[by Sage Bliss-Rios Mace]
I sang publicly for the final time at my cousin Nicky’s funeral. I made it through one verse before my voice broke — lyrics nettled in a chest tightening and closed. Beside Nicky’s body, my grief swallowed me into a long-lasting silence.
Following Nicky’s death, my Spotify analytics would show how little I listened to music and how quiet I had become. I quit singing, writing poetry and barely spoke; I lived in a world without language, which is no world at all. My silence became interrupted when I read Gisselle Yepes’ “Not an Ode to April 22, 2019,” a poem written for their cousin, Steven. For the first time since the funeral, I felt truly held in knowing that this grief is not mine alone.
Such is the gift of the Bronx poet’s work. Though one may not have the language to tend to their own loss, nor the space to speak to it, Yepes’ poetry tenderly does. Where the institutional world may say you must clock in and move on, the poetry of Yepes says, ‘here, you may be present to your loss. Lay down your facade.’ The poetry of Yepes gently tends to your grief, and theirs — something needed in all times, but especially now within this container of pandemic loss.
Gratitude for Yepes’ poetry extends beyond my little bubble but to the literary giants. In 2021, The Missouri Review named “Not an Ode to April 22, 2019” as poem of the year and most recently, Yepes traveled to the West Coast as a 2022 Tin House Summer fellow. Yepes’ other works have been featured in praised journals such as Gulf Coast, and is an MFA candidate at Indiana University. They have also received the Bertolt Clever Poetry Prize as well as the Guy Lemmon Award in Public Writing.
Forever an admirer of their poetry, I reached out to Yepes for a Q&A, and asked them about their art and visions for the future. A full circle moment for myself, I had the honor of speaking with Yepes about how grief moves, how grief lives, and connects us. Join us in conversation here.
Can you introduce who Gisselle Yepes is?
I’m a poet from the Bronx and my family is from Puerto Rico and Colombia. I have lived all my life in New York which deeply informs my poems. My poems are with my family, our grief and migration — all of the heart things that we don’t get to see as colonized peoples — things that we don’t get to see often, at least not in my childhood, that we are seeing way more loudly now — thinking of my friend’s work, Elisabet Velasquez and Elizabeth Acevedo.
Where is home for you?
I don’t think home is a physical box, a 600 square foot space, anymore. Home is where your people are at. For me, I was born in Queens, raised in the Bronx and I think that home is the Bronx — it’s where I’m constantly returning to. Puerto Rico is another home, my friend’s group chat is a home, Tin House (the writers summer camp) was home for a week. Home is where your heart is — multiple places of course.
Home is also where you constantly feel the need to return to, to call from. I’m constantly thinking of altars in my work, how you can talk to your altar and to your ancestors but you can also draw messages from them. So, I very much also think of home as where your altars are — the ways we reset and return to ourselves, our younger selves and our future selves.
How did writing begin for you?
It began by writing about my love for books, my love for sleepovers with girls, my love for my sister and my family. Then in middle school and highschool I was journaling a lot about family stuff and then in college I did slam poetry for the first time. I went to CUPSI (College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational) 2018, and was just like, ‘Oh shit, I can move people on the stage.’ And I just found it really incredible. So, I started going to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Bowery Poetry Club and I think that’s the kind of community that made me feel like ‘I can write poems.’
Congratulations on being invited to fellow at Tin House! How was the experience for you?
Tin House was incredible. For me it was a bit difficult because of the jetlag. I was in New York for the majority of the summer and then I came to Indiana, where I am now. It was like, ‘Oh shoot, I get to go to the west coast for the first time.’ I’m also a bit of an introvert so it was like ‘Ah! 200 people!’ But, it was really beautiful and reaffirming in ways I didn’t expect it to be. I think people talk about Tin House like, ‘it’s a top tier fellowship, and everyone knows about Tin House.’ So, I went into it with imposter syndrome screaming in my head — like ‘you don’t belong here,’ ‘you’re a scholar, but not really!’ But, they spent a lot of time with us being like, ‘no, you do belong here and we need your work.’ I was also able to workshop with nine incredible poets and felt it very tender to be in a space that reminds you of why you do the thing you do.
Poets who inspire you, personally known or not?
There is Elisabet Velasquez, who is a Brooklyn-Bushwick poet — love her so much. There is Danez Smith, I love them so much. Quién más? There’s so many! Ross Gay, oh my god — I would not be in the MFA program without Ross Gay. Those are some of the beloveds of mine who are poets and remind me of why I do the work I do. They reaffirm me when I’m like, ‘I got 1,500 rejections, I’m done with poetry — I’m never writing again!’ And those are the people I return to and they say, ‘shut the f*** up, you are being dramatic.’
Some poets I do not know, outside of reading their work, is Victoria Chang, who writes a lot about grief. She has this whole book about obituaries, for different family members and different objects. There’s so many people I admire, some unnamed.
I know that you are in the MFA program at Indiana, what has that journey been like for you? Did you foresee attending there and taking that path?
I graduated college in 2020, and in my senior year a mentor was like, ‘You need to apply to graduate school for an MFA.’ I said, OK, I’m going to apply to eight of them and pray to the gods!’ I then got into a few and I chose Indiana because of the financial aid as well as the faculty. It’s been a very exhausting experience for me. Like, I don’t know if I was a richer poet if I would get an MFA. Or if I had more access to resources and wealth — in knowing specific poets, or money to go to specific residencies — I would get an MFA. But, at the same time, it has been immensely beautiful for me because of the people who are here and the faculty we have.
But, sometimes I do have to interact with the institution. Especially because my grandma died in 2021, and my uncle seven months later, so there is a specific type of way I have to say, ‘Oh, I can’t make this, oh I’m grieving.’ I think once the pandemic was over in the institution’s mind — even though it’s not over — they stopped trying to understand what grief is like. So it’s been hard to be like, y’all want these poems but when I need support to process what I’m writing about — very real people, you know they’re not characters in a fiction novel — I don’t feel that same empathy. So it’s been complicado, difficult, but also really beautiful.
As mentioned, “Not an Ode to April 22, 2019,” came to me amidst my grief. I’m curious to hear further about your outlook on grief: how it lives with you, how you live with it?
I think that grief, while it’s hard to write about, keeps me alive. And I think writing all my life has kept me alive. I think grief informs my poems because it’s so unbearable, and so everywhere. I think for me if I don’t write about it, I’ll be swallowed by it in a very scary way — in ways I’ve seen family members be swallowed by it, literally, physically, die grieving. It’s very much about writing with the unbearableness to make it feel less unbearable. Especially because when someone else reads it, they will likely feel held.
I also think that, when grief is shared, it feels lighter. Grief is the most unbearable and swallowing when it’s stuck — stuck in your throat, stuck in your sternum, stuck in your bed. Whereas language and sharing grief tends to give people movement with it.
Where do you foresee poetry taking you, any visions for the future?
This year is what I call the book year, because it is my last year with the MFA program — need to get that thesis done! I see many books and I also photograph and film, I create films. I deeply want to curate an exhibit of my works and of those I love. I really, deeply want films on HBO or A24, which is like one of those huge dreams where you’re like, ‘I’m calling it.’
But yes, many books. I want to be in libraries in the Bronx. I want Bronx teenagers and children to be written about, and written about without being spectacle — in a way that they are cared for while still sharing that what they experience matters, and that sometimes what they experience isn’t normal but it still matters. I want to create this life of making art. I don’t dream of a job, ya’ know. I dream of access to writing things forever.