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Reverse Requiem
Whiting Award–winning poet Ina Cariño’s sophomore collection, Reverse Requiem, explores mental health and wellness, ancestry and lineage, and the enduring complexities of human connection. In a world marked by the failures of capitalism, Reverse Requiem speaks to the lonely parts within all of us—and to the love that persists within community and ourselves, despite everything.
These soulful and elegiac poems, written in Cariño’s signature saturated lines, follow a speaker shaped by both subtle and profound personal tragedies. The collection’s emotional resonance is deepened by its formal inventiveness: poems shift in length, tone, and use of white space, mirroring the fractured, nonlinear journey at the book’s heart. The title, Reverse Requiem, suggests a retracing of a life: rather than unfolding chronologically, the poems are guided by the speaker’s shifting mental and emotional states. Early pieces carry a stark, dirge-like weight that gradually gives way to glimmers of hope—proposing that healing, though never linear, remains within reach.
Cariño wrote Reverse Requiem gradually, over the course of a year spent immersed in other creative disciplines, including music and visual art. A mentor once told them, “Even if you stop writing, you're never truly leaving it behind—you’re always a writer if you stay open to the world.” That openness permeates this collection. Where Feast, Cariño’s debut, turned inward, Reverse Requiem reaches outward. While it remains grounded in introspection, this second book reflects a year of emotional risk and connection—extending itself toward the world and those who inhabit it.
These soulful and elegiac poems, written in Cariño’s signature saturated lines, follow a speaker shaped by both subtle and profound personal tragedies. The collection’s emotional resonance is deepened by its formal inventiveness: poems shift in length, tone, and use of white space, mirroring the fractured, nonlinear journey at the book’s heart. The title, Reverse Requiem, suggests a retracing of a life: rather than unfolding chronologically, the poems are guided by the speaker’s shifting mental and emotional states. Early pieces carry a stark, dirge-like weight that gradually gives way to glimmers of hope—proposing that healing, though never linear, remains within reach.
Cariño wrote Reverse Requiem gradually, over the course of a year spent immersed in other creative disciplines, including music and visual art. A mentor once told them, “Even if you stop writing, you're never truly leaving it behind—you’re always a writer if you stay open to the world.” That openness permeates this collection. Where Feast, Cariño’s debut, turned inward, Reverse Requiem reaches outward. While it remains grounded in introspection, this second book reflects a year of emotional risk and connection—extending itself toward the world and those who inhabit it.
- GenresPoetry
100 pages, Paperback
Published April 14, 2026
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Review of advance copy received from Publishers Weekly
Ina is a very good writer and her work is extraordinary at times but I felt her previous collection was slightly stronger than this one. That said, it's beautifully presented by Alice James and it's also nicely laid out and clear Ina is a very talented voice for her generation and for immigrants from the Philippines there is a strong legacy and history here that can be tapped into. As an immigrant I appreciated this and as a queer woman I appreciated her voice - I would have made the book a little longer and had some more vulnerable work because it talks about being vulnerable but it only touched lightly on it. I was disappointed overall that this did not go far enough - I wanted more. But maybe that says more about how much I want to hear of this writer. She has an intoxicating quality in her writing that is very easy to appreciate.
Displaying 1 of 1 review