Transcript: 003 – Talking Carlos Andrés Gómez
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Carlos Andrés Gómez – Transcript – Charla Cultural
Adriana: Welcome to Charla Cultural, a little chat about culture from Aster(ix) Journal and City of Asylum.
Karla: I’m Adriana E. Ramírez.
And I’m Karla Lamb. And today’s episode is all about Carlos Andrés Gómez. Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet, speaker, actor, and equity and inclusion consultant from New York City. He is the author of Fractures winner of the Felix Pollack Prize in poetry, as well as the memoir Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood.
His work has been featured in numerous publications, including the New England Review, Beloit Poetry and Buzzfeed Reader.
Adriana: We’ll start by invoking the muse with a poem by Carlos Andrés Gómez. And then after Karla and I chat about his poetry, we’ll listen to another poem and then an interview Karla did with the poet.
After that, we’ll conclude with the rest of his performance in City of Asylum. And finally, Karla and I will discuss Remedios and some stuff for the road. Welcome. Karla, kick us off. Tell us a little bit about how we are going to invoke the muse today.
Karla: Sí, um, so Carlos Gómez came to Alphabet City and performed at one of our Latinx & Proud! Installments so this audio is an exclusive excerpt from that performance
Adriana: Oooo. Exclusive.
Karla: This was from January 21, 2020. It was an incredible lineup. Diannely Antigua was there. Rosa Iris Diendomi was there and an up-and-coming young poet, Juno Nascimento was there. Carlos beat with like the kind of notoriety that he has as a poet performer… I think he’s has like so many amazing notches on his belt. Like Buzzfeed…
Adriana: He was in a Spike Lee movie.
Karla: Yeah. Like all the little things!
Adriana: Like I didn’t even know because I’m bad at life. And I was just watching the Spike Lee movie Inside Man. And I look and I’m like that’s Carlos Andrés Gómez.
Karla: And he’s like unmistakable, a personable… I felt like I knew him for years and I had just met him that night.
Adriana: No, that shines through, I think inner beauty affects outer beauty.
Karla: Yeah. It radiates.
Adriana: It radiates.
Karla: And it translates too onto the page, onto the stage, onto his activism. Like everything that he touches really just kind of implodes with this energy.
Adriana: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I just. I remember all the work that he was doing at Penn back in the day. We competed against each other in collegiate poetry slam. And so even though he was at the University of Pennsylvania and I was at Rice, we still saw each other at tournaments and whatnot, and then he was coaching.
But he’s done a lot of work with diversity, a lot of work with inclusion. And again, it’s been really amazing to witness.
Karla: …and dismantling like a patriarchy kind of…
Adriana: Oh, he’s very committed to, I mean, you just look at the title of his book, right. Man up: Reimagining Modern Manhood and it’s a great memoir and I really suggest you read it.
Karla: And coming from a Latinx manhood perspective.
Adriana: Oh yeah. And especially. Colombians. Oh, as a Colmbiana, I can tell you that masculinity is very complex in Colombia and like it is in many Latin American countries, but Colombia has its own flavor. It’s very distinct and it’s really amazing to see Carlos taking up these issues and especially as somebody who embodies two different cultures, being Colombian and American, I’m thinking about what you bring with you from those cultures can really make a difference.
Karla: Oh yes.
Adriana: Like what do you pack in your bag of identity and what do you take with you when you have the option to think of culture as hybrid, right? As something that you can take and leave behind certain pieces and I think that’s one of the things that mixed identity can really offer you.
Karla: What serves you and what doesn’t, or like what…
Adriana: Well, that’s hard because some things are sort of ingrained and are really hard to take out. But I think other things, you know, like looking at your culture’s masculinity, for example, and saying, Hmm, I think there’s a different way, you know, and the privilege of being bi-cultural allows you that room to play in a way that if you were just Colombian, it would be a little bit more difficult.
There’d be more friction, you know, but being Colombiano Americano means that, you know, your Colombian relatives all think you’re crazy anyway. And Americans all think you’re crazy anyway. So, you could play in that crazy space, you know, and really kind of have a different possibility. Does that make sense?
Karla: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Adriana: Sometimes I feel like I, I’m still working out all of these ideas.
Karla: Same here.
Adriana: So, I apologize. This is the raw dough of ideas here. Yeah. Okay. Well, let’s, let’s listen to Carlos read.
Karla: Sí!
Carlos: So, there’s this question I’ve gotten my whole life that I’m sure a lot of people in this room can relate to in some way. That’s followed by an almost identical question after you respond. And so, I want to dedicate this to anybody who can relate to this question. And the title of this poem is the question. And it’s called “Where you really from?” “Where are you really from? Where are you from from? Goes like this…
The man’s words to me are not offered but flung. So, what are you, where are you from? I say New York. But your name…your name is Carlos. I mean, where are you really from? I say New York.
Bueno, yo soy Latino. Mi padre es Colombiano. Mi madre es Estaunidense. Nací in New York City. I lived in four countries, moved 12 times, went to 12 schools before I graduated high school is not what I would say in 12,341 years, because I don’t owe a damn thing to anyone. What am I? What am I? A financial aid form? A vegan red velvet cupcake recipe? Dude discovers his first Latino with green eyes and suddenly appoints himself the authority on Latinidad.
Like, but you totally don’t look Mexican. Oh, Colombian. But like, what percentage are…do you speak it though? Fluently? Didn’t sell so well, oh well not both parents… you’ve been there, but not live there. So you weren’t born there. Yeah, yeah, I’m not a government questionnaire. I’m not an anecdote for your homogenous social gathering of your homogenous friends.
I know everyone you hang out with looks like you. Has a name you are able to pronounce and or share and or sounds pulled directly from an episode of “Leave It to Beaver.” Here’s the deal. Latin America is not just Mexico. Actually pronounced México pero whatever.
