Rane Ramón Arroyo has died of a cerebral hemorrhage, he was 55. Arroyo was an American poet, playwright, and scholar of Puerto Rican descent who wrote numerous books and received many literary awards.[1] He was a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Toledo in Ohio.[2] His work deals extensively with issues of immigration, Latino culture, and homosexuality.[3] Arroyo was openly gay and frequently wrote self-reflexive, autobiographical texts.[4] He was the long-term partner of the American poet Glenn Sheldon. Rane Ramón Arroyo was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Puerto Rican immigrant parents. He began his career as a performance artist in the Chicago art galleries of the 1980s and eventually expanded into poetry, for which he has become best known.
Arroyo earned his Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Pittsburgh where he wrote his dissertation on issues surrounding the Chicago Renaissance that parallel the building of a contemporary Latino literary canon.[5] He served as the co-Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) and as the co-Chair for the 2009 Chicago Conference.
Arroyo died in the early morning of May 7, 2010 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.[6][7]
Arroyo was included in the Heath Anthology of American Literature published in 2006; this book is commonly taught in English college classes in the U.S.[4] He won the 2004-05 John Ciardi Poetry Prize for The Portable Famine; the 1997 Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize for his book The Singing Shark; and a 1997 Pushcart Prize for the poem "Breathing Lessons" as published in Ploughshares. Other awards include: Stonewall Books Chapbook Prize; The Sonora Review Chapbook Prize, the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize, and a 2007 Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award in Poetry.
Betsy A. Sandlin published an article on him ("Poetry Always Demands All My Ghosts: The Haunted and Haunting Poetry of Rane Arroyo") in a landmark issue of CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Puerto Rican queer studies.[8] Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes has also written about his work.[4][9]
Works
Books of Poetry
- Columbus's Orphan. Arcadia, Fl.: JVC books, 1993. ISBN 1878116177
- The Singing Shark. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 1996. ISBN 0927534614
- Pale Ramón. Cambridge, Mass.: Zoland Books, 1998. ISBN 0944072941
- Home Movies of Narcissus. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. ISBN 0816521956
- The Portable Famine. Kansas City, Mo.: BkMk Press, 2005. ISBN 1886157537
- Don Quixote goes to the Moon. Tokyo/Toronto: Ahadada Books, 2006.
- The Roswell Poems. La Porte, Ind.: WordFarm, 2008. ISBN 9781602260016
- Same-Sex Séances. New Sins Press, 2008. ISBN 0979695619
- The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. ISBN 9780816527168
- The Sky's Weight. Turning Point Press, 2009. ISBN 1934999733
Book of Short Stories
- How To Name A Hurricane. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005. ISBN 0816524602
Performed Plays
- The Amateur Virgin, Buddha and the Señorita, Tiara Tango, Emily Dickinson in Bandages, A Family In Figleaves, Prayers For A Go-Go Boy, Honeymoon Rehearsals, House With Black Windows (with the poet Glenn Sheldon), Red House On Fire, and Horatio: An Inquisition.
Published Plays
- Dancing At Funerals: Selected Plays. Tokio and Toronto: ahadada books, 2010. ISBN 9780981274447
- Buddha and the Señorita, Sex With The Man-in-The-Moon, Spanish Moon, Bed But No Breakfast, Fade To White (with the poets Glenn Sheldon and Diane Williams), Honeymoon Rehearsals, and A Lesson In Writing Love Letters.
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