The Poetry of Ignacio Rivera

On Monday night some classmates and I experienced the deeply personal and emotion driven poetry of Ignacio Rivera as part of Herstory month. As Ignacio walked to the front of the Tresidder Oak Room, she offered the handful of audience members some insight into her life and her poetry. She first explained that she identifies as trans-gender and that although she has female anatomy, she has a strong disconnect with her physical body. Ignacio explained that neither "he" nor "she" is a correct label and prefers, at the moment, to be referred to as "ze" or "they". Her collection of poetry entitled "All of Me" was dedicated to topics such as race, women, identity, poverty and other subjects she felt were integral to her life.


She opened with a poem entitled Rediscovering Me. Standing calmly behind a plain black music stand, one hand in her pocket, she began to speak with a voice that commanded my attention. In the poem she recalled a time in her life when she felt she really had no idea who she was both racially and sexually. Her flowing river of words were a mix of English and Spanish, conveying her trouble finding her place in a white washed world while staying true to her Black and Hispanic background. She constantly repeated, "Who am I? Who am I?” At times her flow became fast and frantic, mirroring the racing thoughts she once felt and was now attempting to convey. Her language was graphic and uncensored to say the least, but not unnecessarily so. Although some may have considered her word choices offensive or crude, I felt an overwhelming honesty in her poetry. She felt no need to censor any of her thoughts, giving her poems a unique rawness that I have never encountered.


Between each poem, Ignacio gave short anecdotes about her life that were meant to introduce the next poem. These short 30-second stories about her life were completely shocking. She is a survivor of sexual abuse, of incest, and of the welfare system. She's been called a fag, a dyke, and every other ugly word you can think of. She's fought against gender norms and societal expectations all of her life and is still able to stand proud and share her experiences with a room of strangers. And even through all this, she did not preach about how we need to change our mindsets or ourselves. It was not her goal to force the importance of acceptance and tolerance. Ignacio's goal was to expose a part of her life, to share her experiences in a very honest way, and to leave the audience to do what they wished with her words.


I think Ignacio was very successful in affecting the audience in her intended way. In all honesty, a lot of her poetry made me extremely uncomfortable for reasons I have yet to completely understand. But I believe that a lot of Ignacio’s aim was in fact to make people uneasy because with discomfort comes reassessment, and further contemplation on the topics she discussed. The power of her words was in their sincerity. No matter if the audience loved or hated her, at the end of the day she was 100% real and that cannot be argued.