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eggmama's review against another edition
5.0
I don't even know if I can put into words how this book made me feel. I feel consumed. It pulled me in completely and entirely, even if I always didn't want to be where the speaker of a poem was.
Favorites:
- Ceremonial
- Testaments Scratched into a Water Station Barrel
- Autobiography of My Hungers
- Córdoba
- Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn
"Desire with no future, bitter longing - I starve myself by yearning for intimacy that doesn't and won't exist."
Favorites:
- Ceremonial
- Testaments Scratched into a Water Station Barrel
- Autobiography of My Hungers
- Córdoba
- Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn
"Desire with no future, bitter longing - I starve myself by yearning for intimacy that doesn't and won't exist."
laura_trap's review against another edition
5.0
Immersive, dark, and blistering. My first read through of this collection wasn't quick, there was much re-reading and contemplation. I felt the sand grit underneath my fingernails and the ache of thirst and unrequited lust and love. Each poem was a deeper pang of hunger in my gut, the desire for ownership and safety and acceptance was acute. Each poem was damaging in a beautiful way. This is definitely a collection that must be read multiple times, poems meant to drag you back. "Song of the Open Road" was so powerful, but each poem held its own weight and power. It's easy to say this was excellent and ravaging, but even then it barely succeeds to describing this master piece. Queer love and immigration are topics deserving of devotion, tenderness, but here they are also given the teeth bared dirtiness and desperation alongside that. These poems are magnificent.
dariusap27's review against another edition
5.0
In Eduardo C. Corral’s guillotine, I think I’ve experienced the level of honesty and confession I've longed to discover—from describing the hideous shape of his own son’s nose, to the understanding about his family’s struggle with “non-traditional” sexual orientations (maybe I’m conflating the speaker and author here, but the family described felt real to me), with a careful understanding that “tradition” is outdated. He isn’t afraid to write the worst in people, the real in people, and doesn’t try to defend or explain too much therein—just gives it to us to handle. None of the people in his poems are likeable, really, not even the speaker—and that’s okay. He writes the feelings expressed in hushed voices, insecurities voiced and defended when a person realizes they’re speaking to a writer, but for some reason they trust in confidentiality. I think you’d find very little romanticization in Corral’s work, and yet he finds a way to make the images descend as if from dream, from an understanding about nature (human and otherwise), the beauty and ugly and terror of it. The leap from the gritty real to the lofty and ethereal. “My thoughts swerve / from monsoon storms / to accordions” he writes. Perfect way to describe the leaps in these poems, that made me read a poem a third, a fourth time. I think there’s a hard-won confidence here to be admired, a gorgeous, gorgeous feel for imagery.
I also loved that the book as a whole presented a collective felt grief, theme of border-crossing (relating the fear and anger of an entire culture, how the inclusion of graffiti in the book zooms closer and closer, like a storm cloud of impending memorial, curse, hatred, desire), and an unapologetic inclusion of the Spanish language—you should know what this means, Corral seems to accuse the reader. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I was acutely aware of the presence of Spanish speakers in our country, and the lengths the white majority goes to make immigrants feel excluded. Corral includes Spanish without a glossary or index, with few (if any) translations, and asks the reader to stumble through the beauty of his family’s and his culture’s language, makes us yearn to understand. I’ve felt the importance of learning the Spanish language before, and have wondered all my life at how it isn’t a requirement for students in the U.S., but perhaps never so searingly. And having felt this incredulity, I’ve never tried to learn Spanish, either. Corral, with care, implicates we, the reader. Often I was reminded of swishing around mouthwash as I read Corral’s poems, the few moments that burn just before you spit.
I also loved that the book as a whole presented a collective felt grief, theme of border-crossing (relating the fear and anger of an entire culture, how the inclusion of graffiti in the book zooms closer and closer, like a storm cloud of impending memorial, curse, hatred, desire), and an unapologetic inclusion of the Spanish language—you should know what this means, Corral seems to accuse the reader. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I was acutely aware of the presence of Spanish speakers in our country, and the lengths the white majority goes to make immigrants feel excluded. Corral includes Spanish without a glossary or index, with few (if any) translations, and asks the reader to stumble through the beauty of his family’s and his culture’s language, makes us yearn to understand. I’ve felt the importance of learning the Spanish language before, and have wondered all my life at how it isn’t a requirement for students in the U.S., but perhaps never so searingly. And having felt this incredulity, I’ve never tried to learn Spanish, either. Corral, with care, implicates we, the reader. Often I was reminded of swishing around mouthwash as I read Corral’s poems, the few moments that burn just before you spit.
raintaxi's review against another edition
4.0
-sharp, violent, lots of churchy imagery, you can't help but read the book all at once despite how heavy you feel
-overflowing with a need for tenderness but also very depressive
-the focus on the body and the connection of hatred of oneself and one's body reminds me of hieu minh nyugen's work
-some of my fave poems: Ceremonial, Autobiography of My Hungers, Cordoba
- i have read so many good poems in the past 2 days i need to rest, i am full of emotions
-overflowing with a need for tenderness but also very depressive
-the focus on the body and the connection of hatred of oneself and one's body reminds me of hieu minh nyugen's work
-some of my fave poems: Ceremonial, Autobiography of My Hungers, Cordoba
- i have read so many good poems in the past 2 days i need to rest, i am full of emotions
venneh's review against another edition
4.0
First poems that I’ve read of Corral’s, very much about the intersection of the southern border, queer desire, and severing several things (body, desire, national identity among others) from the self and identity. Lots of documentary poems about crossing the border, and obviously, lots of political poems here as well. Gorgeous, sharp imagery, would be interested in reading more of him.
alexanderhagen8's review against another edition
5.0
WOW.
This collection was a bit hard for me to get into the first section. It has a lot of code switching, and I’m not well versed in speaking, let alone reading, Spanish.
But then I hit the second section, and I’m not exaggerating that if I would have been standing reading these, I would have had to take a seat. After the second section, regardless of code switching, there was no issue being completely thrown in. These poems are powerful, deep, beautifully formed, and moving.
This is not a collection of poetry that will lend an easy read where you’re going to walk away understanding everything you just read. This is a collection that will lead you to walk away pondering and going over everything you just read. I finished this in a single setting, but will be going back for several settings to delve deeper into each poem, make the necessary translations, and further analyze everything.
This collection was a bit hard for me to get into the first section. It has a lot of code switching, and I’m not well versed in speaking, let alone reading, Spanish.
But then I hit the second section, and I’m not exaggerating that if I would have been standing reading these, I would have had to take a seat. After the second section, regardless of code switching, there was no issue being completely thrown in. These poems are powerful, deep, beautifully formed, and moving.
This is not a collection of poetry that will lend an easy read where you’re going to walk away understanding everything you just read. This is a collection that will lead you to walk away pondering and going over everything you just read. I finished this in a single setting, but will be going back for several settings to delve deeper into each poem, make the necessary translations, and further analyze everything.