Long before the complexities of first love had charted their course through my teenage years, I encountered Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, a poem that begins with the timeless question, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” It wasn’t the burgeoning romanticism of the verse that initially captivated me as a high school student. No particular person occupied my thoughts as I read it in class. Nor was it merely the celebrated imagery, undeniably beautiful, that seized my attention. Instead, it was the poem’s audacious declaration of immortality in its concluding lines that truly resonated within me.
Even as a young student, I grasped the power of literature to transcend temporal boundaries, its capacity to achieve a form of eternity by forging a connection with readers across generations. However, this particular sonnet unveiled a dimension of literature that explicitly proclaimed immortality not just for itself, but for its very subject. It boldly asserted this enduring life not merely to an audience, but directly to the beloved being at its heart:
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
The subject of the poem, whether woman or man, rendered with such exquisite metaphorical language, is here elevated to a state of memorialization, imbued with profound value and worth through the very act of poetic inscription. I was spellbound. My own lived experiences, as an underprivileged, queer, Mexican immigrant navigating the socio-political landscape of Reagan’s America, found scant resonance or reflection in the dominant cultural narratives. The media, religious institutions, and educational settings offered little in the way of validation. Even when aspects of my identity were acknowledged, such as fleeting portrayals of gay men in the media, they were often presented under the shadow of a nascent and terrifying epidemic, or amidst its devastating aftermath. This pervasive invisibility and marginalization inevitably eroded my sense of self-worth, fostering a life lived on the periphery.
Yet, within the lines of this sonnet, a spark ignited, a turning point emerged, a genesis of sorts. The concluding couplet, simultaneously imbued with a sense of poignant reflection on mortality and a defiant celebration of life, resonated deeply. Here was language wielding the power to bestow worth upon an individual, to transmute them into an object of enduring beauty through the sheer force of verse.
Many more beginnings would unfold in the years that followed, a cascade of first experiences that would eventually reach a critical mass, compelling me to embark on my own journey of poetic creation. My poems, initially intensely personal explorations, arose from a deep-seated need to give voice to that which had been overlooked, forsaken, relegated to oblivion, or never even acknowledged in the first place. I write because through the alchemy of language, I aspire to transmute pain and ugliness into beauty, to reveal the universal truths that lie just beneath the surface of the particular, accessible with just a few carefully placed line breaks. What a truly magnificent transformation.
