Hi, everyone.
How's it going?
Good.
Are you excited for another poet?
Yay!
So I am very happy to introduce our next poet, Trish Salah.
And before we bring her up, I just want to ask--
I just want to see a show of hands.
How many of us grew up gifted with the stories, the words,
the songs of trans and gender-nonconforming writers
of color?
Just see a show of hands.
Oh, that is terrible.
I would not raise my hand either.
How many of us were assigned to read a book, a poem, a story
by a teacher from when you were very little to all
through grad school by a trans or gender non-conforming
writer of color?
That is terrible.
One person.
Two people.
Sorry.
So I'll keep asking some more questions.
And I just want you to think about this.
How many of us know who will catch
the traces of our lives, our small queer lyrics?
Who will remember our magic?
So this last question is not an easy one to know,
and I think Trish would think that not knowing might
be a kind of archive.
So I'm going to share with you a quote
from an interview with Cordite Poetry Review, which I really
like.
And this is in Trish's words.
"There is a kind of nerve language
I want, an anxiety of wanting your wanting that
leads nowhere good but is spectrally calibrated
to what once was.
I guess that's an exilic dimension, the longing
for outmoded or overpowered narrative
entanglements with shifting grounds
that perhaps still have something to teach,
a cultivating of desire's thickly sidereal quality, which
is really about striking a point,
making a calculus of not knowing rather
than discernible objects."
So Trish's work-- they feel to me like really good friends.
They keep me company.
They're brilliant.
They're funny.
They're weird and thoughtful.
And they push me to think really differently,
and they push me to think about the world in a different way.
And they also push us to catch those traces that
are uncategorizable.
They're strange, and they are the textures
which make up our lives.
These are the textures which I think those of us here gathered
think it's important to remember.
And not only does Trish make these kinds
of worlds in her writing, she also is a community builder.
She's a gatherer, which is why it's so important for us
to honor her work tonight.
Trish, you have gathered many of us through the gatherings
that you organize, the writing trans
genres, emergent literatures and criticisms,
which I know many folks in this room have been present at.
You also co-organized the Decolonizing
and Decriminalizing Trans Genres Conference
as well, which is a companion conference
to that first conference.
You edited lots of journals with the works
of transcultural producers, such as the TSQ Trans Gender Studies
Quarterly, which is focused on transcultural production.
This is crucial, lifesaving work.
And I'm so happy that you're going to come up and share
your words with us.
Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]