antibody

Rebecca Salazar’s second body of poetry, “antibody,” is the first collection of poetry that has left a feeling for me after reading of the sheer rage and pain extrapolated through the work that is haunting. I cannot shake the rawness and pure emotions of the confrontations to sexual violence the author cracked open with this writing. “[I] am terrified [I] built my poetry on the backs of violent men,” a line that stayed with me after reading. The fear of the construction of identity from perpetration, a violent and all-consuming tethering that offers an honest testimony to the sheer human messiness of processing pain and atrocity. “[If] there is swelling, pain, contain thy filthy self.” Contain, the forceful control and intricate behavioural patterns of the abuser and how they manipulate to want you to act after atrocity, Salazar exposes this perpetration. When in reality, what is not said is that the abuse should not occur to begin with, and yet, the pattern of violence and sexual assault continues, for many women.

Salazar’s “antibody” is a feminist body of work that refuses to be contained, ‘thy filthy self’ is carved out in actuation and in this carving, with the feeling of a machete or dull butter-knife as the tone held to our throats throughout the collection, the horrors of what a woman goes through after sexual assault resists silencing. “[W]hat happens after the scene is as important as the scene itself.” ‘antibody’ is resistance, victimhood is not massacred to become palpable, or digestible to ‘polite society,’ enduring trauma coated in rage, so powerfully transmitted, it will become an extension of you as a reader. Be warned.

And, you are warned, this connection with the reader by the author has been made. In the very dedication of the collection, Salazar writes, “To fellow survivors, this offering: these poems relive in graphic detail the experience of sexual violence, silencing, pregnancy loss, chronic illness, and suicidality. What matters more than this book is your consent, your agency in choosing whether or how much of it you read. If this is as far as you read, thank you.” Contain evolves to, ‘consent’ a fluid state of being, the lack thereof historically, for the author, they gesture to their reader in a way they should have been treated.

Rebecca Salazar has written two volumes of poetry. Their first collection, ‘sulphurtongue,’ by McClelland & Stewart was a finalist for the Governor Generals Award for Poetry, the New Brunswick Book Awards, the Atlantic Book Awards, and the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She/they is a queer, disabled, and racialized Latinx writer currently living on the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik people. ‘antibody,’ is also published by McClelland & Stewart.

Connections made and charged emotions striking from each page, Salazar does not sugar-coat or gloss over the pain and transformation of body, mind and spirit from assault. The spells cast ‘against women like us,’ Salsazar is not alone, or singular, and the sheer reality of women who have experienced similar, who are experiencing similar and who will experience similar, should be more shocking than the anger emoted from the text. “[W]hite nights, i’m striking eyelashes for match-light, itching to burn your afterimage from my insides.” A haunched and waiting woman, baring teeth vehement to strike true. She threatens, “wake me, i dare you. watch me wax ravenous as hot slivers of moon, and watch me wolf down, guzzling the dark to staunch the ache.” She has become or she has reclaimed something wild and untamed, something painstakingly unbroken from the atrocities committed against her. “[W]hen you foamed me at the mouths and left me feral to the woods, you split my hydra tongue to shreds.” Forked tongue, clefted and feral, a beast will emerge and take their abusers down with the act of writing and endurance of testimony. “[W]e’ll multiply what you cut off. we’ll weave a tapestry of cries binding your name.” There is hope, something of art and something that could be beautiful pushes through.

But, this journey with the author does not accumulate in closure. The final poem almost breaks down, leaves much unsaid, and what is left unsaid haunts too. And still, something bleeding and beating waits beyond. “[W]e have reconnected since you left us less than corpse. our preternatural growth makes us the larger organism in this earth, our haunting larger than your violations. we grow hungry.” Something threatening breadth and space that is building capacity and power to rise up and take hold. Sadly, breadth enough for a community, a collective, alive and breathing, bleeding and beating. Those who perished, they remain silenced, and, for them, for those in the future who will become mortally silenced, this text is necessary.

Thank you to Rebecca Salazar, McClelland & Stewart and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review!