Raquel Salas Rivera (born December 26, 1985) is a bilingual Puerto Rican poet who writes in Spanish and English, focusing on the experience of being a migrant to the United States, the colonial status of Puerto Rico, and of identifying as a queer Puerto Rican and Philadelphian of non-binary gender. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania and was selected as the fourth

Poet Laureate of Philadelphia Poet Laureate of Philadelphia is a civic position in the City of Philadelphia. The Poet Laureate has been described as an "Ambassador of Poetry". The holder of the position is expected to actively promote literacy and encourage expression in the c ...

in 2018. He currently lives in Puerto Rico.

Education and early life

Raquel Salas Rivera was born in

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Mayagüez (, ) is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, and is also known as ''La Sultana del Oeste'' (The Sultaness of the West), ''Ciudad de las Aguas Pura ...

and moved to

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

when he was 6 months old. During his childhood years, he lived in California, Nebraska, Alabama, and Texas. He returned to Puerto Rico during his teenage years and young adulthood, moving to Philadelphia for graduate studies. His grandfather, Sotero Rivera Avilés, was a Puerto Rican poet belonging to the ''Guajana'' Generation, as is his mother, linguist Yolanda Rivera Castillo. The poet attended the

Universidad de Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

at Mayagüez for his undergraduate degree, and had an instrumental role in organizing student protests at that campus in 2010.

Career and writing

Salas Rivera's writing emphasizes movement and often deals with themes of migration. In speaking about his heritage, the author acknowledges that migrating people have multiple homes and allegiances, and states that "My home is Philadelphia, and my home is Puerto Rico.” He prefers to write in Spanish, and later sometimes translates his works to English. For public readings, he often recites works only in Spanish. According to the poet, "It's a political act" to have an audience of non-Spanish speakers listen to a language they don't understand, because the momentary discomfort echoes the everyday struggles of immigrants who don't yet understand the language of their new country. In his writing, he often leaves some words untranslated, which he refers to as "knots" that "resist assimilation and loss" because language and experience can be so tightly bound as to defy separation. His work ''lo terciario/the tertiary'' focuses on the Puerto Rican debt crisis and the economic and social impact of the 2016 United States congressional measure called the

PROMESA The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is a U.S. federal law enacted in 2016 that established a financial oversight board, a process for restructuring debt, and expedited procedures for approving critical in ...

Law that transferred control of the island's finances and outstanding debt to an external control board. Salas Rivera titled each book section after Marxist economic ideas from

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in Historical mater ...

: “The Debt-Production Process,” “The Debt-Circulation Process,” and “Notes on a Derailed Circulation", beginning each poem with a quote by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, as both a critique and a subversion of Marxist language. The poet identifies as non-binary gender and refers to himself with the pronoun "he". He has adopted the Spanish word "buchipluma", in as a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

for a "non-binary feathered butch" to describe his gender identity. One of his inspirations is the Puerto Rican

Latin trap Latin trap is a subgenre of Trap music, trap music that originated in Puerto Rico. A direct descendant of southern hip hop, and influenced by reggaeton, it gained popularity after 2007, and has since spread throughout Latin America. ''The trap'' ...

singer

Bad Bunny Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (born March 10, 1994), known professionally as Bad Bunny, is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer. His musical style is defined as Latin trap and reggaeton. He rose to prominence in 2016 with his song "Diles", wh ...

. To Salas Rivera, poetry has given him "an inside", "an outside", and "a means for talking about things", referencing gender identity. Acknowledging a historical lack of transgender persons' voices in literature, Salas Rivera has attempted to "navigate" this gap by speaking from a transgender perspective. Through his writing and civic activism, he seeks to "engage people throughout Philadelphia neighborhoods" and "make a Philadelphia that is safe for difference". During his tenure as Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Salas Rivera created a multilingual poetry festival called "We (Too) Are Philly" inspired by the work "

I, Too "I, Too" is a Poetry, poem written by Langston Hughes that shows a want for Racial equality, equality through patience whilst going against the idea that patriotism is limited by race. It was first published in Hughes' first volume of poetry, ''The ...

" by the African-American poet

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

. The summer 2018 festival, co-organized with poets Ashley Davis, Kirwyn Sutherland, and Raena Shirali, featured Philadelphia-based poets of color. The goal of the organizers was to diversify the poetry scene to encourage the mixing or desegregation of audiences, while selecting locations of significance to particular Philadelphia neighborhoods that usually do not host poetry readings.

Personal life

Salas Rivera lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2017, Salas Rivera and Allison Harris raised thousands of dollars to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Puerto Ricans who were impacted by

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a deadly Saffir–Simpson scale#Category 5, Category 5 Tropical cyclone, hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the wo ...

that year. Through his efforts, he was able to bring 5 queer/transgender persons to the United States and support them, with assistance from the Mazzoni Center. That same year, Salas Rivera, alongside Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Erica Mena, and Carina del Valle Schorske, published ''Puerto Rico en mi corazón'', a series of bilingual broadside of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. All profits from the sale of the broadsides were donated to the grassroots organization Taller Salud, in order to aid with recovery after the devastation caused by the impact of hurricanes Irma and María.

