Coming soon from City Lights Publishers’ Spotlight Series is Barbara Jane Reyes‘s Invocation to Daughters, described as “feminist, experimental poetry in the tradition of Audre Lorde and Theresa Kyung Cha.” The book manuscript was developed in part during the poet’s Creative Work Fund collaboration with The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University. Through their partnership, Reyes and the Poetry Center brought together six visiting poets to read, write, and share work, drawing on the Filipino tradition of Kuwentuhan (or talk story).
Invocation to Daughters contains prayers, psalms, and odes for Filipina girls and women trying to survive and make sense of their own situations. The publisher writes, “Writing in English, inflected with Tagalog and Spanish, Reyes unleashes this colonized tongue against sexualized and racialized violence towards Pinay women.”
Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of four previous books of poetry. She lives with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo, in Oakland, where she co-edits Doveglion Press.