Vincent Toro

Poet

Fort Lee, NJ
New Jersey US

Author's Bio

Vincent Toro is a Puerto Rican poet, playwright, performer, and professor. He is the author of three poetry collections: Hivestruck (Penguin Random House, 2024), Tertulia (Penguin Random House, 2020) and Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta, 2016), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Vincent is a recipient of a Letras Boricuas Writing Fellowshop from the Flamboyan Foundation, winner of the Caribbean Writer’s Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize and the Spanish Repertory Theater’s Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award, recipient of a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a New York Council for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a New Jersey State Council for the Arts Writer’s Fellowship. His poetry and prose has been published in dozens of magazines and journals and has been anthologized in Saul Williams’ CHORUS, Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, and Latino Poetry: The Library of American Anthology. He is Professor of English at Rider University and a contributing editor for Kweli Literary Journal. 

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
Até Mais: Latinx Futurisms (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2024)
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Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology (Library of America, 2024)
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Latino Poetry: The Library of American Anthology (Library of America, 2024)
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The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext (Haymarket Books, 2020)
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Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump's America (NYQ Books, 2018)
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Best American Experimental Writing 2015 (Wesleyan University Press, 2016)
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Chorus (Simon & Schuster, 2013)
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The Waiting Room Reader 2 (CavanKerry Press, 2013)
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The Last Cacique, published with the play La Gringa, by Carmen Rivera (Samuel French, 2011)
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Coloring Book: An Anthology of Multicultural Poems and Stories (Rattlecat Press, 2004)
Books:
Hivestruck (Penguin Random House, 2024)
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Tertulia (Penguin Random House, 2020)
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Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta Press, 2016)
Journals:
Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day
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Barzakh
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BOAAT Journal
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Chiricu
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Codex Journal
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Huizache
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OmniVerse
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Poetry Daily
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Rattapallax
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San Antonio Express-News
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Small Axe
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The Buenos Aires Review
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The Caribbean Writer
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The Texas Review
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Word is Bond
Prizes won: 

2024: Letras Boricuas Writing Fellowshop. 2023: Pushcary Prize Nominee. 2020: NJ Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship. 2019: New Jersey Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship. 2018: Amiri Baraka Scholarship, Naropa University. Nominee, Best of the Net. Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. 2016: Winner, The Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. Winner, The Caribbean Writer's Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize. 2015: Winner, Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize Nominee. 2014:New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. Pushcart Prize Nominee. Finalist, Beatrice Hawley Award. Finalist, Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Poet's House Emerging Poets Fellowship. 2011: Winner of the Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. 2009: Winner, Alamo Theater Arts Council award for Best Director, Finalist for the Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. 2008: The City of San Antonio's November Artist of the Month. 2007: Finalist for the Artist Foundation Literary Arts Prize. 2005: Finalist for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize.

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Aime Cesaire, Kamau Brathwaite, Pedro Pietri, Zadie Smith, Federico Garcia Lorca, Audre Lorde, Eduardo Galeano, Dr. Grisel Acosta, James Baldwin, Julia De Burgos, Octavia Butler, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Dionne Brand.
What I'm reading now: 
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, Covery Joy by Clarice Lispector, Putinoika by Giannina Braschi, "Algarabía" by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue, The Secret Public by Jon Savage, Who's Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
Latino/Latina/Latinx
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Born in: 
Manhattan, NY
New York
Raised in: 
North Bergen, NJ
New Jersey
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Oct 15, 2025