Synkroniciti is honored to welcome the first of our “Audacity” artists, poet Gregorio Gómez Aguayo, a fixture on the Chicago arts scene, with “The Pages She Left Behind.” This poem is about the death of a writer who was silenced by people in power. Her friends and family meet and begin digging through her unpublished papers. What they find exposes shadowy figures in high places.
“Her brother paced in the half-dark,/ grief grinding his jaw into a new kind of fury./ “This isn’t an ending,” he said./ “This is the match she left behind.””
Latin American poetry is rich with narratives that explore resistance to oppressive regimes and Gregorio takes up that tradition with a dramatic, exciting delivery full of alliterative music. He shows the value of the courageous, audacious individual. The truth she dared to document seeps into her community and becomes a chorus of voices calling for justice. Death does not silence her voice; it amplifies it. What began as an elegy has become a promise of reckoning.
“Now her story walks again, barefoot/ and unashamed,/ moving through corridors where/ power once slept easy.”
This woman’s work has become a transformative fire–ready to warm and kindle the hearts of her friends and to scorch those who tried to silence her. Her courage to indict corruption becomes contagious; the community’s decision to carry her truth forward is itself an act of audacity.
Read “The Pages She Left Behind” in Synkroniciti’s “Audacity” issue, Vol. 8, No. 1, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Gregorio Gómez Aguayo, a writer, director, producer, and organizer, has been at the heart of Chicago’s arts and spoken word communities for decades. An emigrant from Veracruz, Mexico, Gregorio was Managing Director of the Latino Chicago Theater Company which introduced many young Latino playwrights. For over 30 years, he was well known as the host of the infamous Weeds Live Poetry open mic and influenced many of the city’s most popular venues.
He was nominated for the prestigious award of Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois (2020), selected for Chicago’s Newcity’s Lit 50 (2022), and also nominated for poet Laureate of Chicago (2023).
He produced “Bohemios de Poesia Urbanos” at Agujón Theater (4/15/23), and published/produced “With a Photograph” a libretto of poetry and CD (2022). He has also produced two feature films and a documentary. His new book titled REQUIEM: Journey thru a Poetic Odyssey is scheduled to be released in March 2026.