Jack Agüeros Dies: Puerto Rican Poet Dead From Alzheimer’s Complication

Jack Agueros, Puerto Rican poet, has died at the age of 79 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was known as a champion of el barrio and of New York City. He was a poet. He was born in East Harlem in 1934 to Puerto Rican parents. His beginnings were very humble. Agueros grew and while he grew the desire to fight for the Latinos in poverty also grew.

He studied at Brooklyn College, his passion for literature, poetry and social activism also grew like a firing flame. Before graduating he started writing poems and working as a activist in his community by bettering lives of Hispanic women in need of the Lower East Side. In the 60s he began to develop a political career, meeting with important Puerto Ricans to discuss the difficulties Latinos faced day to day in New York. In the 70s he became the director of Museo del Barrio, making it a cultural entity not only for the Puerto Rican culture, but for Latin American culture.

Although he wrote poems all his life, his first book of poems, “Correspondence Between the Stone Haulers” wasn’t published until 1991. Then followed poems including “Sonnets from the Puerto Rican,” “Lord, Is this a Psalm?” He also translated some of the poems from great Julia de Burgos. He is survived by his children Marcel, Kadi and Natalia, plus three grandchildren.

The daughter of the poet, Natalia Agüeros-Macario, said exclusively to Latin Times, "The thing we will miss most is his imagination, which he applied to everything he did, from the stories he told us, to his writing, to his cooking, to his problem-solving. It's hard to convey, but all of us who spent time with him treasure that about Papi."

He is survived by his children Marcel, Kadi and Natalia, plus three grandchildren.