Outlaw: The Collected Works of Miguel Pinero

by Miguel Piñero, Nicolás Kanellos (Editor)

"A thief, a junkie I've been / committed every known sin," Miguel Pinero sings in "A Lower East Side Poem." Part observer, part participant in the turbulent goings-on in his Nuyorican barrio, Miguel Pinero blasted onto the literary scene and made waves in the artistic current with his dramatic interpretations of the world around him through experimental poetry, prose, and plays.
Portrayed by actor Benjamin Bratt in the 2001 feature film Pinero, the poet's works are as rough and gritty as the New York City underworld he wrote about and loved. "So here I am, look at me / I stand proud as you can see / pleased to be from the Lower East / a street fighting man / a problem of this land / I am the Philosopher of the Criminal Mind / a dweller of prison time / a cancer of Rockefeller's ghettocide / this concrete tomb is my home." His depictions of pimp bars, drug addiction, petty crime, prison culture and outlaw life all drawn from first-hand experience astound the faint-hearted, as Pinero poetizes an outlaw vernacular meant to shock proper, bourgeois culture.
This long-awaited collection includes previously published and never-before-published poems; ten plays, including Short Eyes, which was later made into a film and won the 1973-1974 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play, The Sun Always Shines for the Cool, and Eulogy for a Small Time Thief.
A co-founder of the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, Pinero died at the age of 41, leaving behind a compelling legacy of poetry and plays that reveal the harsh, impoverished lives of his urban Puerto Rican community.

Genres: Poetry

381 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Miguel Piñero (December 19, 1946–June 18, 1988) was a Puerto Rican playwright, actor, and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Reviews

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

twenty-two years after his death, the collected writings of the great miguel piñero are finally back in print. best known for his award-winning play short eyes, the influential nuyorican poet, playwright, and actor had a short, yet remarkable life. emigrating from his native puerto rico to manhattan's lower east side (loisaida) when he was four, much of piñero's life was marked by repeated criminal convictions (his first coming at the age of eleven). by his mid-twenties, piñero had served prison time for armed robbery and drug offenses, and in 1972, while held at sing sing correctional facility, he wrote his first poem. as a participant of a writing workshop during his incarceration, he wrote short eyes, an unabashed and powerful drama about prison life and inmate hierarchy, though would not see it performed in a proper theater until the year after he was paroled in 1973. short eyes would go on to a broadway stage and garner numerous accolades including six tony nominations, an obie award, and a new york critics' circle award for best american play.

outlaw: the collected works of miguel piñero is a gorgeous volume compiling all of the late writer's literary output. in addition to the eighteen poems that comprised his sole poetry collection, la bodega sold dreams, outlaw features twenty previously unpublished poems (a dozen from the bodega cycle, as well as eight others). each of the ten plays piñero completed before succumbing to cirrhosis in 1988 are also included herein (short eyes, the three works originally featured in the sun always shines for the cool, and the six short pieces found in outrageous one-act plays.) for those unfamiliar with piñero's writing or the often contrasting complexities of his life, two outstanding introductory essays (one on his drama, the other on his poetry) provide a scholarly context to the thematic elements and cultural relevance of his work.

although piñero's oeuvre, to some, may seem too small to warrant serious attention, his influence on hispanic drama and poetry cannot be understated. employing densely idiomatic language to illustrate a subculture alien to many (if not most), piñero's writing is startlingly honest and astute, surely anything but subtle. his poems and plays convey the grittiness of urban living (rife with the drugs, crime, sex, prostitutes, pimps, and violence he knew all too well) with an unapologetic clarity that would make many a high-class, insular city dweller entirely uncomfortable. his work deftly considers the hazards, hypocrisies, temptations, exploitations, offenses, affronts, and indignities that he and other marginalized individuals are forced to endure on a daily basis. the shimmering opulence of manhattan may not have reflected quite as far as the lower east side, but its degrading and demeaning aftereffects surely did. piñero was more documentarian than activist, and his helplessness in the face of oppression (be it racism, capitalism, the prison system, etc.) did little to stifle his creative charge. as a chronicler of the street life that claimed so many, piñero's writing stands as refutation of a society that so effortlessly sweeps so many to the gutter. although much of piñero's work is bold and provocative, his anger and frustration never seem all-consuming, even yielding to unexpected moments of humor and empathy.

