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lo terciario / the tertiary
Poetry. Written in response to the PROMESA bill (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act) bill, LO TERCIARIO/THE TERCIARY offers a decolonial queer critique and reconsideration of Marx. The book's titles come from Pedro Scaron's El Capital, the 1976 translation of Karl Marx's classic. Published by Siglo Veintiuno Editores, this translation was commonly used by the Puerto Rican left as part of political formation programs. LO TERCIARIO/THE TERCIARY places this text in relation to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, forcing readers to reconsider old questions when facing colonialism's newest horrors.
210 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 3, 2018
Let me start by saying that it’s entirely possible that I just didn’t get this book of NBA longlisted poems. This presents a collection of poems in both English and Spanish looking at economic and social issues in Puerto Rico. The book builds off of a translation of Marx and seems to be critiquing economic principles as they relate to the debt in PR, as well as its relationship to the US. There are also poems about her struggles to get her family to accept her sexual orientation.
January 25, 2019
Rivera's book of poetry skillfully combines political and economic commentary with emotion and lyricism. I found the poems fell in a nice place between evocative and accessible; they weren't straightforward by any means, but neither were they stuffy or academic. These poems inspired me to learn more about Puerto Rico, as well!
June 19, 2018
This fangirl can't stop reading this book--& interviews w/RSR about it. Here's one w/Candace Williams & Raquel that describes the book and the poetics and politics animating it better than I ever could:
https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/bo...
EXCERPT
CW: One of the most striking things about "the tertiary" is that the impersonal, brutal language of the state, powerful capitalists, and revered socialists sits alongside language that is quite intimate. Under the heading of "(necessary impossibility)" you write:
"i remember i’ve always had
poems that are more like poems,
poems that are more like people,
and poems that are more like solidarities."
What kinds of poems do you strive to write? What kinds of poems would you like to see more of in the world?
RSR: I'm all for obscurity, especially in the work of poets of color. I don't think obscurity or the unknowable is intrinsically bad. It's not always bad not to know something. Because of how ableist our world is, not knowing something is read as shameful or bad. Knowing and not knowing are wielded to enforce and cement dynamics of power. Someone that does know will use that knowledge to punish or to control those who don't.
There is something really important that happened for me when I began reading work that I couldn't fully understand. There was a resistance in me initially, and there was a kind of giving-in that happened that was really important for me as a poet, and it freed-up a lot of space around what I was allowed to like and desire and engage with. There is a work that poetry did around freeing up that space around language and allowing me to like some weird stuff that wasn't legible to everyone (including myself). So, that's a type of poetry that I think should exist in the world. I don't expect everyone to like it, but I do.
And then, there are poems that are more like people. That's my desire to have the poem be alive, and not just in the sense of, "I want the poem to be alive!" but, in the sense that these are lives that we are talking about. When I'm naming people in my poems, those are their real names, and they are real people in my life! When I'm talking about my mother, she is alive and she is my mother, and I talk to her, and she's coming next week to Philadelphia to help me move. Her being in the poem has consequences. In that way, the poem becomes a person, in that it has to be respected like a person.
There are poems like solidarities.
a version of the poem "through the opposite act of circulation, or the inverse metamorphosis":
http://wandererpoetry.com/el-sucio-nu...
https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/bo...
EXCERPT
CW: One of the most striking things about "the tertiary" is that the impersonal, brutal language of the state, powerful capitalists, and revered socialists sits alongside language that is quite intimate. Under the heading of "(necessary impossibility)" you write:
"i remember i’ve always had
poems that are more like poems,
poems that are more like people,
and poems that are more like solidarities."
What kinds of poems do you strive to write? What kinds of poems would you like to see more of in the world?
RSR: I'm all for obscurity, especially in the work of poets of color. I don't think obscurity or the unknowable is intrinsically bad. It's not always bad not to know something. Because of how ableist our world is, not knowing something is read as shameful or bad. Knowing and not knowing are wielded to enforce and cement dynamics of power. Someone that does know will use that knowledge to punish or to control those who don't.
There is something really important that happened for me when I began reading work that I couldn't fully understand. There was a resistance in me initially, and there was a kind of giving-in that happened that was really important for me as a poet, and it freed-up a lot of space around what I was allowed to like and desire and engage with. There is a work that poetry did around freeing up that space around language and allowing me to like some weird stuff that wasn't legible to everyone (including myself). So, that's a type of poetry that I think should exist in the world. I don't expect everyone to like it, but I do.
And then, there are poems that are more like people. That's my desire to have the poem be alive, and not just in the sense of, "I want the poem to be alive!" but, in the sense that these are lives that we are talking about. When I'm naming people in my poems, those are their real names, and they are real people in my life! When I'm talking about my mother, she is alive and she is my mother, and I talk to her, and she's coming next week to Philadelphia to help me move. Her being in the poem has consequences. In that way, the poem becomes a person, in that it has to be respected like a person.
There are poems like solidarities.
a version of the poem "through the opposite act of circulation, or the inverse metamorphosis":
http://wandererpoetry.com/el-sucio-nu...
January 22, 2020
I can't help feeling like I have missed something about this collection even after reading it in both English and Spanish. I appreciate the author's project, outlined in the introduction--this book brings together poetics, economics, history, and gender studies in an attempt to transcend each of those disciplines. I also appreciate the author's own translation of the book, a task I am sure was very difficult. That being said, I struggled to find footholds in many of the lines.
