by Rose Steptoe
The Department of English and Comparative Literature congratulates Luisa Peñaflor on receiving the 2021 Thomas Wolfe Scholarship! Peñaflor is a first-year creative writing major from Simpsonville, South Carolina. The Thomas Wolfe Scholarship seeks to identify and reward students with exceptionally focused literary ability and promise. The scholarship offers full four-year financial support to one incoming student per year.
Find more about Peñaflor’s exciting achievement, as well as an interview with Peñaflor, here.
Read one of her poems, “Chupacabra!,” below.
Chupacabra!
There is a chupacabra called Love,
and he has four white hooves. Love smokes
cigarettes and scours for food with the stray
dogs. In the streets of Mexico, Love sleeps
in the slums. Love is chased by kids
pulling at his white tail. Love prowls
on the side of the highway and pounces
on cicadas. Love laps at water from littered
plastic bottles. Love walks on his hind legs
and drinks beer from a fruit stand on the side
of the road. Love lives with coyotes. Love hunts
the goats from the farm at night. The goats have brown
and black hooves. The farmer has a shotgun
and a slaughterhouse. Love watches as the farmer
takes a baby goat into the slaughterhouse.
The farmer shoots the goat and hangs his body
on a hook. The goat is bright red like
when Love closes his eyes after staring
at the sun. Love’s mouth waters when the farmer eats
goat soup. Love names the farmer Chupacabra.
