As one of the poets who has worked to reinvigorate the Nuyorican poetry movement in recent years, Shaggy Flores brings a scholarly attitude to what he refers to as cultural work. He sees poetry as a way to simultaneously inspire people and educate them. For him poetry is a vehicle to dismantle stereotypes and damaging myths and to share knowledge of music, Puerto Rican culture and traditions, urban culture, the political movements of the 60s and 70s, African cultural traditions and black history in the Atlantic.