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.
1867. The Civil War is over. Yet there is much unrest and resentment that lives on throughout the land, and in the hearts of many... Marco steps out of the ashes of the war; a man turned bounty hunter had everything which mattered most to him violently stripped away. So he emerges with a burning desire like none other to find redemption, and a new purpose in life. He sets off i...
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