An Imperfect Geometry

There are echoes and playful rewritings of Octavio Paz and Vicente Huidobro, but also the influence of Wislawa Szymborska - and, farther back, of Sor Juana, who shares Diaz Castelo's interest in science and its nomenclatures. US American poetry also reveals its mark when the conversational register turns inward. Her work is also indebted to Greek tragedy and its choral structure, which breaks down the epic into voices. Elisa has the kind of talent that only comes around every thirty years. Anything can happen: she could stop writing, she could change the registers she explores, the genres she pursues. There's no way to know. But what she has written so far has already secured her a place in the history of Mexican literature, and her name is already written there, her echo traveling back. - Myriam Moscona