Invocation to Daughters

by Barbara Jane Reyes

Feminist experimental poetry in the tradition of Audre Lorde and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha from a prominent Filipina American poet.

Genres: Poetry, Feminism

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2017

About the author

Author of Gravities of Center, Poeta en San Francisco, Diwata, To Love as Aswang, Invocation to Daughters, and Letters to a Young Brown Girl.

Reviews

[Aki Dayag · Rating 5 out of 5]

vulnerable, yet powerful. barbara jane reyes yells and cries in her poems about the torment that is filipina girlhood. she integrates aspects of the bible and the trauma of colonial catholicsm in her poems, consistently referring back to holy figures and bible verses. the traumas of colonial catholicism are deeply ingrained in filipino culture due to spanish colonization. reyes’ relationship with religion deeply aligns with mine which made her work even more powerful for me. her poetry does not speak, but screams about the brutal, ugly violence we experience in girlhood and in being a filipina. while expressing her rage, she also empowers daughters by reassuring our deserved space, voice, and love in this world. reyes is an extraordinary and transformative poet whose words and lived experiences connect with my own.

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gender in place of talent. Color in place of merit. Melodrama in place of substance.

Sometimes you are damaged. You think poetry will repair you. You think poetry should repair you. You shake your fist at it when it doesn't.
- "The Day"

Note: She uses foreign languages occasionally, which I find annoying. Not significant enough to affect the rating though.

[jada alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5!!!

[Freddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Sometimes you are broken. Poetry won’t fix you. Poetry can’t fix you. It doesn’t have lungs to give you air. It doesn’t have hands to stitch your parts back together. To make you tea. To drive you home.”

[Sri Vidya · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t be better said by Reyes. So just read it, and gift it widely.

[Wyndy KnoxCarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just raised this one from 4 to 5 stars. It's really a handbook, like my "Message for the Recluse" from Vanilla Press in 1973. Reyes’ writes hypnotic incantations, sonorous anthems, edgy psalms and cannonade denunciations that hex and crack Western patriarchal culture, religion and relationships of dominance in sex, law, literature and the rest, customarily enforced humility seething with our secret volcanic, venomous rage.
“We are dying in alarming ways, and at alarming frequency; no one/ bothers to count. We are isolated incidents; we are a nuisance,” (p. 48) but also “We howl, we witness, we testify/ We stand firm, and you cannot break us/ We are raw nerves, and we are fire. We rise/ And in writing, we restore our lives.” (p. 55)
Suddenly she sounds like me at 19, who before that wrote like Dan Gerber, imagistic and calm: “What if she resists, yes,/ Fights back. What if her tiny body roars,/…She is through with your shit, every insult,/ every threat you level, every dirtbag/ Attack can’t move her… / Each one of us so capable, who knows.” (p. 28) We sound like Oprah at the Golden Globes, reciting our life stories that defies power, privilege and the way things are supposed to be. “So what if you call us bitches. Who cares.” (p. 24)
The longing and leaving are the same, though, especially when they write about their parents’ passing. “I am telling you this because you want access to something true and/ personal about me… We are daughters of a man not godly or erudite, just this man whose/ hands built things, carved bodies into wood, formed them from clay,/ watercolored their light. He was never a man of words.” (p. 68) It is Reyes also who waxes lyrical with “We creep and contract our bodies until we are armored and brilliant/ shells. We are salt and sanguine. We are the dark water’s weight” (p. 35) and “We are dying for a sweet sip of water, for bread to dissolve on the/ tongue.”

City Lights Books, (Publisher online) () http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=... “Invocation to Daughters,” (2 February 2018) City Lights Books
Reyes, ()http://www.barbarajanereyes.com/portf... “Notes on Pinay Liminality” (2 February 2018)

[D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hear this hymn, this naming song, this psalm.
She is knowing, holy, protector and
Patron saint of every victim, every plain Jane.

Content Warning: Rape, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, Abuse, Racism, and Trans-Misogyny

I picked this book up at the library somewhat at random. Unfortunately, I never quite connected with the actual writing, though there were some elements I enjoyed. This book has mostly shorter poems styled with some elements of prayers and hymns. The author also brings in a few phrases in Tagalog and Spanish that you can understand enough from context clues, which I thought was lovely. Most of this collection focuses on gender and violence against women including the intersection with racism, anti-sex work, and trans-misogyny. Some of the lines were graphic and hard to read (though I suppose that is part of the point). While hard to read at times, the content was very meaningful.

[Tory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved the ideas in most of these poems, and that she felt comfortable switching back and forth between Filipino, Spanish and English (though my "translator" brain had to look everything up. It's just the way that I am), however, about halfway through the very small book, I kind of got tired of the negativity. I loved the idea of a book of poems called "Invocation to Daughters" but I was sad that so much focused on the negative aspect of womanhood, especially murder, rape, and wrongful imprisonment. Even the few sections to her father, who had died, seemed to uphold her father as a good man, but then the next poem would warn be a lament on the way that many people treat women as worthless. There were some very good lines, and I did appreciate the writing and the message. I would have liked to see more uplifting material, however.

[Beaks · Rating 5 out of 5]

reread this as a part of my thesis and it was just as gutting as the first time I read it. “An Apology” never fails to make me break down into tears. Reyes has a voice unlike any other, and seeing such complexities of Filipina daughterhood explored through such a meticulous, fine-tuned lens is something so beautiful to me.

[Azn_seddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally quaking. Women taking up space on the page in ways they want to and need to, calling out BS and singing for our kind and with our kind. Barbara's Pinays clap back at the silence and dares us to listen.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recognized myself in these poems, and my reaction was so visceral that I was moved to tears, to anger, to writing... and I want to hand my book to all the women in my life in hope that we will recognize each other in these words.

[zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

barbara jane reyes is brillant. some of the flows in some of these poems made me stop and repeat them out loud a couple times. i love how she uses three different languages but doesn't translate. reading this was an experience!

[Raychelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

BJR is always incredible. The feelings this brought up for me: the complex dynamic between Filipino fathers and their daughters; her father passing away at the same age as mine did…this really spoke my grief into words. Thank you, Ate, for a being a Pinay writer who writes about our people. 💙💛❤️

[Anthony Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

DOPE!

[Mills College Library]

811.6 R4574i 2017

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m torn. This is the kind of book I don’t like because its one that I cannot even begin to imitate. I don’t like it.

[Danielle Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video Review: https://youtu.be/POaIsXInVpQ