Where are my boricuas?'' Anthony Morales shouted during a recent Friday night poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, asking for the Puerto Ricans in the house. The ethnically mixed, gentrified crowd at this legendary Lower East Side space may not have known it, but Mr. Morales was paying homage in his poem to the founders of the stage where he stood, to those stoned crazy prophets of
... [Show full abstract] revolution, giving poetic solutions to political pollution, organizing rhythmic confusion of assimilation to this untied states nation of eggs, cheese and bacon upon wakin'. One of those prophets was the poet and playwright Miguel Piñero. He is the subject of ''Piñero,'' a new film starring Benjamin Bratt that has put the spotlight on the Nuyorican poets' scene, which came into being in the 1960's and 70's and is still going strong as the popularity of poetry surges nationwide. Though Mr. Morales, a 21-year-old Bronx native majoring in English and Latino studies at Columbia University, may be far removed from the heroin-infested, crime-ridden, self-destructive world of Piñero, he nevertheless belongs to the same literary tradition, born of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. ''My poetry is about trying to make sense of the world, of being a young Puerto Rican male,'' Mr. Morales said. ''We have incredible stories we got to tell.'' In 1974 the story Piñero told in ''Short Eyes,'' a prison drama presented by Joseph Papp's Public Theater and at Lincoln Center, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best American play. It was developed in a workshop at the Ossining Correctional Facility (Sing Sing), where he was serving time for armed robbery. That year Piñero, known as Miky, was one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1988, when he was 41.
