Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe

New York City's Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a Lower East Side institution, is known for hosting poetry slams, or public recitals of poems competitively graded by the audience. This is participatory performance poetry with an urban groundswell behind it-oral, multicultural, political, uninhibited. But how does the poetry come across once it's been conventionally-and ``silently''-published? ``Hear this book with your eyes!'' exhorts coeditor Holman; in his rambling introduction, Algarin urges poetry as ``a living art,'' as if to fight off print's inertia. All readers won't be floored by the result, which includes lines and stanzas (by Mike Tyler, Edwin Torres, Willie Perdomo, Raul Salinas, others) that beg to be sung or shouted, and do not rest easy on the page. But the vitality of the collection is conspicuous even when its anarchy causes some impatience. A maximalist poetry-compounded of emotional drive, visceral detail, real-life words and rhythms-offers something vigorous even when it reads as virtually unedited. The voices collected (more than 100) are challenging. (Aug.)