Poet and teacher Gustavo Barahona-López moved to Eau Claire in the summer of 2020—deep into the days of the pandemic. Despite the difficulties of building community in these socially distanced times, Gustavo and his partner Kati—along with their children and dog Balto—have quickly begun building a community here. In addition to teaching Spanish at a local middle school, Gustavo is also a published poet, whose debut book, Loss And Other Rivers That Devour, was just released from Nomadic Press. We recently sat down with Gustavo to learn more about his new book, its inspiration, and the voices that inspire him. Scroll on for the complete interview.
B.J. Hollars: In your collection’s introduction, you note that this book centers on your “ever-evolving grief” for your father. Can you share about how that became the focal point of your collection, and what impact the writing process may have had on your efforts to work with your grief?
Gustavo Barahona-López: My father and our relationship have been the central topics of most of my writing. This focus stems in large part because of his cancer diagnosis while I was a high school senior and his death while I was in college. I had always adored my father and wanted nothing more than to earn his approval. A Mexican immigrant, my father made countless sacrifices to give his children a better life in the United States. To my teenage self, he was the embodiment of intellect, strength, and dedication to family. So when my father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer with a one-year prognosis, I was left dumbfounded. How could the strongest man I knew be withering before me? How is it fair that at 21 years of age, I would no longer have his presence or guidance in my life? I had these and many more questions that I could not get myself to ask him. What I did instead is turn to the pen. I wrote poems and journal entries trying to make sense of his dying and his death. Initially, I tried to get over his death, to go through the steps of grief and come to terms with it. But I soon realized that that path and mindset regarding grief could not serve me. Instead, I leaned into the memory of him and the haunting. As I grew into adulthood and fatherhood, I continued to write about my father. However, what that writing revealed was that just as my father offered his love, his views on what masculinity should look like caused me a lot of harm. My memory of him has shifted from one of glorification to complex personhood, a man who tried his best given the social milieu where he grew up. Loss and Other Rivers That Devour is the culmination of years of grieving and reflection that began in 2005 in a Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.
BJH: You write that your poems are “an incomplete cartography” of your “growth, setbacks, longing, and [your] grief.” I really like the idea of knowing that the work is ongoing. That the cartography remains “incomplete.” Do you find yourself returning to this subject in your current poems, or has the work changed now that this project is complete?
“I had previously believed that once I completed a project dealing primarily with the mourning of my father such as Loss and Other Rivers That Devour, it would bring closure and I would be able to move on to other topics. So far that has not been the case. ”
GBL: When I write poems now my father’s memory has a way of inserting itself, though it is less of a focus now. I had previously believed that once I completed a project dealing primarily with the mourning of my father such as Loss and Other Rivers That Devour, it would bring closure and I would be able to move on to other topics. So far that has not been the case. What has changed is the vessel for my writing about him. I have been working on a few prose pieces that deal more explicitly with my father, our relationship, and his ideas about vulnerability and masculinity. Each new work elucidates a different part of our relationship. The lens of fatherhood for instance has shifted how I view my own childhood as I consider which of my father’s lessons I want to pass on and which, in hindsight, were detrimental to my emotional growth.
BJH: Can you share about some of the struggles you may have encountered while writing this collection?
GBL: My earliest poems in this collection tended to glorify my father. Within my family there was a cultural expectation that children should never criticize their parents. The first few times that I wrote any less than favorable characterization of my father I heard a voice in my head saying, ‘malcriado’ meaning ill-mannered/ill-bred or ‘hijo ingrato’ which translates to ungrateful son. However, over time I learned to quiet that voice so that I could express my experience of my childhood and the complexity of my relationship to the man I loved and feared most.
BJH: Your collection makes use of various forms. Is there any one form that you found worked best for the subject of grief? How can form explore grief differently?
GBL: Many of the poems in my collection that deal more directly with death and mourning are either free verse or make extensive use of white space. I implemented free verse when I wanted to let my thoughts run. If I had a moment where the loss felt especially salient and I was drawn to the page with urgency, I could count on free verse to help me get those thoughts onto the page. I also have several poems that make use of white space. I find this style of poetry lends itself to the fracturing of identity and can begin to reflect the complexity of relationships. Some of my more recent work like Waterfall Duplex, employs forms that include repetition of individual words or entire lines. I think this is a useful structure to demonstrate the cyclical form that the mourning process can take for some people, myself included.
BJH: What poets/writers/artists have influenced your work?
GBL: Some of my early influences include Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca. My work has also been inspired by the works of many contemporary poets. Eduardo Corral’s Slow Lightning, Vanessa Angélica Villareal’s Beast Meridian, Sara Borjas’ Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff, Alan Chazaro’s Piñata Theory, contributed to my understanding of how to weave the histories of Latinx people into verse. These works also encouraged me to explore the complexities of relationships between immigrant parents and their second-generation children living in the United States. Finally, three books stand out to me in the way they approach the grieving process are: Victoria Chang’s Obit, Preeti Vangani’s Mother Tongue Apologize, and Jenny Qi’s Focal Point. Many of the poems in Loss and Other Rivers That Devour are a result of direct engagement with the works of these wonderful poets.
BJH: What do you hope readers take from your collection?
GBL: Once a poem or book is out in the world as the author it is impossible to control what readers get out of it. However, what I would want readers to come away with from reading my collection is that there is a multitude of ways to grieve. In my case, mourning my father is something that I do in small and big ways every day. Some days the grief is a slow ebb, others it feels like being swirled in a whirlpool, but it is always there. And for me, that’s OK. My father gets to be a part of my life even in his absence. There isn’t a singular way to mourn and mine is another example of how we as people process an immeasurable loss.
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