compiled from the social media of Roberto Montes
The truth is every day
Marginalized people are pressured
To surrender the imagination
Of being
For political expediency
In the case of queerness for example
It is more persuasive to insist
“We did not and would not choose to be”
Than to argue the ramifications of such a choice
Or unravel the difficult beauty
Of its possibility
A bald and effective measure
For precipitating inclusion
Is to reorient the conversation surrounding power
So that those at the center of it
Come to understand
That a violence against your people
Is by its nature a violence against themselves
(The congressman at the podium:
“As the father of two beautiful daughters…”
“As the cousin of a proud gay man…”)
Though this may limit what you are able to become
The benefits of political inclusion
Are obvious and
In the opinion of the poet
Who above all in the realized world demands a relief
Of violence against marginalized people
Often worth the sacrifices
But sacrifices are made
And they must be recognized
For they will always be accounted for
By those who wish not only to deface our bodies
But annihilate the possibility of our return
Let us speak of identity
In the opinion of the poet
Who above all in poetry demands a relief
From the bounds of imagination imposed upon us by those who know better
We package each other
To sell ourselves
It feels now that a marginalized poet cannot
Write outside of translation
Of their marginalization
(In some instances not
Because they are forbidden
But because they lack the capacity)
The age of identity has arrived
And with it the reaffirmation of poetry as sociological construct
Distinguished plaques to instruct and ensure
A half-hearted audience
There is an economy of sentiment that has grown
Around capitalizing on this trick
Infiltrating the discourse of popular culture and the academy alike
One of the first things a marginalized poet learns
Is how to do the trick
It is not necessarily something spoken of out-right
And I am not so cynical as to believe that there exist
Individuals who purposefully and comprehensively plan such a mechanization
Like most things
It comes about through the invisible hand
Of the institutional feedback loop
Work that seeks to translate marginalized experience
For the benefit of the straight, white center is praised
Awarded
And declared representative of a people
Work that doesn’t is left to mill at room temperature
Where exceptions arise
I have seen marginalized poets wielded as if bludgeons
In a froth of anger by those at the center
An example An excuse
Anything to protect their standing from what they
In the absence of imagination
Understand only as an incursion on their turf
I recall one such moment when I spoke to A Poet
Noting how outrageous I felt
It was that their words be so twisted
By a Poet of the Center to legitimize what
Seemed to me to be a cowardly argument against the merit of another poet of color
In a transparent effort to delegitimize work that did not seek to translate
But instead to embody the very refusal of translation
And the confusion I felt as they responded in a moderated tone
That I was perhaps reading too deeply into things
A week later when it was announced that the Poet of the Center
Was publishing The Poet I spoke to in a prestigious journal
Embracing diversity by featuring voices from the outside
I felt a great and subtle shame
Not of The Poet I spoke to
But of myself
That I almost ruined the opportunity of another
By putting them on the spot
(Hope also carries with it a chilling effect)
It is not necessarily inclusion
That is at fault
But the mechanisms that determine inclusion
Will always be subject
To the institutional feedback loop
The internet and social media have
Rather than contest this process
Optimized it beyond reproach
The discourse that is available to us
The critiques we are able to make
Necessarily surrenders the boundaries of what’s possible
We don’t want our friends to struggle
But we cannot afford to cede the symbology of struggle
We don’t want to sentimentalize our experience
But we can’t risk the loss of the string quartet
The work that we are to publish
Has been partitioned in advance
When the voice you have is not your own
Sometimes I wonder
If silence is the answer
(The only thing beyond imagination)
But where there is possibility
There is choice
And the truth is
Every day we choose
Queerness
Just as every day you choose
The world you carry in you
It is these choices that
In the face of the flat palm of political expediency
Give us our strength
Not what we choose to be
But that a choice was made
Impossible to translate
Impossible to take