Tag: anomalous press

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: elegía elegy by Raquel Salas-Rivera

[poem to be read in a circuit]

who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?

who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?

the doctor, the psychiatrist, the pastor, the lawyer, the cook, the poet
that publishes decolonial poems, the theorist who says who? the
cisgendered feminists—hi raquelita—the strikers, the memeists, the
ultrakids drinkingshots, the levitators?

who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?

who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?

ernesto cardenal, will he cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
will drake cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
will brangie cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
it’s a serious question
i don’t accuse
it’s a serious question
i don’t expect
that would be my question
what must expastors think of women of trans experience?
the famous poets, are they too busy?
will walter mercado cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
will my old comrades cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ like
they cried for so many who have died that we don’t know anymore how
not to alienate ourselves from the quotidian traumas?
will the boricua socialist organizations cry for SOPHIA ISABEL
MARRERO CRUZ? will they show up like they showed up for filiberto’s
funeral? will they defend her from those who will call her crazy, contradictory, unstable?

who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you will cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you will cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you cries for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you will cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
who among you would cry for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ
if she were cisgender

if she were a cisgender man
if she had made 27 albums and had a really cute mansion
if she had been on mtv
if she had 5 books titled
“deconstructing the trans in transgender”
“jorge luis borges’ trans-activism”
“memiors of an transpolitized academic”
“the performative and the puerto rican:
memoirs of my memories”
“medical interventions in puerto rico: a three part saga”

i’m serious
i’m not accusing
i don’t want to save us
or for you to cry because i asked you, ya know?
nor for you to take a sudden interest—even if it wouldn’t feel too bad to
hear her name repeated once or twice—
i’m just trying to figure out what the fuck i should do with such disparities

i wouldn’t have found out either
if it weren’t for my loves
impacts of impacts
chains of struggle without medals or prizes
that’s what i mean when i ask:
that i never would have known

surely her family cried for her
[as a man]
surely they spilled their knots
over their beard filled in by some amateur artist
without a doubt they cried for her and thought of her and submitted her
to the death they wanted

the death they chose so that they could cry in peace
over the life that never had the name SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO
CRUZ

i’d like not to hate them
i have less right than they do
to cry for her
i’d like not to want to scream at them and scream at me for screaming
but surely they cried for her
what do i do with so much silence?
what do i do with so much mourning without repercussion?
write poems? dream that others read them?
that upon reading them they’ll cry not for the poetry but
for SOPHIA ISABEL MARRERO CRUZ?
and who would they be, the criers?
tell me i’m not blaming you
please tell me

This selection comes from the book, elegía elegy, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERTIARY, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. They received their PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney. 
 

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: elegía elegy by Raquel Salas-Rivera

suprasegmentacionalidades (2)

you are so much more than your translation

she doesn’t understand why my home is not her sanatorio
why oh the ocean is beautiful oh el morro oh

YOU HAVE NOT READ ME IF YOU HAVE NEVER DIED & GONE
TO PUERTO RICO

YOU HAVE NEVER READ ME IF YOU WERE WAITING FOR THE
POEM TO COME OUT IN ENGLISH
you could of course not read me not soulform one dash—mid-me

THIS PLEASURE TINCTURE es aquello fresquería de sarduy prestada
MY SURVIVAL AS POEMS FOR YOUR CONSUMPTION
MY FLESHECHOED AGAIN FOR YOU TO QUIVER

if you have come this far you understand i’ve made holies of all things
i love and in myself abundance of loss wellsupped into cavern(ícolas)
ousness
you have understood what it is to make of loss
but not loss
what it is to drag my words rage swollen and tucked
many in the present shifts of memories crystalizing like sugary pop rings
you have understood what it is to be the bastard before there were family
crests
but not loss

I CANNOT TRANSLATE FOR YOU ANYMORE
I’VE BURNT HOLES IN MY SHIRTS WITH CIGARETTES & FORGOTTEN

This selection comes from the book, elegía elegy, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERTIARY, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. They received their PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney. 
 

