Many claim they don’t understand poetry, but author Vincent Toro challenges this idea. “[Have you ever] talked smack with your friends before, and exaggeratedor listened to music [and] enjoyed lyrics?” he asks. For him, that’s poetry in its essence, seamlessly integrated into our daily lives.
The belief that poetry is inaccessible or difficult to grasp is nothing more than a myth. Toro is a poet, playwright and professor of Nuyorican roots. In his latest poetry collection, “ Hivestruck ,” he confronts the complexities of modern life, particularly the relationship between humanity and technology.
Piri Thomas , the American Puerto Rican-Cuban poet, once said that every child is born a poet. Toro agrees and adds that everyone is born “with imaginative powers, dreaming about the world, singing, dancing, playing.” Poetry is reclaiming that.
“I was a child of bullying and abuse,” said Toro. “I started writing because I felt really small and powerless in [the] situation that I was in.” As a child of the ’80s, he found a source of strength in the rise of hip-hop.
When he first heard Public Enemy in sixth or seventh-grade, Chuck D’s voice sounded invincible, like he could take on the world alone. Feeling empowered, he started documenting his emotions in his early teens. Writing became a way for him to reclaim his once-lost voice.
“If we’re all born to be an obituary then let me live as a hyperlink, a trending meme traversing the chatter of continents,�.