Ciudad Poesía: Oscar Fuentes’ Intimate Cartography of Memory and Connection
Written by Alexandra Martinez
In the early 2000s, when Wynwood was entering its golden age and nights in Miami felt electric with possibility, Oscar Fuentes seemed to be everywhere. His fedora became a kind of local icon, situated at a typewriter, a moment for magic. You could hand him a few words—your essence, your hopes, your dreams—and he would distill them into a poem, typed on the spot, a keepsake of optimism in a city always on the cusp of reinvention. Widely known as “The Biscayne Poet,” Fuentes has remained a constant presence in Miami’s shifting cultural landscape. His most recent exhibition Ciudad Poesía: Poetry in the Age of Connection at Gato Gordo Gallery consecrates that lineage as a living practice, a ritual of memory and connection. As Wynwood mainstays like Wood Tavern and Gramps close their doors and the city transforms once again, Fuentes continues to capture Miami’s pulse through his words, carrying forward its hunger for beauty and reflection.
At the core of Fuentes’ practice is an almost oracular process. With a name and three words from a stranger, he composes a poem in under five minutes on one of his vintage typewriters.
“People want to hear that they’re loved, that everything will be okay,” he says. “We share the same range of emotions.”
To reach that intimacy quickly, he turns the prompt inward, writing first to himself and then handing the finished text to the person across the table. The exchange resembles a spiritual reading: visitors often weep, startled by how precisely he has voiced their inner lives.
The exhibition preserves this fleeting intimacy in physical form. Poems cascade across the gallery walls like a collective brainstorm. Many originate in public events dating back to 2014—relics of encounters where strangers entrusted Fuentes with their words. The curator organized the show less like a pristine gallery hang and more like a working studio: illustrations, books, and stacked pages recreate the poet’s productive disorder. The arrangement becomes a map of voices, an urban chorus of requests and replies.
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A family altar anchors this chorus. Fuentes brought photographs of grandparents and other relatives who have passed—elders he describes as the true teachers of love in his life. The altar, studded with small saints and tokens, echoes traditions of ancestor veneration through the lens of his Honduran heritage and Miami upbringing. It signals a belief that communication extends across generations and that remembrance itself creates dialogue.
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“My work carries an urgency to save memory,” he says.
In that light, Ciudad Poesía becomes an act of resistance against erasure. Poetry, which certainly offers a moment for consoling, also holds space for people, experiences, and histories that might otherwise fade. In this way, the poems are a balm and a testament to the city’s enduring spirit.
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Fuentes has long folded the city into his writing: Biscayne Bay as a muse, a crematorium’s smoke drifting past a window, Art Deco architecture, late-night friendships and lovers. He earned the moniker “The Biscayne Poet” because the city feeds his practice at every turn. ​
“This city keeps inspiring me,” he says. “I can write about the bay, the buildings, the ex-girlfriends. It’s a love affair. I love it and hate it, but love wins.”
In Ciudad Poesía, that relationship unfurls through poems that treat Miami as a living text.
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Ultimately, the exhibition poses a question: what does poetry mean in the “age of connection”? Fuentes typewriters feel purpose-built for this inquiry. They slow language down to the rhythm of keystrokes and demand presence. The curator sees a deliberate countercurrent to digital churn. A typed page carries weight: pressure marks, ink, a human tempo. Handing a poem to another person produces a durable bond that outlives a fleeting notification.
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Opening night made that hunger palpable. A line stretched through the gallery as visitors waited for poems, while Fuentes paced his breath with sips of water and kept typing. The scene echoed events where every guest requests a keepsake verse. In a city often caricatured as glossy and hurried, Ciudad Poesía revealed a deep collective appetite for attention and care, offered through language.
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Ciudad Poesía argues that poetry thrives through exchange. It preserves the past through remembrance, animates the present through performance, and points toward a more generous future. The altar affirms that ancestors continue to guide us; the poems affirm that strangers often mirror our secret selves. In an era crowded with signals, Fuentes centers the human voice and its capacity to answer need with tenderness. His citywide practice, distilled here into a room of paper, machines, and quiet devotion, proposes a simple ethic: listen closely, and then respond from the heart.
