In his book “Guillotine,” the poet Eduardo Corral pinches our reality and folds it into the Sonoran Desert as we are magically transported into his world. Memorable imagery seeps through his poems, and before we know it, we are under the same mesquite he conjures from memory. Often working with his preferred setting, the Arizona native also tackles issues that make up his identity.
These lines from “Testaments Scratched into a Water Station Barrel” provide a glimpse of Corral at work: “Apá, dying is boring. To pass las horas, / I carve / our last name / all over my body. / I try to recall the taste of Pablo’s sweat. / Whiskey, no. / Wet dirt, si. / I stuff English / into my mouth, spit out chingaderas / Have it your way. / Home of the Whopper / Run for the border.”
An assistant professor in the English department at North Carolina State University, Corral is coming to Minnesota State University as part of the Good Thunder Reading Series. He will visit campus Feb. 29. (The location of the 7:30 p.m. reading is now at The Carnegie Art Center, 120 S. Broad St. He will lead a 10 a.m. workshop on the first floor of MSU’s Memorial Library and a 3 p.m. craft talk in Centennial Student Union Rooms 253/4/5.)
Corral has degrees from the Arizona State University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His 2012 debut collection of poetry, “Slow Lightning,” won the Yale Younger Poets prize, making him the first Latino recipient of the award. Corral also has received numerous other awards and honors, including the Discovery/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2016, he won the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University.
His latest poetry collection was published in 2020 by Graywolf Press, a highly regarded literary press in Minneapolis. “Guillotine” was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
In the book, Corral builds a world around his reader to properly introduce himself and the blend of identities that make up his personality. The poems are explorations, and through the layers of his persona, he paves the way for the readers to his perspective.
In contrast to his first book, Corral leverages his use of Spanish to further authenticate the power of his words in a manner that resonates with both the Spanish- and English-speaking audiences. Translating some of the Spanish poems as an English-speaking reader can be a joy.
In “Guillotine,” we see poems about his roots blurring into poems with elements surrounding his sexual orientation, topped with hints and innuendos of immigration struggles, a knowing perspective that spans the border. His humor acts a sharp blade at times to cut through difficult topics, which end up being crafted into moving poems. His command over his speaker’s voice is commendable. Corral uses the same sharp blade to paint pictures that might leave your heart bleeding for more (a good thing, obviously).
A voice strong enough to transcend any language barrier, he uses his remarkable range to keep his audience in a perpetually insatiable state, even the shortest of poems capable of delivering a punch in the gut. “Guillotine” is born out of sharp edges, broken mirrors and words that coddle you into a blithesome lament, leaving you thirstier than when you first entered Corral’s desert.
Hussain is a second-year MFA student from Lahore, Pakistan, focusing on poetry at Minnesota State University.