Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet,[1][2] and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry.

He was introduced to political activism at an early age by his father, Frank Espada, a leader in the Puerto Rican community and the civil rights movement.

In 1982, Espada published his first book of political poems, The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero, featuring photography by his father.

[8] In 2009, Espada performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

[9] In 2021, Espada won the National Book Award for Poetry for his poem "Floaters" about two migrants, Oscar and his daughter Valeria, who drowned crossing the Rio Grande at the U.S.