Equatorial & other poems

This volume presents the 4 chapbooks published by Huidobro in 1917-18 and offers, at first glance, an odd mixture. Chronologically, we have El espejo de agua, written in Spanish in 1914-16, first published in 1916, but, to all intents and purposes not distributed until 1918; Ecuatorial (written in Spanish, although the author also made a French version, Equatoriale, which is believed to be later), Hallali and Tour Eiffel, the last two being composed in French. These last two-both marked by textual experimentation-were important for the rising wave of the new Spanish avant-garde after their publication in Madrid, where Huidobro had relocated to escape the war conditions in Paris. The 4 chapbooks were bookended, so to speak, by the French-language volume Horizon carre and the Spanish-language collection, Poemas articos (both already issued by Shearsman Books in 2019).