SOURCE: Cruz, Victor Hernández, and Carmen Dolores Hernández. “Victor Hernández Cruz.” In Puerto Rican Voices in English: Interviews with Writers, edited by Carmen Dolores Hernández, pp. 63-75. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

In the following interview, Cruz discusses the significance of his Puerto Rican identity in his poetry.

His country accent—in Spanish—defines him as a man who comes from the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico. His measured words reveal a profundity of thought, a dedication to study, and an awareness of language that sets him apart. Victor Hernández Cruz has always tried to find the sense and significance behind life experiences and the music behind sounds and language: his work can be thought of as a quest for a rhythm that combines the different beats of two societies, two cultures.

Of all the well-known New York-Puerto Rican poets, he is the only one...