Edwin Torres

About the brilliant Nuyorican poet and performance worker Edwin Torres a writer for New York Magazine wrote, "It's hard to wrestle meaning from the shreds of language he tosses out. And on paper, Torres seems to make as much sense as a Port Authority schizophrenic." "It is obvious that Edwin Torres is the bastard love child of Mayakovsky and Parra, midwifed by Apollinaire," writes Christian Haye in The Poetry Project Newsletter.

On the publication of Torres’ third chapbook, _SandHommeNomadNo_, one reviewer observed: "The posterboy of the Nu Poetry Move of the early 90s -- that was his goateed physiognomy gracing New York magazine cover and Newsweek story -- Torres is known primarily as a performer whose madcap stage antics include costume/vocal/'character' changes, tapes played on beat-up tinny cassette recorders dragged across the floor, musical saw accompaniment, Khlebnikovian language play (his poem 'Coil' in SandHomme is dedicated to Khlebnikov.), a spewing of Schwitters through newly-opened throat apertures . . . and a system of gestural language that often tilts the whole poem/performance axis into dance."

Torres reads at the Poetry Project, Dixon Place, P.S. 122 and the Performing Garage. Recently, he represented New York City in the National Poetry Slam in Boston. He won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's First Annual Prize for Fresh Poetry. New York Press pronounced him Best Performing Poet this year saying: "His bent for soul bending language play is without equal." Ethan Petitt of Nose Magazine says "instead of 'sounding things', he 'things' sounds, so that words and meanings go ka-plunk like soft percussion." Some of his widely diverse influences include Wallace Stevens, Mayakovsky, Duchamp, Dada, Fluxus, and even Butoh.

Torres was born in the Bronx. He's been performing his work since 1989. He is also a graphic designer. He created a movement called "i.e." (interactive eclecticism), which is "about the theater being the body."

Torres' other books include I Hear Things People Haven't Really Said and Lung Poetry.