Tato Laviera | "my graduation speech"
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In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of Nuyorican poet, Tato Laviera. Shifting between English and Spanish in his poetry, Laviera addresses themes of immigration, history, and transcultural identity. Laviera was the author of several collections of poetry, including La Carreta Made a U-Turn (1979), AmeR\\xedcan (1985), Mainstream Ethics (Etica corriente) (1988), and Mixturao and Other Poems (2008). He also wrote more than a dozen plays, including King of Cans, which premiered in 2012 at New York\\u2019s Red Carpet Theater. Laviera lived in New York, and dealt with diabetes and blindness until his death in 2013. Source
This episode includes a reading of his poem, "my graduation speech," featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology.
"my graduation speech"
i think in Spanish
i write in English
i want to go back to puerto rico,
but i wonder if my kink could live
in ponce, mayag\\xfcez and carolina
tengo las venas aculturadas
escribo en spanglish
abraham in espa\\xf1ol
abraham in english
tato in spanish
"taro" in english
tonto in both languages
how are you?
\\xbfc\\xf3mo est\\xe1s?
i don't know if i'm coming
or si me fui ya
si me dicen barranquitas, yo reply,
"\\xbfcon qu\\xe9 se come eso?"
si me dicen caviar, i digo,
"a new pair of converse sneakers."
ah\\xed supe que estoy jod\\xedo
ah\\xed supe que estamos jod\\xedos
english or spanish
spanish or english
spanenglish
now, dig this:
hablo lo ingl\\xe9s matao
hablo lo espa\\xf1ol matao
no s\\xe9 leer ninguno bien
so it is, spanglish to matao
what i digo
\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0\\xa1ay, virgen, yo no s\\xe9 hablar!