Descripción general
A celebration of poetry and salsa! While the two art forms might seem different at first glance, they actually have a lot to say to each other. In this first-of-its-kind event, spoken word artists and salsa artists illuminate their rhythmic, lyrical and cultural connections. Your host is Caridad de la Luz (La Bruja), the Emmy®-winning Executive Director of the acclaimed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. There will be electrifying spoken word performances from Nuyorican poets Elisabet Velasquez (representing Puerto Rico and Jersey City) and Isabel Cruz (Puerto Rico/Paterson). The show culminates in a poetry-inspired set by GRAMMY®-nominated salsa singer Frankie Negrón (Puerto Rico/Newark). Following the performance, join us for a salsa dance party at NICO Kitchen + Bar!
About the artists:
Isabel Cruz is a Puerto Rican poet and Emeritus Youth Poetry Ambassador for the Paterson Poetry Festival. Among other awards, she won the 2024 Five College Prose & Poetry Prize and the 2024 Elizabeth Babcock Prize for Best Poem. Her work is published or forthcoming in The Poetry Society of New York, I Feel Nothing Like Good Anthology, Brooklyn Poets Poet of the Week and By The WAYE, among others. In October 2024, she was a Featured Poet at the Dodge Poetry Festival. Cruz was recently named a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and awarded a full scholarship from The Poetry Project for their Late Summer 2025 Learning.
Caridad De La Luz (she/her/ella) is a world renowned spoken word artist known as La Bruja. She became Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Jan. 2022 after beginning her career there in 1996. She won an Emmy® in 2022 for Legacy of Puerto Rican Poetry, which aired on ABC during the National Puerto Rican Day Parade 2021. Caridad has helped secure a 24-million-dollar renovation project which she has coined “NuyoricanStruction,” and it will be completed in 2026. The Grand Re-Opening will be on Halloween, the 53rd Anniversary of the cafe. In the meantime, our programming continues off-site, see our full calendar by visiting NUYORICAN.org/calendar. CaridadDeLaLuz.com @LaBrujaNYC on IG.
GRAMMY®-nominated Latin music superstar Frankie Negrón has been called “the genre’s next definitive voice” by All Music Guide. The New Jersey-born and raised salsa singer of Puerto Rican descent blends traditional salsa with progressive influences such as pop, rock, gospel, R&B, hip hop and reggaetón. He’s earned Billboard Award nods, two Premio Lo Nuestro Awards for “Song of the Year,” several number one singles, four gold and platinum albums and nine Billboard Top 40 Hot Latin Tracks. His 2009 album Independence Day (Airgo Music) delivered the epic single “Adicto A Tu Piel,” reaching #3 on the Billboard Tropical charts.
Elisabet Velasquez is a Boricua writer, mother of two children from Brooklyn, New York, now living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Velasquez uses poetry to share her experiences, growing up in Bushwick, Brooklyn as a first generation Puerto Rican teen mother and GED recipient. Her love for sharing personal narratives using poetry led her to spoken word, becoming a member of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe National Slam Team in 2009. Her debut young adult novel in verse When We Make It received the Kirkus Best YA Fiction Award and YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Award. It went on to be a 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee, a 2022 Gotham Prize Finalist and was named a New York Times “Young Adult Book to Watch For.” Her book has recently been added to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino General Motors Learning Lounge Library. When she is not writing she is living the life she hopes to write about.
