Editor's Note: The following book review excerpt was
originally published in THE HALO-HALO REVIEW, curated by poet, author
and editor Eileen Tabios.
Halo Halo Review provides engagements with Filipino-Pilipinx literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose.
Luis H. Francia’s stamp on the literary world is legendary among Filipino-Americans. He is recognized and celebrated as a poet, writer and academic who battled the odds — and won — in an unforgiving U.S. literary industry that is often full of itself, condescending even to its own shadow. He persevered during a time when racism ironically inspired a generation of foreign-born poets to write hard, proving themselves equally good, equally worthy. His scholarship, teaching and editorship have elevated the works of many Asian American and Filipino American writers in English.
The eye of the critic appears in many poems in his collection Tattered Boat. For instance, readers infected with and on the mend from Catholicism would find solace in sharp critique evident in “Dream of the Ascetic” and “Savior of No One.” Deeply mired in soul wounds left open, the poet contemplates meaning and “the promise of oblivion“ in “Words, Words, Words.”
Some poems in Tattered Boat even made me feel inadequate, as if I needed to brush up on the history of Western colonialism and religious conquest simply to keep up, retraumatizing myself in the process. Others provided glimpses into the poet’s struggles with acculturation, pondering “How many masks do you wear?” in order to face “All the quarrels with America.”
But Tattered Boat also made me consider other questions, like, Who is the poet? I write a review of Luis H. Francia’s Tattered Boat, and it is from this perch that I look intently for signs of the Filipino. In this collection, Francia’s social identity and location are not always readily apparent.
One could argue that anyone could write the poems in Tattered Boat. The metaphors, point of view, vernacular and voice are not distinct or exceptional enough to be discernible from what one would expect from whitebread English-language poets.
Halo Halo Review provides engagements with Filipino-Pilipinx literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose.
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| Luis H. Francia |
The eye of the critic appears in many poems in his collection Tattered Boat. For instance, readers infected with and on the mend from Catholicism would find solace in sharp critique evident in “Dream of the Ascetic” and “Savior of No One.” Deeply mired in soul wounds left open, the poet contemplates meaning and “the promise of oblivion“ in “Words, Words, Words.”
Some poems in Tattered Boat even made me feel inadequate, as if I needed to brush up on the history of Western colonialism and religious conquest simply to keep up, retraumatizing myself in the process. Others provided glimpses into the poet’s struggles with acculturation, pondering “How many masks do you wear?” in order to face “All the quarrels with America.”
But Tattered Boat also made me consider other questions, like, Who is the poet? I write a review of Luis H. Francia’s Tattered Boat, and it is from this perch that I look intently for signs of the Filipino. In this collection, Francia’s social identity and location are not always readily apparent.
One could argue that anyone could write the poems in Tattered Boat. The metaphors, point of view, vernacular and voice are not distinct or exceptional enough to be discernible from what one would expect from whitebread English-language poets.