A bilingual Nuyorican poet, Edwin Torres was born in the Bronx and is a longtime resident of New York City. He is a highly acclaimed performance poet, and his exuberant live shows combine physical improvisation and theater. He is also the author of the collections Fractured Humorous (1999) and In the Function of External Circumstances (2010); the chapbook Lung Poetry (1994), with photographs by Luigi Cazzaniga; and the self-published chapbooks I Hear Things People Haven’t Really Said (1992) and SandHomméNomadNo (1997). His recordings include Oceano Rise, Novo, and Holy Kid.
 
Torres has collaborated with artists in a variety of media. As a member of Real Live Poetry (formerly Nuyorican Poets Café Live) from 1993 to 1999, he led workshops and performed in the United States and abroad. He also created a performance group called Poets Neurotica, and in an interview with Wanda Phipps explained the origins and tenets of his movement, which he called “i.e. (interactive eclecticism).”
 
In describing Torres’s eclectic style, Brenda Coultas wrote of Fractured Humorous in a review: “It is a visit with the fractist, who in healing becomes the healer. The nomad is a constant in Torres’s work, an alter ego for this poet who is claimed by a diverse group of avant-garde factions that include: The Nuyorican Poets Café, Poetry Project, and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school. Thus he finds himself a nomad, a traveler among poets.”
 
Torres has received fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art and the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and he has won the Nuyorican Poets Café Fresh Prize for Poetry. His CD Holy Kid was included in the Whitney Museum’s exhibit The American Century Pt. II. He has been co-editor of the journal Rattapallax and has been writer-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.