Status
Available
Publication
Graywolf Press (2020), 72 pages
Description
"Guillotine traverses desert landscapes cut through by migrants, the grief of loss, betrayal's lingering scars, the border itself--great distances in which violence and yearning find roots. Through the voices of undocumented immigrants, border patrol agents, and scorned lovers, award-winning poet Eduardo C. Corral writes dramatic portraits of contradiction, survival, and a deeply human, relentless interiority. With extraordinary lyric imagination, these poems wonder about being unwanted or renounced. What do we do with unrequited love? Is it with or without it that we would waste away?" --
User reviews
LibraryThing member Dreesie
National Book Award for Poetry longlist 2020
Corral is the child of Mexican immigrants and teaches at NC State.
The first part of this collection focuses on land immigration in the Southwest. Water stations, saguaros, smugglers, bodies in the desert. The second focuses more on life as a gay man.
It is
Corral also uses overlapping text, Spanish and English text, and spacing to express different things--I couldn't always tell what, but sometimes could.
Like so much poetry by academics, this short collection required 2 pages of notes explaining references and so forth--I am sure there is a certain crowd that understands these as they read, and knows the sources, and thus understands the additional layer of meaning. I am not one of those people.
Corral is the child of Mexican immigrants and teaches at NC State.
The first part of this collection focuses on land immigration in the Southwest. Water stations, saguaros, smugglers, bodies in the desert. The second focuses more on life as a gay man.
It is
Show More
unclear to me if Corral reported on actual events and then wrote poetry, or if he read articles and then wrote poetry, or if he interviewed participants, or based his work on photos, or used multiple sources. This is exactly why I classify "poetry" as neither fiction nor nonfiction. It's its own category.Corral also uses overlapping text, Spanish and English text, and spacing to express different things--I couldn't always tell what, but sometimes could.
Like so much poetry by academics, this short collection required 2 pages of notes explaining references and so forth--I am sure there is a certain crowd that understands these as they read, and knows the sources, and thus understands the additional layer of meaning. I am not one of those people.
Show Less
Awards
National Book Award (Longlist — Poetry — 2020)
Lambda Literary Award (Finalist — 2021)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Longlist — Fiction and Poetry — 2021)
Language
Original language
English