Central America is not part of South America. And Mexican is still not a language. The question, where are you from in our current America is a slur disguised with a question mark. Passive aggressive microaggression saying you are other. Saying you are not from here. Saying you are not, nor will ever be one of us. Saying, go back to where you came from.
But I… I am from a place beyond place. A place where once you’re from there you can never leave because it exists beyond dirt and flesh beyond your linear and limited concept of time. I am from bloodlines, unkillable as water. I am the return that has only earned when absence has stretched its gritty void across a passage as stoic and sacred as an abuela’s hard-edged love.
I am my black and Latina daughters. Grace. Kay-mirrored? Under the cobalt pulse of these once too often fists. I am a boy without a word of English in his mouth in a Catholic school classroom in South Florida, his son on a stage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at Alphabet City for City of Asylum 61 years later tonight reading this poem for him.
I am the steady ray of light unlocking my mother’s teeth. Tossed skyward with a laugh. What hard-earned joy looks like carved from the wreckage of a lifetime’s worth of grief. You are not ready for the answers to the questions you ask. Not ready for the world these words might shake free. You could never understand I am or where I or so many of us are from.
*Applause*
Adriana:
Karla, have you ever been asked, where are you really from?
Karla: Where are you from? From, from, from so, yeah, like what are you, or like, you look like an exotic artist type, but I can’t figure it out ‘cause I need to put everything into categories questions.
Adriana: Yeah. I mean, that doesn’t really happen to me because I am brown. I do not deny the cross with my parish. Although I’m Jewish, so I guess I shouldn’t really make too many Catholic metaphors. But like definitely you know, you look at me and there is no denying the indigenous and the… all the things that make up who I am. But you kind of exist in this liminal space, right?
Karla: Yeah. Definitely like white…presenting. Is that a way to say it?
Adriana: Sure. But potentially I think it, it also like how, if I may, like how you present yourself can change that. Right? So, like how you dress up or accessorize.
Karla: Totally. Well, if I was wearing like a huipil, I would be, but I’m still white skin. I don’t know. Right. It’s something I, I very much struggle with internally and externally. Just like, how do I present myself? Porque a lot of people … The Frick Museum, it has an exhibit on Frida Kahlo, and four people invited me to it.
Adriana: Yeah. So, oh, you’re Mexican. You would love this. *Laughing*
Karla: Yeah. So, I mean, and I’m all about like, oh yeah, let’s go. Or like, oh, you want to take me to the museum? Like if like, yeahhh.
Adriana: Yeah, no, I understand that feeling.
Karla: And kind of circling back, like, have I gotten this question like yes, many times. And then it’s like the struggle, the short answer, or the long answer, you know.
Adriana: Right, you’re like California.
Karla: Yeah.
Adriana: And then they’re like, no, no. Where are you really
Karla: And there’s been a couple of times when I’ve had that, I get the courage to be like, I’m from Mexico City, but then it’s a whole other can of worms. Like, oh my gosh. For real. Or like, you don’t look like, or…
Adriana: Right. You don’t look Mexican, Mexican.
Karla: Yeah.
Adriana: They just want you to say you’re from Argentina. *laughing* That makes, that makes everyone comfortable. You see?
Karla: Mmmhm. And then well, Carlos talks about, well, maybe not directly in the poem, but between the lines, it’s like the importance of self-naming and maybe self-identity or identifying, claiming…
Adriana: What do you owe other people, right? Like, do I owe you my entire biography? You know, sometimes people will say stuff to me like, oh, where are you from? And I’ll be like Texas. And then they’ll say like, where are you really from? And then I’m like, I, well, what he does in the poem, right? Like, do I give you this whole list? Well, my dad’s Mexican and my mom is Colombian, but my dad’s dad was Colombian. So, three out of the four grandparents are Colombian, but I was born in Mexico City, and I grew up on the U.S. Mexico border. So maybe I’m more Mexican, but also more Colombian ha-ha-ha I’m everything! You know? And it’s you know, and then it’s like, I’m fluent in English. People are thrown off completely when I’m fluent in Spanish too.
And they’re like, wait, how can your brain hold two languages? But anyway, going back to the issue of like, identity, yeah. How much of your biography do you owe somebody casually asking you where you’re from at a party or in an Uber or…
Karla: On a questionnaire.
Adriana: Or on a questionnaire like white-comma-Hispanic. I’m white-comma-Hispanic, you know, because I can’t really check indigenous because I don’t necessarily have a tribal affiliation in the U.S. which they ask you for. And so, and I’m, you know, like, I think I’m only like 5% black, so is that, you know, what is that? Or where does that put me? It was like, I just want to check all the boxes.
Karla: Well, there’s yeah. There’s like that little other box or like the fill in the line or like unknown, but that doesn’t, it’s not inclusive, you know? And then it’s always like an existential crisis every time I fucking fill up, fill out, like what voting registration census or like even at the doctor,
Adriana: Well, and especially at the doctor, because it carries a certain, how people will treat you. Right. And so, I remember when I was pregnant and they were like, well, you know, you’re Hispanic. So that adds these risk factors. And while that’s statistically true and obviously like true in many ways, it’s also kind of fascinating when you’re a mixed-race person, because you’re like, well, what does Hispanic mean? Right. Hispanic is a spectrum. And especially in terms of race. So, when you say like Latinos are more prone to diabetes, well, how are you controlling for income? How are you controlling for how indigenous or how white or how black you are or, or is it something that is, you know, found like across the board and if so, can you really attribute that to race or
Karla: So complicated and complex?
Adriana: Yeah, I don’t know that there’s an easy answer to this, see, this is what good poetry does.
You’re like, oh, I relate to this also, you know, this is an interesting question. And now we’re here talking right. And about the complexity of medical treatment and…
Karla: And Carlos’s poem does that too. Like in the poem, there’s a line like the passive aggressive microaggressions, you know, and then it is that like every day for people of intersectional identities.
Adriana: So, I have a question for you. Have you ever asked anyone where they’re from?
Karla: Ah, that’s such a good question. I mean, I can like positively say like, I sure, I’m sure I have, but perhaps like casual, I dunno. I don’t know. Existential crisis!
Adriana: Have you ever just wanted to know someone’s like cultural background, like that, like just looked at them and been like,
Karla: Not like that.
Adriana: Based on appearance and like, yo, where like, where are your people from?
Karla: No, no!
Adriana: Right? That doesn’t occur to me. Like if it comes up naturally in the course of conversation, right. Then it might be like, you know, like if they say they really love sofrito, I’m going to be like, oh, where are you from!? No. Where are your people from!? Right. Cause now we can talk culture and we can talk, you know what I mean?
Karla: I think the only part of me that people are like, okay, where are you from? It’s like, so I grew up in Michigan. A lot of people will be like, oh, I’m from Detroit or I’m from Flint or I’m from, like upper peninsula?
Adriana: Yeah. But that’s not what he’s talking about. They’re like, where are you from from?
Karla: I mean I’m like backtracking on, like, I don’t know if I’ve asked somebody like off the bat, like, because I can’t pinpoint or like categorize them in my brain because of the way they look.
Adriana: I feel like I must have, because I am a part of culture and culture tends toward that place. Right. And so like, I definitely, honestly, no, that I’m aware of a lot of the cultural background of a lot of my friends. So obviously at some point in conversation, it came up, right.? Clearly,
Karla: Clearly. Oh, that’s so crazy because maybe some of my friends don’t even really know where I’m from from. Right. Like they know I’m Hispanic or they, they know I identify as Latina, but then every other hangout it’s like, you’re from California. Right. I was like, well, yes, yes. I am.
Adriana: Interesting. This is something I don’t know. I like, it’s so easy to be like, look at all these jerks that do it.
Karla: But yeah, we’re part of we’re complicit in the, in the microaggressions.
Adriana: Snap. Who am I microaggressing right now? Yeah. You know, it’s something to think about it. It really is. And, and seriously, not just joking, but…
Karla: Well, it also in the poem, like Carlos gives us the geography lesson, right?
Adriana: Yeah. Well, and even as he’s complaining about the question, he’s also giving
us the answer.
Karla: Yeah.
Adriana: Right. The poem gives us the answer I did too. Right earlier. I was like, I’m not going to tell you my biography. And then immediately I went into my biography. Right. And so we’re so primed. That, we’re just like…
Karla: Total conditioning of like, okay, here we go. Deep breath. Here’s the whatever answer. The short or the long.
Adriana: Yeah. Do you want the short version?
Karla: Do you have an answer memorized that you give, like your standard, like someone you just met?
Adriana: Yes, I do.
Karla: It’s the script.
Adriana: Yeah. My mom’s Colombian. My dad’s Mexican and I grew up on the U.S. Mexico border. That’s really it. Yeah, because Texas is never good enough answer. You know, I grew up in Texas is always like, oh, tell me more. And yeah, you’re just like, ugh…
Karla: I don’t have a script answer. I always stutter and stumble. And I’m just like yeah. Okay.
Adriana: Yeah, but I think, I think I wasn’t comfortable. It took until I was comfortable with my own identity, and I felt like I had a clear answer.
Karla: Sure.
Adriana: Like I remember this discussion I was having with my good friend, Angie Cruz once. And we were discussing whether or not I was a U.S. Latin-X writer. And that’s, oh, I like, not a question I think of often. Right. But it’s like, well, I was born in Latin America, so am I a Mexican writer? And because I became a naturalized United States citizen. Right. So, but I don’t really say Mexican American.
I say I’m a Mexican Colombian. Even though I, I write in English.
Karla: Oh, that’s the other thing!
Adriana: And I grew up in the U.S. And my literary education is mostly, very much an American literary one, but with the caveat of having a full library of Latin American literature at home, and I was like, oh, snap, like, you know, if I were to ever win some kind of prize or become some kind of, you know, whatever, would people say she’s a Mexican writer? I don’t know.
Karla: Yeah, I don’t know either. I have the very same, like, I don’t put Mexican American in my bio.
Adriana: Were you born in Mexico?
Karla: Sí!
Adriana: Oh, I didn’t know. Chilangas, that’s right!
Karla: And on my social media.
Adriana: Do you see what I just did?
Karla: Yeah. No soy de aquí, no soy de allá.
Adriana: Oh! Facundo Cabral! Sorry, not sorry. Yeah.
Karla: Oh, there’s another song.
Adriana: No soy de aquí… no soy de allá. No tengo edad, ni por venir y ser feliz es mi color de identidad.
My dad sings that song on the guitar, but it’s so sexist. Have you ever heard the lyrics? Like the verses? They’re always like, I’m gonna go sing in the corner with Gabriela or I’m going to go chase Juanita. I’m going to go on my bicycle and ask for rum. It’s actually very Bohemian, but it’s a little sexist. A little sexist.
Karla: I’ve been looking at another performer. Who’s like a hip-hop artist who uses that hook. Like, no soy de aquí, y ni soy de allá and like her rap.
Adriana: Oh, is that Snow the product?
Karla: Yes. Snow!
Adriana: Haha! It’s always Snow the Product.
Karla: I fucking love that. And like, she’s like, she talks about like her love for tacos, you know?
Adriana: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
And being bilingual, bisexual and all of these intersections.
Karla: I love Snow.
Adriana: No, I also but so that song is by this dude called, Facundo Cabral who wrote it, let’s say in the forties.
Karla: Shit. What?
Adriana: Like forties, fifties, maybe. I could be completely wrong. It might be like the seventies, but it’s at least, it was at least, at least, at least like 50 years old.
Karla: I would love to say for my answer, no soy de aquí, no soy de allá. You know, like, that’s just like, I’m not from here. I’m not from.
Adriana: For the Spanish impaired. That just means I’m not from here. I’m not from there.
Karla: Yeah. And that’s almost like claiming in a way and it’s, but is that a passive aggressive answer? That I’m trying to like show someone a lesson.
Adriana: Well, maybe it splits. Maybe if we move away from the emotions of it. And we think of it as a post-postmodern answer, like you are beyond place.
Karla: Ah, which he says in the poem!
Adriana: Right? I am beyond place. And yet, and yet how many, how many times have you been asked in an official capacity about where you were born? Right. And your documentation. So, like place matters when it matters. Right. But it doesn’t matter in other ways, and we’re still sort of negotiating that. Like we live in a highly bureaucratic documented state where we have to present paperwork for everything…
Carlos: I spent many years doing workshops on Rikers Island, which is the jail in New York City. And this, this is the final poem in my, in my book M and it’s called Morning Rikers Island. Thank you all so much again.
Physics and light
pierce the hollow stench
of the forgotten
gymnasium stripped naked of clocks.
All the adolescent boys stop.
Offer their grief
to each other like water,
glancing out the only window
they all share. A single ray
unfolds its warmth
across the dusty belly
of the thudded parquet;
and here’s the miracle—
The sun frees everyone
to sing.
Thank you.
*Applause*
Carlos: So, I started to pivot to Zoom and do a ton of virtual events and I’ve got three virtual shows today.
Karla: Holy shit!
Carlos: And I think there’ll be like a 146, 147, and 148 since last March, so I’m close to 150 shows since last March. Oh wow. So, it’s been so like the pivot has been; it’s been wild, you know, I’m doing like the Abu Dhabi book fair virtually next month. I’ve done festivals at like different places in the world that I’m, I’m not, I don’t know if I’d be able to travel to any way to do so. Yeah.
Karla: So, you’re, you’re busier than ever.
Carlos: I’ve been absurdly busy. You know what, I’m very, I’m very like, you know, I’m very humble. I’m grateful and humble to what’s happened so far because it’s just, it’s so disorienting.
I mean, it’s like part of me is like, I’m very grateful for the virtual stuff. I would like some of it to continue so I can be home more.
Karla: Yeah.
Carlos: But, but at the same time, you know, there’s nothing like the magic of us, like at our event last January. I mean, you can’t explain what happened in that room last January.
Karla: Yeah. It was definitely transformative.
Carlos: You can’t Zoom that and no offense to Zoom. Do you know what I mean? I say virtual events have been so much better than I had initially imagined they could be. But they will never replace in-person events. They will never replace in-person events. Like people are going to cancel music festivals and just be on Zoom instead or some other interface that’s really interactive. Like that’s not, to me, that’s just not it.
Karla: Right. Right. And well, what does, there’s definitely like the silver lining to you know, like staying in place, quarantining, all of that good stuff. And then the silver lining of, of course is Zoom is the accessibility, you know, and like the countries that you can even travel to and, you know, people that perhaps wouldn’t have been able to go to that show.
And I found that a lot with the Latinx & Proud series as we pivoted onto Zoom, we were reaching people in different countries that like I can’t even name some of the countries that people like tuned in from, which was incredible for me because like post show, I would email the thank yous to the poets and then tell them like, well, according to our analytics, like we had people from South America, Central America, Africa, like even like Southeast Asia, like all of these places that these poets were like, What? Someone tuned in from where? And just like, yeah, like someone heard your poem and Lagos, you know?
Which is incredible. And I mean, I trust the analytics on, on Crowdcast, but there’s another, I did a couple Zoom poetry readings, and it was always really interesting, like at the end and like how people clap, you know, or like, they’ll do this, the ASL, which I think is really beautiful. And then, but, you just did, like, a high from the reading and it is transformative and it is, there is like synergy and it comes across the screen. But then you’re like, okay, it’s over. And then the Zoom window closes and you’re like, okay, well, what do I do I do now?
Carlos: It’s always abrupt. Because there’s not that, there’s not that decompression.
There’s not the decompression or debrief that I think is also kind of so vital to like the afterglow of particularly a poetry event or a concert. It’s like, a mentor in grad school, Rodney Jones, and he said the most important part of the poem is the moment after the poem.
Karla: Wow. I love that.
Carlos: And I think a lot about that, you know what I mean? Like, to me, the most important of the event, is the moment after. And so, there’s something with Zoom that makes that, it’s not possible in the same way. But yeah, but again, the accessibility piece you’re talking about, I mean, that’s why I think even going forward, I mean, and I’ve got, you know a lot of messages from different events I’ve done from friends of mine and supporters who have real accessibility challenges who would never be able to in-person attend an event for various reasons. And they’ve talked about how amazing it is for the accessibility of Zoom and other platforms. And other folks have said too different people with personality types that are more introverted, people have said that they feel a lot more permission to even type in a chat versus to ever come up and talk to an author or a poet or performer. And that stuff I’m definitely for.
To me in my dream world, especially for like, as much as we can do it, I think hybrid is kind of the model. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t think that putting the poetry event on Zoom is going to have people not attend in person. I think it just opens up accessibility and that’s why that’s something for me that I think is, is something to be learned from the experience of COVID and the pandemic.
Karla: Yeah. That’s really well put. I definitely agree with the City of Asylum is going in that direction, like the hybrid direction, which I think is great. And it also expands, like obviously our outreach, our audiences. And yeah, well, I want to like transition a little bit to the book. The Fractures it’s coming out soon or is it already out? Sorry. I think I have a…
Carlos: No, it’s all good. I think it might have been an advanced one. It’s out. Yeah, it came out in October of last fall.
Karla: I’m loving what I’m reading and it’s really reminiscent, like having your voice, like having you, the part that I saw, you like perform at City of Asylum and, knowing you, I could hear you through these pages.
Carlos: I love that. That’s a beautiful compliment.
Karla: Yes, yes, of course. So, one of the questions I wanted to ask was like this book, having come out in the pandemic and like a book tour, possibly virtual format, but is there another book out there or other authors out there that this book Fractures is in conversation with? Or like who are you reading?
Carlos: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think, I feel like I’m in conversation with so many people it’s almost hard to, or just sort of, I guess, streamline, or just name a few. I mean, they are writers I’m in conversation with who I, who I don’t know, who are no longer alive or who have, you know, had an impact like Larry Levis or Lucille Clifton or Audre Lord or, you know but then yeah.
You know, like, and then there also, you know, writers who I love, and I know who, you know, whose work, or who I’ve met, there’s the spectrum of like dear friends to like people I’ve met once, like, you know, like Angel Nafis, who’s a dear friend, to like, Yusef Komunyakaa who I’ve met a couple of times, you know what I mean? Or Martín Espada who I know, but who had a huge impact on me even becoming a poet.
You know, I think, Martín Espada had an incredible new book that came out called Floaters and I, and I did a release event with him, I interviewed him, was in conversation with him. When I was 17 years old, you know, he was the poet who really gave me permission and he like opened the door and pushed me through the door figuratively to pursue, you know, the craft of poetry.
And I think, I mean the two biggest things from Martín. And of course, let me be clear. Like I want to honor and spotlight Martín because he’s very important to me and very important to my journey, but let’s be clear, there’s like a constellation of different people that inform my journey. But yeah, I mean, I think the two things about Martín or, you know, him being so unapologetically political and his work and also being unapologetically, like rooting things in, in narrative and often in personal narratives.
And those two things are things that I think anybody who reads my work and it’s very characteristic of my work, you know, I mean, I’m a very stereotypical Colombian in that way. Like I just want to tell stories and hear stories. You know what I mean? Like that’s all I want to do is just like have a dinner that never starts. And we sit around for six hours and just tell stories, you know? And like my book is, is they’re stories and they’re true stories and they’re stories from my life. And they’re and obviously they have poetic dimensions and elements that are figurative or, or symbolic or not literal, but, but they’re always rooted and anchored in a real world with a lived experience.
And that’s something I learned. I mean, I think that the biggest person who taught me at a really critical juncture in my own artistic journey was Martín Espada because he does that as well as anyone.
Karla: Wow. Yeah. That’s something I really got from the poems. I was reading them and could feel and see and visualize like the scene that was happening and it’s, to me, it was just like, the craft behind it, like stretching out a small moment. It’s really incredible. And that’s something I strive for, like in my own work and yeah, telling those like personal narratives of your lived experience, your inner life and then also expanding outward and talking about family and partnership and parenthood and, and then like being a male in this society, you know, too like that definitely does came out, like just reading from between the lines.
Carlos: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, as with my other my other writing and work over the last 15 years, I mean, you know, it reckons, you know, I hold up a mirror to myself and I’m wrestling with the toxic ways I was taught to think about masculinity and the ways I was inundated, inundated by and with machismo growing up.
And when I was coming of age and thinking about, you know, so the book, I think holds a mirror to toxic masculinity and white supremacy and you know, sexism and homophobia and a lot of the things that have been obsessions and things that I’ve been wrestling with through my work for a long time. But I think it’s, this is kind of a new brief arrival point, and then I’m going to continue to grow from here. But that distinguishes it from other work that I’ve done.
Karla: Yeah. I noticed that too. I mean, it seems like it’s always evolving, like maybe those themes are like the through-line but as an artist, you know, like you were talking about like the lineage of poets that you’re in conversation with and then Martín and how you’ve been given permission, but like the permission is ever growing and evolving and there’s like more doors beyond the room that you’re in.
Carlos: Absolutely. I think one thing that’s really powerful too, to think about, I mean, I think about some of my most cherished mentors, I mean, Martín Espada is one, Patricia Smith is another, who’s one of the blurbs on the back and
I’ve known Patricia since I was 17. I mean, Patricia is, you know, like iconic generational writer. I feel like she’s like the godmother of American poetry, but you know, and, and to so many of us, she’s like a godmother, but you know, even to see the evolution of her work and that changes the way that she’s a mentor, you know, seeing her work grow and evolve over all the different work that she’s put out.
And that’s similar to Martín too, you know, like as, as his work expands and grows, and he explores and challenges himself to do different things. That impacts the way I challenge myself. And I think that’s, to me, what, what is the power of artistic community and being. And I think when you’re in communities that are nourishing, and I feel like I’m really lucky right now, we’re in a really vibrant time to be writing. You know? I mean, I think when I think about people that I love, and I know whose work I turn to learn from, you know I think of like, like I said, like Angel Nafis or Hoa Nguyen or Danez Smith, or Hila? Or we may just keep going on and on, right. But I’m saying, yeah, writers where like, I feel like we’re in conversation constantly or José Olivarez or, you know, like we’re all challenging and pushing each other and also holding each other up and also supporting each other and also loving each other, you know? And that’s really powerful.
Karla: That’s definitely a beautiful, I love all those folks you named, like all of their work is just jaw-dropping. Yeah. Well, that’s really, yeah.
That’s thank you for that, like really generous answer. Which leads me to ask, you know, we’re, we’re possibly writing from those wounded places in us that we’ve grown up with. Like you talk about like dismantling this machismo that you grew up with. Can you imagine a place where you’re writing from like free of the cultural trauma, ever?
Carlos: Yeah, I mean, to me, I think it’s, I don’t think of it so much as like an either-or thing. Cause it’s interesting. Like I always, I often say, you know, I can’t ever learn or unlearn fast enough to untether myself from the damaging ways I was socialized.
Karla: Oh wow wow wow,
Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think like, you know, like one of the things I talked about, you know, this is a recent talk I was doing. I was saying how, you know, when I was growing up, among a lot of words that I’m not going to say right now, but ultimately the biggest insult when you were growing up was as a boy was for me to be called a girl where I was doing something like a girl, I was acting like girl, I was crying like a girl or I was doing whatever, like a girl. And, you know, the example I gave is, is, you know, the fact that there’s just a word or a designation that applies to nearly half of the population that an elementary school and that’s, to be that is the worst thing a boy can be. I mean, there’s, it’s not really possible to overstate how horrific that is in terms of like, what that scaffolds deep inside of me and internally, like I can’t ever untether myself from that.
There’s no way for me to fully extricate myself from like the misogyny and the sexism and the rape culture that is, you know, implied in that, you know what I’m saying? And it collected through me through that through something. And that’s just one example among many, it’s obviously part of a larger construct like paradigm of patriarchy and sexism and everything else, but, you know, so, so for me, I think it’s like, you’re constantly moving through this process where through my work, I’m trying to investigate and pull things out of silence and shine a light on things that are not being looked at or seen or paid attention to. And like you’re talking about like amplifying slow down those moments that maybe no one saw, or maybe no one knows about that I think are so powerful and instructive and worthy of being either celebrated or investigated or wrestled with.
And so, through my work, I feel like I, I always hope that I have the courage to continue to…to notice and to be diligent in finding those moments and lifting them up through my work. And, and hopefully though I hope that there is, you know, like I hope that there is celebration and joy in the midst of that investigation as well.
Like I think about poems in the book, like Less than these at bootleggers, which is in many ways about like the sort of horror of being 15 and out at this all ages, dance night with friends. And there was a lot of things that were like pretty horrific there, but there was also like beauty there and there was also, I also felt a sense of validation in a sense of being seen in that room in ways that I’d never felt before, while also feeling pressures to participate in some really toxic things.
And I think that sort of exploding the binary sense of that, you know, is, is, is what I think, and residing that messiness is often what I’m trying to do with my work, or, you know, a piece like “Praise,” which is really about, you know, seeking out gratitude in the most difficult of times. And even recognizing that the almost like overwhelming beauty of, of gifts that we have in our lives that may even seem like they’re not gifts initially, you know, cause there’s a lot of pain in praise, but ultimately it’s a, it’s a praise poem, but it’s, and it’s a genuine one.
It’s not like I’m not trying to find the silver lining in horrible things. Like it’s really naming and saying, look at these, these gifts, and the ways they happen. In the same way that like, for example, I remember saying this even during the pandemic, I was saying as hard as many of these days are with two small kids and being in a shelter in place and watching them struggle with a social challenge of that when they like deeply, deeply need to be with other kids their age.
And I’m like, they’re best friends. Yeah. They’re, they’re like, they’re like, you know bill-in psychiatrist, their food source, like everything. I was like, I’m going to. I’m going to look up, look back on. This is maybe the best year of my life, you know, who knows what was the hardest?
Yeah, definitely.
So, I think, I think a lot of my work is trying to just reside in that messiness. And one thing I want to say is like, I never want my work to be spectacle or sensational or anything else. But I also want it to not blink and not turn away from things that are difficult to look at. Yeah. So, to me, it’s I trying to find that range, like, can I still have, can celebration and tenderness still reside alongside of the midst of horror and grief and shame.
And I think that they can, because I think that’s, that’s how it works. You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.
Karla: Yeah. I mean, yeah, humans are messy and complex.
Carlos: I saw this social media post.
It had four pictures
In one picture is a black and white photo of Nazi Germany. One’s a black and white photo of segregated water fountains in the Jim Crow south. The third photo is a grainy photo from apartheid, South Africa. And the fourth one is this beautiful color picture of just like this nice house with a front yard in an unnamed town, present day America, U.S. United States.
And around the four images, it says whatever you’re doing right now, is what you would have done.
Twelve reasons to abolish C.B.P. And ICE.
1. When my father arrived in this country, the first words he learned in English were “Thank you.” To the Latina who sat beside him and summarized the teacher’s rapid-fire speech. Thank you. To the snickered whispers he chose to ignore. And the broad-jawed bruiser who pretended his Colombian immigrant classmate did not exist. Thank you. To the mentors who come through line after line of a language that felt to his tongue like braille to my hand hands, thank you.
2. A father of two delivers a pizza to a military base in Brooklyn. The military police officer who ordered it, demands the father’s naturalization papers. When the delivery man refuses, the police officer calls ICE.
Some soldiers at Fort Hamilton ordered a pizza. It had pepperoni, green peppers, onions…I’m lying. Who cares? It was a pizza that might cost the father his family. The only tip the soldier gave was a phone call that risks making two little girls fatherless.
3. The first journalist allowed to enter Casa Padre calls the detention center and internment camp. Nearly 1500 undocumented children locked up in an abandoned Walmart, having committed no crime, but crossing a border to survive.
3. The five-year-old boy who shares my name. Carlos. Taken from his mother in Missouri and put up for adoption against her wishes now renamed Jamison by the couple who stole him.
3. The pregnant women detained by ICE shackled around the stomach and denied medical care while they miscarry.
4. The honors chemistry textbook at my public high school was missing one third of the elements of the periodic table. My English teacher would return papers with red wine stains and reeking of weed smoke.
