Pedro Pietri - Other Works

Other Works

Among his other works are: Invisible Poetry (1979), Traffic (1980), Plays (1982), Traffic Violations (1983), and The Masses are Asses (1988). His writings have been published and included in the following anthologies: Inventing a Word: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Puerto Rican Poetry (ed. Julio Marzan, 1980), Illusions of a Revolving Door (1984), The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (ed. Alan Kaufman, S.A. Griffin, 1999), The Prentice Hall Anthology of Latino Literature (ed. Eduardo del Rio, 2002) and many others.

Pietri not only wrote poetry but also recorded it. In 1979, Pietri came out with an LP entitled Loose Joints and later One Is a Crowd which were produced by Folkways Records.

Pietri was a free spirit whose performances were nontraditional. In his irreverence toward religion, he called himself Reverend, dressed in black and walked around with a large collapsible cross. In reaction to the romanticism of the community by groups like the Young Lords and others on the left, he wrote that "The Masses are Asses." In the first published collection of Nuyorican poetry (Nuyorican Poetry: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Words and Feelings edited by Miguel Algarín and Miguel Piñero in 1975), his contribution was a poem consisting entirely of punctuation marks. He would throw condoms at audiences during some of his performances. He was a nonconformist, constantly reminding the Movement of the importance of tolerance, intellectual freedom and not losing its humanity. His was a unique voice, both in substance and style, to which failed attempts by all to imitate his reading of his "Puerto Rican Obituary" out loud readily attest.