barangay

By (author): Adrian De Leon

Photographs by: Jason Edward Pagaduan

As beautiful and varied as an archipelago, barangay is an elegant new collection of poetry from Adrian De Leon that gathers in and arranges the difficult pieces of a scattered history. While mourning the loss of his grandmother who “lived, loved and grieved in three languages,” De Leon skips his barangay, which is both a boat and an administrative unit in the Philippine government, over the history of both his family and a nation. In these poems De Leon considers the deadly impact of colonialism, the far-reaching effects of the diaspora from the Philippines and the personal loss of his ability to speak Ilokano, his grandmother’s native tongue. These are spare, haunting poems, which wash over the reader like the waves of the ocean the barangays navigated long ago and then pull the reader into their current like the rivers De Leon left behind.

AUTHOR

Adrian De Leon

Adrian De Leon is an award-winning writer and public historian. His most recent books are barangay: an offshore poem (Buckrider Books, 2021), which was named one of the best Canadian poetry collections of 2021 by CBC Books, and Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). He teaches Asian American Studies in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, and will soon move to New York University to teach US-Philippine histories.

Reviews

“Rouge is spiky and caustic yet delights in more ways than you could count Toronto the Good’s abundant pleasures, quirks and treasures.”
– Philippine Daily Inquirer

Awards

There are no awards found for this book.
Excerpts & Samples ×

As beautiful and varied as an archipelago, barangay is an elegant new collection of poetry from Adrian De Leon that gathers in and arranges the difficult pieces of a scattered history. While mourning the loss of his grandmother who “lived, loved and grieved in three languages,” De Leon skips his barangay, which is both a boat and an administrative unit in the Philippine government, over the history of both his family and a nation. In these poems De Leon considers the deadly impact of colonialism, the far-reaching effects of the diaspora from the Philippines and the personal loss of his ability to speak Ilokano, his grandmother’s native tongue. These are spare, haunting poems, which wash over the reader like the waves of the ocean the barangays navigated long ago and then pull the reader into their current like the rivers De Leon left behind.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

72 Pages
8.5in * 5.75in * 0.25in
160gr

Published:

November 09, 2021

City of Publication:

Hamilton

Country of Publication:

CA

ISBN:

9781989496367

Language:

eng

phi

No author posts found.

Related Blog Posts

There are no posts with this book.