Works

;Books of poetry *2022: ''antes que isla es volcán / before island is volcano.'' Beacon Press, , OCL
1277183477
*2020: ''x/ex/exis.'' Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe. *2019: ''Puerto Rico en mi corazón,'' ed. Salas Rivera, Maldonado, Mena, Del Valle Schorske, Anomalous Press. *2019: ''while they sleep (under the bed is another country).'' Birds, LLC. *2018: ''lo terciario/the tertiary'', OCL
1055273795
*2017: ''tierra intermitente/intermittent land''. Ediciones Alayubia, 1st ed. *2017: ''Desdominios''. Douda Correria. (Portuguese translation) OCL
1076641364
*2016: ''oropel/tinsel''. OCL
1021770124
*2011: ''Caneca de anhelos turbios'', OCL
764494213
;Artist books * ''Gringo Death Coloring Book'', with art by Erica Mena and Mariana Ramos Ortiz ;Editorial works * ''#27 :: Indigenous Futures and Imagining the Decolonial'', co-edited with BBP Hosmillo and Sarah Clark, Anomalous Press. * ''Puerto Rico en Mi Corazón'', co-edited with Erica Mena, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, and Carina del Valle Schorske, Anomalous Press. * ''The Wanderer'', co-editor, 2016-2018. ;Contributor to anthologies *2018: Small blows against encroaching totalitarianism., OCL
1049785850
Salas Rivera has also published in periodicals such as the ''Revista del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña'', ''Apiary'', ''Apogee'', ''BOAAT'', and the ''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

''.

Awards and honors

He was a resident artist of the 2018-2019

Kimmel Center The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is a large performing arts venue at 300 South Broad Street and the corner of Spruce Street, along the stretch known as the Avenue of the Arts in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is owned and ...

Jazz Residency, a 2019 Playwright Fellow at the

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers f ...

Theater Program, a 2020 writer in residence for the ''Norwegian Festival of Literature'', and a 2020 resident artist of the MacDowell Colony. Salas Rivera was a 2018 fellow of the

CantoMundo CantoMundo is an American literary organization founded in 2009 to support Latino poets and poetry. It hosts an annual poetry workshop dedicated to the creation, documentation, and critical analysis of Latinx poetry. History CantoMundo was founded ...

Poetry Workshop to develop Latinx poets and poetry. Salas Rivera was chosen as the fourth poet laureate of Philadelphia in 2018, under the auspices of the

Free Library of Philadelphia The Free Library of Philadelphia is the public library system that serves Philadelphia. It is the 13th-largest public library system in the United States. The Free Library of Philadelphia is a non-Mayoral agency of the City of Philadelphia gove ...

. According to the selection committee, the poet was chosen because of his desire to use poetry to engage the subject of diversity in Philadelphia and its Puerto Rican community. He received the 2018 Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets, honoring poets whose first language is Spanish, for his manuscript ''x/ex/exis (poemas para la nación).'' His work ''lo terciario/the tertiary'' was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2018 and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. In 2019, he won the Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. His work ''while they sleep (under the bed is another country)'' was longlisted for the 2020 Pen America Open Book Award. He is a 2019-2021 Writer for the Art for Justice Fund at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

References

External links

*
A Note on Translation
(Waxwings Magazine)

Interviews

Philadelphia’s 2018-2019 Poet Laureate Helps Puerto Rico’s LGBTQ+ Community, April 23, 2018, Philadelphia Neighborhoods 3Streets Dept. Podcast #9 - Interview with Raquel Salas RiveraFree Library of Philadelphia - Introducing Philadelphia's 2018-2019 Poet Laureate Raquel Salas RiveraNavigating Distance: A Conversation on Contemporary Puerto Rican Poetry, November 29, 2018, Kelly Writers House

Performances

Poets House 2018: Showcase Reading Series: Denizé Lauture, Katy Lederer, Raquel Salas Rivera, Chen Chen, August 2, 2018, Poets HouseAAWWTV: Translation/Migration Mixtape with Raquel Salas Rivera, Janice Lobo Sapigao, Adeeba Talukder, April 23, 2018, Asian American Writers' WorkshopPresentación de oropel/tinsel en Libros AC, February 23, 2017, Raquel Salas Rivera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salas Rivera, Raquel American LGBT poets Puerto Rican LGBT writers 21st-century American poets Puerto Rican poets Writers from Philadelphia Living people 1986 births People from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico University of Puerto Rico alumni University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez people Poets Laureate of Philadelphia Municipal Poets Laureate in the United States American translators Lambda Literary Award winners Non-binary poets American non-binary writers