Ricardo Nazario y Colón
Ricardo Nazario y Colón is a poet, storyteller, and cultural critic whose work moves between the Bronx, Puerto Rico, and the Appalachian South. A co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, his writing explores migration, memory, race, and the layered histories of place. Born in the South Bronx and shaped by a life lived across multiple regions of the United States, Nazario y Colón’s poetry reflects the complex intersections of Nuyorican, Caribbean, and Appalachian experience. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and engages questions of colonial history, diaspora, and cultural inheritance with a lyrical voice that is at once intimate and expansive
Featured Book
Orfeito
Orfeito is a bilingual poetic narrative that traces the life of a Puerto Rican boy from childhood on the island to adulthood in New York, where memory becomes both refuge and burden. Moving between Spanish and English, the poems unfold as fragments of a life—family, first love, faith, loss—each moment carried forward like a photograph that refuses to fade. Written in a voice that mirrors the lived reality of bilingual communities, Orfeito does not translate itself for comfort. Instead, it invites readers into a linguistic and emotional landscape where Spanish and English coexist naturally—where meaning is carried as much in sound and memory as in definition.
Meet Ricardo Nazario y Colón and get a copy of their book at the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival, Saturday, November 7, 2026, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.