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Ghost Face
In his third DC Books title, Ghost Face, Greg Santos explores what it means to have been a Cambodian infant adopted by a Canadian family.
Through a uniquely playful and self-reflective series of poems that pay moving homage to his adoptive parents, and explore the fantasies of a lost family and life in Cambodia, Santos leads the reader through his visceral process of unlearning and relearning who he is and who he might become.
Through a uniquely playful and self-reflective series of poems that pay moving homage to his adoptive parents, and explore the fantasies of a lost family and life in Cambodia, Santos leads the reader through his visceral process of unlearning and relearning who he is and who he might become.
- GenresPoetry
83 pages, Paperback
Published September 16, 2020
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Greg Santos
10 books17 followersGreg Santos a poet, editor, and educator. He is the author of BLACKBIRDS (2018), RABBIT PUNCH! (2014), and THE EMPEROR'S SOFA (2010). GHOST FACE (2020) is his most recent full-length poetry book. He is an adoptee of Cambodian, Spanish, and Portuguese descent.
He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. His writing has been featured in The Walrus, This Magazine, Queen's Quarterly, Geist, Vallum, The Feathertale Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Best American Poetry Blog, and World Literature Today.
Santos regularly works as a creative writing instructor with at-risk communities and at The Thomas More Institute. He is the Editor in Chief of the Quebec Writers' Federation's online literary journal, carte blanche.
He lives in Montreal with his family.
He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. His writing has been featured in The Walrus, This Magazine, Queen's Quarterly, Geist, Vallum, The Feathertale Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Best American Poetry Blog, and World Literature Today.
Santos regularly works as a creative writing instructor with at-risk communities and at The Thomas More Institute. He is the Editor in Chief of the Quebec Writers' Federation's online literary journal, carte blanche.
He lives in Montreal with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 30, 2020
Praise for GHOST FACE:
"In Ghost Face by Greg Santos, we balance gracefully between the past, the present, and steadily through what haunts us. With each engaging poem, we’re reminded that stories shape our world and how poetry invites us in to partake in the narrative... Santos’ poems are inventive, smart, and skillfully written and his work does not disappoint. Ghost Face is a beautiful collection that thoughtfully examines family mythologies, identity, and a longstanding belief in ghosts. These are poems I kept returning to, a book I could not put down."
–KELLI RUSSELL AGODON, AUTHOR OF HOURGLASS MUSEUM & THE DAILY POET: DAY-BY-DAY PROMPTS FOR YOUR WRITING PRACTICE
'"You had a happy childhood," Greg Santos writes in Ghost Face. " Then you awoke in a strange town,/ you were at a party, off in some corner alone./ Someone kissed you in the dark." Within the exquisite, labyrinthine memory palace of Ghost Face, migration and adoption converge in moving dramas of cultural displacement and belonging. Faced with "The gravity of our world / always pushing down on our fragile bodies," Santos’s poems dance with gratitude for community in all its forms, from the most delightful minute particulars of day-to-day family life to the grand technological wonders of interstellar exploration.'
–TONY TRIGILIO, AUTHOR OF GHOSTS OF THE UPPER FLOOR
"Santos's work is lovely. His poems are influenced by Mark Strand and John Ashbery in all of the best ways. Ghost Face is an exploration of culture, family history, and absence versus presence. It looks forward to Santos’s own family, and the tender portrait of the poet as a parent, and how his experiences have shaped him."
- JESSICA DRAKE-THOMAS, AUTHOR OF BURIALS
"Greg Santos is a poet of intense sensibility, who writes between the spaces of the concrete and the unseen. His book, Ghost Face, indeed embarks on the journeys of ghosts: the feelings or awareness that something is 'there' but that cannot be interpreted."
–VALLUM MAGAZINE, 17:2 "SPACE" ISSUE, 2020
"Greg Santos' Ghost Face delivers a catechism pep talk in the mirror... The interplay between monologue, dialogue, narration, race, spirituality, identity, and memory is dignified, inquisitive, hopeful."
- JAY MILLER, VARIETY PACK MAGAZINE, ISSUE 3, 2020
"Poignant and haunting - a unique memoir in a poetic stream."
- GINA ROITMAN, AUTHOR OF TELL ME A STORY, TELL ME THE TRUTH
"In Ghost Face by Greg Santos, we balance gracefully between the past, the present, and steadily through what haunts us. With each engaging poem, we’re reminded that stories shape our world and how poetry invites us in to partake in the narrative... Santos’ poems are inventive, smart, and skillfully written and his work does not disappoint. Ghost Face is a beautiful collection that thoughtfully examines family mythologies, identity, and a longstanding belief in ghosts. These are poems I kept returning to, a book I could not put down."
–KELLI RUSSELL AGODON, AUTHOR OF HOURGLASS MUSEUM & THE DAILY POET: DAY-BY-DAY PROMPTS FOR YOUR WRITING PRACTICE
'"You had a happy childhood," Greg Santos writes in Ghost Face. " Then you awoke in a strange town,/ you were at a party, off in some corner alone./ Someone kissed you in the dark." Within the exquisite, labyrinthine memory palace of Ghost Face, migration and adoption converge in moving dramas of cultural displacement and belonging. Faced with "The gravity of our world / always pushing down on our fragile bodies," Santos’s poems dance with gratitude for community in all its forms, from the most delightful minute particulars of day-to-day family life to the grand technological wonders of interstellar exploration.'
–TONY TRIGILIO, AUTHOR OF GHOSTS OF THE UPPER FLOOR
"Santos's work is lovely. His poems are influenced by Mark Strand and John Ashbery in all of the best ways. Ghost Face is an exploration of culture, family history, and absence versus presence. It looks forward to Santos’s own family, and the tender portrait of the poet as a parent, and how his experiences have shaped him."
- JESSICA DRAKE-THOMAS, AUTHOR OF BURIALS
"Greg Santos is a poet of intense sensibility, who writes between the spaces of the concrete and the unseen. His book, Ghost Face, indeed embarks on the journeys of ghosts: the feelings or awareness that something is 'there' but that cannot be interpreted."
–VALLUM MAGAZINE, 17:2 "SPACE" ISSUE, 2020
"Greg Santos' Ghost Face delivers a catechism pep talk in the mirror... The interplay between monologue, dialogue, narration, race, spirituality, identity, and memory is dignified, inquisitive, hopeful."
- JAY MILLER, VARIETY PACK MAGAZINE, ISSUE 3, 2020
"Poignant and haunting - a unique memoir in a poetic stream."
- GINA ROITMAN, AUTHOR OF TELL ME A STORY, TELL ME THE TRUTH
May 20, 2022
In Ghost Face, Santos’ poetry is up close and personal, drawing on specific childhood memories to inform this particular collection; and so it becomes a more serious endeavour than previous work like Rabbit Punch. While I enjoyed reading the collection as it bridges past and future through personal experience and familial ties, my favourite poems were his attempts to play with either the form or subject matter of other poets. I like how he is still trying to experiment with forms of poetry to elevate his own work. And as I was not familiar with the cento form prior to reading this collection, I appreciated that. However, while these poems are solid and well-crafted, I kept wondering if I would ever return to the collection and the answer is that I’m more likely to return to the small ingenious poems from Rabbit Punch! And yet, as a teacher, this collection would be a great supplement to our study of poetry.
December 14, 2020
Although very personal for Greg I found many poems apply to all.
December 27, 2020
An absolutely beautiful poetry book about Greg's multi-layered histories of being born in Canada from Cambodian refugees and adopted by European immigrants. He explores family history, identity, loss and love. I read this in my backyard on a sunny November day and it was the perfect setting!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews