Nuyorican Poets Café & Poets House invite you to an evening hosted by Caridad De La Luz “La Bruja” with live Salsa music by the Combo Rican Ensemble of Puerto Rico, and featuring a reading by Nuyorican poet & published author Elisabet Velasquez. There will be an Open Mic chosen by lottery, along with a Champagne & Charcuterie Cocktail Hour, and a dance party! Celebrate decades of literary creativity and friendship with two of New York’s beloved and preeminent poetry centers under one roof.
Presented with the generous support of the Battery Park City Authority.
Caridad De La Luz is a multi-faceted performer known as “La Bruja,” who balances a career of activism, education and entertainment. She won an Emmy in 2022 after becoming the Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poets Café where she began her poetry career in 1996. She has been one of America’s leading spoken word poets for over 20 years, She received a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Bronx Historical Society, and was a finalist for the highly competitive David Prize. She has performed in venues such as The Apollo, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and City Hall, among many others.
Elisabet Velasquez is a Boricua writer born in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her work is featured in Muzzle Magazine, Winter Tangerine, Centro Voces, Latina Magazine, Longreads, We Are Mitú, Tidal, and Martín Espada’s anthology What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump. When We Make It is her debut novel. Elisabet lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.