‘Queer People Don’t Have the Luxury to Stop Telling Our Stories’

By Jamilah King Sep 18, 2014

Laverne Cox made arguably one of the biggest political statements of the year when she was featured on the cover of Time magazine. The accompanying cover story–which proclaimed that America has reached a "transgender tipping point"–covered Cox’s journey through acting before landing a role on the cast of Netflix’s hit series "Orange is the New Black."

Cox was lifted up as a reflection of mainstream progress; finally, queer and transgender people had been accepted in American culture. But if Cox is a reflection of mainstream progress in LGBT communities, she’s also a reflection of those left stranded in America’s economic and cultural margins. When she served as Grand Marshall at this year’s New York City Pride Parade, she rode in a car alongside Dolores Nettles, mother of Islan, a 21-year-old transgender woman who was beaten to death in Harlem last year. The investigation into Nettles’ death has stalled and her killer remain at large, a frighteningly common scenerio for many transgender women of color who find themselves victims of hate crimes. The odds are still stacked markedly against queer and trans people of color: sky-high unemployment rates, harassment, disease and murder are still stubborn facts of life. So while there are many examples of LGBT visibility in America — think sports stars like Brittney Griner and Michael Sam, musicians like Angel Haze and Frank Ocean — visibility alone has not often led to the chance to live safe, equitable lives.

For Christopher Soto, who goes by Loma, the new poetry journal "Nepantla" is a manifesto that says "visibility isn’t enough." He recently launched the new journal, which is exclusively for and by queer people of color, with help from the Lambda Literary Foundation and an Indiegogo campaign that netted more than $3,000. "There is so much more work to be done; we can’t stop telling our stories now — we don’t have that luxury yet," he told me in an e-mail interview about the centrality of poetry in the queer community and what he hopes to accomplish with the new journal.

How did you come to poetry and publishing?

I came to the written word through hip-hop and R&B. I started journaling when I saw artists like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and Saul Williams on HBO’s "Def Poetry Jam." Eventually, I built up enough courage to visit A Mic in Dim Lights in Pomona, California, where a bunch of slam poets [and] would hang out. That space was so vital to my youth and development.How did "Nepantla" come into being?

When I first moved to New York last year, I started e-mailing all of the queer poets of color that I knew, looking for community. A lot of folks welcomed me into their lives and offered me mentorship. It was cute… I wanted to help create a space [that] supported and celebrated that community.

Tell me about your contributors.

Our contributors include Danez Smith, Pamela Sneed, Metta Sáma, Lara Weibgen, Amber Atiya, and many other talented poets. Also, highly recommended, look into everything that Myriam Gurba produces. She is a goddess.

Where did you publicize the journal?

Largely within the literary community. The journal was launched on the Lambda Literary Foundation website and supported by various poets and literary organizations thereafter. But we are still working on getting the word out, so this interview is much appreciated.

Poetry has played a really central role in queer communities for decades; I’m thinking of Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga and Audre Lorde. Where do you think this journal fits into that history?

I think that the production of this journal is largely owed to that history, to the work of our revolutionary foremothers. This includes poets in the struggle whose names we don’t mention nearly enough such as Akilah Oliver and Tatiana De La Tierra. They were some of the first poets that I started reading and writing under.

We’re arguably at a point where queer people of color are more visible than they’ve ever been before. Why is this journal important to have now?

We are still not visible enough! As a community, queer people of color face disproportionally higher rates of unemployment, youth homelessness and physical assault.  We are still being unjustly incarcerated and deported. There is so much more work to be done; we can’t stop telling our stories now — we don’t have that luxury yet.

 Bonus: Read  the inaugural issue of Nepantla.

*This post has been updated to correct the following: "Nepantla" was supported by the Lambda Literary Foundation, not the Lambda Literary Fund.