Arroyo, Rane

PERSONAL:

Born in Chicago, IL. Ethnicity: "Puerto Rican born in Chicago." Education: University of Pittsburgh, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Department of English, University of Toledo, Mail Stop 925, 2801 W. Bancroft St., Toledo, OH 43606-3390. E-mail—rane.arroyo@utoled.edu; RRArroyo@aol.com.

CAREER:

Writer, poet, playwright, and educator. University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, full professor. Served as a writer-in-residence at Brown University, Slippery Rock University, University of Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania Writer's project, and Youngstown State University, and as Cesar Chavez Visiting Writer at Saginaw Valley State University. Previously worked in arts management, in hospital billing, and at a variety of temporary assignments and factory work.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, 1985, for Other Couples: Three One-Act Plays; Hart Crane Memorial Award, 1991, for the poem "Le Mal de Siam"; second place, Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, 1992, for "The Carlos Poems #1"; Sonora Review Chapbook Contest Award, 1993, for The Red Bed; George Houston Bass Award, 1993, for the play The Amateur Virgin; Stonewall Books National Chapbook Prize, 1996, for The Naked Thief; Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize, 1997, for The Singing Shark; Pushcart Prize, 1997, for the poem "Breathing Lessons"; and the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, 2004, for The Portable Famine. Also recipient of the University of Toledo Summer Research Fellowship, 1997, for Red House on Fire; Dean's Research Award, University of Toledo, 1998 for "The Spectacle of Ponce de León"; Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Individual Artist Grant, 1998, for Blood Never Rusts; Dean's Merit Award, University of Toledo, 1999; Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Individual Artist Grant, 2001-02, for creative nonfiction essay on Toledo, "Glass Words;" and Excellence in Poetry Grant, Ohio Arts Council, 2007.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

The Naked Thief (chapbook), New Poets Series (Baltimore, MD), 1996.

The Singing Shark, Bilingual Press (Tempe, AZ), 1996.

Pale Ramón, Zoland Books (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

Home Movies of Narcissus, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 2002.

How to Name a Hurricane, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 2005.

The Portable Famine, BkMk Press (Kansas City, MO), 2005.

Also author of Columbus's Orphan, JVC Press, and the plays The Amateur Virgin, A Lesson in Writing Love Letters, and Buddha and the Señorita. Author of the chapbooks Don Quixote Goes to the Moon, The Naked Thief, The Red Bed, The Television Poems, and Death Cab for Cutie. Contributor to Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume E: Contemporary Period: 1845 to the Present, 5th edition, edited by Paul Lauter, Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Poems have appeared in periodicals, including Ploughshares, Monserrat Review, Poetry Midwest, Pedestal, and Heliotrope. Plays have appeared in periodicals, including the Bellingham Review, Kenyon Review, Poems & Plays, and Xavier Review. The Rane Arroyo Papers were established at El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College in 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Rane Arroyo is a playwright and the author of numerous collections of poetry focusing on identity in its many forms, from national to sexual. Commenting in the Lambda Book Report on Arroyo's collection of poems titled The Singing Shark, Miguel Falquez-Certain wrote that the collection was uneven but noted: "In poems such as ‘My First Novel’ … and ‘Obituary’ … I see a first-rate poet at work, begetting his own mythopoesis, fleshing out a unique, lyrical voice." In Home Movies of Narcissus, the author presents poems that often "deal with acting, masks, and the taking on of personas, pointing to the author's unease with questions of Identity," as noted by Reginald Harris in Oyster Boy Review. Harris went on to call the collection "moving, often witty and satisfying." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: "Arroyo's hyperallusive free verse and his combination of themes drive this appealing mix of ambition and insight."

Arroyo's 2005 collection of poems titled The Portable Famine often focuses on artists and writers, from the Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas to pop singer Enrique Iglesias. A contributor to the Internet Bookwatch called The Portable Famine a collection of the author's "most astute and memorable work." A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented on the author's ability to "depict desire, frustration, a high culture heritage and an unwilling distance from that heritage, all in the same few lines."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Internet Bookwatch, April, 2006, review of The Portable Famine.

Lambda Book Report, September, 1996, Miguel Falquez-Certain, review of The Singing Shark, p. 27.

Oyster Boy Review, winter, 2003-04, Reginald Harris, review of Home Movies of Narcissus.

Publishers Weekly, September 23, 2002, review of Home Movies of Narcissus, p. 70; October 24, 2005, review of The Portable Famine, p. 41.

ONLINE

AWP Writer,http://www.awpwriter.org/ (February 14, 2007), brief profile of author.

BkMk Press Web site,https://www.umkc.edu/bkmk/ (February 14, 2007), "An Interview with Rane Arroyo."

FortuneCity,http://www.fortunecity.com/ (February 14, 2007), biography of author.

PoetryMagazine.com,http://www.poetrymagazine.com/ (February 14, 2007), profile of author.

University of Toledo Department of Theatre & Film Web site,http://theatre.utoledo.edu/ (February 14, 2007), faculty profile of author.