Slow Lightning

Eduardo C. Corral is the 2011 recipient of the Yale Series of Younger Poets award, joining such distinguished previous winners as Adrienne Rich, W. S. Merwin, and John Ashbery. Corral is the first Latino poet to win the competition.

Seamlessly braiding English and Spanish, Corral's poems hurtle across literary and linguistic borders toward a lyricism that slows down experience. He employs a range of forms and phrasing, bringing the vivid particulars of his experiences as a Chicano and gay man to the page. Although Corral's topics are decidedly sobering, contest judge Carl Phillips observes, "one of the more surprising possibilities offered in these poems is joy."

From "Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso"

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 . . .