Rhina Espaillat

Espaillat is the daughter of Carlos Manuel Homero Espaillat Brache (a nephew of Dominican diplomat Rafael Brache,[3] who was the maternal grandfather of Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez), a Dominican diplomatic attaché, and Dulce María Batista.[1] Her aunt Rhina Espaillat Brache founded the first ballet institute of La Vega.[4] Espaillat is fourth-cousin once-removed of Adriano Espaillat and great-great-great-grand-niece of Dominican President Ulises Espaillat, and is descended from the French immigrant François Espeillac.[4]

In 1939 the family was exiled and emigrated to the United States. She is a graduate of Hunter College where she got her Bachelor of Arts in 1953.[1] In 1964 she completed her M.S.E. at Queens College.[1] She taught English in the New York City public schools for many years, and retired to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where for more than a decade she has led a group of New Formalist poets known as the Powow River Poets.[5][6]

Espaillat writes in both English and Spanish, and has translated the poetry of Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur into Spanish . Her work has appeared in Poetry, The American Scholar, and many other journals. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and she judged the 2012 Contest. Her second poetry collection, Where Horizons Go, was published by Truman State University Press in conjunction with her selection for the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize. Her 2001 collection, Rehearsing Absence, was published by University of Evansville Press after winning the Richard Wilbur Award.[7][8]

Her work has been included in many popular anthologies, including The Heath Introduction to Poetry (Heath 2000); The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press 1997); and In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the U.S. (Arte Publico Press 1994). She is also known for her English translations of the Spanish language poems of St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), which have appeared in the American journal First Things.[9]

Her poetry contains rhythmic sonnets describing family life and domestic settings, called "snapshots" she also addresses issues of ancestry, assimilation, and immigration.[2]

Espaillat married Jewish sculptor, and teacher, Alfred Moskowitz in 1952. They remained together until he died in 2016; the couple had three children.[5]

• Where Horizons Go: Poems (1998)
• Rehearsing Absence (2001)
• The Shadow I Dress In (2004)
• The Story-Teller's Hour (2004)
• Playing at Stillness (2005)
• Her Place in These Designs (2008)
• And After All (2018)
• The Field (2019)

• "Rhina P. Espaillat". The Poetry Foundation. Short biography of the poet.
• "Rhina Espaillat-Weighing In". Poetry Everywhere. Public Broadcasting System. Short video of an animation that accompanies Espaillat's reading of her poem "Weighing In"; the animation was created by Christopher Dudley Thorpe.