Two Murals

by Jesus Castillo

Through two long poems, Jesús Castillo's TWO MURALS explores the personal and political sides of love, selfhood, and transformation in a wasteful age. Variations on Adonis, the first sequence, is filled with music and memorable images, evoking the decline of civilization alongside a desire to live. The second sequence, A Mural After Darwish, is a love letter to a woman, to nature, and to memory. Castillo's visions span the landscapes of different countries and ages, always questioning and curious. Abundance and destruction are placed side by side in his consideration of language, life, and death. TWO MURALS offers the reader urgent views of love and perseverance despite the traps of the past and the uncertainty of our future.

Jesús Castillo locates the subtle rhymes between bomb and tomb, plastic and arctic, in these two sweeping sequences that resonate with personal, political, geological and geographical histories. 'I will call this city a sad marionette, ' writes Castillo, 'And call the continent's shorelines roving wolves.' This book is a gathering inside one heart of many voices and the silences that divide them, a virtuoso performance, spellbinding, funny and profoundly sad. I am reminded of Brecht's haunting question and response: 'In the dark times / Will there be singing? / Yes, there will be singing / About the dark times.'--D.A. Powell

Poetry. Latinx Studies.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2021

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even as I see Castillo interacting with many of these different poetic layers, the one I keep thinking about is the poetics of place. Especially for its way of evoking a set location, while the poems also feel like they exist in no place. Which is why it reminds me so much of Daniel Borzutzky's _The Performance of Becoming Human_. Because that book seemed to be no where, yet unfortunately everywhere, too.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

did not finish because it was so pretentious

[Hanna Prince · Rating 3 out of 5]

"there's nothing between migrant and patriot but a generation and it's threads claiming colors for their days"

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much metaphor while trying to unlatch