Rane Arroyo

Rane Arroyo
Born November 15, 1954
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died May 7, 2010
Toledo, Ohio. United States
Occupation poet, performer, playwright, professor
Nationality American
Notable works Pale Ramón
Notable awards Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize
Website
www.ranearroyo.com

Rane Ramón Arroyo (November 15, 1954 – May 7, 2010) was an American poet, playwright, and scholar of Puerto Rican descent who wrote numerous books and received many literary awards. He was a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Toledo in Ohio. His work deals extensively with issues of immigration, Latino culture, and homosexuality.[1] Arroyo was openly gay and frequently wrote self-reflexive, autobiographical texts.[2] He was the long-term partner of the American poet Glenn Sheldon.

Biography

Rane Ramón Arroyo was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Puerto Rican immigrant parents. He began his career as a performance artist in the Chicago art galleries of the 1980s and eventually expanded into poetry, for which he has become best known.

Arroyo earned his Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh where he wrote his dissertation on issues surrounding the "Chicago Renaissance" that parallel the building of a contemporary Latino literary canon.[3] He served as the co-Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) and as the co-Chair for the 2009 Chicago Conference.

His last public poetry reading was at SUNY/Brockport on March 31, 2010. His last three words to the public at that reading were: "Live. Then Write." Although it does not appear on the electronic version of the DVD Brockport made, it is quite audible on the YouTube clip immediately following a sampling of a Lady Gaga song which ended his poetry reading. Those three words were words he not only lived by but demanded of his creative writing students.

Arroyo died in the early morning of May 7, 2010 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.[4][5]

Critical reception

Arroyo was included in the Heath Anthology of American Literature published in 2006; this book is commonly taught in English college classes in the U.S.[2] He won the 2004–05 John Ciardi Poetry Prize for The Portable Famine; the 1997 Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize for his book The Singing Shark; and a 1997 Pushcart Prize for the poem "Breathing Lessons" as published in Ploughshares. Other awards include: Stonewall Books Chapbook Prize; The Sonora Review Chapbook Prize, the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize, and a 2007 Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award in Poetry.

Betsy A. Sandlin published an article on him ("Poetry Always Demands All My Ghosts: The Haunted and Haunting Poetry of Rane Arroyo") in a landmark issue of CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Puerto Rican queer studies.[6] Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes has also written about his work.[2][7][8]

Works

Books of poetry

Book of short stories

Performed plays

Published plays

Awards and honors

Legacy

In 2012, Seven Kitchens Press announced the creation of the Rane Arroyo Chapbook Prize for an original, unpublished poetry manuscript.[9] The editors for this prize are Eduardo C. Corral and Ron Mohring. The co-winners of the inaugural prize were Steven Alvarez and Rhett Watts.[10] In 2015, Arroyo was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Sheldon, Glenn. "Arroyo, Rane." In Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes, ed. David William Foster. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. 43-46. ISBN 0-313-28479-2
  2. 1 2 3 La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. "Arroyo, Rane." Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume E: Contemporary Period (1945 to the Present), Fifth Ed. Paul Lauter, general ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 2989-90. ISBN 0-618-53301-X
  3. ↑ Arroyo, Rane Ramón. "Babel, United States of America: A Writer of Color Rethinks the Chicago Renaissance." Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1994. Cited in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Document ID 740927961.
  4. ↑ Fellner, Steve. "Tribute to Rane Arroyo." Pansy Poetics May 8, 2010. Accessed May 9, 2010.
  5. ↑ Rapin, Kristen. "Poet Rane Arroyo’s death a ‘great tragedy and loss’" Toledo Free Press May 11, 2010. Accessed May 11, 2010.
  6. ↑ Sandlin, Betsy A. "Poetry Always Demands All My Ghosts: The Haunted and Haunting Poetry of Rane Arroyo." CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 19.1 (Spring 2007): 162–177.
  7. ↑ La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. ISBN 0-8166-4092-0
  8. ↑ La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence, Lourdes Torres, and Ramón Rivera-Servera. "Toward an Archive of Latina/o Queer Chicago: Art, Politics, and Social Performance." Out in Chicago: LGBT History at the Crossroads, edited by Jill Austin and Jennifer Brier. Chicago: Chicago History Museum, 2011. 127-153.
  9. ↑ Seven Kitchens Press. "Guidelines: The Rane Arroyo Chapbook Prize." SevenKitchensPress.com, accessed March 10, 2013.
  10. ↑ Seven Kitchens Press. "Rane Arroyo Prize co-winners selected: Alvarez, Watts." SevenKitchensPress.com January 27, 2013, accessed March 10, 2013.
  11. ↑ "The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame - Author Details -Rane Arryo". chicagoliteraryhof.org. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
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