Horse Loquela

Abstract: Horse Loquela, a book-length collection of poetry, explores the body as it stands poised between the desire to love and the compulsion to harm. The title poem, "Horse Loquela," draws its name from Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse, in which he defines loquela as "the flux of language through which the subject tirelessly rehashes the effects of a wound." These poems are a loquela, obsessed with the ways in which bodies are wounded. In the pursuit of excellence, the equestrienne whips her horse. With great pragmatism, the shepherd tends his sheep until the moment he slits their throats. Likewise, the lover's urge to nurture can bleed into a need to possess and control. The poems in Horse Loquela reveal the body as flawed--easily moved to violence--but also capable of acting, at times, with grace, restraint, and tenderness.