One of the first things that strikes me upon reading “Conversations Between Former Revolutionaries” and “A Man Held a Gun to My Stomach Once” is the weight of violence that your poems carry. What is the relationship between your poetry and violence and how do you try to ethically explore that relationship in your work?
Growing up in a country where political instability was always at the forefront –for as long as I can remember– and having lived through two coups, I would say violence was a part of everyday life. In addition, as a woman, violence is something I had to confront from an early age. Being catcalled, grabbed, having someone press against you in a crowded metro wagon, were part of the experience of navigating Caracas. In addition, being darker skinned also carried a stigma. Many of the insults thrown at me in school for example, had to do with being “Black.” And I am, because part of my family is Black, but I resisted that part of my identity for so many years because of what it meant. I learned to make myself small and to become invisible by dressing differently, staying quiet, or by carrying myself with a confidence I didn’t feel when I couldn’t hide. And that is also a type of violence upon the self, to perform and pretend in order to survive–and to hide the part of you that wants to thrive. It wasn’t until I came to live in the US as a child and went to a school where the majority of the students were Black, that I realized how widely spread anti-Blackness and racism was in Venezuela. I’ve written about that in my forthcoming chapbook. Many of the poems in in it represent how the speaker sees herself and intergenerational violence affects relationships, as well as how she tries–not always successfully–to break with that.
In “Conversations Between Former Revolutionaries” you ask: “Have / you ever held a gun? Is it sorrow heavy, / does the trigger leave you breathless?”. This moment particularly resonates with me as many of the Venezuelan poets that I’ve read and translated explore gun violence in their work. Of course, gun violence is surging in the United States right now. Do you see your poems forming a dialogue with both cultures, and if so, what are their respective relationships to gun violence?
I do. Most Venezuelans I know –myself included– have had an experience where they were either robbed, assaulted, or kidnapped at gunpoint. It’s something they–we– will never forget. For me, to talk about gun violence is to explore the emotions that surge in that moment when your life might be about to end; but also, it explores what it means to use weapons to fight for a cause you believe in. It’s a very fine line. How does someone decide that taking a life is worth the risk and how does that shift the power structure when these two people come from different backgrounds (in terms of class or race)? Gun violence has claimed so many lives, both here in the United States and in Venezuela. One moment that has stayed with me and that I still think about was from right before I left, at the end of 2002, when I participated in a swim meet where one of the swimmers who was well known, respected, and loved, had been killed – apparently by mistake –by a paid assassin. The circumstances were not clear. In my memory, I see a red rose placed on the swim block, his name being called, the silence around this death, the frustration, the wondering, the idea that no one is exempt, that we were all him in a sense. And I think that is one difference I see between Venezuela and the U.S. In the U.S. there’s a sense of cultural invincibility, of it’ll never happen to me. We’ve seen it with the pandemic. But that’s not how life works, we’re all connected in one way or another and what happens to one person has repercussions for the rest of us.
How have your years in Caracas and your immigration to the United States informed your poetic voice?
Migration is one of the recurring themes in my poems, as is exile. I think that as a migrant, I always feel like I’m in an in-between space where I get to observe events and happenings from different perspectives. I grew up learning to adjust and adapt quickly because many things were not what they seemed or didn’t work in the way they were supposed to. As a teenager I lived in a rural area where we didn’t have landlines until I was in college, so we used pay phones. But we also learned to love the land, to take care of it and to and to rely on one another. I always say my poems are born in the gray areas, the crevices, the places no one wants to look at because they are imperfect and ugly. But there’s beauty there too. In addition, my experiences as an immigrant are not the same as those of other immigrants from Latin America, and I think it is important to speak about them. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the concept of Latinidad and how it lumps everyone into the same “bag,” so to speak. But we are all different and it’s important to celebrate those differences as well. Poetry has taught me to speak up and take up space, so in a way, it’s been a process of digging up the parts of me that were hidden and letting them shine.
Since 2019 we have seen a huge number of revolutions and popular uprisings, from Hong Kong, to Iraq, to Iran, to Lebanon, to Haiti, to Bolivia, to Chile, to the United States, to name just a few. What is your poetry’s relationship to revolution?
“I think that the act of writing poetry in a capitalist economy is already a revolutionary act because poetry allows us to see the world outside of linearity and even of grammatical rules.”
I think that the act of writing poetry in a capitalist economy is already a revolutionary act because poetry allows us to see the world outside of linearity and even of grammatical rules. I write in English, which is not my first language and that in and of itself is also revolutionary. I’ve been asked many times why I don’t write in “my own language,” and I find that somewhat problematic. It’s like telling someone “why don’t you go back to your country.” I’ll never forget something that the poet Natalie Diaz told me during a workshop when I told her how conflicted I was about writing in English. She said it really doesn’t matter if you write in English or Spanish because as a poet, you create your own language that is unique to you. And I believe that. I think there’s an expectation for Latinx poets to write in a certain way, perhaps using slang or words in Spanish and I try to stay away from those labels. For example, I only use Spanish when I feel that a particular word cannot be said in any other way.
In “A Man Held a Gun to My Stomach Once” you write that “a body can only hold so much before it detonates.” This line seems to speak so strongly to Venezuela’s current situation, as well as the current political climate here in the United States. What similarities, if any, do you see between Venezuela’s history since the Bolivarian Revolution and our current political moment here in the US? What differences?
There are so many similarities between Venezuela and the U.S. During these past four years, I have been holding my breath as I watch the unfolding of U.S. “democracy” and the prevalence of a divisive discourse that promotes hate. When Hugo Chavez came to power, many believed he would change the stagnant structure of Venezuelan politics. Instead, he became the leader of a cult who created his own militias and governed through threats and fear. Many Venezuelans blame Chavez for dividing the country and for the economic collapse. And yes, he is partially responsible. But what some are still unable to acknowledge is that Venezuelans were already divided along class lines and that social inequality and discrimination were so engrained in the country, that all Chavez had to do was to provide the fuel. I remember the phrase “we are all the same, we are all siblings,” which, on the one hand, is related to the very problematic concept of mestizaje, and, in the other, to the Roman Catholic tradition (as in, we are all the same in the eyes of God). But we are not and acknowledging that with respect and the willingness to listen and dialogue is the first step towards meaningful change. Easier said than done, but not impossible.
You can read some of Simonovis’s work in The Arkansas International Issue 8.
Leonora Simonovis grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in San Diego. She is a professor of Spanish and Caribbean literature and culture at the University of San Diego and an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review blog, Storyscape, Tifetet Journal, the Acentos Review, the American Journal of Poetry, The Rumpus, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Her chapbook manuscript, Waiting for a Ripe Mango, was a finalist for the Snowbound Tupelo Prize Award.
