Luis Felipe Fabre's poems are built out of sixteenth century octosyllabic tetrameter and pulp novels, out of horror movie trailers and pompous academic papers, out of Medusas and dreams, Bat Sisters and rhymes. But more than that, they are made of language, a language brimming with irony, black humor and dread as he reflects on the many transformations of Sor Juana and of Mexico itself.

Luis Felipe Fabre, Sor Juana and Other Monsters, Trans. by John Pluecker, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015.


Sor Juana and Other Monsters

Notes on a Zombie Cataclysm

In seventeenth century, colonial-era Mexico, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s visionary and passionate verse assured her a seminal place in the literary canon. Luis Felipe Fabre has reimagined this mysterious figure, so often appropriated and dissected by academics and literati. Fabre’s poems are built out of sixteenth century octosyllabic tetrameter and pulp novels, out of horror movie trailers and pompous academic papers, out of Medusas and dreams, Bat Sisters and rhymes. But more than that, they are made of language, a language brimming with irony, black humor and dread as he reflects on the many transformations of Sor Juana and of Mexico itself.


Fabre uses brutal irony—an irony that operates through reiteration and self-criticism—to reflect on the transformation of Sor Juana into academic and literary merchandise.—Álvaro Enrigue

Luis Felipe Fabre knows the power of fantastic literature, its ability to invoke ghosts of uncomfortable subjects, urgent protests and darkly comic desires. Do you like horror movies? Well, this book of poems should definitely be on your bookshelf.—Sopitas.com

Sor Juana scholars publish articles, essays, papers, rebuttal letters
in specialized magazines, on personal blogs, in the proceedings
from conferences that they themselves organize in order to differ with what other Sor Juana scholars say.

Sor Juana scholars are very busy people.
Sor Juana scholars are very strange people.
Sor Juana scholars tend to have their own separate cubicles.

But even among Sor Juana scholars,
whose essential task is to differ with other Sor Juana scholars,

there are some points of convergence:
almost none:
one:

all Sor Juana scholars concur that Sor Juana was a monster.




Luis Felipe Fabre (1974) is a poet and critic based in Mexico City. He has published a volume of essays, Leyendo agujeros. Ensayos sobre (des)escritura, antiescritura y no escritura, and the poetry collections Cabaret Provenza, La sodomía en la Nueva España, and Poemas de terror y de misterio. He is the editor of two anthologies of contemporary Mexican poetry, Divino Tesoro and La Edad de Oro, and Arte & Basura, an anthology of Mario Santiago Papasquiaro's poetry work. He has been curator of the Poesía en Voz Alta Festival and Todos los originales serán destruídos, an exhibition of contemporary art made by poets.