Carlos Soto-Román in SRPR

Each issue, Spoon River Poetry Review features one SRPR Illinois Poet. The Summer 2021 issue features Carlos Soto-Román. His work, translated by Daniel Borzutzky, spans 16 pages and is followed by an interview conducted by Borzutzky.

The two discuss Soto-Román’s forthcoming book 11, the interview beginning with the question, “How was the book written?” Soto-Román answers:

First, I wouldn’t say the book was written, at least, in the traditional sense. Maybe just a couple of “poems” included in the book were actually written by me. The whole process was more about compiling different fragments, quotes, and excerpts from multiple documents related to the Chilean dictatorship period and combining them within a new context in order to configure an alternate narrative of events, one that is intentionally veiled, which forces the reader to confront the past in a different way, encouraging the exercise of personal and collective memory to therefore complete the gaps.

You can learn more about Carlos Soto-Román and his work in the current issue of SRPR.