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Birthmark
WINNER OF THE 2003 CRAB ORCHARD AWARD SERIES IN POETRY OPEN COMPETITION
In 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.
In 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.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 11, 2004
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About the author
Jon Pineda
8 books52 followersJon Pineda's new novel Let's No One Get Hurt, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, won the 2019 Emyl Jenkins Sexton Literary Award for Fiction. He is the author of five other books and teaches at William & Mary.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 29, 2014
I came across Jon Pineda because he is on the schedule for the SC Book Festival in 2014. He is a poet and novelist, although all I've read so far is this book of poems.
Most of the poems in Birthmark have to do with the confusion of growing up half-Filipino, in two languages, feeling displaced from both. Some of the poems are of a place, the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. Everything has to do with family.
My favorite poem was Shelter.
Most of the poems in Birthmark have to do with the confusion of growing up half-Filipino, in two languages, feeling displaced from both. Some of the poems are of a place, the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. Everything has to do with family.
My favorite poem was Shelter.
May 11, 2008
Award winning book by a dear friend of ours.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews