SOMOS Fall 2021

LATINX LITERARY MAGAZINE

fall 2021 volume XII • issue I

letter from the editors Dear Reader, We invite you to submerge yourself into the magic and heaviness of our Latinx inheritance. What does it mean to be Latinx? How do we celebrate and honor our families and homes? How do we cope and reconcile our complicated histories with those of our daily lives?

How does our inheritance manifest in our art, in what we love, and in what we hate? Reader, what you hold here is a precious collection of answers, in the form of love, existentialism, beauty, despair, hope, and introspection. The pieces that we present to you deal with exploring, celebrating, and remembering our Latinx heritage via our family, friends, and fruits, whilst contending with the violence, trauma, struggle and dissonance of being alive in this world. In this edition, we wanted to showcase another, more experimental side, of Latinx art and expression that often does not focus directly on migration and diaspora stories, but rather in the creative’s everyday lives. Specifically, we would like to make a space for artists who break formal language, visual, and grammar rules with intentionality. This SOMOS magazine would not be possible without the participation and efforts made by our amazing team. Thank you for your participation, understanding and for your grace when things have not been easy, especially as we continue to work through a time of grief and uncertainty. As a team, we are proud to host a space that can visibilize, lift, and publish Latinx creative’s work in our community. Since the 1980s, SOMOS has been a small club that has fought an uphill battle against administration and financial boards to exist and promote the work of our community.

This is the culmination of that battle. Through the words and images of our creatives, may we break down our defenses and allow ourselves to listen, learn, and write our own stories.

Un abrazo, Caro and Nikita

the team Carolina Correa ‘22 Nikita Baregala Lopez ‘23 Yolizbeth Lozano ‘22 Miriam Rice-Rodriguez ‘23 Jimmy Richmond ‘22 Isabella Longoria-Valenzuela ‘22.5 Teresa Conchas ‘22 Mara Cavallaro ‘22 Kate Alvarez ‘23 Kian Braulik ‘24 Monik Rodriguez ‘25 Alec Lippman ‘25 Sabrina Sanclemente ‘25 Sofia Cruz ‘25 Julia Vaz ‘25

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Co-Editor in Chief Co-Editor in Chief Lead Design Editor Senior Design Editor Senior Editor Senior Editor Senior Editor Senior Editor Senior Editor Junior Editor Junior Editor Junior Editor Junior Editor Junior Editor Junior Editor

table of contents 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 20 21 22 24 26 27 28 30 31 32 33 34 36 38 40 41 42 45 46 47

Cuando Salga el Sol Alexa Negrón (1991-2020) Self-Portrait of a Living Thing Corpus Christi I Retablos/Tableaus $675 Entre Los Cerros Biografía intimacy! (in purple) - vol. i & ii Exploración de Latinidad Naranja/Orange Los Alebrijes looking pond Las Adelitas La Serenata Ramo Cirrocumulus Circumstances embryonic amnesia Corpus Christi II the skin of my skin lluvia 11J or The Revolution [...] Éramos La Jungla Ojos Para Volar I am from Origin Refuge Escápate de la Luz * Mujer Infinita

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Elsa Barrientos Andrew Colarusso Ev Santos Katherine Williams Genesis Barrera Argent Martinez Anneliz Reveles Sebasstian Adriano Yolizbeth Lozano Elena Aguirre Uranga Monik Rodriguez Elena Aguirre Uranga lluvia Elena Aguirre Uranga Elena Aguirre Uranga Nikita Baregala Lopez Ricardo Gomez Sofia Carrera-Britten Katherine Williams lluvia lluvia Mari Claudia García Sebasstian Adriano Elsa Barrientos Genesis Barrera Sofia Carrera-Britten Felipe Ortiz Jessica Gonzalez Cassandra Gutierrez

* cover designed by Jessica Gonzalez

Cuando Salga el Sol • Elsa Barrientos lithographic print

Alexa Negrón (1991-2020) • Andrew Colarusso Donde los estorninos van no ve el color del cielo detrás de sí nubes negras y ruidosas girando como ola llena de aleteos deseosos o una tormenta dichosa que pasa no de noche ni de amanecer sino en su propia hora.

