The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: Latinext ed. by Felicia Rose Chavez, José Olivares and Willie Perdomo

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: Latinext ed. by Felicia Rose Chavez, José Olivares and Willie Perdomo Ignacio Carvajal THE BREAKBEAT POETS VOL. 4: LATINEXT. By Felicia Rose Chavez, José Olivares, and Willie Perdomo, eds. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020. The stated purpose of the fourth volume of The BreakBeat Poets series collection, LatiNext, edited by Felicia Rose Chavez, José Olivares, and Willie Perdomo, is to bring “the aesthetic of hip-hop practice to the page.” It is the latest from Haymarket in a series that has published several collections based around sets of marginalized identities. The editors highlight poetics that have been excluded to center the works as serious subjects of study and literary merit. During a moment in which the analytical use of the term “latinidad” in the United States trembles (se tambalea, por de alguna manera decirlo), revealing both the possibilities and fissures in better understanding or wielding concepts like identity or relation, the voices in LatiNext complicate, rather than attempt to foreclose, those discussions. As a whole, the book celebrates what Perdomo in the introduction calls a “somos más” moment. This proclamation seems to be simultaneously referring to the diversity of communities to which the label of Latinx/a/o may or may not apply, but also to a growing number of artists making noise in increasingly visible stages. There are 125 poets in this anthology. They hail from Houston, New York, Chicago, many places in California, the DMV — but also Cuba, New Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic. They are Nuyoricans, Afro-Latinx, Ch/Xicanx/o/as, Central American, Queer, Black, poet laureates, established voices, and young new-comers. In Mariana Goycoechea’s “PoEma for MaMi,” to highlight just one, the speaker mourns a mother who struggled with writing: “Mujer,/... I don’t know what I’ll/write from here on/other than to remember to write the entire alphabet/every time I write your name” (43). Gabriel Ramirez’s “Afro-Latinx Manifesto (or I learned to Count Salsa Steps to Laffy Taffy by D4L)” proclaims that “I let go of my father’s abandonment to carry a name I knew better than any,” that of the mother whose belly was kissed by Celia Cruz (73–74). Too many to name here, the collection includes explicit odes to the peacock, to the chola, to Kendrick Lamar, to dipset, to new money, to Tego Calderón — along with many others to place, memory, and future. “These poems, though, they wanna be about something beautiful like birds ‘n’ shit,” writes Joseph Rios in “Fellowship Application." The poem continues (57–58): This poetry is for the birds......Birds that getcancer. Birds that get valley fever. Birds that die ofdiabetes. Birds that watch professional wrestling andown cats with feline leukemia. I hate that my poetry hasto be about this shit, but it’s true.... [End Page 31] The poems in the collection constitute remembrances, eulogies, portraits, and celebrations. Ashley August’s “Luanne” celebrates a young woman at school, much less concerned with what others may think or say and more with living in her joy. She (23–24): Run when it scares herStay when it feel goodSay nothing when she ain’t got nothing to sayDon’t fake the funkShe don’t be polite for nobody’s feelingsTell you she want it, tell you to take it backTell you you stupid when you is stupid The speaker in Victoria Chávez Peralta’s “Dios te Salve, María” insists that “la virgen de guadalupe loves me, even though i’m queer.” Susi García’s “The Bridge is out” defiantly declares that “The bridge is out/but it won’t stop us, amigax –/ we under water walk” (131). Jonathan Mendoza’s “On nationalism” critically states: “I do not need to wave an empire’s flag/to prove I am deserving of a life” (183). Cierto es, como el poema de Raquel Salas Rivera “preguntas frecuentes” nos dice, que (246): en inglés el plural singular ya exitseel yo muchamenteen español tenemos que inventar el pluralellx elleun singular bastardo una caja de galletas/duct tape...