CITY VOICES
FIRST PERSON
HARVEY
An appeal for Rhina P. Espaillat to be Biden’s inaugural poet
BELEN ATIENZA
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WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
J A N U A RY 7 - 13, 2021
ear President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,
Congratulations on your victory. As you prepare for the celebration of your arrival to the White House, I would like to strongly recommend Rhina P. Espaillat as inaugural poet to carry your message of union, hope and equality. Espaillat is one of the most powerful and respected contemporary voices in the United States and the Caribbean, considered “the urban new voice of Latinx poetry” (Dana Gioia ). As a woman of mixed Afro-Dominican, Spanish, French and Arawak descent, in her works she explores the multiplicity of her identities, the pride of belonging to different cultural traditions, and the joys of nature and domestic life. Espaillat writes both in Spanish and English and she has committed her life to creating bridges between speakers of different languages in the United States, as well between American writers and writers from other countries. Deeply in love with the country that welcomed her as a child, aware of the complexities of history, and the challenges of being a woman of color and an immigrant in the United States, she once wrote that for her, “poetry is not just for everybody it is from everybody.” Espaillat is the perfect cultural
Poet Rhina P. Espaillat PROMOTIONAL IMAGE
ambassador for the United States, she embodies the best values of America: freedom, inclusion and solidarity. She is a great communicator and public speaker, with a clear vision about the need to create bridges between different generations of readers, as well as groups from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. As a public intellectual, she is a believer in bilingualism, in the need for speakers of all languages to shine and to coexist, because as she affirmed in an interview in the magazine Rattle when asked about assimilation: “those of us who have more than one identity, who have multiple languages and multiple loyalties, [we] are not really divided people [we are] multi-
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plied. I tell my Spanish language students, immigrant students from all over — because I see Asian students also — I tell them, ‘You’re not less, you’re more. You’re more because you have more points with which to touch other people.’” (Rattle No. 38, 2012)
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2020 had us all in ‘Jeopardy!’ JANICE HARVEY
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ime has never dragged the way that it has since January of 2020. The 100 Years War moved at a faster clip that the 12 months that began this decade. We’ve waited for Godot, Guffman and downtown Worcester’s sidewalks to be completed; we’ve stared at useless datebooks in anticipation of January 20th, Joy Reid’s latest hairdo and Ronnie’s clam shack reopening. Nothing compares to the 365,000 days that were 2020. Putting the year into words is a daunting task. Most of us threw our copies of Roget’s Thesaurus out the window months ago. Since the calendar flipped last, up became down, friends became enemies and truth and lies became indistinguishable from one another. Coronavirus held all the cards and continued to grab us by the collar when we got too cocky, foolishly thinking we were in charge of anything. The ground shifted under our feet daily, as beloved figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis lost battles
with cancer. Chadwick Boseman should still be here. When Alex Trebek drew his last breath, we knew there were no answers. As 2020 crawled to a close, it occurred to me that someday, this year could be an entire episode of “Jeopardy.” Some categories pertaining to 2020 might include the following: Category: Selfishness on Parade ( for $200) The answer is: Toilet paper, sanitizer and pasta The question: What are things we would cut a grampy for? The answer is: masks (For $400) The question: What simple piece of cloth can be the difference between life and death? Alternative question accepted: What piece of cloth do some waitstaff and store clerks wear under their noses? I’ve always found the year-end wrap-ups fun to watch and read. Not this year. I don’t want to recall
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