Following four characters from one extended family, Songs from Manunggul describes the diaspora from a mythic home to the four corners of the world—Las Vegas, Jeddah, Niigata, and Toronto. Shaped by an unremitting vision, each lyric reveals how ordinary people make their dwellings in unfamiliar terrains, each fragment an ode to wayfarers who make the passage to the other side. A retiree sends money from the United States to build a boat honoring her dead parents. A nurse in Saudi Arabia dreams of the river in her town. A construction worker in Japan regards snow for the first time. A gay man in Canada mourns a lover’s death. By piecing together these scattered lives, the book conceives an allegory where the place of origin is conjoined with the point of destination. The earth is the residence of the dispersed; home is borne by memories. This is poetry as a fable for our diasporic times.
Published in 2024.