Ruben Quesada’s new poetry collection, Brutal Companion, won the Barrow Street Editors Prize and was released in October 2024 by Barrow Street Press. Of Quesada’s collection, Jericho Brown says, “Brutal Companion is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read about the fact of longing.” In Quesada’s poems, longing is a unifying force, like gravity, that holds the pieces together. Love, loss, connection, severance—traversing the distance between these poles can make life brutal. The magic of Quesada’s poems is that they narrow the distances and hold each destination equally.
Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. His books include Jane/La Segua (The Offending Adam Press 2023), Revelations (Sibling Rivalry Press 2018), and Next Extinct Mammal (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011). He translated Luis Cernuda’s Exiled from the Throne of Night (Aureole Press, 2008), and he edited the award-winning anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (University of New Mexico Press 2022). His poetry and criticism appear in The New York Times Magazine, Best American Poetry, The Believer, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. You can learn more about Ruben Quesada at rubenquesada.com.
This conversation took place via email in October 2024.
Joshua Garcia [JG]: Contradictions seem to pervade your new collection, Brutal Companion, as its title suggests. Without the modifier, I tend to think of a “companion” as someone or something that strengthens and sustains, yet there is a brutality that abides with the speaker(s) of these poems. With remembrance comes willful forgetting. Addiction and obsession go hand in hand with tenderness and release. Though there is plenty of grief in this collection, your poems never seem to despair. Instead, they gravitate toward beauty and light. It would be tempting to describe these juxtapositions as a kind of tension, but I think balance feels more exact. Could you share what it was like to write into these opposing forces and what kept you balanced during the process?
Ruben Quesada [RQ]: That concept is powerful. Brutal Companion evokes the idea of a force or presence that challenges and sustains—something relentless but also essential for survival or growth. The contradictions you mention are at the core of the poems. The companion is not necessarily someone who strengthens in a traditional sense but rather a presence that perseveres through moments of pain and desire. It is not a force of darkness, nor is it wholly nurturing—it allows the speaker to experience life in all facets, both real and imagined, sober and intoxicated.
The poems in Brutal Companion are a delicate balance between opposing forces—grief and beauty, addiction and tenderness. This balance, rather than tension, shapes the poems. There is a pull toward desire in moments of despair, but renewal and grandeur accompany these moments. The speaker is never entirely consumed by one force; the brutal companion remains, providing a constant yet impartial presence.
What kept me balanced during the writing process was neutral companionship—the idea that the brutal companion was not guiding me toward or away from anything but simply being present. This allowed the poems to flow between opposing forces without fully succumbing to despair or being lifted entirely into beauty. While the process was not without its challenges, maintaining a focus on the beauty and light that can be found even in the darkest moments was essential to maintaining balance.
Brutal Companion evokes the idea of a force or presence that challenges and sustains—something relentless but also essential for survival or growth.
JG: One of the contradictions I’m most drawn to in this collection is that of the sacred and the profane. Religious imagery appears alongside queer sex (historically profane) and violence. I read “East of Wyoming, I Remember Matthew Shepard” (after The Entombment by Raphael) with an eagerness and surprise that, though we have no shortage of Matthew Shepard poems, reminds me that the motif of martyrdom/divinity has not been exhausted in queer art. Why do you think the sacred works so well as an artistic device for the queer experience, and how does its pairing with the profane deepen our understanding of its divine nature?
RQ: The sacred, often associated with purity and divine grace, can be a powerful lens through which to examine the queer experience. The sacred and the profane, in the context of violence and marginalized identities, create pressure that is both challenging and illuminating. It allows us to explore queer existence by acknowledging its sacred nature while also confronting its historical and ongoing struggles.
Your question about the efficacy of religious imagery in exploring the queer experience is particularly poignant, especially in the context of “East of Wyoming, I Remember Matthew Shepard.” The effectiveness of sacred imagery in queer art stems from its ability to universalize marginalized experiences, elevating them to a realm of shared human significance. When paired with the profane, it creates a multifaceted representation of queer life that resists simplification or sanitization. This combination deepens our understanding of divinity by expanding its borders, suggesting that the sacred can be found in unexpected places—in struggle, desire, and the body itself.
