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<p>This article examines the improvisational, anticolonial poetics of David Hernández through his groundbreaking 1971 collection, <i>Despertando/Waking</i> Up—likely the first book of poetry published by a Latino in Illinois. It argues that the text is a living artifact of the 1966 Division Street riot, one that perpetually reactivates the event in the present. Central to this argument is Hernández’s practice of <i>word dealing</i>, a streetwise poetics that challenged academic elitism while recasting poetry as a collaborative act. Drawing on his role as bandleader for Street Sounds, the article shows how Hernández engaged musical forms like <i>descarga</i> to blur boundaries between artist and audience. Situating Hernández within Puerto Rican Chicago and Fred Hampton’s multiracial Rainbow Coalition, the discussion frames his writing and performance as radical practices of collective resistance. Ultimately, it proposes an <i>improvisational reading</i>, approaching his formal experimentation and depictions of violence as invitations to co-create meaning and (re)envision freedom.</p>

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Improvisation as Resistance in Despertando/Waking Up: David Hernández’s “Word Dealing” and the Anticolonial Poetics of Puerto Rican Chicago

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月23日

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  • Joe Alicea

摘要

This article examines the improvisational, anticolonial poetics of David Hernández through his groundbreaking 1971 collection, Despertando/Waking Up—likely the first book of poetry published by a Latino in Illinois. It argues that the text is a living artifact of the 1966 Division Street riot, one that perpetually reactivates the event in the present. Central to this argument is Hernández’s practice of word dealing, a streetwise poetics that challenged academic elitism while recasting poetry as a collaborative act. Drawing on his role as bandleader for Street Sounds, the article shows how Hernández engaged musical forms like descarga to blur boundaries between artist and audience. Situating Hernández within Puerto Rican Chicago and Fred Hampton’s multiracial Rainbow Coalition, the discussion frames his writing and performance as radical practices of collective resistance. Ultimately, it proposes an improvisational reading, approaching his formal experimentation and depictions of violence as invitations to co-create meaning and (re)envision freedom.