1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I published my first book when I was 25. I had been obsessed with poetry since I was 12 and had been participating in readings in San Juan along poets such as José Raúl "Gallego" González, Hermes Ayala, Mara Pastor, and Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro as a teenager. My style changed a lot after I want to SWP's Summer Writing Program when I was 18. There I studied under the mentorship of Daisy Zamora and Akilah Oliver and got to hear Amiri Baraka, Chip Delany, and Robin Blaser.
I worked intensively on the poems in my first book for about five or six years after that. While I was in the Comparative Literature Program at Mayagüez—the same program where I now teach—I met Lissette Rolón Collazo. She is an incredible editor and intellectual who ran the queer colloquium, El Coloquio ¿Del Otro Lao? and the press Editora Educación Emergente. She was also my professor and when she found out I had a manuscript, she invited me to submit to the press.
After I submitted the manuscript, there was a process where it was reviewed by three different readers who decided if it should be published. They decided on publication. I'm still so impressed because it was a long poetry book and the accumulation of many years of working on an early style. Publishing it gave me a great deal of confidence in my work. Sometimes I go back and reread those poems and have such mixed feelings. I can see a lot of how my style and work has changed, but the seeds are there. Thematically, questions of labor, coloniality, and gender were already present, as well and a formal interest in baroque metaphors rooted in daily life here.
I am incredibly grateful I published my first two books in Puerto Rico. This is my home. My forthcoming book la bella crisis will also be published here with Semipermeable.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I don't think I could answer that simply. We'd have to have a shared definition of what makes poetry and fiction different. I can definitely say I am a poet, not a prose writer. There is always a moment when I am reading a great novel that I think, "Wow. Impressive. That is why I'm not a novelist." Algarabía is an epic poem, a narrative poem. It was incredibly fun to write, and the narrative was challenging, but it is a poem. It reads like an epic, not a novel.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I usually take a break after a big project. By break I don't mean a long time, but a time when I don't write at all. I need to disconnect from poetry after a book. A reset. I need to hang out and share and celebrate the work I just made. It's not about a specific amount of time, but about enjoying the work! About being alive.
Editing and rewriting is part of the writing process. Each poem requires different edits, some more than others.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I don't know. I just write. Poems come. Some are short pieces. Some don't belong anywhere. Others are long. Some are part of collections. Others end up being the beginning of larger projects. Books tend to be projects for me, but sometimes it takes time for a project to take shape and make itself known to me.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love doing readings. I love it when people respond to my work. I love sharing my work.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Each book answers a different question and concern.
My third poetry book lo terciario/the tertiary (1st ed. Timeless, Infinite Light, 2nd ed. Noemi Press), a poetic response to the Puerto Rican debt crisis and a decolonial reconsideration of Marx's Capital.
My fourth poetry book, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), a text written in dialogic fragments and interspersed with prose poems reflecting on the lasting impact of the trauma experienced after Hurricane María. It is centered con questions of coloniality, power, trauma, aesthetics and linguistic colonialism.
My fifth poetry book, x/ex/exis, offers poems that meet at the intersection of gender, nation, and language.
My sixth poetry book, antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano (Beacon Press, 2022), imagines a multiverse of decolonial futures for Puerto Rico.
My newest collection, Algarabía, which will be out on September 2, is an epic poem that follows the journey of Cenex, a trans being who retrospectively narrates his life while navigating the stories told on his behalf. It inscribes an origin narrative for trans people in the face of their erasure from both colonial and anti-colonial literary canons.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Debates about the roles of writers in society are as old as writing. I can't talk about the role of "the writer" because I do not have a lot in common with some writers. Being a writer doesn't automatically make me anti-colonial or even socially aware. I think writers should spend less time debating the role they should have and more time either writing or acting. I go to protests as a person, not as a writer. I write as a writer. I say "Free Palestine" because I believe in a world without genocide, colonialism, and profit margins. There are many writers who are comfortable investing in Lockheed Martin. I am not one of them and I don't think I share anything with them except a general interest in literature.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I request specific editors for most of my projects because the Spanish side of my books is written in a Puerto Rican dialect of Spanish and I am trans and my language reflects that, which means I need someone comfortable with inclusive language and respectful of my work. I am not going to spend hours teaching an Argentinian copyeditor that in Puerto Rico we say "cristal" when referring to a car window. It's not my job. I have Puerto Rican editors.
