Love is Hard Work: Memorias de Loisaida/Poems

Manhattan's Lower East Side is rich in history and ethnic diversity, and Algarin's energetic new collection celebrates the neighborhood's people and streets. The author, an English professor at Rutgers University and a founder of the influential Nuyorican Poets Cafe, divides his book into four sections, introducing each with a short prose ""proem."" The angels of the first section are connected to his melting-pot world in ""Mayan Nuyorican Angel"": ""and it is absolutely true that Nuyoricans/ order Moriawase with their pasteles/ and that the Itamae-San/ serves his sushi creations in perfect harmony/ with alcapurrias and beef patties,/ over blue corn tortillas."" The poems in ""Shared Love (Bio/Ethics in an Age of Plagues)"" detail the drastic effects of HIV and AIDS on the poet's world: ""If I were to show you/ how to continue holding on,/ I would not kiss you,/ I would not mix my fluids with yours,/ for your salvation."" The section ""August in Loisada"" chronicles the painful end of a relationship, the sweetness of which is found in the peaches that grow in the poet's urban backyard. In the final section, ""Nuyorican Kaddish,"" Algarin mourns his father in some of the book's most arresting images: ""...the La Paz Funeral Parlor embalmer,/ who made a southbound turn/ onto the northbound traffic on Queens Boulevard/ with my father's cadaver/ neatly tucked into a body bag/ in the rear of his station wagon/ which I was following"". Like Whitman and Ginsberg, Algarin sings the life of the city, providing road maps to both the outer and inner worlds--and a report on the pleasures and terrors of fully lived life. (Aug.)