The nature of origin story, especially told in the epic form, assumes there is a precise origin to every journey. Or at least the writer knows the original moment, and they’ve decided to make it generally known. And yet origins aren’t often precise moments, from which a line extends. When Horace advises a writer to start in the middle of things, he’s offering pragmatic advice and strategy accounting for the complexity around “the start” of anything. Write your story from wherever it feels right, and you’ll eventually find the actual origin.
Salas Rivera’s Algarabía starts in what Gertrude Stein might have called the middle of the beginning beginning, which is a frayed reality. A point made only more complicated by Rivera’s writing the epic in both Spanish and his own translation of the Spanish into English. In fact, knowing the origin of a trans identity feels confusing. Rivera’s epic journey to becoming himself requires multiple starts that vary in their truths, or their resonances. Like amidst the existence of many voices both inside you and outside, how are you supposed to know which truth is the most truthful? Admittedly, knowing who you really are is a complex affair. But imagine what your origin would look like if the world, people’s opinions, the whole commercial establishment, everything you come in contact with was intent to communicate implicit and explicit “No”’s to the origin you feel like you’re hearing from inside you. In the opening Canto, Cenex can hear choral sections (tenors, altos, etc.) beckoning him to his trans male identity. But they’re not the only things he hears! And it’s only clear who these choral voices represent when he’s looking back on reflection. The book was written once the journey was done, when the writer can look back and see how all these voices and events fit together. But the moment itself is teeming with confusion.
This is the nature of Rivera’s transition journey in Algarabía. A struggle against dominant culture, and a recognition that culture can constantly catch you off guard with a new way of saying “No” in insidious ways. A point further emphasized for my reading (which was only on the English side), because I’m aware it’s only half the story. In the opening Cantos, No is the primary authority. But something tells Cenex that No is not telling his whole story. How is it Cenex can both understand why this person is saying No while also understanding that their story needs to overcome the No’s he’s been dealt?
The book sets his journey through the influences of family, adopted family, commercial culture, and medical culture. Each is told with a combination of sharp-edged allegory (almost a prerequisite for the epic form), and affected narratives to communicate in a conceptual way how it feels to experience all of this. Like where does the self actually originate knowing they’re one way and that’s not the way everyone is trying to pull him away from? Cenex knew who he was from some core moment in his life, but how would he have known of the gender that he might identify as his? Does his answer exist in mythology? How does placeslessness undermine his sense of journey? And living for so long in this non-place, what does it mean for the poet to be pursued by various inertias, lulling him into a certain state of life. This geometrical relationship aligning place to belonging to self is one of the stronger guides through the journey. Or Cenex coming to realize he would need to overcome this if he were going to make it through his journey is arguably where the epic emerges from confusion to a narrative that would inevitably succeed. For instance, Cenex finds the Obregón’s in Canto 2, and it would seem he’d emerged from the turmoil of influences in Canto 1. The poem settles for awhile into a narrative rhythm. Cenex thinks all he needs is to feel belonging. At these purely narrative moments, the book often clears space to offer concrete political commentary (in that case, the book literally quotes from legislation revealing the contorted language required to shut out anything but two genders). However, as that Canto revealed, belonging is not enough.
Turmoil as preface seems like a Grand Convention for an epic poem. And for Rivera this convention helps the reader navigate what must be a confusing realization for a trans man. Namely, what is it that told him who he was? What spirit possessed him of his truth? Canto I passes the story through the arms of Poseidon, conversion therapy provided by a Dr. Salas, the turmoil of first love. Cenex finds his name, but his arrival to it is encumbered by uncertainty. Or at least, he’s asked to accept and determine his future amidst a lack of worldly support. In epic fashion, Rivera uses allegory as explanation for systemic obstacles on the journey. Ending (hopefully this doesn’t spoil the book) to an overture ushering him to his transition.
The following tags are a purely subjective approach I’ve used for reading this book. Tagging, for me, acknowledges that slotting a book into hard categories or “schools” can be elusive when it comes to 21st Century poetry. In response, I’ve developed tags whose lenses operate from subject matter, identity poetics, and stylistics.