La multitud casi de una mente murmura su salvacharlas y dobla cuando sopla duro el viento o viene el raptor con sus alas vacías y estrechas pidiendo la hostia de una que en su propia hora oculta el mundo en su miedo.

Donde va no ven como una sola mujer puede contener el temor de las nubes que niegan el cielo.

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Self-Portrait of a Living Thing • Ev Santos You are a person, not a story. (process) self-actualization (span) mortal (subject) human being non-gentile non-absolute

Jesus lover believer of absolution

You are a tinsel.

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all words all island all Puerto Rican

no tongue no water no spanish

liar

storyteller

Corpus Christi I • Katherine Williams

acrylic on canvas, embroidery floss, black sharpie, white posca pen

Retablos/Tableaus • Genesis Barrera Le dio por levantarse a caminar dormida por la nopalera, cuidando para no pincharse con las espinas.

Vio una nave con ser extraño salir del cielo y quedó sin poder hablar, hasta que entró a la razón y recuperó su voz.

Despertó en la cocina, llena de murciélagos listos para chuparle la sangre.

Cómo le gustaría dormir por siempre.

Cuando los difuntos salieron a divertirse, eligieron su taberna, alejando todo negocio en vivo antes de tu intervención bendecida.

Las calacas se pusieron a bailar, divirtiéndose demasiado para atacar, gracias a dios.

Por las noches soy un espíritu libre.

Vuelo por en medio de las estrellas, tocando la luna con las puntas de mis dedos,

nadando en la inmensidad de la eternidad.

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She took to getting up sleepwalking through the cactus, taking care not to prick herself with the thorns.

She saw a ship with a strange being out of the sky and was unable to speak, until coming to her senses and regaining her voice.

She woke up in the kitchen, full of bats ready to suck her blood.

How she would like to sleep forever.

When the dead went out to have fun, they chose her tavern, driving away all live business before the blessed intervention.

The skeletons began to dance, having too much fun to attack, thanks to you.

At night I am a free spirit.

I fly through the midst of stars, touching the moon with my fingertips,

swimming in the immensity of eternity.

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$675 • Argent Martinez when my soul leaves my body it looks like sTEaM, flushes of wind cPABLE OF CUtting straight through paper, whole.

Untouchable yet delegated to illluminate the flikkc3r of life that is my heart. It goes badump, badump, badump, a call and response between my forced deep breathes and EVERYTHING. I’m scarier than a sensory overload. I am the rivetin g and CR0aking sonic waves that esc pe the mechanical grasp of your ribs. Cover yor mouth when you e3$$$$T! It’s impolite to store so much food, words, and feelings in your pods for cheeks. Wisp carrying yarn and chips of wood glide across my ankles, outline the chipmunk, and its bristled puss coated lips. I am a hen, pecking at the seeds below me, guzzling up all the emotional debris I scattered across the globe, getting confused between the scabs of the earth and other people’s trash.

A snotTy booger d a n g l e S

ten feet below my nose, subtract 4, I’m submerged in a virescently gleaming, meatloaf of a sarcophagus set to open when I die. I am a lamb, baAWWWing away, snuggling up with the sunlight. I wear layers, peels of pomegranates for clothing, and alligator skin for pants.

I am a wOrM, sQuIRmIn g, shaking my ass, Tina. Multiply the resistance x10, half it, add three, subtract 5, you have unevenness, less than what was there to begin with. Embers, howls, screeching of my childhood appear in the patience a spider takes to weave their forever, temporary, easy to pillage home. i a m an anarchnid chittering, baring fangs, thousands of sockets burst out of my face.

They twist and turn, not all open, but the few eyes that do have enamel for eyelashes. when my brain goes numb, that’s when i write.

A leaf storm, caught in the speed of a jet, windmills in the bronchioles of my lungs. Every-time I xhale, I feel a whisk sloshing in my jugular vein. My coronary arteries are disconnected, swamp water rinses me out. Spontaneously, strategically, surgically removed. I am no longer available, interested, invested in listening.

I am f a i n t, letting go, floating back, cheerfully EVAPORATING, don’t let the rabid dog get you at night.

