Raquel Salas Rivera
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Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, winner of the 2018 Ambroggio Prize,
& winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry !  photos by Kielinski Photography
Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) is a Puerto Rican poet, translator, editor, & literary critic. In 2010, he won First and Second Place for Poetry in the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico’s Sixteenth Literary Contest, as well as First Place in the University of Puerto Rico’s Queer Literature Contest. From 2016-2018, he coedited the literary journal The Wanderer. In 2017, he coedited a series of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets, which were later collected in the Puerto Rico en mi corazón anthology (Anomalous Press, 2019). In 2018, he was named the Poet Laureate of Philadelphia for a two-year term. The following year he became the inaugural recipient of the Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets & won the New Voices Award from Puerto Rico’s Festival de la Palabra. He has also received fellowships & residencies from the Sundance Institute, the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, the Arizona Poetry Center, the MacDowell Colony, & CantoMundo.
He is the author of seven chapbooks & five full-length poetry books. His first two books, Caneca de anhelos turbios (Editora Educación Emergente, 2011) & tierra intermitente/intermittent land (Ediciones Alayubia, 2017), were published in Puerto Rico. His third book, lo terciario/the tertiary (2nd ed., Noemi Press, 2019), was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist & won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. His fourth book, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019 & was on the 2020 Pen America Open Book Award Longlist. His fifth book, x/ex/exis: poemas para la nación/ poems for the nation was the first recipient of the Ambroggio Prize (Editorial Bilingüe/ Bilingual Press, 2020). Alongside Claire Jiménez & Ricardo Maldonado, & with the help of a 2020 University of Houston & Arte Publico Press USLDH Grant-In-Aid, he is currently working on creating a digital archive of Puerto Rican poetry. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania and now lives, writes, and teaches in Puerto Rico. |
Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) Poeta, traductor, editor y crítico literario puertorriqueño. En el 2010, ganó el Primer y Segundo Premio en la categoría de Poesía en el Decimosexto Certamen Literario de la Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico, al igual que el Primer Premio en el Certamen de Poesía del Festival Cultural Queer del Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez. Del 2016-2018, sirvió de coeditor para la revista literaria The Wanderer. En el 2017, coeditó una serie bilingüe de volantes de poetas puertorriqueños contemporáneos que luego fueron reunidos en la antología Puerto Rico en mi corazón (Anomalous Press, 2019). En el 2018, fue nombrado Poeta Laureado de la ciudad de Filadelfia por un término de dos años. El año siguiente, se convirtió en el recipiente inaugural de la Beca de Laureado de la Academia de Poetas Americanos y ganó el Premio Nuevas Voces del Festival de la Palabra de Puerto Rico. También recibió becas del Instituto Sundance, el Centro Kimmel para las Artes Performáticas, el Centro de Poesía de Arizona, el MacDowell Colony y CantoMundo.
Cuenta con la publicación de siete plaquetas y cinco poemarios. Sus primeros dos libros, Caneca de anhelos turbios (Editora Educación Emergente, 2011) y tierra intermitente/intermittent land (Ediciones Alayubia, 2017), fueron publicados en Puerto Rico. Su tercer libro, lo terciario/the tertiary (2da ed., Noemi Press, 2019), fue semifinalista para el Premio Nacional del Libro del 2018 (EE.UU) y ganó el Premio Literario Lambda a una obra de poesía transgénero del 2018. Su cuarto poemario, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), fue publicado por por Birds, LLC en el 2019 y fue un semifinalista para el Pen America Open Book Award del 2020. Su quinto poemario, x/ex/exis: poemas para la nación/ poems for the nation, fue el primer ganador del Premio Ambroggio (Editorial Bilingüe/ Bilingual Press, 2020). Junto a Claire Jiménez y Ricardo Maldonado y con la ayuda de una beca USLDH de la Universidad de Houston y Arte Publico Press, actualmente trabaja en la creación de un archivo digital de la poesía puertorriqueña. Recibió su Doctorado en Literatura Comparada y Teoría Literaria de la Universidad de Pensilvania y vive, escribe y enseña en Puerto Rico. 
Winning me over entirely with their fiercely rendered tenderness and emergent sense of a simultaneously tough and tender I, these poems and their speaker are, to use so simple a word for so complex a world, strong. Strong. —Alberto Ríos, winner of the Walt Whitman Award Raquel opens to us, and we join them—as friends, as family, as warriors. Their investment in strength in numbers means that collectively these poems become more and more powerful, each one drawing on the strength of the other. And this investment means that we draw power from becoming a part of Raquel’s world. Raquel calls to us “come here/ i invoke you. let’s invoke ourselves together,” and together, we do." —Carmen Giménez Smith, Boston Review "Poet's Sampler" |
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Like no poet I have ever read, Raquel Salas Rivera talks to Marx via the monstrous colonial devastation of Puerto Rico. This genius poet also speaks to Trotsky who said workers could not make art. Here is one of the most riveting, beautifully written declarative poetics of our lives! A fierce document that fully transfers its radical transformative powers into our bones! —CA Conrad, author of While Standing in Line for Death |