Sixty thousand bridges in our country are architecturally deficient. Is there nothing else we can do with this money?
5. The former chief counsel of ICE who stole the identities of immigrants seeking asylum. A man who forged documents with a photograph of a murdered woman.
6. Lists of present-day U.S. states that were part of Mexico before 1848, California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, close to half of New Mexico, a quarter of Colorado and part of Wyoming.
7. Piles of confiscated rosaries in Brownsville, Texas, like piles of wedding rings and gold dental fillings at Buchenwald. I imagined them hovered over someday by trauma tourists, muttering, “Never again” again and again and again and again, and again.
8. The son of a Syrian refugee invented your iPhone. A Soviet born computer scientist invented Google, even a Canadian invented basketball.
9. Most terrorist attacks in the United States over the past two decades have been carried out by white American men. Most terrorist attacks in the United States over the past 200 years have been carried out by white American men. I have never seen a news headline calling a white American man, a terrorist.
10. Border patrol agents encounter a father, mother, and their three-year-old son from Honduras us entering the U.S. across the border with Texas. The family asked to apply for asylum. The CBP officers say the family must be separated.
Physically restrained the father, tearing his three-year-old son from his arms. They placed the father in a chain-link detention cell. They move him 40 miles away to solitary confinement at Star County jail. At 9:50 AM. The next morning a guard finds the father lying in his own blood. Having strangled himself with a piece of his clothing.
The father’s name was Marco Antonio Muñoz. The father was the same age I will be when my son Gabriel is three. His name was Marco Antonio Muñoz. His death was not publicly disclosed. It did not appear in any local news accounts.
Eleven. José. The five-year-old carrying a trash bag of dirty clothes and a stick figure. drawing of his parents left behind after his parents were deported.
11-A. The seven-year-old girl in a pink bow and dress separated from her family.
11-B. Yohan. The one-year-old playing with a purple ball and drinking from a bottle appearing in court without his father.
11-C. The three-year-old separated from her family climbing on top of the desk during her deportation trial.
11-D the infant from Honduras pulled from his mother’s breast, mid-feeding, separated from his mother.
11-E the developmentally delayed child separated from his mother.
11-F the deaf child who was not able to speak separated from her mother
11-G, 11-H ,11-I
12. Upon whose bones do we stand? What, what will it take?
*Applause*
Clap if you drive.
*Clapping*
Clearly not in New York City. There are a lot of drivers here. Okay, cool. Clap if you have like the classical or NPR station saved in case you get pulled over. Truthfully. Okay. So, I wrote this piece about the first time I got pulled over when I was 17. You ever had that moment where you notice the police car, you notice the police officer looking at the speed you’re going, as you realize you’re over the speed limit.
You ever have that moment happen? You’re like definitely over by it a bit. Okay. By the speed limit. True story.
The first time I got pulled over, I turned to the classical station, rested, shaking hands on the steering wheel, elevated my voice and octave and made sure to blink wide and scared so we could see the white of my eyes and emerald irises in the late May sun. He didn’t ask my name, never saw license or registration said, just take it easy.
So I did. So I do.
But my son, now 14 years and five months from his first driver’s test, what will he do?
How much of my stare and smart mouth are imprinted? How will he understand why I can’t sleep each night he’s away from home? And I look just like the men who too easily mistake the dark silhouette of his wallet. For a gun.
Adriana: ###
And now for the part of the show where we talk about what we’re reading. Okay. So, what’s going on? What have you been reading? What are you up to?
Karla: I finished The Tradition by Jericho Brown.
Adriana: Ohhh, yesss.
Karla: And it was one of those books that moved me to write.
That’s so great.
Moved me to the writing table. I really love the form that he invented, the duplex, the duplexes interrupt the other poems in the book, The Tradition, and I usually don’t, I, I’m not a formalist at all necessarily, but this definitely was like such a structure that was, so, it condensed me, it challenged me to stay in like a condensed form, you know.
Adriana: Oh, I love form. You know that Robert Frost quote: “Writing poetry without form is like playing tennis without a net.” You know, you’ll you need the rules, you need the structure. I love it. I actually find structure to be incredibly freeing because then it, I don’t have to think of what the structure is.
Karla: And I don’t know who said this, but like, if you know the rules, you can break them. Yeah.
Adriana: Yes, exactly. And so, I think it’s, but every now and then I really love going back to form. I don’t know that I’ve ever published a poem in form, actually but I have notebooks of like villanelles. I love villanelles. Going back again to Sylvia Plath, I think I’m going to try to bring up Sylvia Plath every episode of Charla Cultural, like my high school friends, if they are listening, will laugh.
She has this wonderful Villanelle that’s like the sting of bees took away my father. And I remember just falling in love with it when I was in high school, because of the way it just kind of built and had this rhythm and the way it became very chant-like, so I really like form. So, you really, you enjoyed reading Jericho Brown’s book?
Karla: Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah. And like so much insight into childhood, family life, life as an out Black man. And yeah, like his story has his narrative, I suppose. Like the fact that I felt moved to the page, it’s just like, wow, like that’s what good poetry also does. You know, someone that like I don’t have the identities he has, but I was still like, I didn’t say it to myself, like, oh, I can do this. But I do feel, I do feel like, can I borrow the duplex? You know, as Latina writer.
Adriana: Well, I think whatever you do in your notebook is what you do in your notebook. Right? And they think that when a poet offers a form, the poet is offering you a place, you know, where you can play as well. And so, I think it’s really about what you do with it more than anything. But who knows? Right? You know, I don’t think, I mean, you see The Golden Shovel.
Karla: I was going to bring that up? Yeah. Terrence Hayes, right.
