Struggles Behind Him, a Poet of El Barrio Embraces Life

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

Inside a cluttered living room six stories above East 111th Street in El Barrio, the sounds of construction crews and laughing children gave way to the strains of “Nessun Dorma,” the Unknown Prince’s aria from Puccini’s “Turandot.” Jesus Melendez sat at his computer, transfixed, his folded hands touching his lips.

“Vanish, o night!” a tenor sang in Italian on a YouTube video. “Set, stars! Set, stars!

“At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!”

The recording ended.

“‘None Shall Sleep,’ that is the best damn aria,” he said, shaking his head. “If you want to cry, play that. You’ll cry even if you don’t know the words. But I do.”

He has lived them. Earlier this year, he could not sleep because of a financial crisis that left him three months behind on his rent and facing the possibility of losing the same apartment where he had lived as a child. Though famed as Papoleto, a founder of the Nuyorican poetry movement, he might as well have been as unknown as Puccini’s prince, since teaching jobs and paid recitals were scarce.

Days after a story on his plight was published, Papoleto’s life changed. A famed photographer paid his back rent. A New Jersey poet raised $3,255 from fellow poets and writers. He was invited to speak at colleges, and Pregones Theater in the Bronx announced a collaboration. An admirer even set up a poetry hot line: 630-4ARHYME.

Best of all, he landed two jobs doing poetry workshops.

Instead of hiding in his apartment, he embraces life on the streets of El Barrio. In the last week alone, he went from finishing an anthology of his students’ poems and attending the wake of Ibrahim Gonzalez, a gifted musician and dear friend, to marching in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. (And befitting poetic royalty, he was ferried in a pedicab.)

He watches, he listens. He does what poets must - feed his mind and soul in the hope that he can write words that touch your heart.

“I don’t mind struggle,” said Papoleto, who just turned 63.  “I don’t believe in easy-breezy. Your blood has to boil sometimes. But when you get older, you want security.”

He is especially grateful to Carmen Bardeguez-Brown, the principal of the School for Excellence in the Bronx, located inside the landmark building that was originally Morris High School. Because of her, he got an eight-week residency that will continue in the fall.

“The kids love him; we love him,” said Ms. Bardeguez-Brown. “He changes the culture of the school. He brings so much history and passion as an icon of Latino culture. You can’t quantify that. He’s just amazing.”

He is a little amazed too - he attended the old Morris. It’s where he came of age, became a poet and published his first book - in the school’s basement print shop. He speaks excitedly about his workshop and how he guided students through the process of figuring out their thoughts, writing them as narratives and then fashioning them into poems. He teaches them craft, an alien discipline in the era of spoken-word celebrity.

“Kids have trouble just sitting down and writing,” he said. “Some people say when they go to prison and have solitude, they can learn to write. People don’t need to go to prison to learn to write! They need to go to college.”

With the afternoon sun warm and bright, he needed to get out. He walked south along Second Avenue, peering into store windows, pointing out new buildings and old hangouts.  He dropped in on a bookstore and headed for the poetry section. They had Neruda, but not his recent anthology, “Hey Yo! Yo Soy!” He left, grumbling.

“I walk in,” he muttered, “and they look at me like I had on a ski mask.”

He headed north, past new high-rises and chic pubs that have attracted newcomers to the old - and vanishing - Barrio.

“We have cultural interlopers here,” he said. “Capitalists who benefit from the cultural identity of a community whose leadership they never knew. They come here to exploit and logo-ize ‘El Barrio This’ and ‘El Barrio That.’ But they’ve built their whole thing on a poltergeist, on the backs and graves of a diaspora.  And with a poltergeist, you know what’s going to happen!”

His mood eased as he encountered some friends. By dinnertime, he was settled into a spot by the window of Camaradas, where he jotted down thoughts and chatted with strangers. Not a bad day for a poet. As he walked home, he stopped under a tree and listened to a bright, chirping aria.

“The birds are coming home,” he said. “That’s their conversation about the day. They’re reporting to God.”

He smiled and kept walking. The sun was setting, but his mood would not. It was dusk, and he had won.