12 or 20 (second series) questions with Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet,educator, and translator of trans experience. His honors include being namedPoet Laureate of Philadelphia, the Premio Nuevas Voces, and the inauguralAmbroggio Prize. Among his six poetry books are lo terciario/ the tertiary (Noemi,2019), longlisted for the National Book Award and winner of the Lambda LiteraryAward, and while they sleep (under the bed is another country) (BirdsLLC, 2019), which inspired the title for no existe un mundo poshuracán atthe Whitney Museum. In September 2025,Graywolf Press will publish his epic poem Algarabía . Roque currently teaches inthe Comparative Literature Program at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, isthe Creative Editor for sx salon: a small axe literary platform , andserves the needs of a fierce cat named Pietri.

1 - How did your first book change your life? Howdoes your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?

I published my first book when I was 25. I hadbeen obsessed with poetry since I was 12 and had been participating in readingsin San Juan along poets such as José Raúl "Gallego" González, HermesAyala, Mara Pastor, and Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro as a teenager. My style changeda lot after I want to SWP's Summer Writing Program when I was 18. There Istudied under the mentorship of Daisy Zamora and Akilah Oliver and got to hearAmiri Baraka, Chip Delany, and Robin Blaser.

I worked intensively on the poems in my firstbook for about five or six years after that. While I was in the ComparativeLiterature Program at Mayagüez—the same program where I now teach—I metLissette Rolón Collazo. She is an incredible editor and intellectual who ranthe queer colloquium, El Coloquio ¿Del Otro Lao? and the press Editora EducaciónEmergente. She was also my professor and when she found out I had a manuscript,she invited me to submit to the press.

After I submitted the manuscript, there was aprocess where it was reviewed by three different readers who decided if itshould be published. They decided on publication. I'm still so impressedbecause it was a long poetry book and the accumulation of many years of workingon an early style. Publishing it gave me a great deal of confidence in my work.Sometimes I go back and reread those poems and have such mixed feelings. I cansee a lot of how my style and work has changed, but the seeds are there. Thematically,questions of labor, coloniality, and gender were already present, as well and aformal interest in baroque metaphors rooted in daily life here.

I am incredibly grateful I published my first twobooks in Puerto Rico. This is my home. My forthcoming book la bella crisiswill also be published here with Semipermeable.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposedto, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I don't think I could answer that simply. We'dhave to have a shared definition of what makes poetry and fiction different. Ican definitely say I am a poet, not a prose writer. There is always a momentwhen I am reading a great novel that I think, "Wow. Impressive. That iswhy I'm not a novelist." Algarabía is an epic poem, a narrativepoem. It was incredibly fun to write, and the narrative was challenging, but itis a poem. It reads like an epic, not a novel.

3 - How long does it take to start any particularwriting project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slowprocess? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or doesyour work come out of copious notes?

I usually take a break after a big project. By break I don't mean a long time,but a time when I don't write at all. I need to disconnect from poetry after abook. A reset. I need to hang out and share and celebrate the work I just made.It's not about a specific amount of time, but about enjoying the work! Aboutbeing alive.

Editing and rewriting is part of the writingprocess. Each poem requires different edits, some more than others.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Areyou an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, orare you working on a "book" from the very beginning? 

I don't know. I just write. Poems come. Some areshort pieces. Some don't belong anywhere. Others are long. Some are part ofcollections. Others end up being the beginning of larger projects. Books tendto be projects for me, but sometimes it takes time for a project to take shapeand make itself known to me.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter toyour creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love doing readings. I love it when peoplerespond to my work. I love sharing my work.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behindyour writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?What do you even think the current questions are?

Each book answers a different question andconcern.

My third poetry book lo terciario/the tertiary (1sted. Timeless, Infinite Light, 2nd ed. Noemi Press), a poeticresponse to the Puerto Rican debt crisis and a decolonial reconsideration ofMarx's Capital.

My fourth poetry book, while they sleep (under thebed is another country), a text written in dialogic fragments andinterspersed with prose poems reflecting on the lasting impact of the traumaexperienced after Hurricane María. It is centered con questions ofcoloniality, power, trauma, aesthetics and linguistic colonialism. 

My fifth poetry book, x/ex/exis,offers poems that meet at the intersection of gender, nation, andlanguage. 

My sixth poetry book, antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano (Beacon Press, 2022), imagines a multiverseof decolonial futures for Puerto Rico. 

My newest collection, Algarabía, whichwill be out on September 2, isan epic poem that follows the journey of Cenex, a trans being whoretrospectively narrates his life while navigating the stories told on hisbehalf. It inscribes an origin narrativefor trans people in the face of their erasure from both colonial andanti-colonial literary canons.

7 – What do you see the current role of thewriter being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think therole of the writer should be?

Debates about the roles of writers in society areas old as writing. I can't talk about the role of "the writer"because I do not have a lot in common with some writers. Being a writer doesn'tautomatically make me anti-colonial or even socially aware. I think writersshould spend less time debating the role they should have and more time eitherwriting or acting. I go to protests as a person, not as a writer. I write as awriter. I say "Free Palestine" because I believe in a world withoutgenocide, colonialism, and profit margins. There are many writers who arecomfortable investing in Lockheed Martin. I am not one of them and I don'tthink I share anything with them except a general interest in literature.

8 - Do you find the process of working with anoutside editor difficult or essential (or both)? 

I request specific editors for most of myprojects because the Spanish side of my books is written in a Puerto Ricandialect of Spanish and I am trans and my language reflects that, which means Ineed someone comfortable with inclusive language and respectful of my work. Iam not going to spend hours teaching an Argentinian copyeditor that in PuertoRico we say "cristal" when referring to a car window. It's not myjob. I have Puerto Rican editors.

As for editors in English, I also tend to requestpeople who are aware of linguistic colonialism and won't ask me to translate"múcaro" as "screech owl" when those are literallydifferent birds. After many years of bad experiences, I've become demanding andlearned to say "no." It isn't my responsibility to decolonize theeditorial world. All I can do is ask for editors that understand the gift thatis Puerto Rican literature. It is the bare minimum. I am doing all the work of translatingmyself and my life, the least I can ask for is that the translation be treatedwith respect.

For Algarabía I was quite luck. I workedwith editors that helped a great deal and were very thorough.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard(not necessarily given to you directly)?

A writer once reminded a group of us that we weregetting so excited about being featured in a well-known publication that wewere losing sight of the fact that it was an honor for the magazine to get tointerview us. That has been my guiding light for a long time. Be true to yourwork. Read and work hard. Never let colonizers disrespect you by giving themyour power.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move betweengenres (poetry to translation)? What do you see as the appeal? 

Those aren't different for me. I used the sameset of tools for both. If you've ever tried translating a sonnet, you know thatyou need to be a poet for that to be a great sonnet in the target language. Notall poets are translators, and not all translators are poets, but I am both andthey don't exist separately in my life. Literary translators should be writers.It is not a popular opinion, but I am always surprised that people think theycan render something extraordinary in another language without having a senseof how it sounds, of its literariness. If anything, I am simply focusing on aslightly different aspect of language when I am translating, but translating isa form of rewriting.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? 

A typical day for me begins with class prep andcoffee because I am teaching four literature courses. This week we discussVladimir Propp's functions, Philip K. Dick and the movie Total Recall,Alice Notley's The Descent of Alette, Longinus's On the Sublime,contemporary Puerto Rican poetry, Farid ud-din Attar's The Conference of theBirds, Cervantes, and whether Popeyes or Church's Chicken has the best biscuits.Reading is a huge part of my writing practice. I am not one of those writersthat has a writing routine, but I am a rigorous and consistent reader.

When I am writing, I sometimes take long breaksfrom work and concentrate on writing. It is the only way I can workconsistently.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do youturn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I read literature. 

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I had to call my uncle for this question. Jajaja.When I was a kid, I would visit my grandparents place on the road leading toAñasco for the summers. My uncle had a room where he lived and kept his toolsand mountain climbing equipment and I have a visceral smell of the mix of hisperfume and the equipment. He says it was probably Curve.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books comefrom books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whethernature, music, science or visual art?

Of course. Music: reggaetón, salsa, música detríos, nueva trova, hip-hop, have all influenced me deeply. I am obviouslyinspired by Villana (Villano Antillano), and I am inspired by everyday things:oil puddles, edibles, two changos fighting, going to the Walgreens. I lovemovies, from commercial films like Clueless or John Wick, to moreindependent productions like Andrea Arnold's films or Perfume de Gardenias.Lists feel pretty limiting, but in terms of visual artists, I love Cy Twombly,Natalia Bosques Chico, and Pepón Osorio and I am inspired by performanceartists such as Awilda Sterling and André Po Rodil.

15 - What other writers or writings are importantfor your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I am part of a community. Puerto Rican literaturewouldn't exist without our incredible efforts to keep it alive despitecolonialism. Other writers here are so important to me. My friendships withwriters such as Xavier Valcárcel, Roberto Ncar, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, HakeemTorres, Cristina Pérez Díaz, Angelía Rivera Mar, Gaddiel Francisco Ruiz Rivera,Gamelyn Oduardo-Sierra, Mayra Santos-Febres, üatibirí, Urayoán Noel, Mara Pastor, Isamar Anzalotta, Alejandra Rosa, Francisco Félix Canales Dalmau, Luis Negrón, Kadiri Vaquer Fernández, Veronika Reca, Willie Perdomo, Denice Frohman,Yara Liceaga, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Carina del Valle Schorske, Yamil Maldonado, Jean Alberto Rodríguez, Nicole Cecilia Delgado.... I know I've leftout so many people. I am sorry! My point is that my community is expansive andincludes a bunch of people. Even if we don't see each other regularly, we counton each other for a lot.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven'tyet done?

Visit every place in the Caribbean I haven't visitedyet.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation toattempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?

A filmmaker. I love movies so much. They take upa lot of space in my life.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doingsomething else?

Sincerely, I don't know if I could have donesomething else, but I fell in love with poetry at a very young age and decidedI wanted to be a poet. I am now almost 40, so it has been about 28 years ofobsessing over poetry. I love it still and it has kept me alive. 

19 - What was the last great book you read? Whatwas the last great film?

I just reread The Descent of Alette and Altazar.They are still both great! I see too many movies, so I'm not sure what thelatest is, but I recently saw The Ugly Stepsister, which was great, andI saw Sinners in theaters, which I also loved.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Touring with Algarabía and organizing abig launch on September 13 at Casa Aboy with a line-up that includes someamazing writers and performers, drinks, and a book signing with Casa Riel.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;