Artists Registry

Marguerite María Rivas is both poet and literary scholar. She holds a Doctor of Arts and Letters from Drew University and a Masters Degree in English Literature from CUNY. Rivas’s essays, articles, book reviews, and poetry have been published in The Americas Review, The Multicultural Review, Earth’s Daughters,Palo Alto Review, and Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream among other publications. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including five from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island. Cited by the New York State Legislature for her contribution to the literary arts, she is widely regarded as the de facto Poet Laureate of Staten Island. She was the recipient of the Chandler Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation, The Caspersen School’s Campbell Prize for Excellence in Literary Study, and the Irene C. Fromer Award for Literary Arts. Dr. Rivas has been invited to read her poetry at both local literary events and at national writers’ conferences and has lectured on Latino/a poetry, Virginia Woolf, and William Carlos Williams. Her chapbook, Poetry Cannot Save You, was published in 2003 with a second printing in 2005. With her performance collective Elektromótif, she has conceived and performed improvisational verse throughout New York City. Dr. Rivas has recorded with the ground-breaking improv-fusion band, Earth People, and with them performed with jazz legend, Gunter Hampel. She is a recipient of the Achievement in Literary Arts Award from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island. Dr. Rivas is an assistant professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY.