To Smith College Lecturer Adrián Gras-Velázquez, poetry is like a nutella sandwich. From its addictive nature to the feeling of his childhood, Adrián sees poetics as just as sweet. His debut poetry collection, “Lo que hago en mi habitación,” brings his writing to the forefront.
“Lo que hago en mi habitación” didn’t start out as a collection. The collection began as a compilation of poems written about walks with his dogs, inspired by the joy and excitement they feel for everyday life. The first parts of this collection that he wrote were about missing the smell of the Mediterranean sea in his country of origin, Spain. From there, the collection evolved into reflections on sexuality in his 20’s, his childhood, and identity. “ It’s a confessional celebration of who I am,” Adrián explains. “It’s an acceptance.”
Adrián Gras-Velázquez had always wanted to write a poetry collection since he was a child and, although he has been around the arts for years from his degree in film to his work in journalism, it felt much different from having his name on a piece that was solely about him. “It felt like that thing I wanted to do as a kid, which was just write, it finally happened. I kinda wanted to high five that wee kid from when I was 7, 8, 9 years old writing the really stupid stories in my notebook.”
He recalls the nervousness he felt and still feels when sharing the collection. He didn’t tell his family or husband that he was writing this book for the first year and a half. When he realized he had to find other sets of eyes, he turned to his coworkers Professor Reyes Lazaro and Professor Melissa Belmonte and a former student of his for peer review. This process of sharing his work, although painstaking for his nerves, helped him open up about his poetry for the first time.
Within the collection, Adrián investigates the limited ways one could express queerness through the social climate of the 90’s in Spain. He confronts the period when he grew up, journeying through identity, sexuality and family in his writing. In explaining his reflection process, Adrián states “that looking back is not about pity and it’s not about, ‘Look how bad it was,’ it’s about looking back and going like, ‘Hey, I’ve evolved. I’m happy for my experiences.’”
The collection was first published in Spain, only two hours away from his hometown. It was crucial to him that his collection was first published in Spain so he could be a part of the modern canon of Spanish poetry. This canon is a very heterosexual space and growing up, he didn’t see himself reflected in poetry. Part of the reason he focused his second section of love and sex was to add to the conversation about being gay in Spain and writing about those things he didn’t see.
In searching for an illustrator to match the energy of his collection, Adrián came across Camilo Castaño Quinchía over Instagram. Quinchía accepted the challenge immediately and perfectly captured the spirit of the collection, bringing forth his youthful energy, the abstract ideas of his poetry, and of course, Adrián’s dogs in the form of paratext images. He also created images for each section that matched the section header and tracked Adrián’s aging, from his blond hair as a child to his facial hair as he ages.
Since it was crucial to him that Quinchía could attend, Adrián held the first presentation of his collection in Mexico. Since then, Quinchía has lectured about queer art in Spanish-speaking countries in one of his classes. Adrián’s book presentations continued to be personal to him, like on the last stop of his tour in Spain when he brought his primary school teacher — one of the first people who he remembers giving him a notebook and telling him to write — out to introduce him.
At his Smith book presentation event, he brought out Professor Lazaro who he describes as his “rock here at Smith.” He states: “talking to her, at times I could forget there were other people. I go to Mosaic with her for lunch every now and again and we have lentil soup and we just laugh and chat, just think about it like that — you’re just with her in Mosaic.” For Adrián, these full circle moments help to ease his nerves and celebrate the connections that brought him here.
Adrián felt grateful to see the student support at his Smith book presentation. Describing his students, he says, “for me, they are everything. For them to be interested in my work outside of the classroom, it humbles me so much anytime that they are excited for something that I have done.” Being a lecturer finds its way into his poems as well, like in a group of poems he has titled with the often tricky verb tenses of the Spanish language. Being a professor is a part of him and his students constantly inspire his work as he says, “I want to be you guys when I grow up.”
Adrián remarks that it’s unbelievable that it’s been almost a year since this collection was released. He says, “by book five, maybe I’ll believe that I’m a writer” and “by book twenty, I’ll be okay reading in front of people.” But as he explains, “if I don’t write, I don’t breathe.” Continuing to write poetry, he is currently working on a collection about coming out as gay in Spain as well as dealing with the new beats and rules of writing English poetry for a children’s book.
