BirthmarkIn Jon Pineda’s debut collection Birthmark, loss takes the shape of a scar, memory the shape of a childhood, and identity the shape of a birthmark on a lover’s thigh. Like water taking the form of its container, Pineda’s poems swell to fill the lines of his experiences. Against the backdrop of Tidewater, Virginia’s crabs and cicadas, Pineda invokes his mestizo—the Tagalog word for being half Filipino—childhood, weaving laments for a tenuous paternal relationship and the loss of a sibling. Channeling these fragmented memories into a new discovery of self, Birthmark reclaims an identity, delicate yet unrelenting, with plaintive tones marked equally by pain, reflection, and redemption. |
Contents
Matamis | 3 |
Wrestling | 4 |
Memory in the Shape of a Swimming Lesson | 5 |
Visitation or How a Son Came to Resemble the Archangel | 10 |
Arboretum | 11 |
The Metaphor of Sunlight Can Be Carried in a Bucket | 12 |
A Shadow of Gulls | 13 |
The Muse or Stars Out on Interstate 81 South | 14 |
Miscarriage | 33 |
Five about Flowers | 34 |
Corolla | 39 |
Hunger | 40 |
A Few Words on Rome or The Neighbor Who Never Waves | 41 |
Weight | 46 |
Bonfire | 47 |
Night Feeding | 48 |
Willoughby Spit | 15 |
Door That Always Opens | 17 |
Between Rounds | 19 |
Memory in the Shape of a House Made of Doors | 27 |
Shelter | 28 |
Black Sea Bass | 29 |
Birthmark | 30 |
Inevitable Distance | 31 |
Undoing | 49 |
Living Together | 51 |
In Strange Circles | 52 |
Translation | 53 |
In the Romance of Grief | 55 |
This Poetry | 60 |
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Common terms and phrases
Arboretum Asian American backyard beach Birthmark Crab Orchard Black Sea Bass Bonfire breath brother Bucket Christmas Eve cloth cord grass Corolla Crab Orchard Award dead disappeared doors edge Eileen Tabios Elton Glaser Evelina Galang everything face father Filipino fill with bodies fingers fish Five about Flowers Forget half hands heart Inevitable Distance inside Interstate 81 South la Paz language laugh lifted light listening Matamis memory mestizo Metaphor of Sunlight mother mouth Muse Neighbor Who Never Never Waves Night Feeding Orchard Award Series Passing Viareggio petals Philippines pool pulled punched remember Resemble the Archangel Romance of Grief Rounds salt marsh sand say a word scream Series in Poetry Shadow of Gulls Shape shirts skin somewhere sound Southern Illinois University spoon storm story Strange Circles summer Tagalog Tatay tongue touch trees voice wakes walked walls watched Willoughby Spit Words on Rome Wrestling young blue claws