Unsurprisingly, the poems are often very (very) heady and I am sure I would find interesting connections between the titles (taken from Marx) and the content of each poem, but I usually was already too worn out after working my way through the content of the poems. There is a lot to pick apart and analyze here (I wonder if any Greek authors have written analogous works about that country's struggles with internationally-managed national debt), but Lo terciario/The Tertiary is not an easy read. Approach it if you're ready to be challenged--I wasn't quite there, but maybe I will return to it in the future and realize how silly my first reading was.
Unsurprisingly, the poems are often very (very) heady and I am sure I would find interesting connections between the titles (taken from Marx) and the content of each poem, but I usually was already too worn out after working my way through the content of the poems. There is a lot to pick apart and analyze here (I wonder if any Greek authors have written analogous works about that country's struggles with internationally-managed national debt), but Lo terciario/The Tertiary is not an easy read. Approach it if you're ready to be challenged--I wasn't quite there, but maybe I will return to it in the future and realize how silly my first reading was.
September 16, 2018
the best way to describe this book is a few lines from their poem "first phase: the capitalist appears as a buyer:"
"i had read marx organically.
i dreamt the cia invaded my house
with open arms.
in their hands they had bloody cotton balls,
and said: your mother is dead.
but the cia never came, only bills and bills."
i'm really grateful for this book in a world of presses sponsored by wells fargo. many books are called radical, but this one is
"i had read marx organically.
i dreamt the cia invaded my house
with open arms.
in their hands they had bloody cotton balls,
and said: your mother is dead.
but the cia never came, only bills and bills."
i'm really grateful for this book in a world of presses sponsored by wells fargo. many books are called radical, but this one is
Read
June 16, 2019Both intricate and political. I am very glad that the book had both the original Spanish and the English translation, I read them side by side (or, rather, flipping the book back and forth) and that worked for me the best.
I think this is the first translated book, and also first bilingual book, to win the Lambda award in Transgender Poetry. (Maybe in all the poetry categories; I'm not sure.)
Might have more thoughts later, possibly a longer review.
________
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library
I think this is the first translated book, and also first bilingual book, to win the Lambda award in Transgender Poetry. (Maybe in all the poetry categories; I'm not sure.)
Might have more thoughts later, possibly a longer review.
________
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library
July 31, 2019
Very inventive, very rigorous, very sonorous, very pleasing, very carnal, very rhythmic, very intellectual, very passionate, very persuasive, very particular, very accessible, very bloody, very communal, very new.
I can see why Raquel Salas Rivera is the poet laureate. Rivera speaks to the challenges of our time from a deep knowledge of what curdles in our hearts and bones and brains--a mixture of all the things that makes good poetry and literature. Never pedantic or pedestrian--just poetry.
Highly recommended!!
I can see why Raquel Salas Rivera is the poet laureate. Rivera speaks to the challenges of our time from a deep knowledge of what curdles in our hearts and bones and brains--a mixture of all the things that makes good poetry and literature. Never pedantic or pedestrian--just poetry.
Highly recommended!!
October 7, 2019
I have long known and admired Raquel. I'm basically a giant fangirl. I am astounded at how much Raquel is able to write and how good it all is.
It's possible that this book hit me so hard because I was exactly primed for it: by teaching Marxist theory, by studying natural disasters (see my Hurricane Katrina obsession of a few years ago), by following Raquel on social media and learning a ton about Puerto Rico.
Well-deserving of that National Book Award nomination.
It's possible that this book hit me so hard because I was exactly primed for it: by teaching Marxist theory, by studying natural disasters (see my Hurricane Katrina obsession of a few years ago), by following Raquel on social media and learning a ton about Puerto Rico.
Well-deserving of that National Book Award nomination.
December 6, 2018
I’m Puerto Rican and I was really looking forward to this. Unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations. I think I would have liked this better if it were just a straight manifesto... as a poetry collection it didn’t work for me, which isn’t to say it’s not an important work but it just lacked the things I generally look for in a collection.
January 15, 2023
“im tired of being tired. i want my friends not to work so hard. i want the rivers to be protected, the golden coquí to survive the limitless sprawl of walgreens. i want to fight the cops, read poems in a tent in front of the federal building. and then i want us to dispossess it and chase out the vultures. i want hope to be more than a motif.”
PHEW.
inspiring, thoughtful, relatable. such a great read for my comrades out there.
PHEW.
inspiring, thoughtful, relatable. such a great read for my comrades out there.
June 8, 2023
[Sandra in the BX who reminded me that change comes from within and for being on the list; unnamed woman who called me out for misunderstanding PR’s position more than a decade ago]
Read this. And then read it again.
Read this. And then read it again.
April 7, 2020
Wonder why a queer latinx marxist poetry book isn't wildly popular? Why isn't everyone talking about this!!!??
June 17, 2020
how refreshing to find this work! this is the kind of experimental poetry I want to see
Read
January 16, 2023Wasn’t smart enough for this one! But so compelled by the project.
April 23, 2019
Es impresionante como Salas Rivera conecta la búsqueda de la identidad puertorriqueña con la batalla social de no pertener a la hetero-norma en un país que no se reconoce en el espejo de un "soy", por la opresión infinita de ser unicornio en un mundo de yeguas y caballos.
¿Seré? ¿Seremos?
¿Seré? ¿Seremos?
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews