Power to the Poets -City Limits Magazine
If more public officials and politicians could write poetry as visceral as the Human Resources Administration's Director of Community Affairs Alberto Cappas, the world would indeed be in a different place.
Cappas' third book of poetry, Doña Julia, explores the complexities of everyday life for the Puerto Rican immigrant in New York City. The poems are sometimes touching and nostalgic, sometimes painful and alienating, as Cappas speaks to the ways in which poverty and racism impact the lives of immigrants who try to incorporate the supposed American Dream into their realities--and their varying degrees of success and failure in doing so.
In "A Distant Despair," Cappas describes "the Building/With the graffiti/'Viva Puerto Rico Libre'/And other declarations/Woman and her three children/are evicted for not paying the rent." In the same building lives a Mrs. Garcia, who is "glued to the window/Looking from corner to corner/For stories to talk about and invent." The poem is filled with images of what life is like for the tenants of this building. Its beauty (and that of Cappas' writing) lies in its ability to cause a tension for the reader, to leave us torn between those images that evoke a feeling of warmth for the people of the community and the ones that inspire anger, or sometimes hopelessness, over the living conditions that create such poverty.
It is this sort of complexity that keeps Doña Julia from being a book about feeling pity for the people and places it portrays. The book's characters are implicated in their own madness, too. In "Aguacate Power," Cappas shows his frustration with what he calls "unconscious Puerto Ricans" who "have made it in the USA/They exist without the ganas/Without a place in the sun/They sing songs for the politicians/With nothing to offer them in turn for their dedication/They do not know the harm they generate."
The standout poem in this collection is the title piece, "Doña Julia." The poem is about a woman who commits suicide, and leaves a note that baffles police, stating, "One way or the other, I'm going back to Puerto Rico." The poem starkly describes what led the woman to this place. "Do--a Julia/Committed suicide last night/Cause the welfare department/ Demanded too many documents she did not/know existed." It's quite the indictment coming from an employee of HRA.
In a city used to low voter turnout in most elections, where people feel increasingly alienated from their political and community leaders, it is refreshing to find someone working in the system who is sympathetic to the lives of ordinary citizens. Cappas' poetry, never overly sentimental, demonstrates both a talent for the written word and a deep understanding of people, their communities and the larger institutions that influence their lives. The next time you go to the polls, don't elect a politician; elect a poet.


Latin Beat Magazine
This third book of poetry from Alberto O. Cappas explores the numerous conditions and situations that many Puerto Rican immigrants face on a daily basis as they co-exist in New York City. A bureaucrat by day (director of Community Affairs for the city's Human Resources Administration), poet and community activist by night, Cappas devotes most of his life to encouraging young Latinos to pursue a better way of life. Through the magic and beauty of words, he shows us the good, the bad, the ugly, and the pretty things of life. With a selection of over 40 poems in this new book, Cappas' poetry traces the hopes and problems of Puerto Ricans living on the island as well as those living in the northern continent searching for the American dream. But the reality and messages of his poems, in many cases, can be applied to any group of people or individuals.
The title piece of the collection, Doña Julia, is a poem about a woman who in desperation commits suicide and leaves a note stating, "One way or the other, I'm going back to Puerto Rico." Other favorites include Aguacate Power, depicting what Cappas calls "unconscious Puerto Ricans;" A Distant Despair is a snapshot of images of what life is like for the tenants of a particular building in the city; Milagros, A Love Story, is a poem about a beautiful young girl who at 15 years old had dreams and goals and by her 19th birthday was selling her wasted body on 42nd Street to buy the American dream. Suicide of a Puerto Rican Jíbaro is a piece that explores the alienation faced by the immigrant entering the cold, foreign land of hope. Cappas' poetas are like short stories full of characters and situations we can all relate to in one way or another in a thought-provoking manner.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Latin Beat Magazine
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group


NYU Black Journal
Clear. Natural. Poignant. These words accurately describe Alberto O. Cappas’ work. Cappas understands the suffering and struggles of Puerto Ricans living in Mainland America as well as in Puerto Rico. His poetry traces their hopes, problems, and misconceptions from the island to the mainland where they discover that dreams do die hard.

In the poem "Suicide of a Puerto Rican Jibaro," one need not be Puerto Rican to identify with the alienation faced when entering a cold, foreign, and jungle-like world. Cappas successfully explores what such a drastic change can mean for a Puerto Rican away from his island, where he is the majority. In "Puerto Rican Jibaro," for the Puerto Rican man who comes to the United States, "A million times his body was raped by the unfriendly cold... to pursue the American Dream..." Cappas is a relentless observer and commentator of what happens when a people leave their homeland, or forget where they come from, to pursue the uncertainties of the American Dream.

His poetry, ironic at times, questions whether this dream does exist. In "A Spoken Secret," "Light skin Puerto Ricans forget to speak Spanish... and dark skin Puerto Ricans adopt hot combs to straighten their hair." In "Doña Julia," a woman is trapped like a mouse in America and so commits suicide as a last attempt to return to her homeland. And in "Maria," a young girl sits patiently thinking about her experiences in New York since leaving Puerto Rico and now waits "for the overdose (of a drug) to take effect."