JG: This may be a personal bias, but I’ve found that some of the most striking ekphrasis being written today comes from queer writers. Brutal Companion is no exception, filled with poems after artists like Piero della Francesca, George Inness, Raphael, Édouard Manet, and others. Even when your poems aren’t directly “after” a particular artist, they often return to artwork to convey the lived: “[. . .] but you, too, will appear to be asleep when I discover you, / as if cast from porcelain or copper like Hermes waiting // at a museum in Rome.” What draws you to write about art, and do you think there’s anything fundamentally queer about ekphrasis?
RQ: Ekphrasis, the poetic description of art, offers a unique space for queer writers to explore identity, desire, and alienation. This form of writing allows poets to fuse the visual and verbal, reflecting on how art can express or evoke deeply personal, sometimes hidden, emotional, or lived experiences.
Queer writers might be drawn to ekphrasis because it offers a space for interpretation, subtext, and the exploration of hidden or layered meanings. This mirrors the complexities of queer identity and expression. Many queer experiences, particularly in historical or repressive contexts, have had to be expressed subtly or through metaphor. Art provides a canvas for these encoded meanings, where bodies, gestures, and symbols can be read in multiple ways. While ekphrasis isn’t inherently queer, it lends itself well to queer interpretations. Queer writing frequently subverts dominant cultural or societal norms, and ekphrasis provides a way to reinterpret visual art, potentially challenging works that might have initially reflected heteronormative or traditional values.
Many queer experiences, particularly in historical or repressive contexts, have had to be expressed subtly or through metaphor. Art provides a canvas for these encoded meanings . . .
The fluidity of ekphrasis—transforming one medium (visual art) into another (language)—can feel inherently connected to the non-binary, shifting, and often liminal aspects of queer identity. Additionally, many visual artworks focus on the human body, desire, and beauty. Ekphrasis allows queer writers to explore their complex relationships with bodies, attraction, and beauty, reinterpreting art’s representations of gender, sexuality, and desire.
By engaging with art and reimagining it through the lens of queer experience, writers can create new and subversive narratives that challenge traditional notions of beauty, identity, and belonging. One powerful example by Derrick Austin is “Taking My Father and Brother to The Frick,” a poem that engages with art on both a personal and political level. Austin encodes his experience, engages with cultural histories, and challenges dominant interpretations about artwork and its engagement. By exploring the relationship between the seen and unseen, the public and private, and the sacred and profane, queer writers can express their singular perspectives and experiences.
JG: In the poem “Genesis,” you write, “We’ll begin by weaving a heroic couplet with the tip / of our tongues then spit and spin fringe for flare. Thread / a loose sentence.” I was immediately struck by how embodied the act of writing is in these lines—how lived. To what extent do you think poets should live their poetry? I know of some writers who feel they need to collect interesting experiences or endure hardship in order to write well, and I know others who disagree. How, if at all, do you think we should shape our lives away from the page in order to return to it? And how do you talk about this with younger writers who are both so eager to live and to write?
RQ: The embodied nature of writing in “Genesis” reflects my belief that poetry is not just a craft but a way of being. Indeed, writing is deeply connected to our lived experiences, bodies, emotions, and perhaps, more importantly, imagination. The tactile imagery in these lines—weaving, spitting, threading—conveys a sense of physicality, suggesting that creation is as much a bodily as a mental endeavor.
While living fully and authentically informs our poetry, I don’t subscribe to the notion that poets must seek extraordinary experiences or endure hardship to write well. Poetry can emerge from the most ordinary moments and minor details of our daily lives. What matters is our ability to observe, reflect, and connect with the world around us.
Poetry can emerge from the most ordinary moments and minor details of our daily lives. What matters is our ability to observe, reflect, and connect with the world around us.
