Tula: Poems Contributor(s): Santiago, Chris (Author), Jordan, A. Van (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1571314881 ISBN-13: 9781571314888 Publisher: Milkweed Editions OUR PRICE: $14.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2016 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - Asian American - Poetry | Subjects & Themes - Family |
Dewey: 811.6 |
LCCN: 2016030738 |
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.6" W x 8.4" (0.40 lbs) 96 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Tula: a ruined Toltec capital; a Russian city known for its accordions; Tagalog for "poem." Prismatic, startling, rich with meaning yet sparely composed, Chris Santiago's debut collection of poems begins with one word and transforms it, in a dazzling sleight of hand, into a multivalent symbol for the immigrant experience. Tula: Santiago reveals to readers a distant land devastated by war. Tula: its music beckons in rhythms, time signatures, and lullabies. Tula: can the poem, he seems to ask, build an imaginative bridge back to a family lost to geography, history, and a forgotten language? Inspired by the experiences of the "blood stranger"--the second-generation immigrant who does not fully acquire the language of his parents--Tula paints the portrait of a mythic homeland that is part ghostly underworld, part unknowable paradise. Language splinters. Impossible islands form an archipelago across its landscape. A mother sings lullabies and a father works the graveyard shift in St. Paul--while in the Philippines, two dissident uncles and a grandfather send messages and telegrams from the afterlife. Deeply ambitious, a collection that examines the shortcomings and possibilities of both language and poetry themselves, Tula announces the arrival of a major new literary talent. |