Elizam Escobar is a Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and visual artist.

Early years

Escobar was born in Puerto Rico's second largest city, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Ponce, Puerto Rico

Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...

, on the southern part of the island. There he received his primary and secondary education. As a child, he always enjoyed drawing and painting. After Escobar graduated from high school he enrolled and attended the University of Puerto Rico

University of Puerto Rico

The University of Puerto Rico is the state university system of Puerto Rico. The system consists of 11 campuses and has approximately 64,511 students and 5,300 faculty members...

 to pursue his artistic studies.

Political activist

During his years as a student, he became actively involved in the Puerto Rican independence movement

Puerto Rican independence movement

The Puerto Rican independence movement refers to initiatives throughout the history of Puerto Rico aimed at obtaining independence for the Island, first from Spain, and then from the United States...

. He became a member of the underground group called The Armed Forced of Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN). After he earned his Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts, he moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. In New York he attended the City College of New York

City College of New York

The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

. Escobar also taught art at the Museo del Barrio's School of the Arts from 1979 to 1980.

On April 4, 1980, Escobar was among eleven FALN members arrested by the FBI in Evanston

Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 under the suspicion of plotting to bomb Federal installations. They were charged with seditious conspiracy and related charges. During and after the trail he sustained his position that he and the others were prisoners of war. Escobar was sentenced to a prison term of 68 years which was to be served in the federal prison of El Reno, Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

.

Artistic work

During his incarceration, Escobar used his free time to produce much of his art work. He also wrote about art and his theories about art were published in journals like Rethinking Marxism, third Test and Left Curve. Escobar argued against the use of art as political propaganda and was in favor of artistic autonomy. While serving his prison term, a series of his art work, which he titled Art as an Act of Liberation, was exhibited in the following galleries:

• The Axe Street Arena
• Galeria Kalpulli
• Polvo in Chicago http://polvo.org/elizam.htm
• Casa de Arte y Cultura/Calles y Sueños, Chicago
• Rafael Cintrón-Ortiz Cultural Center in Chicago; at the ABC No Rio Gallery in New York City
• The Dissident Voices Gallery in Philadelphia
• In various cities in Puerto Rico.

Among the magazines which have published his works are: Beginnings, Currents, Left Curve, De Pie y En Lucha and Polvo. His poems have been published in the Anthology of Latino Poets in New York.

Currently

On September 7, 1999, Escobar and the ten other prisoners who were arrested with him were granted clemency by President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. Escobar returned to Puerto Rico immediately upon his release.

Escobar is currently the Dean of the Painting Department of the School of Fine Arts (Escuela de Artes Plásticas) in San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...

. His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Philadelphia and in the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture

Institute of Puerto Rican Culture

The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture , or ICP, for short, is an institution of the Government of Puerto Rico responsible for the establishment of the cultural policies required in order to study, preserve, promote, enrich, and diffuse the cultural values of Puerto Rico...

. He has authored two books, "Speech in the Night" and "Sonia Semenovena", published by Quinera editors.

See also

• List of Puerto Rican writers
• List of Famous Puerto Ricans
• Puerto Rican literature

External links

• Not Enough Space