For Tomás
On Remembrance, Lineage & Finding Home
What do I make of my living? My still being here. As a man, as a husband, as a writer. It often feels like we lose the ones who are larger than life, the lives mine could only hold for a time. But in those shared moments, I got to see them for the giants they are. A beauty that reaches up through the clouds. In some ways, always close to Heaven. Earlier this week, I learned about the loss of Tomás Miriti Pacheco. A poet whose days were cut short, but whole universes were constructed in the time he was given.
I’ve spent my days since reading words from people whose lives were touched by Tomás. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be among them. Although we only met a little over a year ago, Tomás was making art in Columbus before I came along. His Columbus Underground bylines paved the way for mine. Many of the writers I learned to reach for saw the same things in Tomás that I got to see in him: talent, curiosity, and a bright future.
Tomás, like other writers in our city, spoke fondly of lineage. When interviewed for Matter News in March 2024, a year before our paths would ever cross, he remarked, “My story is only possible because there were a lot of artists before me who believed in the same things.” He wrote about several of these figures, including Scott Woods and Marshall Shorts, in a 2021 piece he wrote for Midstory on how Black artists paved the way for Columbus’ slam poetry scene.
Hanif Abdurraqib, a product of Columbus’ slam poetry scene and one of Tomás’ mentors, shared about lineage in a podcast interview that me and my homie Koku recorded with him at the end of 2022. “I sometimes think lineage is not always built through direct contact,” said Abdurraqib, “It’s built through an ongoing contact with the reality that someone’s life is built before you.”
Tomás and I weren’t far apart in age, but his artistic pursuits in Columbus made mine possible. So it means something that he said yes to sharing a few poems at the reading that me and rachel moss hosted last March. It means something that we got to chat before the event and I saw him and Hanif trading poems during the intermission. It means something that he came to our first Album Club this year. Not only do I have a photo from that night, but I have an illustration by Hannah Mosley of said photo where Tomás sits closest to the camera, almost out of frame. He told me he was glad to be there and wanted to come back. I know he will.
Columbus artists like Tomás have taught me what it means to be rooted in a city and have a responsibility to the people there. Their love for this place, where many of them were born and raised, compels them to see what it can be. Woods, who exemplifies this better than anyone, penned an op-ed for Columbus Alive in 2019 about his could-have-been alma mater, Columbus Alternative High School, and one of its impressive student poets, Tomás.
In sharing how CAHS had been falling apart, Woods wrote, “We should feel lucky that such a student was able to overcome such adversity. We should also feel ashamed that he had to overcome such obstacles at all.” He concluded the essay, “I shudder to think how much brilliance we have effectively erased through our benign neglect and shoulder-shrugging march toward different civic priorities.”
Columbus isn’t perfect, but it produced my favorite writers, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Scott Woods, and Tomás Pacheco, which is to say, it’s capable of cultivating beauty. That potential is worth nurturing. While writing this, a young writer in the city sent me a story he’s submitting to a local publication. I consider this a privilege. I’m grateful for the Columbus natives who have been kind enough to welcome me in and let me show up for this city even though I wasn’t born and raised here. They’ve helped me find my way.
I want to do right by the city that gave me my wife and Tomás and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and Streetlight Guild. The city where me and my friends wrote home last March and I watched Tomás read new poems and we all stood together for a picture at the end, smiling and proud of what we created. I want to do right by the city where The Album Club is made possible and where I got to see Tomás one last time. I want to do right by the city where his legacy lives on—in me, in the writers who came before me, and in the artists who will come after.
We all share a lineage built on “the radiant feel of trading words,” as published by Tomás for Columbus Monthly in 2018. Our kinship is rooted in care.
Beautiful tribute to Tomás.
Damn, this is a huge loss for the city. God rest Tomás.