In his debut poetry collection, Diaries of a Terrorist, queer abolitionist poet Christopher Soto (loma_poetry) tackles policing at every level. katja_vujic spoke with him about imagination, Pride, and queer activism
Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photo: Fabian Guerrero; Cover Design: Becca Fox Design; Publisher: Copper Canyon Press A few weeks ago, a crowd of literary types gathered in the basement bar at New York’s Ace Hotel for the launch of Christopher Soto’s debut poetry collection, Diaries of a Terrorist.
First, poets are the daydreamers, the wanderers; we pose questions, and we don’t have answers. Some people may ask, “How do we accomplish abolition legislatively?” The poet’s power isn’t bound to legislation. The poet gets to create alternative worlds beyond our furthest imagination. Our role in the movement is to dream up the world as we wish it would be. The second thing that the poet can do in an abolitionist movement is to be meticulous about language.
It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I was watching videos of Sylvia Rivera, and I came across this video of her at Pride in 1973. Sylvia was in Washington Square Park, which is maybe two or three blocks from where I was being booed. She was being booed while speaking about the sexual violence being experienced by incarcerated queer people. I identify as nonbinary; Sylvia Rivera was a trans woman, we’re both Puerto Rican — I’m half Puerto Rican, half Salvadorian.
A lot of the time I’ll encounter these histories by word of mouth. So my friends were like, “Let’s meet up at Black Cat Tavern. It’s such a shame that it’s straight now,” and I responded, “When was it queer?” I didn’t know this history until they told me, and then I followed up with my own research.
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