Rhina Espaillat

Rhina Polonia Espaillat (born January 20, 1932, La vega, Dominican Republic)[1] is a bilingual Dominican-American poet and translator who has published eleven collections of poetry. She is known for writing poetry that captures the beauty of the mundane and the routine.[2]

Rhina Espaillat
Born (1932-01-20) January 20, 1932
La vega, Dominican Republic
OccupationPoet
Alma materHunter College
Queens College
Website
www.rhinapespaillat.com

Life

Espaillat is of mixed Afro-Dominican, Spanish, French, and Arawak descent. She is the daughter of Carlos Manuel Homero Espaillat Brache and the grandniece and god-daughter of Dominican diplomat Rafael Brache.[3] Through her great-uncle, Espaillat is a distant cousin of Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez), a Dominican diplomatic attaché, and Dulce María Batista.[1] Her aunt Rhina Espaillat Brache founded the first ballet institute of La Vega.[4] Espaillat is fourth-cousin once-removed of Adriano Espaillat and great-great-great-grand-niece of Dominican President Ulises Espaillat, and is descended from the French immigrant François Espeillac.[4]

In 1937, Espaillat's father and great uncle, Rafael Brache, were Dominican diplomats stationed in Washington, D.C.. After dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the Parsley Massacre of Haitians living along the Dominican border, Brache wrote a letter to Trujillo denouncing the massacre and, "saying he could no longer be associated with a government that had committed such a terrible criminal act."[5]

In response to the letter, the whole embassy staff were declared traitors and were exiled. Espaillat was temporarily left with her maternal grandmother in the Dominican Republic. In 1939, however, her parents felt more settled in the United States and Rhina joined them in Manhattan.[6]

She is a graduate of Hunter College where she got her Bachelor of Arts in 1953.[1] In 1964 she completed her M.S.E. at Queens College.[1] She taught English in the New York City public schools for many years, and retired to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where for more than a decade she has led a group of New Formalist poets known as the Powow River Poets.[7][8]

Espaillat attended the first West Chester University Poetry Conference in 1995 and later recalled, "I was the only Hispanic there, but I realized that these people were open to everything, that their one interest was the craft. If you could bring something from another culture, they were open to it."[9]

Espaillat subsequently took charge of, "teaching the French Forms and the forms of repetition," but also made sure to teach classes in, "the Spanish and Hispanic examples of the forms" such as the décima and the ovillejo."[9]

Due to Espaillat's teaching and encouragement, the ovillejo, particularly, has become very popular among younger New Formalists writing in English. While being interviewed for a book about her life, Espaillat gleefully commented, "On the internet and in the stratosphere, everybody loves it."[10]

Espaillat writes poetry in both English and Spanish, and has translated the poetry of Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur into Spanish.[11] Her work has appeared in Poetry, The American Scholar, and many other journals. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and she judged the 2012 Contest. Her second poetry collection, Where Horizons Go, was published by Truman State University Press in conjunction with her selection for the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize. Her 2001 collection, Rehearsing Absence, was published by University of Evansville Press after winning the Richard Wilbur Award.[12][13]

Her work has been included in many popular anthologies, including The Heath Introduction to Poetry (Heath 2000); The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press 1997); and In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the U.S. (Arte Publico Press 1994). She is also known for her English translations of the Spanish language poems of St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), which have appeared in the American journal First Things.[14]

Her poetry contains rhythmic sonnets describing family life and domestic settings, called "snapshots" she also addresses issues of ancestry, assimilation, and immigration.[2]

Personal life

Of her relationship with sculptor, teacher, and World War II veteran Alfred Moskowitz, Espaillat once said, "I met him at the wedding of my best friend, Mimi, and his best friend, Harry. I was still at Hunter College, in my junior year, and we ended up sitting at the same table at the wedding on Thanksgiving Day in 1951. And we started talking, then dancing, and - I know this sounds like madness - he proposed five weeks later on New Year's Eve, and we were married in June of 1952."[15]

They remained together until he died in 2016; the couple had three children.[7]

Publications
  • Where Horizons Go: Poems (1998)
  • Rehearsing Absence (2001)
  • The Shadow I Dress In (2004)
  • The Story-Teller's Hour (2004)
  • Playing at Stillness (2005)
  • Her Place in These Designs (2008)
  • And After All (2018)
  • The Field (2019)

References
  1. "Contemporary Authors Online". Biography in Context. Gale. 2003. Retrieved April 9, 2016.
  2. Kanellos, Nicolas (2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latino Literature. Connecticut, United States of America: Greenwood Press. p. 391. ISBN 978-0313-33971-4.
  3. "RHINA ESPAILLAT Una vegana de la diáspora laureada en EU quepublicó su primera obra a los 60 años de edad". 18 June 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  4. "Cápsulas genealógicas". 30 November 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  5. William Baer (2016), pages 277-278.
  6. William Baer (2016), page 278.
  7. Monsour, Leslie (November 6, 2008). "Welcome, Rhina Espaillat". Eratosphere.
  8. Nicol, Alfred, ed. (2006). The Powow River Anthology. Ocean Press. ISBN 9780976729150. OCLC 65189339.
  9. Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillant (2018), The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat University of Pittsburgh Press. Pages 83-84.
  10. Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillant (2018), The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat University of Pittsburgh Press. Pages 84-85.
  11. Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillant (2018), The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat, University of Pittsburgh Press. Pages 86-87.
  12. Espaillat, Rhina Polonia (2001). Rehearsing Absence: Poems. Richard Wilbur Award 4. University of Evansville Press. p. 77. ISBN 9780930982546.
  13. Blackwood, Nicole (January 13, 2017). "Rhina Espaillat poet and translator". Mythos. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  14. "St. John of the Cross Translated by Rhina P. Espaillat". First Things. Retrieved 2015-06-12.
  15. William Baer (2016), Thirteen on Form: Conversations with Poets, pages 282-283.

Further reading
  • "Rhina P. Espaillat". The Poetry Foundation. Short biography of the poet.
  • "Rhina Espaillat-Weighing In". Poetry Everywhere. Public Broadcasting System. Short video of an animation that accompanies Espaillat's reading of her poem "Weighing In"; the animation was created by Christopher Dudley Thorpe.
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