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Martín Espada (b. 1957) was born and reared in New York City and has worked as a public advocacy lawyer. He is the author of The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero (1984), Trumpets from the Island of Their Eviction (1987), Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover's Hands (1990), and The City of Sick and Coughing Radiators ( 1993). Espada has spoken of his poetry as documenting the lives of the forgotten and downtrodden, specifically (but not exclusively) his fellow Puerto Ricans. His poetry also serves as vindication of lives too often and too long lived in silence and suffering.

In his poem "Trumpets from the Island of Their Eviction" Espada establishes the sounds of trumpets from salsa music as counterpoint to the bullying police presence. A biblical resonance here is the trumpets that knocked down the walls of Jericho; maybe the salsa trumpets can knock down the walls of discrimination and neglect. Espada uses...