By Elizabeth Slovic

The Bronx Beat, May 3, 2004

Fans of Pedro Pietri, the Puerto Rican poet and playwright who died in March, knew him as "the Reverend." Soon, however, some teenagers in the Bronx may know him as the namesake of their after-school creative writing program.  By naming the program for Pietri, the writer's close circle of friends and family hope to spread the positive messages contained in his work. At the Pilgrim United Church of Christ on the Grand Concourse at 175th Street, where the program will be housed beginning in September, teenagers will work to improve their writing and critical thinking, said José Lantigua, the pastor. They will also, no doubt, come to know Pietri's work. "His life and poetry was dedicated to youth," said his niece, Marina Pietri of University Heights.

Pietri was a seminal figure in defining Puerto Rican cultural identity in the city. His most famous poem, "Puerto Rican Obituary," a eulogy to disenfranchised people, spoke powerfully to thousands in the borough when it was published in 1973, supporters said. His other collected works include "Traffic Violations" and "The Masses are Asses."

Pietri, who lived in Manhattan much of his 59 years, was the poet laureate of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican activist organization, and he helped found the Nuyorican Poets Café on the Lower East Side in 1973. He frequently led writing workshops in Bronx schools. And he loved to hang out at Jimmy's Bronx Café on Fordham Road, said his sister Carmen Pietri-Diaz of University Heights. He is buried in St. Raymond's Cemetery in Throggs Neck.

"He was not a hermit poet," said Pedro Pedraza, a researcher at Hunter College's Center for Puerto Rican Studies. In recent years, the borough's Latino population has changed as waves of Dominicans, Mexicans and other Central and South Americans have settled here. But many of Pietri's themes remain relevant. "It is important for today's young people to have a very clear image of who Pedro was," Pietri-Diaz said.

The push to honor Pietri came from Luis Chaluisan, an artist whose work was profoundly influenced by Pietri, whom he met in the 1970s. Chaluisan hopes to spread Pietri's message to a new generation of Latinos.

High school students who have discovered his writing have said its message resonates in their lives, even three decades after many of his poems were published. "I felt like a preacher when I was reading it," said Amell Castro, a 16-year-old sophomore at John F. Kennedy High School, referring to "Puerto Rican Obituary." Castro and several other students from Aspira, a nonprofit education organization, performed a dramatic reading of "PuertoRican Obituary" at Jake's Café in East Harlem in April.  "It's emotional; it makes you think about things," said Matthew LeBron, a 14-year-old sophomore at DeWitt Clinton High School, who also participated in the reading. "It describes the Bronx."