It is impossible to imagine contemporary Puerto Rican poetry without Nicole Cecilia Delgado. Her projects, collaborations, and energy have allowed emerging poets to see themselves as part of a larger network, and although she is only one of many creators, her presence has undeniably expanded what we can collectively imagine. I'm grateful we now have this record of the work she has done in community and of how she came to that work. This text is a tribute to those who, like her, have made poetry possible. Nicole writes, 'poetry is the project's basic unit' and I know that by poetry she means more than just the text, she means all of us working together to forge a different world.

For Nicole, the process of creation, research, and assemblage of the work makes up the poem itself.

I was eager to see Nicole at her New York residence when we were quarantined. I read her pamphlet, A mano / By hand, in the summer when I was mending my life, thinking of the poems as alternate capital — as the work of action and emphasis toward us. A handmade book is, for Nicole, a form of company in the distance. From New York, to Oaxaca, to Sinaloa, to the highlands of Chiapas, to San Juan — in A mano / By hand Nicole proposes of her life a network of Latin American consciousness. A book supports that life, which we read like a poem to make ourselves useful, to become aware of ourselves. This indispensable pamphlet reminds me that in making a book, we serve ourselves justice starting from where our hands reach.

To speak of poetry’s economic life is, for many, to conjure the image of a starving artist: one does not, in general, become a poet for riches. But what if a life lived in, through, and for poetry yields not only plenitude, but also dignity, community, pleasure? This question drives Nicole Cecilia Delgado’s thinking and work as a poet and artisan publisher. In this essay, Delgado details her self-directed apprenticeship as a poet and hand-bookmaker in New York City, Mexico, Central America, and at her home in Puerto Rico. More importantly, she frames poetry as a source of communal and individual sustenance in the face of the privations of neoliberal cultural management. Pragmatic, wise, and resourceful, painting a rich picture of the world of contemporary Latin American poetry and independent publishing, this essay fills me with hope—and excitement—for poetry’s futures.