Biografía • Sebasstian Adriano

He llegado a la conclusión de que tú eres mi biografía, que mi vida está en tu vida tan ardiente como el sol y que tu pulso junto al mío hacen un solo corazón.

He llegado a concluir que la alegría en mi rostro toma rumbo desastroso cuando no estás junto a mí y que entre todo lo que vale, yo te prefiero a ti.

He llegado a deducir con lágrimas sobresaltantes que no vale estar como antes si no estaré junto a ti y que entre todos los males, tú me prefieres a mí.

◀ Entre Los Cerros • Anneliz Reveles

natural cotton and copper garment

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intimacy! (in purple) - vol. 1 & 2 • Yolizbeth Lozano gouache, oil pastel, and colored pencil on mixed media paper

Exploración de Latinidad • Elena Aguirre Uranga Gouache and color pencils on illustration boardon

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Naranja/Orange • Monik Rodriguez I’ve always had trouble pronouncing naranja.

So much effort into that subtle r roll, And then your tongue is just suppose to give up: naranja.

My grandmother packed oranges.

Crate after crate until her back ached Naranja after naranja until my tongue aches.

Her back gave up years ago.

She now lies in her bed Beneath sheets sewned with naranjas In a room rattling with wind chimes damned to stale air.

She smells like oranges.

Naranja after naranja until my tongue gives up Until it too retires me To a muted figure with shaky hands, Despretately writing naranja after naranja into lingual crates.

Hands of a tongue that can’t give up: naranja.

My grandfather drives past orange orchards on his way To his media naranja, Windows roll down.

Sometimes, the rattle of citrus trees Sounds just like the Spanish words I can’t pronounce.

▼ Los Alebrijes • Elena Aguirre Uranga Gouache and color pencils on Illustration board

looking pond • lluvia i have a looking pond my often-furrowed brow in browns and greens vines and roots branch and split shadows move across the surface until the light turns blue only the whites of my eyes peer back the other day i did myself up extra pretty hoping id see moremoremore reflected back at me i wore all white praying this little spell would seep below the water’s surface and give them movement and drag me in and push me back out muddied and raw squatting at the edge a passing runner’s exhale i thought they were a swan GASP pang in the bottom of my lungs blood catching the weight well how fast did that crimson flow that for a moment the shadows buffered jumped an inch back fingertips fluttering feathers browns and greens and vines and roots kneaded a plumed elongated neck orange beak white crown

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whispers of magic and grace at my navel at the moment of deception of conception accidental transformations slip in the here-and-now curtain i wanna live in this space where my body can fold into whatever you want me to be but more importantly unfold into whatever i need me to be swan lake mountain coyote what do they have to show me of grace of expansiveness of groundedness of the hunt maybe next time ill wear browns will you come call me coyote? i dont yet know what im looking for

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Las Adelitas • Elena Aguirre Uranga

gouache and color pencils on Illustration board

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La Serenata • Elena Aguirre Uranga gouache and color pencils on Illustration board

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Ramo • Nikita Baregala Lopez Ramo A group of flowers that have been fastened together and arranged; can be used as gifts or for special occasions Common Name: Hydrangea Scientific Name: Hydrangea macrophylla Native to Japan, possibly Korea; deciduous shrub; large heads of pink or blue flowers; blooms in the summer and autumn; color of flower affected by the pH of soil (acidic, blue and alkaline, pink) I do not remember my mother’s mother in much detail; she died when I was nine and lived in a place I had not grown to call home yet.

The memories I have of her are flashes and feelings, but the concrete details come from stories.

I can see her in her favorite kind of shirt: a slightly boxy, oversized, collared polo. She was wearing a shirt like this in the last set of family pictures we took. It was purple; maybe that is why I see her as purple.

But, I also know that it was her favorite color because my mother told me it was. Rather, she told me that her favorite flowers were purple hydrangeas because they are the perfect color. When I see a hydrangea I wonder if their particular hue is my grandmother’s purple, or if the earth I stood on pushed the petals to an off-perfect shade.

