Slow Lightning is a beautiful book of poetry, weaving English and Spanish together in new and traditional forms to illustrate conflicts of race and sexuality using surreal imagery. I was especially struck by the Border Triptych, especially the middle part, where a female crossing the border first sprinkles red jello powder into her panties to fake her period and avoid a rape. It's a strong image that sticks with you, both for the horrific necessity of the act and the uniqueness in its telling. The one thing that bothered me about this collection was in the notes, where many lines "borrowed" from the works of others are properly credited. I was a little disappointed by this, because the unborrowed lines are so strong, one wishes the poet would have dug a little deeper within himself and written every line on his own. It's a particular trend in poetry recently that I'm just not comfortable with, especially if you're going to wait until the notes to give credit where it is due, and not everyone reads the notes. I liked this, though this might've been the quickest reading poetry book I've read in a while. Corral does a couple kinds of poems here: there are narrative poems, some of which, for example, deal with his dad's experiences or his relationship with his dad; some others are stories of border crossers, coyotes and all that. Then there are more fragmented narrative poems, the kind of things that Carl Phillips writes (so it makes sense he writes the intro, and maybe helped Yale pick this manuscript). Then there are more visionary strange poems, like the Angelbeast/ Beastangel or AIDS poems-- these are kind of in that strange vedic mode that I think of as high Yeats, but again, what do I know.Many of the poems could be described as macaronic-- I'm sure there's not really a lot of Spanish here if you read Spanish, but there was more than I could process by looking for cognates and what I've learned being a kind of casual listener. I think that's probably a warning to take my views with a grain of salt. I mean to go back through this again and make a better show of it, with google translate open:)It's a good collection. I don't know how long it'll stay with me, though.(I did go back and re-read this with google translate, which helped a lot, I think, especially in the long middle section where the funeral takes place. I really like this book-- I'm struck by my comment wondering if this book will stick with me, and still don't have an answer. It's a really enjoyable read, though, and I think a second read through made me like it ever more. It's formally inventive, interested in narrative and art and language, aware of poetry and what poetry might mean (via the interpolated corridas. It's a good little book.)
What do You think about Slow Lightning (2012)?
Evocative landscapes, brilliant use of language and art. Corral gives a beautiful gift in his poems.
—estherwhatever