I encourage younger writers to stay open to experiences, pay attention to the world, and cultivate empathy. The key is to live mindfully and to process our experiences through writing. Write about the everyday life. As Richard Hugo says, all things belong in the world of imagination. By living fully and authentically, we enrich our inner lives, and this, in turn, enriches our poetry. The goal is not to seek out dramatic experiences but to find meaning and beauty in the everyday. As poets, we can use our writing to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
JG: You teach in low-residency MFA programs at Antioch University and Cedar Crest College. One of the benefits of low-residency MFA programs is that they allow space for competing priorities like work, family, place, etc. As a poet who works a nine-to-five, I’m always looking for ways to balance life’s demands with the vocation of writing. How do you talk about this balance with your students, and/or how do you experience it yourself? Any advice to writers who find themselves rationing their time?
RQ: The question of balance in writing and life is a recurrent challenge. Balancing life’s demands with the pursuit of writing is a challenge that many face, especially within low-residency MFA programs. The flexibility of these programs allows students to integrate their creative work with other responsibilities, which can lead to richer and more grounded writing.
Prioritize small, consistent moments of writing, even amid a busy schedule, to help you maintain momentum. Patience and understanding are part of the writing process, not just a product. I’d encourage students to find moments of light amid the darkness, as reflected in the collection, which could be a guiding principle. Time management may involve understanding that not all time needs to be spent in intense creative effort—sometimes, reflection and quietude are equally important.
Balancing life’s demands with writing is an ongoing challenge. I’d emphasize the importance of reading widely and staying connected to the literary community through live events or writing reviews. For those rationing time, I suggest setting realistic goals and treating writing time as sacred. This advice echoes the sentiments of many successful writers, including Anne Lamott and Stephen King, who have emphasized the importance of discipline and routine in their writing practices.
JG: I was delighted to see that the third section of Brutal Companion opens with an epigraph from poet Spencer Reece: “We can never be with loss too long.” Reece’s third poetry collection, Acts, was released earlier this year and also engages themes of queerness and faith. In his poem “Tres Crepúsculos,” Reece mentions you by name, and I enjoyed this cross-referential moment. Assuming that you two know each other and have inspired each other’s work, could you speak to how your community—other writers and also friends, lovers, family—has shaped you as a poet?
RQ: Spencer and I have a special bond as poets and people who share similar experiences of queerness, faith, and loss. His work has been a constant source of inspiration and comfort, especially as we’ve navigated similar emotional and thematic territory. The quote—”We can never be with loss too long”—captures the idea that loss is always with us, shaping who we are, how we think, and how we see the world. When he mentioned me in Acts, particularly in “Tres Crepúsculos,” it felt like a beautiful acknowledgment of how our lives and work are intertwined.
The love and support of my friends, lovers, and family have given me the space to write honestly about grief, desire, and queerness.
My community—writers, friends, lovers, family—has been essential to my growth as a poet. Writers like Spencer have influenced my style and helped me explore queerness and faith more deeply. In Brutal Companion, my community is at the heart of the collection. Poems like “My Mother Is a Garden” are rooted in my family’s immigrant story and how that story continues to shape my identity, faith, and sense of belonging. The love and support of my friends, lovers, and family have given me the space to write honestly about grief, desire, and queerness.
Other queer writers have also been a significant influence on my voice. We often build on each other’s work and experiences, reimagining love, loss, and identity narratives. This constant exchange of ideas—whether reading each other’s work, being mentioned in a poem, or simply sharing life moments—inspires me to think about how poetry can reflect our connections with others and express the inner truths that arise from those connections.
JG: The act of looking seems to appear throughout your poems as in these lines: “Everything looks like a Monet / painting” and “The last time we parted, I looked past you.” What are you looking at or for these days? What is seizing your attention?
RQ: The act of looking in my poems often reflects a desire to connect with the world on a deeper level. It’s a way of seeking meaning, finding beauty, and understanding the complexities of human experience. In the lines you cited, there is a sense of longing, contemplation, and perhaps even a hint of regret.
I’m drawn to themes of transformation, the fleeting nature of beauty, and the contrasts between light and shadow. These elements can be found both in the physical world and within our inner lives. By paying attention to the details of our surroundings and reflecting on our own experiences, we can gain a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Featured photo by Sena Aykut.
Joshua Garcia is the author of Pentimento (Black Lawrence Press 2024). His poetry has appeared in Ecotone, The Georgia Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and has received a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University and an Emerge—Surface—Be Fellowship from The Poetry Project. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York.
