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 carré and the Spanish-language collection, Poemas árticos (both already issued by Shearsman Books in 2019).