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: elegía elegy by Raquel Salas-Rivera

brutilambona

pendeja para bien
sácale el provecho porque tan alta que te sube
hasta la punta de las uñas de seis
pulgadas tacas asá
estirá tomada del asalto una cerveza liviana
un almuercito sin mucha mayonesa
ella te está haciendo un huequito
en el pre juicio

sabe tanto que no sabes de tanto
pero es claro brutilambona
porque la mides según el
despulga o repulgamiento de las cosas que pone
en su cartera sobre la rodilla
detrás del miramento

cuando ella te asalte tendrás sólo una mirada
apendejada
dirás que brutilambona
pero ella por millas
te alarga las pestañas del baúl
la pintura cambiada del esmalte
de la puerta

tus decorados peores
porque no sabes
andar en puntas
por eso las nubes están tan lejos
porque sólo crees en zapatos funcionales

brutilambona

pendeja in the good sense
enjoy because so tall she climbs you
to the tip of the nails of six
inches heels like that
stretched taken from the hold up a light beer
a lunch with little mayonnaise
she is making you a holie
in the pre judgment

she knows so much that you don’t know much
but is of course brutilambona
because you measure her according to the
de or reinching of the things she puts
in her purse on her knee
behind the looking

when she holds you up you’ll have only one gaze
pendejaed
you’ll say how brutilambona
but she for miles
elongates your lashes of the trunk
the paint changed of the enamel
of the door

your worst decorations
because you don’t know
how to walk en pointe
that’s why the clouds are so far
because you only believe in functional shoes

This selection comes from the book, elegía elegy, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERTIARY, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. They received their PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney. 
 

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: elegía elegy by Raquel Salas-Rivera

offputtingon

you are offputtingon
sometimes (for me) you masturbate
like covering yourself with the hand so as not to
spray all your feathers and i come
sometimes you leave flown down the bathroom path
and the curtains run
through your fingers because you fall and don’t want
on top of m(e/y) offtakings

if you play a song you’ll also quit over
received calls and i’m without receiving
decisiones i sing and you. he. act basic
your face of

egglaying
or caution quitting

take it off me now and don’t offput
in exchange i won’t take off and i’ll make you
spin like offputtingonputtingoffputtingon

This selection comes from the book, elegía elegy, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERTIARY, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. They received their PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney. 
 

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: elegía elegy by Raquel Salas-Rivera

(i) penetrate

my arm is the potent organ of my femininity
i can reach my liver with my arm

when i signal [being inside me] i can bleed me
i can create a whole [crack] in my health through
which the fermenting liquids will leave
impregnating the river with their
reeking suficiencies

griefripeish gripadjustment.

i’ll rend your sun from it’s second shadow(earth)
and when so much dustlight is made of the world
i’ll take us to the favorite tomb and make us love after
sticking the long finger in our body like a common accusation

This selection comes from the book, elegía elegy, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Tierney Bailey.

Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERTIARY, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist and won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. They received their PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.

Tierney Bailey is a Libra, a lover of science fiction and poetry, and studies Korean in her spare time. Currently, Tierney is an associate poetry editor at Sundress Publications, a copyeditor at Strange Horizons, and a freelance graphic designer. Tierney earned a Masters Degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Tierney is most easily found screaming into the void on Twitter as @ergotierney. 
 

 

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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Naty and My Chaotic Stench by Shey Rivera Rios

XII. Nothing

Llego a la casa y me pongo a fumar
con mis dedos de hielo.
Con tanto frío que tengo se me ha espantado
hasta el miedo.
Music: “Heroes del Estereo,” by Huáscar Robles.
Puerto Rico. 2010.

Neither Naty, nor Dona Silva, nor Don Alvin could figure this out. The stench still follows me like a muerto hiding in the corners. Naty taught me to leave small white plates with peppermint bon bons on a corner of the room. “The rats won’t touch them,
trust me. Those are for Elegua, who lives in corners and crossroads. And an upside down jar of water on top of the refrigerator to keep the muertos and the past lovers away.” I lit palo santo and
placed it next to the jar. These two things must always be kept at a
high point of the house. So many rules.

This selection comes from the book, Naty and My Chaotic Stench, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi- genre artist and arts manager. They are active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. Participation in national organizations include: member and alumni of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artist Communities, fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) 2017-2018, and Brown University Public Humanities Community Fellow 2017-2019. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Naty and My Chaotic Stench by Shey Rivera Rios

I. Ali

A tangled, hairy mess lays on the bed, arms spread out and legs
up on the wall. Long dark hair spilling from the bed to the floor.
The Hanged Man. “What a world, what a world…,” the wicked
witch shrieks out of the television as she melts. I stare at the white
paint bubbles on my ceiling. The biggest one takes the shape of
South America, dripping out of the dirty, white ceiling. I fantasize about being a wild Amazon woman with hair reaching down to my thighs and wild orchids tangled in unruly curls that smell
of waterfalls and mud, rain and mangos, and blossoming Birds of Paradise. Worrying only about the rain.

