As a high school sophomore navigating the complexities of adolescence, the concept of “first love” remained elusive. It was in this state of youthful ambiguity that Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?, entered my world. However, it wasn’t the sonnet’s romantic undertones that initially captivated me. Lost in teenage introspection, I wasn’t preoccupied with any particular romantic interest at the time. Nor was it solely the poem’s celebrated imagery, undeniably beautiful, that seized my attention. Instead, it was the audacious declaration of immortality embedded within the sonnet’s concluding lines that truly resonated.
By that stage in my education, I had grasped the notion that literature, as a form of art, possessed the capacity to transcend temporal boundaries, to achieve a semblance of eternity through its connection with readers across generations. Yet, this particular poem unveiled a dimension of literature that explicitly asserted immortality, not just for itself as an artistic creation, but also for its very subject. Moreover, this claim wasn’t merely directed at the reader; it was proclaimed directly to the subject of the poem:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Here, the subject of the sonnet (whether woman or man), rendered with exquisite metaphorical language, is immortalized. Through this poetic act of memorialization, the subject is imbued with value and enduring worth. This revelation was transformative. My own lived experiences as an impoverished, queer, Mexican immigrant coming of age in Reagan’s America were conspicuously absent from mainstream culture. The media, religious institutions, and educational curricula rarely reflected my reality. Even when aspects of queer identity surfaced in media portrayals, they were often shadowed by the looming crisis of a terrifying new epidemic. This pervasive invisibility and marginalization inevitably eroded my sense of self-worth.
But within the verses of this sonnet, a spark ignited – a pivotal moment, a genesis. The final couplet, both melancholic and celebratory, simultaneously acknowledging mortality and defying its finality, presented a powerful paradox. Here was language capable of bestowing inherent worth upon an individual, rendering them beautiful through the sheer force of its expression.
The years that followed would be punctuated by numerous beginnings, countless first experiences that gradually accumulated, eventually compelling me to embark on my own journey of poetic creation. These poems, initially deeply personal explorations, were born from a profound need. While my motivations for writing are multifaceted, the primary impetus was to give voice to what had been consistently overlooked, abandoned, forgotten, or fundamentally ignored. I write because through the medium of language, I strive to transmute pain and ugliness into beauty, recognizing the universal human experience residing just beneath the surface of the personal and particular. This transformative process, this literary alchemy, is profoundly glorious.