that a young, puerto rican thief, junkie, and ex-convict went from maximum security prison to award-winning playwright and guggenheim fellowship recipient is itself an intriguing drama. as the definitive biographical account of his life has yet to be written, this collection must serve as the sole evidence of the brilliant, tragic, and troubled talent that was miguel "mikey" piñero. outlaw is a long overdue and much deserved collection, one that shall rightly allow the import and intensity of his creativity to endure.

from francois villon to jean genet, miguel belongs to a tradition of writers whose devious and renegade lives paradoxically result in the most painstaking devotion to the truth and rigor of their craft. all dramatists of real value must sooner or later confront what for them is truly dangerous, either within themselves or in the outside world. that we the audience feel that danger and understand something of what it is about is often what makes a play important and durable. if the life of miguel seems illusive and troubling, one can only applaud what is so candidly engaged here by his art, where very little is stolen or borrowed and a great deal is revealed. in this sense miguel piñero is as blessed and as straight a writer as they come. ~joseph papp (from the afterword)

Seekin' the Cause

he was Dead
he never Lived
died
died
he died seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
because
he said
he never saw the cause
but he heard
the cause
heard the cryin' of hungry ghetto children
heard the warnin' from Malcolm
heard the tractors pave new routes to new prisons
died seekin' the Cause
seekin' a Cause
he was dead on arrival
he never really Lived
uptown... downtown... crosstown
body was round all over town
seekin' the Cause
thinkin' the Cause was sellin' the white lady to black
children
thinkin' the cause is to be found in gypsy rose or j.b.
or dealin' wacky weed
and singin' du-wops in the park after some chi-chiba
he died seekin' the Cause
died seekin' a Cause
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
he wanted a color t.v.
wanted a silk on silk suit
he wanted the Cause to come up like the mets & take the
world series
he wanted... he wanted... he wanted
he wanted to want more wants
but
he never gave
he never gave
he never gave his love to children
he never gave his heart to old people
&
never did he ever give his soul to his people
he never gave his soul to his people
because he was busy seekin' a Cause
busy
busy perfectin' his voice to harmonize the national anthem
with spiro t agnew
busy perfectin' his jive talk so that his flunkiness
wouldn't show
busy perfectin' his viva-la-polocia speech
downtown... uptown... midtown... crosstown
his body was found all over town
seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
found
in potter fields of an o.d.
found
in the bowery with the d.d.t.'s
his legs were left in viet-nam
his arms were found in sing-sing
his scalp was on Nixon's belt
his blood painted the streets of the ghetto
his eyes were still lookin' for jesus to come down
on some cloud & make everything ok
when jesus died in attica
his brains plastered all around the frames of the pentagon
his voice still yellin' stars & stripes 4 ever
riddled with the police bullets his taxes bought
he died seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
while the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
he died yesterday
he's dyin' today
he's dead tomorrow
died seekin' a Cause
died seekin' the Cause
& the Cause was in front of him
& the Cause was in his skin
& the Cause was in his speech
& the Cause was in his blood
but
he died seekin' the Cause
he died seekin' a Cause
he died
deaf
dumb
& blind
he died
& never found his Cause
because
you see he never never
knew that he was the
Cause.

[alewife · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favoritos:
"A Lowe East Side Poem"
"Black Woman with the Blond Wig On"
"—Kill, Kill Kill"
"Seekin' the Cause"
"The Lower East Side Is Taking . . ."

Read for course: Contemporary Urban Writers - ENG 229

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Pinero's poetry from the first time I ever read "The Book of Genesis According to Saint Miguelito" so I very much looked forward to reading Outlaw. Maybe it was my expectations were too high, maybe it's because I wanted more poetry and less...

But when it was all said and done I just couldn't say it was a great read.