Letras Latinas Blog 2 (LLB2) interviews Éric Morales-Franceschini, centering on his new poetry collection, Syndrome. [Also see previous post New Book: “Syndrome”.]
What living poet/writer had the biggest influence on your book? If I had to pick only one, it’d have to be Craig Santos Perez, which is to say, his from unincorporated territory series; it’s a kindred project, thematically, pedagogically, and politically, if not stylistically. It’s uncanny just how many grievances and peculiarities Guam and Puerto Rico share, each knowing well the enigma that is “commonwealth” status and what it means to feel “small.” I came to his work somewhat belatedly, after having already written a draft of Syndrome, but it quickly became an interlocutor of mine, a fellow traveler I could turn to in times of uncertainty, outrage, or grief. Other honorable mentions would go to J. Michael Martinez’s Museum of the Americas, heidi andrea restrepo rhodes’ The Inheritance of Haunting, and the obras of Ada Limón and Daniel Borzutzky—whether for their vitality or virtuosity.
What non-living poet/writer had the biggest influence on your book? I’d answer this two ways. First off, there’s the work of Mahmoud Darwish, who, as a Palestinian poet, writes with a collective urgency and forlorn history that I, as a Boricua, can’t help but find beautiful and resonant. Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy, which is difficult to classify, is easily one of the most stunning works I’ve ever read—at least in its original Spanish (i.e. can’t vouch for the English translation!); he and that project are a referent for me. But the truth is, many of my biggest influences come from studies in history, psychoanalysis, political economy, theology, and critical theory. I’ll go months where all I read are in these “non-literary” fields, without which my poetry would be far less analytically acute—less politically dangerous, too. In this respect, Marx, Freud, and Fanon rank amongst the most influential.
What are some key themes present in your book? No doubt, militarism, racism, and colonialism are decidedly at stake, they and their psychical repercussions. The notion of a syndrome is not, after all, purely metaphorical. “Puerto Rican Syndrome” was the name for what was considered a culturally unique nervous disorder. Psychoanalyst Patricia Gherovici has pointed out that its symptoms are strikingly similar to classical hysteria, with schizophrenic complications, and argues that its best understood as an idiom of protest against a psychologically unbearable situation, namely coloniality of power. Syndrome reckons with this and other “disorders,” like impostor syndrome (for those of us in the diaspora) and Stockholm syndrome (for those of us coerced to identify with our captor), and with major cultural referents, such as West Side Story, Hamilton, and the Columbus monument in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the largest monument to Columbus in the world! In fact, it’s the largest monument (base included) in the western hemisphere, larger than Rio’s El Salvador and New York’s Statue of Liberty. Does that not speak volumes!?
[. . .] If you could organize a reading with any writers living or dead, who would be in the lineup? Where would you host the event? I love this question. And do forgive me if this comes across as coy, but Che Guevara. Fidel famously eulogized Che not as a heroic guerrilla or revolutionary cadre inasmuch as a poet. By that criterion, I’d invite Queen Nanny of the Jamaican marrons, Rosa la Bayamesa of the Cuban mambises, Tupca Amaru of the Inca, and Emiliano Zapata of Mexican glory. The guest of honor would, however, be Toussaint L’Ouverture, that world-historic Haitian revolutionary, and the event would take place outside the frigid Fort-de-Joux prison in France where Toussaint was left to die, his remains unceremoniously and secretly buried. I’d like to hear it from their mouths, their poetry, neither mythologized nor demonically caricatured. [. . .]
For full interview, see https://www.letraslatinasblog2.com/post/author-spotlight-%C3%A9ric-morales-franceschini
Syndrome by Éric Morales-Franceschini Anhinga Press | January 1, 2024 | 96 pgs. | $20 | ISBN: 9781934695814
Letras Latinas Blog 2 (LLB2) interviews Éric Morales-Franceschini, centering on his new poetry collection, Syndrome. [Also see previous post New Book: “Syndrome”.] What living poet/writer had the biggest influence on your book? If I had to pick only one, it’d have to be Craig Santos Perez, which is to say, his from unincorporated territory series;