As for editors in English, I also tend to request people who are aware of linguistic colonialism and won't ask me to translate "múcaro" as "screech owl" when those are literally different birds. After many years of bad experiences, I've become demanding and learned to say "no." It isn't my responsibility to decolonize the editorial world. All I can do is ask for editors that understand the gift that is Puerto Rican literature. It is the bare minimum. I am doing all the work of translating myself and my life, the least I can ask for is that the translation be treated with respect.
For Algarabía I was quite luck. I worked with editors that helped a great deal and were very thorough.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
A writer once reminded a group of us that we were getting so excited about being featured in a well-known publication that we were losing sight of the fact that it was an honor for the magazine to get to interview us. That has been my guiding light for a long time. Be true to your work. Read and work hard. Never let colonizers disrespect you by giving them your power.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation)? What do you see as the appeal?
Those aren't different for me. I used the same set of tools for both. If you've ever tried translating a sonnet, you know that you need to be a poet for that to be a great sonnet in the target language. Not all poets are translators, and not all translators are poets, but I am both and they don't exist separately in my life. Literary translators should be writers. It is not a popular opinion, but I am always surprised that people think they can render something extraordinary in another language without having a sense of how it sounds, of its literariness. If anything, I am simply focusing on a slightly different aspect of language when I am translating, but translating is a form of rewriting.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
A typical day for me begins with class prep and coffee because I am teaching four literature courses. This week we discuss Vladimir Propp's functions, Philip K. Dick and the movie Total Recall, Alice Notley's The Descent of Alette, Longinus's On the Sublime, contemporary Puerto Rican poetry, Farid ud-din Attar's The Conference of the Birds, Cervantes, and whether Popeyes or Church's Chicken has the best biscuits. Reading is a huge part of my writing practice. I am not one of those writers that has a writing routine, but I am a rigorous and consistent reader.
When I am writing, I sometimes take long breaks from work and concentrate on writing. It is the only way I can work consistently.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read literature.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I had to call my uncle for this question. Jajaja. When I was a kid, I would visit my grandparents place on the road leading to Añasco for the summers. My uncle had a room where he lived and kept his tools and mountain climbing equipment and I have a visceral smell of the mix of his perfume and the equipment. He says it was probably Curve.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Of course. Music: reggaetón, salsa, música de tríos, nueva trova, hip-hop, have all influenced me deeply. I am obviously inspired by Villana (Villano Antillano), and I am inspired by everyday things: oil puddles, edibles, two changos fighting, going to the Walgreens. I love movies, from commercial films like Clueless or John Wick, to more independent productions like Andrea Arnold's films or Perfume de Gardenias. Lists feel pretty limiting, but in terms of visual artists, I love Cy Twombly, Natalia Bosques Chico, and Pepón Osorio and I am inspired by performance artists such as Awilda Sterling and André Po Rodil.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I am part of a community. Puerto Rican literature wouldn't exist without our incredible efforts to keep it alive despite colonialism. Other writers here are so important to me. My friendships with writers such as Xavier Valcárcel, Roberto Ncar, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Hakeem Torres, Cristina Pérez Díaz, Angelía Rivera Mar, Gaddiel Francisco Ruiz Rivera, Gamelyn Oduardo-Sierra, Mayra Santos-Febres, üatibirí, Urayoán Noel, Mara Pastor, Isamar Anzalotta, Alejandra Rosa, Francisco Félix Canales Dalmau, Luis Negrón, Kadiri Vaquer Fernández, Veronika Reca, Willie Perdomo, Denice Frohman, Yara Liceaga, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Carina del Valle Schorske, Yamil Maldonado, Jean Alberto Rodríguez, Nicole Cecilia Delgado.... I know I've left out so many people. I am sorry! My point is that my community is expansive and includes a bunch of people. Even if we don't see each other regularly, we count on each other for a lot.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Visit every place in the Caribbean I haven't visited yet.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
A filmmaker. I love movies so much. They take up a lot of space in my life.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Sincerely, I don't know if I could have done something else, but I fell in love with poetry at a very young age and decided I wanted to be a poet. I am now almost 40, so it has been about 28 years of obsessing over poetry. I love it still and it has kept me alive.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just reread The Descent of Alette and Altazar. They are still both great! I see too many movies, so I'm not sure what the latest is, but I recently saw The Ugly Stepsister, which was great, and I saw Sinners in theaters, which I also loved.
20 - What are you currently working on?
Touring with Algarabía and organizing a big launch on September 13 at Casa Aboy with a line-up that includes some amazing writers and performers, drinks, and a book signing with Casa Riel.
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