In honor of our People Issue, which will hit newsstands and computer screens November 25, Cultist proudly presents "100 Creatives," where we feature Miami's cultural superheroes in random order. Have suggestions for future profiles? Email cultist@miaminewtimes.com with the whos and whys.
At the age of six, poet and art collector Ricardo Pau-Llosa landed on American soil. "We didn't move to the United States or relocate or migrate on a whim, we fled Cuba for our lives." His exile from his native Cuba and the revolution that forced it shaped Pau-Llosa and his work indelibly. "While my poems may be about many things, what drives them is the idea that a modern people who love freedom, however exiled and maligned, live an epic dimension which they ignore at their own peril."
Pau-Llosa managed to thrive on foreign soil, spending time in Chicago and Tampa, until finally reaching the Mecca for all Cuban exiles--Miami. He graduated high school from Belén Jesuit Preparatory School, attended Florida colleges and universities, and eventually established himself as one of the region's foremost poets. Pau-Llosa is not just a poet, however. He is widely recognized for his knowledge of Latin American art, as an art critic, lecturer, art collector, curator, essayist, and short story writer.
"Among my many other blessings was the chance to witness the emergence of a genuine adventure in cultural survival in the Miami of the 1970s, when Cuban exile artists, writers, and musicians got back on their feet and laid the foundations for the pan-Latin American art movement that lasted two decades."
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The Creatives so far:
78. Agustina Woodgate
79. Tarell Alvin McCraney
80. Jennifer Kronenberg
81. Farley Aguilar
82. Colin Foord
83. Karelle Levy
84. Matt Gajewski
85. Antonia Wright
86. Charles Allen Klein
87. Christy Gast
88. Gustavo Matamoros
89. Shareen Rubiera-Sarwar
90. Kyle Trowbridge
91. Clifton Childree
92. Jessica Gross
93. Danny Brito
94. Nektar de Stagni
95. Anthony Spinello
96. Vanessa Garcia
97. Justin Long
98. Rosie Herrera
99. Rick Falcon
100. Ingrid B
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