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, and editor. His honors include being named the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia and receiving the New Voices Award from Puerto Rico’s Festival de la Palabra. He is the author of five full-length poetry books. His third book, lo terciario/ the tertiary won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry and was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award. His fourth book, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), was longlisted for the 2020 Pen America Open Book Award and was a finalist for CLMP’s 2020 Firecracker Award. His fifth book, x/ex/exis won the inaugural Ambroggio Prize. antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano, his sixth book, is an imaginative leap into Puerto Rico’s decolonial future and is forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2022. He has co-edited two anthologies. Puerto Rico en mi corazón is a bilingual anthology based on a special collection of handmade letterpress broadsides by contemporary Puerto Rican poets. La piel del arrecife is the first anthology of Puerto Rican trans poetry. Thanks to a 2021 NEA Translation Fellowship, he will be translating the poetry of his grandfather, Sotero Rivera Avilés. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania and writes and teaches in Puerto Rico. |
Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) Poeta, traductor y editor. Sus reconocimientos incluyen el nombramiento como Poeta Laureado de la ciudad de Filadelfia y el Premio Nuevas Voces del Festival de la Palabra de Puerto Rico.
Cuenta con la publicación de cinco poemarios. Su tercer libro, lo terciario/the tertiary, ganó el Premio Literario Lambda a una obra de poesía transgénero y también fue semifinalista para el Premio Nacional del Libro del 2018 (EEUU). Su cuarto poemario, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), fue semifinalista para el Pen America Open Book Award del 2020 y finalista para el CLMP Firecracker Award del 2020. Su quinto poemario, x/ex/exis, ganó el Premio Ambroggio. antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano, su sexto libro, es una apuesta imaginativa por un futuro decolonial para Puerto Rico y será publicado por Beacon Press en el 2022. Coeditó dos antologías. Puerto Rico en mi corazón es una antología basada en una colección de volantes de poetas puertorriqueños contemporáneos. La piel del arrecife es la primera antología de poesía trans puertorriqueña. En el 2021, gracias a una beca de traducción del NEA, estará traduciendo la poesía de su abuelo, Sotero Rivera Avilés. Obtuvo un Doctorado en Literatura Comparada y Teoría Literaria de la Universidad de Pensilvania y escribe y enseña en Puerto Rico. 
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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. His 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 |