In 1972, Miguel Piñero (Benjamin Bratt) was in prison for a robbery. He used his time wisely creating Short Eyes, a drama about a black and Latino cellblock thrown into a state of hostility and murderous rage by the arrival of a white man accused of sexually molesting a child. The play was eventually championed by Joseph Papp (Mandy Patinkin) of New York's Public Theatre who saw Piñero as a bright light of Latino talent. Short Eyes eventually won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and was made into a film in 1977.

Writer and director Leon Ichaso (Crossover Dreams) circles around the life and the work of Piñero with an intensity that matches the Puerto Rican-born artist's creativity. The film does not shy away from a graphic depiction of Piñero's heroin addiction and his bisexuality. Although he lived with a woman (Talisa Soto) who loved him, he dated a transvestite and had an affair with his protégé Reinaldo Povod (Michael Irby) who wrote the play Cuba and His Teddy Bear. Perhaps these experiences were all part of his urban poetry, a streetwise versifying that served as a prelude to rap and hip-hop. One of his legacies was the establishment of the Nuyorican Poet's Café in an East Village storefront where Latino poets were given a chance to showcase their material.

Ichaso mixes black and white film and color digital sequences to convey the frantic quality of Piñero's jazzed-up lifestyle. The one stable influence is the poet and playwright's friendship with his mentor Miguel Algarin (Giancarlo Esposito), who was always there for him. Piñero died at age 40 in 1988 of cirrhosis of the liver. His friends followed his desire to have his ashes spread over the Lower East Side of Manhattan. While watching this closing scene in the film, we were reminded of another poet's sentiments. Emily Dickinson said of her own life: "My friends are my estate."