gathers writers responding to contemporary narratives about Appalachia while affirming the region's deep diversity and cultural complexity.
Nazario y Colón is the author of several poetry collections, including The Moor of the Bronx and Of Jíbaros and Hillbillies. His poems often weave English and Spanish, drawing upon Afro-Caribbean spirituality, workingclass memory, and the enduring music of everyday life. Across his body of work, he returns to the quiet spaces where language, ancestry, and survival meet.
He lives and writes in upstate New York.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
