by Luis Chaves
translated by Julia Guez ’11 and Samantha Zighelboim ’11
Published by After Hours Editions (2022)
Poetry. Translated by Julia Guez and Samantha Zighelboim. In Luis Chaves's EQUESTRIAN MONUMENTS, the stately figure of a former president, Leon Cortés, is counterbalanced by a cast of mock-heroic or non-normative foils: a cross-dresser, a singleton, homunculus, thief, and gardener. Dialogue from The Exorcist coexists alongside lines from the Latin Kyrie, Rex, while sweeping statements about entire generations, continents, and genres find a basis in the most intimate details of home-life. The intersections are uncanny, sometimes hilarious, often sad and unsettling. Chaves's hyper-caffeinated imagination renders each image in this remarkable collection in a way that orients the reader and provides a moment's stasis and clarity before "the waves come and the waves erase it."