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Tiburón

Tiburón

Martín Espada, Poet • José Ortiz, Artist
Hand painted buildings and classic car with a poem entitled Tiburón overlaid on top of the image. The poem reads: East 116th and a long red car stalled with the hood up roaring salsa like a white shark mouth yanked open and down in the stomach the radio of the last fisherman still tuned to his lucky station

About the poet

Martín Espada (b. 1957) has published more than 20 books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His new book of poems is called Jailbreak of Sparrows. His previous book, Floaters, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2021. Other poetry collections include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003), and Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). Espada has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A former tenant lawyer with Su Clínica Legal in greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. 

About the artist

José Ortiz is an Afro-Dominican multimedia artist and art educator whose practice spans painting, public art, and curatorial work. His paintings layer symbols and myths through photography, printmaking, collage, and paint to explore shared human connection across cultures. Ortiz has exhibited at Lehman College Art Gallery, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and A.I.R. Gallery, among others. He has also curated exhibitions, designed sets for choreographer Sita Frederick, and collaborated on large-scale multimedia installations. He co-founded Areytos Performance Works, a multidisciplinary company rooted in Caribbean traditions and social justice.

With over 20 years in arts education and youth development, José has worked with Henry Street Settlement, the Bronx Museum, the Children’s Art Carnival, Anyone Can Fly Foundation, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation, where he developed programs supporting young artists. He served as Program Director at Groundswell and is currently Director of the Saturday Program at Cooper Union.