Nature Felt But Never Apprehended

by Angela Penaredondo

Peñaredondo synthesizes poetry, lyric prose, fragmented creative nonfiction, and visual art. Angela Peñaredondo's nature felt but never apprehended synthesizes poetry, lyric prose, fragmented creative nonfiction, and visual art. They voyage through the junctures of gender and environmental injustices, and its connections between Philippines' histories of foreign invasions and intimacies of survivorhood. Peñaredondo wields queer, diasporic mythmaking, affective experiences of ritual and prayer as an illuminating force in the tangles of intergenerational memory. "These poems tenderly excavate a queer Filipinx history on which to build a beautifully imagined queer Filipinx future. nature felt but never apprehended is sensual and attuned to the more-than-human world and its abundant queer ecologies. In one of many refusals to be gaslit by late capitalism and the legacies of empire. Peñaredondo writes 'film the police.' Through multiple modalities, languages, and histories, Peñaredondo's impressive poetics imagine the innovative survival of a liberated diaspora."--Lillian-Yvonne Bertram Poetry. Hybrid. Asian & Asian American Studies.

138 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2023

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book club pick that felt a bit overwhelming at first. The short pages are formatted horizontally and my eye wasn't used to following the lines and tabs as they scattered across the page. It was work to 'hear' the music. Work I don't mind doing, if there's room to learn something new...

There were high points here. [exigencies in layers] and later sections of [tattoo as softening ritual]. But sometimes the poems felt like all wind-up and no release... It's hard to put my finger on it. & while in agreement with the politics of these poems, the Critique clanged with a capital C.

I ultimately think the form of these poems hid more than it revealed. And the jargon weighed them down. But there are moments of lyric invention and frenzied release. So a solid 3 stars.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fabulous. We've got ekphrasis, ars poetica, immediate address, [the list goes on] wrapped up in a fierce effort of justice in the face of that which is not from so many directions: gender, colonialism, race, sexual identity, and beyond. I love this collection from an old friend.