PaPo Swiggity

Juan PaPo Santiago (also known as ‘PaPo Swiggity’) is a Nuyorican poet, promoter, community organizer, and cofounder of Capicu Poetry And Cultural Showcase (a long running open mic series based in Brooklyn NYC, inspired by the original Black Arts & Nuyorican Movements) and The School of Poetic Arts at Boricua College (an experimental educational arts series for artists and arts entrepreneurs). Born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents transplanted to New York City from Bayamon and Arecibo, he suffered from Selective Mutism at a very young age. PaPo did not talk publicly to anyone besides immediate family until the end of special-education Kindergarten though he was known for reading absolutely anything he could get his hands on, including the boxes and cans in his grandmothers kitchen. Both of his parents died tragically and separately in the 1980's, his father due to a drunk driver and his mother due to AIDS, he would have become a ward of the state if his grandparents hadn’t taken Legal Guardianship of him and his brother. As a way to deal with the significant deaths, PaPo related to the works of Edgar Allen Poe and started writing poetry at the age of 12. Out of necessity, instead of going to college he started working odd jobs and educated himself with encyclopedias, dictionaries, and textbooks wherever he would come across them. PaPo continued to struggle with the deaths of his parents (and by the end of his twenties, his grandparents), he was officially diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, a condition which he continues to work through. Ironically, this once voiceless young man would become a major voice of our urban Poet-Activist generation tuned in to the pulse of current trends in youth culture, arts-for-change and social good projects in New York City.