Acknowledged Legislator Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martin Espada stands as the firstever collection of essays on poet and activist Martin Espada. It is also to date the only published booklength singleauthor study of Espada currently in existence. Relying on innovative highly original contributions from thirteen Espada scholars its principal aim is to argue for a long overdue critical awareness of and cultural appreciation for Espada and his body of writing. Acknowledged Legislator accomplishes this task in three fundamental ways by providing readers with background information on the poets life and work offering an examination into the subject matter and dominant themes that are frequently contained in his writing and finally by advocating in a variety of ways for why we should be reading discussing and teaching the Espada canon. Divided into four distinct sections that modulate through several theoretical framesfrom Espadas attention to resistance poetics and concerns for historical memory to his oppositional critique of neoliberalism and support for a class consciousness grounded in labor rightsAcknowledged Legislator offers a cohesive forwardthinking interpretive statement of the poets vision and proposes a critical reassessment for how we read Espada now and in the future. show more