Adriana: People use the Golden Shovel all the time. And people of all ethnicities, all races I’ve seen execute very well.
And so what am I reading? See okay. This is not a book. Because lately I have two children under the age of three, obviously. And so reading is a luxury some days. And my husband had to leave town recently. And so it’s just been me and the youngest. And she is, you know, a little bit over a year old, as we know from Carlos Andres Gómez’s performance state. And the only thing I have time to read right now are summaries and discussions of Eurovision videos. That’s right. I am obsessed with Eurovision. It is a thing. And I have a Facebook group where we post a Eurovision contestant’s video every day and we discuss it, usually talking terrible trash.
And then sometimes afterwards I like look up stuff on Reddit and read people’s commentary. And that’s all I have had time to read this week and I am not apologizing because I love Eurovision. It is camp. It is phenomenal. It is a song contest. It is my favorite thing. It is ridiculous that I love it. And yet I do. And I’ve somehow managed to get like 10 of my friends also super into it, including my in-laws my sister-in-law is wild. I’m trying to get everyone I know and into Eurovision because it is so fun. And I was just reading up that there’s something called the American song contest that they’re thinking about doing.
So they’re thinking of bringing Eurovision to the U.S. and I could not be more excited which allows us to transition to Remedios. So, what’s going on at City of Asylum?
Okay. So
Karla: City of Asylum is launching the first annual international literary festival that we’re really excited about. It’s a 10-day event that considers themes of migration, identity, and displacement, and with the emphasis on translation. So, Aster(ix) and Charla Cultural partnered up to present Rosa Alcalá and the Kitchen Table translation issue of Aster(ix) May 15th. 5:30 PM. You can find the link in Show Notes. What about Aster(ix)?
Adriana: So, on the Aster(ix) website, I encourage you to look at Sheila Maldonado’s most recent poem. It’s called “my-us” and it’s a little collection of just tiny bits from her latest collection. That’s What You Get, that’s available for purchase widely and it’s, it’s got a bathtub on the cover. The poems are fantastic. They’re brief, they’re delightful. Please scope them out at Asterixjournal.com. And we’ll have a link to pick up Maldonado’s book That’s What You Get and there’s a link on the Aster(ix) website too.
Karla: So, I hope people are getting vaccinated. No, I don’t.
I’m getting back today. I’m getting vaccinated today. Never, haven’t been more grateful to be chubby.
Oh, you know what? There’s another vaccine story real quick. Oh, aside. Okay. So, we both have the I think it’s the smallpox vaccine scar, by the way.
And then whenever people are like, oh, what’s that scar? And I was like, oh, it’s from a vaccine in Mexico that they were giving out still when I was born in the 80s too.
Adriana: Me too. I had it as well.
Karla: Yeah. That’s like, people are like, speaking of vaccines. And like, I like to say, I do have a script for that. It’s like, yeah, Mexico was still doing it, but in the U.S. They had stopped this vaccine giving scar thing that, but I don’t know, like, yeah.
Adriana: I don’t know.
Karla: I don’t know anybody else like my age…
Adriana: I think it’s like a little badge of honor. It’s like a little secret club I’m in. It’s actually really funny. The husband and I are watching Outlander on Starz. We’re slowly working our way through it, like one episode a month.
Okay. But there’s a moment where the smallpox scar comes up and I was like, Hey, I have one too. And I was just laughing because I was like, oh man, would kids watching the show, even know what that was? And so, I find it highly amusing. It, me, you, and the old people, I don’t want to age myself. I lie about my age all the time and they get it from my Mexican mom.
Yeah. Well, you know, like she looks like Frida. She looks indigenous or passes or how the fuck it’s such a weird identity crisis, but like she can play many roles and she embraces it.
Yeah, absolutely. That’s so fun though.
Yeah. Also lying!
Identity is a complicated thing and we, this is probably our, not like, not our last discussion on identity that we’re going to be having, because we’re certainly always unpacking it.
And I think that’s part of what being Latinx in the U.S. is, you know, is that people are always kind of wanting to put you in a box. Oh my God. After this election, so many things were like the “Latinx vote.” I was like, dude, we can’t agree on a name. Whatcha doin’, tryin’ to think we all speak as one?
We’re all unpacking this.
Karla: Yeah, Carlos does a great job also unpacking that in the poem and like, Mexican is not a language, you know?
Adriana: Like, no, and it’s not, it’s not an all-encompassing identity. It’s like when I’m in New York and people ask me if I’m Spanish. And I’m like, well, it is the language we all speak.
Yeah. But it is not necessarily… other than speaking a common language. There’s very little that really unites all Latinos, you know, it used to be, to some degree, Catholicism, but even now religion has gotten so diverse that, you know, I met a Jehovah’s witness from Uruguay the other day and I was like, you sir, are defying my expectation, so Ezekiel, what a great name.
Okay. All right. Well, I think we’re just about out of time today, so thank you so much for listening. This has been Charla Cultural brought to you by Aster(ix) Journal and City of Asylum. I’m Adriana E. Ramírez.
Karla: Y yo soy Karla Lamb y buenas noches, gracias.
Alexis Jabour: City of Asylum builds a just community by protecting and celebrating creative free expression.
Aster(ix) is transnational, feminist literary arts journal cofounded by Angie Cruz and Adriana E. Ramírez. Committed to social justice and translation placing women of color at the center of conversation
Adriana: Charla Cultural is hosted by Karla Lamb and Adriana E. Ramírez. Voice of goddess is Alexis Jabour. Editorial support by Clarissa A. León. Production design and brand management by Little L. Creative. Our theme song is Colombia Folk by Luis Alfonso.
And thank you as always to our sponsors, Aster(ix) Journal and City of Asylum.
