General Information
Bio
W. R. Rodriguez grew up in the Bronx where he worked as a bootblack in the family shoe shine parlor. He moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he earned an M. A. in English and taught high school for over thirty years. The urban environment has been a major source of his writing: “Although I left The Bronx decades ago, it has not left me. To give ironic tribute to the Romantics, I regard the streets and tenements as worthy subjects of art. I enjoy creating poetry from my memories of people, places, and events, and also from research and imagination. I want my poems to work on the page and to have a strong voice if read aloud.”
His poetry has appeared in magazines such as Abraxas and Epoch, and in anthologies such as The Party Train, Welcome to Your Life, and Editor’s Choice III. Articles about his family’s experience in The Bronx were published in The Bronx County Historical Society Journal.
W. R. Rodriguez is the author of The Bronx Trilogy: three books of poetry about The Bronx and its environs. The first volume, the shoe shine parlor poems et al, was published by Ghost Pony Press in 1984. This was followed by concrete pastures of the beautiful bronx (Zeugpress: 2008) and from the banks of brook avenue (Zeugpress: 2016).
To complement the completion of the trilogy, a limited second edition of the shoe shine parlor poems et al was issued (Zeugpress: 2016). It includes an author’s preface describing its role in the evolution of his work.
Full Name
William R Rodriguez
Locations
Bronx
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