Vicente Huidobro is the founding father of the Latin American and Spanish literary avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. As early as 1918 he began publishing the most strikingly innovative poetry in the Spanish language. He participated in the French avant-garde, identifying himself with the group of the literary magazine Nord-Sud (North-South, allusive to the Paris subway line of that name), which he helped to finance, a group composed of poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy, Paul Dermée, Blaise Cendrars, Max Jacob, and André Breton. He wrote in French Horizon carré (Square Horizon, 1917), Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower, 1918), Hallali: Poème de guerre (Hallali: War Poem, 1918), Saisons choisies (Chosen Seasons, 1921), Automne régulier (Regular Autumn, 1925), Tout à coup (Suddenly, 1925), and Tremblement de ciel (Heavenquake, 1932), as well as the long poem "Le passager de son destin" (The Passenger of His Destiny, 1932), and, most important...