This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting the dazzling debut collection of poet Eduardo C. Corral. The first Latino winner of the prestigious Yale Younger Poets prize, Corral has been roundly praised for vividly portraying his experiences as a Chicano and gay man with a Robert Hayden-like resistance to reductivism. In Slow Lightning, he mixes colloquial Spanish and English into sensual and sobering sonnets and free verse that touch on everything from illegal immigration to Freda Kahlo to difficult memories of family and lovers. So don’t miss this engaging new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.
Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso
I’m drumroll and voyeur.
I’m watermark
and fable. I’m weaving
the snarls
of a wolf through my hair
like ribbon. At my feet,
chisels
.
and jigsaws. I’m
performing
an autopsy on my shadow.
My rib cage a wall.
My heart
a crack in a wall,
a foothold. I’m tumbling
.
upward: a French acrobat. I’m judder
and effigy.
I’m pompadour
and splendid. I’m spinning
on a spit, split
in half.
.
An apple
in my mouth. I know
what Eve
didn’t know: a serpent
is a fruit eaten to the core. I’m
a massacre
of the dreamers,
.
a terra cotta soldier
waiting for
his emperor’s return.
When I bow,
a black fish leaps
from the small of my back.
I catch it.
.
I tear it apart. I fix
the scales
to my lips.
Every word I utter
is opalescent. I’m skinned
and Orphic.
I’m scarlet
.
and threshold. At my touch,
a piano
melts like a slab
of black ice. I’m
steam rising,
dissipating. I’m a ghost undressing.
I’m a cowboy
.
riding bareback.
My soul is
whirling
above my head like a lasso.
My right hand
a pistol. My left
automatic. I’m knocking
.
on every door.
I’m coming on strong,
like a missionary.
I’m kicking back
my legs, like a mule. I’m kicking up
my legs, like
a showgirl.
Russell J. (Readers’ Services)