Smoke from the burning sage gathers into thick blankets above
the bed, soundproofing my room so the thunder and the lightning only resonate in my head. I stay quiet and visualize the storm soaking everything up, washing off the colors and wrapping the
world in a monochrome blanket. I lick my lips. Peppermint incense makes me hungry…


Music: “Las sirenas” by Los Espíritus, Puerto Rico, 2016.
https://losespiritus.bandcamp.com/track/las-sirenas

This selection comes from the book, Naty and My Chaotic Stench, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi- genre artist and arts manager. They are active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. Participation in national organizations include: member and alumni of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artist Communities, fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) 2017-2018, and Brown University Public Humanities Community Fellow 2017-2019. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Naty and My Chaotic Stench by Shey Rivera Rios

II. The Stench

At the moment, I have an urgent matter to resolve. No, let me explain. In these past few weeks, I’ve started to notice something quite embarrassing: I have acquired an insistent body odor. It’s a
kind of syrupy, rancid smell. I shower everyday, I swear! I have no idea why this is happening. The people I’ve asked claim that they can’t smell a thing, but they might be lying; the type of nice that
will not get its hands dirty.

In the Department Store, I slip between perfume booths without uttering a single sound, avoiding eye contact with the saleswomen and their overly done makeup. I cruise around the aisles, sliding through thick clouds of Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent and all those other tiny bottles I can’t afford, desperately searching for a magic potion that could hide my persistent odor. But, like a curse, all scents merged into a single odor—a knife that slowly pierced my nostrils—and I could no longer tell the difference. It was a smell that reminded me of the slow plastic decay of ladies with Botox and lots of jewelry. “Frustration” was scribbled like an invisible tattoo on my forehead. I could feel it; it itched. What a total waste of time. This chaotic stench was still following me…

I need to talk to Naty.

This selection comes from the book, Naty and My Chaotic Stench, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi- genre artist and arts manager. They are active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. Participation in national organizations include: member and alumni of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artist Communities, fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) 2017-2018, and Brown University Public Humanities Community Fellow 2017-2019. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Naty and My Chaotic Stench by Shey Rivera Rios

NATY AND MY CHAOTIC STENCH

Darkness. A purple haze. The oracle speaks….

Once was red and twice was crimson blood. Tonight prophetic visions
echo from my pillows. In exchange for a bag of sleep-leaves, I shall
reveal the movement of the planets by reading the way blood rushes
through my veins. From underneath a blindfold, I will share with you
a kaleidoscopic vision of reality.


Let’s begin…

A huge cigar hangs from her mouth. The room is thick with the
scent of paprika, cilantro, and tomato sauce. Big buttocks sway
under a large purple skirt that sweeps the floor. She’s singing one
of those cantinero songs, from old jukeboxes in Mexican bars. The
hexes that rough-looking men sang to their lovers with drunken
passion and despair. I sat at the table, planted my black sneakers
firmly on the ground, and picked at the chipped black nail polish
on my nails.

Fire the casserole con to y la madre, como dicen por ahí… Pa los gustos, los colores.

This selection comes from the book, Naty and My Chaotic Stench, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi- genre artist and arts manager. They are active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. Participation in national organizations include: member and alumni of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artist Communities, fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) 2017-2018, and Brown University Public Humanities Community Fellow 2017-2019. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 

 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Naty and My Chaotic Stench by Shey Rivera Rios

“jíbara bruja”

Soy bruja
witch that perches on avocado trees
with talones de gallina de palo.

Talons of an iguana slowly climbing branches to get a taste of our fruit.

Talons of a rooster trained to fight to defend my honor.
I am most comfortable under the rainstorms that make the montes sweat
and birth streams.

I can see that you have

eyes of el guaraguao (the hawk) as it soars with its kind over mountains,
ears of el mucaro (the owl) listening to the rustle of palm trees.

The skirts of the island have been lifted
and a leather belt has licked her skin, left trails of red, blue, black
to replace our flag.

This is a funeral.

With all its intricate ornaments and multicolored blossoms,
it is still a funeral.

My jíbara spirit is a magnetic field
cradled in the plantain breasts of the forest.

I can only follow its call.

It sounds like thunder and rides the back of wild horses.
Yes, we’ve got wild horses.

Tell me,
where are you from?

Did you get here on purpose?

Where are you headed?

What are your dreams made of?
Mine taste like rain.

This selection comes from the book, Naty and My Chaotic Stench, available from Anomalous Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Nilsa Ada Rivera.

Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi- genre artist and arts manager. They are active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, and poetry/narrative. The creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera is also a performance curator and producer of interventions that activate people creatively. Participation in national organizations include: member and alumni of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Artist Communities, fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) 2017-2018, and Brown University Public Humanities Community Fellow 2017-2019. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 

 

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