Edwin Torres started creating text and performance work in 1988 under the banner "I.E. Interactive Eclecticism," an invented 'movement' whose purposefully broad term gave his one-man variety shows a forum, e.g. I.E. Songs, I.E. Dances and I.E. Costumes were interspersed with audience interaction. In 1990, he discovered poetry at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe and The St. Marks Poetry Project and poems evolved out of what were then I.E. Monologues.
He has since collaborated with a wide range of artists, creating performances that mingle poetry with vocal/physical improvisation, visual theater, music and sound. His media assault includes MTV's first Spoken Word Unplugged, Rolling Stone Magazine, High Times, and thanks to his goatee, on the cover of New York Magazine's "The Beats Are Back" issue among others and has traveled the world, performing at many festivals, cafe's, classrooms and beaches; as well as taught workshops and performed across the United States and overseas.
He is recepient of poetry fellowships from The Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art, the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and The Poetry Fund and his CD Holy Kid was part of The Whitney Museum's exhibition, The American Century Pt. II. Edwin is currently co-editing "POeP!" an eJournal, and "Cities Of Chance: An Anthology of New Poetry from The United States and Brazil," both from Rattapallax Press. Books and projects are included elsewhere on this website.
Publications:
Anthologies / Short Fuse (Rattapallax Press), Role Call (Third World Press), Poetry Nation (Vehicule Press), Heights Of The Marvelous (St. Martins Press), An Anthology Of (New) American Poets (Talisman Press), Verses that Hurt (St. Martins Press), and ALOUD: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Henry Holt Press)
Journals / Chain, The World, Cross-Cultural Poetics, Longshot, Bombay Gin, PomPom, Lungfull, Ixnay among others
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