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Common Name: Calla lily Scientific Name: Zantedeschia aethiopica Evergreen with enough water, deciduous where there is a dry season; white flowers with yellow spadix; grows .6-1 meter tall I can hear my grandfather’s laugh; I can hear the notes from his guitar. When I close my eyes, I see him sitting, reading a newspaper or measuring where to make the cuts on his next woodworking project.

When I think of him, I can smell a medley of Nivea and Vicks, the tortillas he ate for breakfast, and a hint of the mangoes he would eat every day over the summer.

But, when I look at the one picture I have of him, where this joy and comfort is almost captured, I am drawn to look behind him at the blooming calla lilies, almost missing his smile completely. Because, while I have not heard, seen, or smelled him in more than a memory for three years, he seems more permanent than the flowers I forget exist until the next time I return home.

Common Name: Sunflower Scientific Name: Helianthus annuus Grown as a crop; rough, hairy stem usually about 3 meters tall; broad, coarse, toothed, alternating leaves The sunflowers in my grandparents’ yard used to grow so tall you could only imagine how much they missed their celestial counterpart.

This is how I remember them: reaching their hairy arms and branches upward, topped with a bright yellow and black flower calling attention to the warm glow coming from the sky.

My grandfather died in winter, when it is easier to forget the feeling of photosynthesizing. The suns were not in bloom and my grandmother said that without his company she did not want to feel lonely in their garden and would not raise new plants. It has been almost a year and they have not returned.

I like to think of myself as a sunflower, reaching for his warmth, never fully being able to touch it or feel it, but growing and living with his help.

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Cirrocumulus Circumstances • Ricardo Gomez

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embryonic amnesia • Sofia Carrera-Britten Getting into somebody’s body is like showing someone something.

If I should peel them all together, the walk home (say it with the L), children disappear.

Duplex!

Step one: fall in love shaking, as in ejaculations and curses.

I feel a sense of history in this mark: 1. U! S! A! 2. I bleed for an extra day each cycle.

If I could peel them altogether, the walk home.

For a moment, let’s nettle together in your sea lion chest.

Something rises and swells to meet me; I hump bushes and swim in growing waters.

The walk home, I suddenly smelled the swimming pool I went to as a child.

Show me something, I say.

Everything is laid out here like this, you say.

(Isaiah to Eva) Inheritance, as a place.

Everything is laid out Here like This, the birds that exist in the margins.

I only feel ready for birth on the walk home.

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Corpus Christi II • Katherine Williams

acrylic on canvas, embroidery floss, black sharpie, white posca pen

the skin of my skin • lluvia the skin the bones the blood

of my skin of my bones of my blood

BREAKING along natural creases weathering erupting eroding i ask for forgiveness wash with warm chamomile tea slather rose scented oils fill fault lines making up lost love rough hands violent nails but the ski n of my ski n bone s o f bone blo od blo od eroding ro ding odin g di ng in g n g g the temple always has its cracks

lluvia • lluvia to call a child fathermother is to keep them on all fours root them to the ground making familiar textures of drying dirt cracking and gray their hanging belly rubbed red and raw to call a child child is to permit them to stand gripping on their bottom left rib trained not to stir dust to call a child miracle is a heavy cruelty my palms my soles my navel sheets of stinging scars eroded by air and dust longing to be touched by a gentle rain in the morning i called you to ask if you are willing to let go of my bottom left rib to let me go to let go to say goodbye to shove me away to kick me off the curb to throw my bags along with me to redo my scarred skin to take me apart to pull me apart to shred me to tear me apart limb from limb from limb from limb

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from limb from limb from limb from limb from lim

b from l imb from

lim b f rom limb fro

m lim b from until i am nothing until i am everything until i am and i am keep the damned rib ill keep the scar [un] holy reflections

to name the child lluvia is to send them falling throw them from heights they reach in prayer plummeting to meet gasping cracks mold a new form from fresh mud to name myself lluvia is to whisper a tune of relief i will fall into upto onto myself

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11J or The Revolution that Never Happened Mari Claudia García Work made up of eleven images engraved on vinyl-shape acrylics.

These images can be indistinctly played on a record player.

