On 10/23/25, Hunter hosted this program as part of the Distinguished Writer Series.
Born in Brooklyn, Martín Espada is the author of more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. A former tenant lawyer in the Greater Boston area's Latino community, he has a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and JD from Northeastern University. Espada published his first poetry collection, The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero (Waterfront Press), in 1982. Among his other books of poetry are Jailbreak of Sparrows (Alfred A. Knopf, 2025); Floaters (W. W. Norton, 2021), which received the National Book Award in Poetry in 2021; Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (W. W. Norton, 2016); The Trouble Ball (W. W. Norton, 2011), which was the recipient of the Milt Kessler Award, a Massachusetts Book Award, and an International Latino Book Award; The Republic of Poetry (W. W. Norton, 2006), which received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Imagine the Angels of Bread (W. W. Norton, 1996), winner of an American Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Espada is the recipient of a Letras Boricuas Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, an International Latino Book Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2018, he received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, which recognizes distinguished poetic achievement. He is currently a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Watch the program below.
