While They Sleep (under The Bed Is Another Country), De Rivera, Raquel Sa. Editorial Birds, Llc, Tapa Blanda En Inglés, 2019

Descripción

Poetry. Latinx Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. WHILE THEY SLEEP (UNDER THE BED IS ANOTHER COUNTRY) refuses to sweep up the shards of Hurricane Maria's aftermath. Written in dialogic fragments and interspersed with prose poems reflecting on the lasting impact of colonial trauma, it is arranged around the two different discourses. The bed on which America sleeps, and which America has made, is built on the fear that the nations it has oppressed will rise up against it, a monstrous shadow in a child's nightmare. Written in English, WHILE THEY SLEEP points to an imperialist American identity: the dormant body of the text. Answering in Spanish, UNDER THE BED is another country is the footnote, the monster under the bed, the colony: Puerto Rico.

About the Author
Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Their work has appeared in journals such as the Revista del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Apogee, BOAAT, Circulo de Poesia, Cosmonauts Ave, Waxwing, Dreginald, and the Boston Review. They are the author of Caneca de anhelos turbios (Editora Educacion Emergente), oropel/tinsel (Lark Books), and tierra intermitente (Ediciones Alayubia). Their book LO TERCIARIO/THE TERCIARY was published by Timeless, Infinite Light (2018) and ELEGÍA/ELEGY by Anomalous Press (2019). Currently, they are Co-Editor of The Wanderer, and Co-Editor of Puerto Rico en mi corazon, a collection of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. If for Roque Dalton there is no revolution without poetry, for Raquel, there is no poetry without Puerto Rico.