When Gabino Iglesias writes in the introduction that “horror poetry” is a thing and it is awesome, I find myself intrigued. When I learn that Pedro Iniguez is also a fiction writer of horror and science fiction I get excited. As someone who grew up seeing science fiction as avenue of White folk, and has grown into viewing the world as horrific, I think I get it. But nothing can prepare you for the unique voice that is Iniguez in his debut poetry collection Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future.
Science fiction and fantasy is imbued throughout the collection in various ways and to various effects. Sometimes it is disturbing as in the poem “Migrations” in which a man is deported beyond earth through an airlock (5) and in other times humorous such as in the poem “Lobster-in-Chief” in which Iniguez imagines a Trump-like figure as lobster: “The crowd waited with bated breath/ as the first neurologically-enhanced / lobster elected President of the United States / clambered toward the podium” (4). In this world, technology may have advanced, but the xenophobia and racism that marginalizes Latinx communities, has not.
Iniguez’s collection warns of the way continued advancements of technology without addressing underlying social issues will heighten the horrific violence of US society. In “The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End,” Iniguez addresses the epidemic of gun violence, but imagining a future where the weapon of choice is not the already terrifying and easily accessed automatic weapons of the present, but instead a “Shrink-Ray-Gun” that dissolves bodies into particles. “They have dissolved into mere fractions/ of their corporeal selves,/ their particles swept into dustpans/ and mopped into oblivion.” More terrifying the death, Iniguez imagines here, is the erasure of existence. Like many of the standout poems of the collection, Iniguez uses visceral imagery to bring his poetic science fiction to life.
Iniguez’s collection warns of the way continued advancements of technology without addressing underlying social issues will heighten the horrific violence of US society.
Mexicans on the Moon is divided into four sections, “Earth,” “Frontiers,” “Futures,” and “Aftermath.” The first section, as exemplified with the poems excerpted above, is concerned with life on earth, while the second, “Frontiers” imagines a search for home in outer space. As the title poem suggests, even life in the galaxy is influenced by privilege and racial hierarchies. The Mexicans “wanted Mars but / they make do with the Moon” imbuing it with warmth and culture in hope that, “The radiance of love warms that cold, dead rock/ until it is a home” (19). Here, Iniguez also showcases his talent for world building with a series of poems exploring life in this next stop of Mexican migration, a mix of dystopian imagery and cultural persistence.
The third section, “futures” is equally pessimistic as Iniguez charts the destruction of earth and the loss of humanity. Serving as a warning as sorts, over and over again in these poems, human innovation breads destruction. “We uncovered an ecosphere of great lakes and trees / and shimmering stones/ And we stripped it/ Until the Earth became truly hollow (44). On this future earth, a pet gecko caught in a particle accelerator wrecks City Hall, an attempt to mitigate pollution effects leads to a mass purging of humankind. And though science fiction elements in the poems create an element of fantasy, the parallels to contemporary capitalist ecocide send shivers down the spine, like the way music builds in a horror film just before the reveal of the true nature of the terror – that earth has become inhabitable. Again, Iniguez’s penchant for imagery elevates this effect: “Bodies slumped outside / grungy, crumbling tenements,/ brown skin fading into translucence; molecular degradation,/ they’re becoming as invisible as they feel/ to a failing nation” (41).
And though science fiction elements in the poems create an element of fantasy, the parallels to contemporary capitalist ecocide send shivers down the spine
In recent years there has been a growing attention to Latinx genre writing, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, historical fiction – publishing spaces where Latinx communities have been previously underrepresented or excluded. As a reader, scholar and teacher of Latinx literature this opens up exciting opportunities for discussion and engagement with an increasingly broad audience of readers. Latinx genre fiction brings new readers – Latinx or not – as well as new ways of thinking about our past, present and futures. I wonder if Iniguez’s science fiction dystopian poetics might do the same for Latinx poetry. While a poetry collection of this nature, concerned more with science fiction themes than linguistic interventions might not speak to all, it also may speak to some new readers. As someone who reads a lot of Latinx poetry, Iniguez’s collection certainly represents a different type of poetic voice than I have previously encountered and challenges me to think about what is possible in poetry.
Latinx genre fiction brings new readers – Latinx or not – as well as new ways of thinking about our past, present and futures.
In the final section, “Aftermath,” poems like “The Beautiful Bombs”, “Confessions of a Disintegrated Soldier,” and “Last Act of a Doomed Man” consider the victims and survivors of what seems like an inevitable apocalypse. Iniguez refuses to give us any easy answers about their future. Do we learn to be less violent, less destructive, less racist, less xenophobic, less alienated, less sexist? It’s not clear, and past history is not promising. As Iniguez, a self-described fan of science fiction asks in the introduction to the collection relating to the exclusion of Latinx characters and creators in science fiction, “Did we die out in those futures? Did we not make it? Were we purposefully excluded?” (xiv). With this collection, he gives us even more to ponder.
"Did we die out in those futures? Did we not make it? Were we purposefully excluded?” (xiv)
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