Tula: Poems

A debut poetry collection exploring themes of family and identity while examining the experiences of a second-generation Filipino immigrant in America.Tula: a ruined Toltec capital; a Russian city known for its accordions; Tagalog for "poem."Prismatic, startling, rich with meaning yet sparely composed, Chris Santiago's debut collection of poemsselected by A. Van Jordan as the winner of the 2016 Lindquist Vennum Prize for Poetrybegins with one word and transforms it, in a dazzling sleight of hand, into a multivalent symbol for the immigrant experience. Tula: Santiago reveals to readers a distant land devastated by war. Tula: its music beckons in rhythms, time signatures, and lullabies. Tula: can the poem, he seems to ask, build an imaginative bridge back to a family lost to geography, history, and a forgotten language?Inspired by the experiences of the second-generation immigrant who does not fully acquire the...