BOOKMONGER
Poetry book explores Filipino culture
Any serious reader could not have
missed the controversy around the publi-
cation of “American Dirt,” Jeanine Cum-
mins’ new novel about the Mexican migrant
crisis.
Latino writers have raised questions of
cultural appropriation and the publishing
industry’s failure to support writers who can
authentically represent the stories of mar-
ginalized communities in the U.S.
Certainly, there are counter-arguments
that can be made for the right of any author
to imagine and create characters outside of
their personal experience. But I hope most
of us recognize that if the publishing gate-
keepers rely primarily on white writers to
share the complexities of the lived expe-
riences of people of color, America’s 21st
century literary canon will be warped and
irrelevant.
The stories we tell, and the stories we
consume, matter. We’ve already seen that
without a better understanding of what oth-
ers in our society are experiencing, our
capacity for compassion is failing.
That’s why I recommend with some
urgency “The Galleons,” a slim but power-
ful volume of poems written by Rick Barot.
Born in the Philippines, raised in the Bay
Area, and now director of the Rainier Writ-
ing Workshop at Pacifi c Lutheran Univer-
sity just outside of Tacoma, Barot contends
with his own family’s immigration story in
poems scaffolded with crisp couplets.
Of the more than two dozen poems in
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22 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
This Week’s Book
“The Galleons” By Rick Barot
Milkweed Editions — 88 pp — $16
this collection, there is an important subset
of 10 ‘Galleon’ poems.
In ‘The Galleons 1,’ Barot refl ects on his
grandmother’s voyage to America: “Her
story is a part of something larger, it is a
part / of history. No, her story is an illumi-
nation / of history, a matchstick lit in the
black seam of time.”
He goes on to muse over the idea that
she, as a Filipina war bride after World
War II, crossed the same “blue void” as the
Spanish galleons that ploughed through the
waves three centuries earlier.
A few pages later, in ‘The Galleons 2,’
Barot writes about those ships of old that
left Cebu and Manila with kimonos, sap-
phires, cinnamon and slaves — goods
delivered to Acapulco — if they didn’t get
swallowed up by the ocean.
And in ‘The Galleons 3,’ Barot tells of
his chat with the long-haul trucker sitting
next to him on an airplane. When he shares
that he is trying to write a poem about a
galleon, the trucker responds with his own
story about the goods he has transported
across the country in his rig: televisions,
hazmat materials and Victoria’s Secret
products.
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Precious cargo, it turns out, means dif-
ferent things in different times.
Barot juxtaposes this constant, freighted
sense of transit and displacement with the
evanescence of time and memory, and life’s
fragility.
Interspersed between the Galleon poems
are other pieces that provide additional con-
text. Barot offers lustrous particulars, cre-
ating deft imagery which leads to quiet, but
sometimes wrenching, revelation.
Barot offers a perspective worth listen-
ing to. “The Galleons” should be appearing
in bookstores this week — watch for it.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, authors and publish-
ers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, authors and publish-
ers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com.