Andy Powell Interviews José Olivarez at Paris Review

José Olivarez’s collection, Citizen Illegal, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books next month. At the Paris Review, Andy Powell introduces a few of the collection's major themes: "gentrification, gentefication (which Olivarez defines in this interview as the returning of a neighborhood to the communities who are being displaced), migration, anger, love, cheese fries, family, loss, therapy, white America’s engagement with immigrants and people of color, futures (including defecating donkeys), pasts (including a very sweet imagined recollection of his mother out dancing), more love, tough love, generous love, and, of course, as a Chicago poet, The Bulls." On from there: 

I met Olivarez for a coffee in Chicago to speak about the book. He was coming from a Teaching Artistry workshop at the Poetry Incubator, a conference for poets who integrate activism and community engagement into their creative practice. I already knew of José—he used to work for the same organization, DreamYard, that I work for in The Bronx. He has since worked for Urban Word, and now is at Young Chicago Authors, all organizations centered on building with youth through poetry. His workshop at the Incubator focused on the transformative possibilities of poetry and the imagination. These possibilities are at play in his own work. In “A Mexican Dreams of Heaven” he shifts the power balance and makeup of what heaven is, who gets to go to heaven, what it’s like. I suspect these visionary reversals derive partly from his work with kids, with the desire to imagine a future for them, to start imagining one with them.

 

INTERVIEWER

What scares you the most about this book?

OLIVAREZ

I wanted to make a book of poems that the people I love will be proud of. A lot of the poems are about my family, my experience as a first generation Mexican-American Chicano, and I wanted to write poems that were not shameful, not ashamed. I wanted them to be poems that my brother wouldn’t be embarrassed to show his co-workers, that my mom could share with the family, with her co-workers, that my students would want to give to their friends. I didn’t want them to look at the poems and think wow, José is so ashamed of us, or, José is so sad to be a part of us. I am very proud of my people, where I come from, and my community. 

INTERVIEWER

I definitely see joy and pride in this book. And—something your students might especially get a kick out of—humor!

OLIVAREZ

Absolutely. I was trying to write poems the way I feel, which on any given day is going to move from very sad to very happy, then back to sad, then to confused. I wanted to write a book that reflected the totality of that experience, and wasn’t just zeroing in on any one emotion. I wanted, as much as possible, to try to open myself up to everything.

Learn more at the Paris Review.