Cuir/Queer Translation and Planetary Repair

Abstract

Puerto Rican writer Raquel Salas Rivera publishes self – translated bilingual volumes of poetry that challenge the colonial status – quo, reflect the impact of climate change, mourn the loss of friends and the violence against queer and trans individuals, explore cuir joy, and craft new language that would include him and all his non – binary identities. In this paper, I draw on concepts of eco – translation in which the translation environment expands to include all elements of a global discursive supply chain. Through this framework, I illuminate the way Salas Rivera maps new relationships with embodied experiences outside of limiting gender binaries onto new political and environmental relationships between Puerto Rico and the USA and between human societies and the planet in the age of the Anthropocene. His “Note on Translation” in Elegy ends with a demand: “learn to love what you cannot consume. decolonize to heal” (4). In this paper, I take up this challenge and learn from Salas Rivera to identify ways of using translation to build solidarity that rejects colonialist and consumer – driven frameworks to instead repair or invent other ways of being.