This project arises from my concerns about the use of censorship as a method of control, coercion, and eradication of any possible exercise of freedom. I want to reflect not only on censorship as an abstract phenomenon but on its concrete expression in the material world, in objects that have been censored by power for political, religious and moral reasons.

I have been inspired by the “Banned Records” in South Africa during Apartheid, when the government literally scratched vinyl records with the intention of damaging them and eliminating certain songs and musicians that were considered to be controversial in order to maintain the political status quo. I see this physical violence inflicted on the object to damage as reminiscent violence inflicted upon the bodies of those under the effect of censorship and repression. I also conceptualize vinyl records as objects that embody notions of resistance and alternativeness associated with underground culture.

I anchor these insights in a series of uprisings that have taken place in Cuba; my country of origin; particularly the protest occurring on July 11, 2021 which was directly repressed by law enforcement and plainclothes policemen. That day, people demanded freedom and a change of regime in a sudden and unprecedented public demonstration of a magnitude not seen since the start of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. More than 700 peaceful protestors were arrested and imprisoned. Most of them have been sentenced to several years of prison without access to counsel or a fair trial. The social event that could have sparked a major revolution was cut short, dissolved and punished by such power that it seems to never to have happened.

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Éramos • Sebasstian Adriano Eran tres aquel día que el amor germinó.

Eras tú, tú con ella y conmigo, eran tres.

Su nombre era de tu voz portavoz, ahí estaba.

Corazón palpitaba con fervor a tu lado.

Era entonces su existencia solo un verso sin autor, solo un dedo sin amor o arcoíris sin color.

Ella y tú, ella y yo, y tú y yo; que al amarnos sin dudarlo escribimos el trisílabo más perfecto desde que

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murió Dios.

Yo la amaba de otro modo, yo la amaba con las manos, con la sed, con la piel; yo la amaba con los poros.

Pero a ti, a ti te amo con victoria, con derrota, con historia, con dolor.

Ella y tú.

Ella y tú siempre amaron diferente.

Ella amaba a arrebatos, a sorpresas, a planetas, a distancia recortada.

Pero tú, ay tú amabas como aroma, como rosa o adjetivo, como alcance distanciado.

Horizontes, precipicios, eso y tártaros, pretendió eso y más; pero hombre Ícaro, hombre necio, hombre bruto, usted no es, nunca fue, parte de.

Aún somos tú, yo y ella, su belleza e intelecto y su amor por ti y ella nunca nos afectó ni inmutó.

Somos tres, su distancia sin los pies no corre hacia el olvido.

Somos tres, somos tres, somos tres, somos tres....

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La Jungla • Elsa Barrientos silkscreen print

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Ojos para Volar • Genesis Barrera Ella tiene ojos para volar.

Plantó pájaros en su país, cuerpos plumados comiendo maíz.

Vivía la vida de escolar.

Por las noches intentaba construir una historia revisionista recordando a sí misma, siempre anticipando a la memoria.

El bienestar ningún sustituto por felicidad itinerante. Ya dividida entre ver y ser visto.

Tendenciosa, no ofuscando pestilente acritud. Juzgada, era Ella como el salvaje borde idealizo del abismo eternamente suspendida en un agujero de gusano sin sol.

Preponderancia resistente a pesar de las perspectivas - un intuición social en foco de apertura donde los perdidos no miran dentro. Aún, nadie es sin esquina en círculo.

Renunció a la voluntad por el ingenio, una tendencia de nivel superficial, cíclica ya familiar – y aún creemos que tenemos tiempo.

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I am from Origin • Sofia Carrera-Britten I don’t trace the divisions, but the spaces they create (12) I was shifting in and out of a dream where my six fingers were raised to the trees, my mother in the bed above/beside me I am an animal with animals teeming (swirling, shaking, trembling) inside of me I am from the Oregon* Corazón, cora, khora: how you are my heart my friend my land/space/place/countryside “The myth of the faceless mother provides the very motivation for our exploitation of Earth, seen as ‘inexhaustible matter for things’”.

- Timothy Morton, quoting Emmanuel Levinas In a way, I am just a restatement of my mother.

In a way, I do not exist yet and in a way I have existed forever (my mother has not existed forever, she’s like 52).

