NOTE: if discussions of suicide and generational trauma are difficult for you, I recommend skipping ahead past the subscribe button to the usual links!
It would be unfair to say I never understood my dad’s habit for disappearing from, por ejemplo, central Texas one day and popping back up across the state, or country, months later. I understood, understand. I just hated it, even if I understood. Like, hey man, I’m here and I’m suffering and you’re my father and you’re just gone.
I don’t harbor that hate anymore.
He was also suffering.
He disappeared a few times. Some of those times, I tracked him down, followed, kept him from killing himself. That is not hyperbole. It is something else, to wrestle cold metal from your father’s hand at the age of 14.
Why am I so bad at being a person I ask myself every day. After spending a few days on the land my dad and his dad and his dad and so on spent many more days on— my dad took his own life on this land— I see it clearly. I come from a long line of men who never had the chance to be good at being a person. Why am I any different?
I eventually stopped trying to track him down.
During his second to last attempt to leave for good, he texted me, asking for my prayers. I didn’t recognize the number— he’d changed his just as I’d changed mine, to make it easier to avoid each other. I recognized the area code tied to that land.
It all sounds so adult, right?
I was a teenager that summer.
A year after said attempt, I tried to be there for him again. It went as well I’d expected, which is to say not well at all.
I blocked him on whatsapp and washed my hands of the relationship. I didn’t write for months. I felt like I had failed him in order to keep myself alive.
A year later, he died on the land I swore I’d never return to.
He died because I wasn’t there to stop him that time. If he tried to text me, I’ll never know. His number was blocked. I don’t feel at fault, but the truth is that he tried and failed so many times to leave. Myself and others simply got in the way of his succeeding.
I returned to the land for his funeral, and again two years later for his dad’s funeral. I swore both times would be the last.
My burnout reached a peak on what would have been my dad’s 55th birthday earlier this month. I went to the land. I felt the weight of generation after generation of cultivation and trauma and donkeys and labor and music and abuse and nopales.
He died when I was 21. Relief flooded my system for the first time in my life. I am still unraveling what it does to a kid to be responsible for his parent. At 21, I had no one left to take care of, besides my cat and myself— I never really cared for, well, caring for myself until he died.
I can’t help but feel, in leaving the land this time around, that I was leaving him, too. I can’t help but feel his ghost there, finally enjoying what life has to offer. I can’t help but feel like the child I was never allowed to be.
I can’t help but wonder what will stop the generational curse of wanting to disappear.
Solidarity with Palestine:
TOMORROW, Game Over Books is hosting a Poets for Gaza reading
SXSW is happening right now— it’s one of the biggest events in Texas every year. The festivals and conferences are including several weapons manufacturers that are actively aiding israel right now. Here’s how you can take action. Several musicians have already pulled out of SXSW in protest.
Read and sign on to this open letter to PEN america
Guernica published warmongering genocide apologism, and fully retracted it after losing their entire poetry team, a backlog of Palestinian writing, and the trust of plenty of writers, myself included.
On a similar note, check out The Offing’s “A note on REFUSAL”
The Offing is working to rehome writing pulled from genocide-abiding publications
Texas Tech University suspended a decolonial scholar for… being decolonial. Yet they let other professors groom teenage students for decades. Consider signing this open letter and letting TTU know what you think about their actions.
Read about Aaron Bushnell’s self immolation here
If you’re in the usa, keep calling your reps. Flood biden’s phone lines every Tuesday and Thursday. USCPR is a great resource for getting started.
Keep boycotting. Check out the BDS site for more info.
Opportunities:
We are currently considering original manuscripts of fiction and non-fiction (including works-in-progress). We are also considering reprint proposals of literary/historical works of significance by transgender authors.
Printed Matter is seeking artists books, zines, etc on Decolonization, Resistance & Solidarity
The Poetry Lab Markus D. Manley Award - open to BIPOC poets; $1000 stipend, free access to courses, community networking, and mentorship - closes 3/15
Hub City Press BIPOC Poetry Series - open to full-length poetry collections from BIPOC writers connected to AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA, or WV - closes 3/15
TIMBER - open for BIPOC, queer, & disabled writers, all genres - closes 3/15
Grubstreet Novel Immersive for LGBTQ+ Writers - scholarships available - closes 3/26
Sundress Virtual Trans/Nonbinary Writers Retreat - fellowships available - closes 3/30
I’ve gone to this both years it’s been offered, can’t recommend it enough
Jaded Ibis Press Uplift Voices Nonfiction Book Award - open to book-length creative nonfiction by US-based, historically marginalized writers - closes 3/31
manywor(l)ds - open for all/no genres from trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex writers - closes 3/31
Canthius - writers of marginalized genders, all genres, theme of TRASH - closes 4/1
open to chapbooks from LGBTQ+ poets - closes 4/5
open to poetry for next issue from LGBTQ+ poets - closes 5/15
Meet Me There, Another Time: Letters To Places Queer and Trans People Left Behind - anthology open to queer and trans writers - closes 4/15
Sinister Wisdom - Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds - closes 6/30
From around the internet:
Check out this interview with Sarah Clark, EIC of ALOCASIA (and ANMLY and beestung!)
and this interview with Farrah Fang on her book Quererme en La Luz for Letras Latinas
I really enjoyed reading “Capistrano” by aureleo sans in Joyland
enjoy isn’t the right word for this one, but this brief poem moved me: “Liberal Poem for Palestine” by Noah Mazer in Protean
And two incredible trans poems:
“POEM IN WHICH I READ TRANS” by Cavar in JAKE
“SB43” by Brody Parrish Craig in Rise Up Review
What I’ve been up to:
My essay on microaggressions at my former job is up at here to complain
My poem “reclamation as in” is in All My Relations volume 6: Resistance
My first piece of fiction, “El Primo,” is in Barrelhouse’s Latine Monsters issue
I published the first-ever trans poetica author interview with Sean Enfield for holy american burnout!
Boston friends: I’ll be facilitating my Writing Queer & Trans Joy workshop at the Muse & The Marketplace conference May 10th
I’m going to be part of this years Poets in Pajamas reading series on May 26th
I recently went to Arkansas (for the first time!) to read and present on transgender bilingual poetics and see poet friends. Conclusion: poetry is fucking incredible and I’m incredibly lucky to get to talk about it all the time
Thank you, as always, for reading this far down. Trans poetica will always be free, but tips are greatly appreciated! I have three pay-what-you-want zines available here. I am available for editing, readings, workshops, and more through my site.
If you have an opportunity for trans, BIPOC, disabled, otherwise marginalized writers or artists you’d like me to include, please let me know. If I’m platforming an institution that is doing wrong by our communities, please let me know that, too.
<3
SG, thank you for creating such beauty out of sorrow. Many of us lost the chance to be children when we were saving adults in our lives.
And also thank you for the link to the poem for Nex. That one hit hard. Art heals us.
Thank you for this SG, those were powerful words. I recently lost a friend and something in what you wrote resonated with his last few years. Sending you abrazos and buenas vibras! <3