I keep saying in passing that I am nervous For my birthday:

She came into your1 bedroom and said it felt locked and I couldn’t tell how close I was to her so I just traced a box around my clutched curled knees (think about it) and smiled.

I feel as though I know but when faced with the action I begin to doubt; a need for the cryptic and I become the mothman.

What light do I flock to? alt: To what light do I flock?2

1 Not every you is you, but this one is.

2 Alt: How has your week been? Who are you now?

I did run to the window in my room when I noticed that salmon in the sky. You entered once and left and I made peace with a solitary (multiple) interaction of joy3.

You came a second time and I, as in despite myself, still yearned to be your bride: the gauzy curtain between us and all.

The spiral staircase doesn’t scare me, but the thought of coming down it does.

I send emails to your friends at 11:52pm and wipe my piss on their bath towels in a moment of panic and inability to call out across the kitchen.

This one was really meant to be about me, I swear.

I swear.

I swear and it looks like a knot made from coiled white rope or strands of daisy grass and ripped (thus sealed) by two hands moving laterally: they are together in their opposition.

At the same time I am becoming aware of my greatness, I am becoming aware of the greatness of all I have put aside for later and am now unearthing. Like pulling honeycomb teeth from itchy gums.

I love to scratch my itchy popcorn skin gums.

Maybe this is the problem.

Kira.

Purgatory.

I hope I meet your parents.

3 Kissing, or praying, where each hand is one of ours.

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This is not a poem anymore (maybe it never was), it is just annotations, translations, and transcriptions. [

I cook myself bitter greens and shovel them down my throat as an act of love, the way I settle in the scratchy grass. It’s not so much that it looks greener, but that it seems fuller--bugless. I wonder if I picked a bad spot or if the swarm is everywhere, you just can’t see it until you’re in it**.

I feed myself bitter greens like I kiss my right shoulder (will it taste different with ink?), but painful and necessary.

]

I bought dandelion leaves for a dollar at Stop & Shop and I thought of Nicole.

I was disappointed when my mouth didn’t pull back--when they were not bitter, but balanced.

I’m trying to understand why it didn’t hurt (the way I wanted it to).

I know I’m getting eaten right now = [This is succinct in my head/body.] but I keep rolling my body over land-borne, land-bred driftwood. I wonder if I am allergic to grass.

This is the hill where I pretended to almost crash. I’m realizing now I haven’t taken my Zoloft.

Maybe that’s why this pen and its blue ink will never end. It’s a metaphor, Betty.

I am realizing there is driftwood tied to my body. I wish it was heavier so I could have noticed it sooner.

I don’t know where I am and I’m aware that owning that dooms to a world of absentee ballots and a scarcity of road maps.

Indefinitely.

It is time now. I can tell. It is the time.

P.S. I do wish this grass was softer. *pronounced “origin” **Luke 17:21

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digital

Refuge • Felipe Ortiz

Escápate de la Luz • Jessica Gonzalez oil and inkjet image transfer on canvas

Mujer Infinita • Casandra Gutierrez Te ves en un espejo nublado de infancia Fragmentación por el dolor Pedacitos de una tú pasajera Retórica de fragilidad ¿Sigues ahí, mujer?

Sólo un cascarón encuentras La piel colgada en el perchero El pecho manchado con personas que no fueron para ti.

El pelo arrancado por el recordatorio de lo que no fuiste.

Te quitaste todo porque sentiste lo que nunca fue.

Quisiste como si conocieras el amor.

Diste lágrimas para los amores de ficción, Y una sola gota para la que fuiste.

Es innegable, te quieres Pero muchas veces no Aun así, siempre en ti, Ese fulgor de diamantina Mujer de sutil elegancia Tierno amanecer que te pertenece sólo a ti.

Navegadora de auroras y laberintos Creadora de mundos lejanos Buscadora de los que sienten igual que tú.

Paz infinita en un lugar, ojalá

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Type set digitally using InDesign by the SOMOS Team at Brown University. Titles are set in Filson Pro Medium 18, artist names in Filson Pro Book Italic 18/16, and body text in Filson Pro Book 11/12/13/14.

November 2021.