As if an exploding star: T. De Los Reyes’s love-poems of self-discovery in the ordinary magic of the everyday
“My heart has cracked open like a window, holy, holy, holy.” T. De Los Reyes writes in And Yet Held, her new chapbook from Bull City Press. The love poems in this collection focus her poetic gaze on the minute and the magnificently mundane, on “the small gestures of the world and the tenderness which threads through life.” The ordinary magic of the everyday— of touch, prayer, surrender, and domestic rituals— moves the world of these intimate poems about the body, desire, and identity as a person of color.
And Yet Held
by T. De Los Reyes
(Bull City Press, 2024)
Cover Price: $12.95
Length: 48 pages
De Los Reyes— a poet, designer, and educator based in Manila, Philippines and the founder-curator of Read a Little Poetry— draws on her Filipino heritage in these poems. Using short blocks of sharp free verse she confronts and celebrates the intense yearning and vulnerability that is so often inseparable from the act of being and loving for anybody, particularly a person of color. At the end of “Debris,” the opening poem of the collection, she writes:
Oh, how I am but skin fragmented by touch, from
which a little flower blooms amidst all the wreckage.
And, having been found, waits to be kissed.
Many of the poems collected in And Yet Held are resplendent with rich and vivid everyday imagery like this. De Los Reyes is a visual poet, and she displays her mastery of images in poems like “Valse Sentimentale,” the seventh poem of the collection, composed as a series of slice-of-life snapshots. De Los Reyes infuses everyday language with profound meaning and beauty, with a visceral sense of urgency and authenticity. The waltz-like momentum of her vernacular diction propels the reader to the very last poem. She chisels and sculpts the small, quiet, tender realities of the day to day— like a parting crowd, a roaring sea, the bending down of a bamboo tree— into visions of a wretched and wondrous world of brown desire. In “The Shape of Rapture,” she writes:
I want to peel off your skin. Climb into your ribcage
where your heart is. Every day we get to love each other
in a world that does not want us I praise our bodies.
This exploration and examination of the body as a geography of love, desire, and identity as a person of color is a recurring theme in De Los Reyes’s work. Throughout the collection, she explores these themes through the lens of her BIPOC identity, confronting the violence inflicted upon brown bodies and landscapes throughout history, and celebrating the strength and resilience of brown bodies in the face of grief, loss, and adversity. In “Monsters,” she writes:
I was a body and yet not a body.
(…)
I was a body and almost somebody.
We damn well know: to be brown is
to always be guilty of being brown.
As a person of color, I relate to this experience all too intimately. We live in a world that polices our bodies and our desires, a world that ostracizes us and makes us question what we can and cannot want every single day. Our bodies are not only our bodies in this world. As De Los Reyes writes in “Gargantuan,” “We carry within us everywhere / we have ever been, our bodies housing cities housing bodies.”
At once an accusation and a confession, And Yet Held stands as an indictment of a world that ostracizes those already at the margins, and a celebration of love that is both domestic and divine in its domesticity. De Los Reyes sets out to find a touch of the sacred in the ordinary acts of loving and being loved, and she succeeds. There is much that inspires and awes in these poems, and little that left me wanting. And Yet Held is a triumph and a revelation, particularly for people of color, those they love, and those who love them.
About the Author
T. De Los Reyes is a Filipino poet and designer. She is the author of the chapbooks And Yet Held (Bull City Press) and Woeman (Hawai’i Review). A finalist for the 2021 Sappho Prize by Palette Poetry, her poems have appeared in Birdcoat Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Hobart After Dark, Pleiades, and Split Lip Magazine, among others. Her work revolves around womanhood, eros, and mapping the body — exploring geography vis-à-vis the question of identity as a person of color. Past recognitions include Notable Manuscript for the 2016 Chapbook Prize by BOAAT Press and First Place in Filipino Poetry in the 2007 Maningning Miclat Poetry Awards. She was named a Fellow for Filipino Poetry in the 2006 Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices National Writers Workshop.
Contributor Bio
Drishya (he/him ⸱ b. 1997) is a writer and artist based in Kolkata, India, publishing under a single name to protest India’s caste system. He was shortlisted for the Mogford Prize and nominated for the BBA Photography Prize – One Shot Award in 2022. He is @drishyadotxyz on Instagram and X.
Contents
New Poetry Titles (2/27/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 2/27 from Alien Buddha Press, GASHER Press, Bottlecap Press, University of Arizona Press, Omnidawn, Signal Editions, Guernica Editions, The Backwaters Press, University of Nebraska Press, Caitlin Press Inc, Autumn House Press, Georgia Review Books, The University of Kentucky Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Brick Books, Changes Press, Tupelo Press, Black Lawrence Press, and MoonPath Press.
March ‘24: Welcome to Issue 2
Read a note from editor Aiden Hunt about our second bimonthly issue, contributor accomplishments, and things to come.
New Poetry Titles (3/5/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 3/5 from Graywolf Press, Knopf, Bottlecap Press, powerHouse Books, Milkweed Editions, Acre Books, Seagull Books, The University Press of Kentucky, Yale University Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Penguin Books, Able Muse Press, Button Poetry, Miami University Press, Eyewear Publishing, Black Ocean, Seren, MoonPath Press, and Book*Hub Press. Editor’s picks from Diane Seuss and Cindy Juyoung Ok.
Contributor Poem of the Month: The Plan
Read the Contributor Poem of the Month for March 2024, “The Plan” by C.M. Crockford, along with a few words from the poet.
New Poetry Titles (3/12/24)
Check out new poetry books published in the week of 3/12 from Belle Point Press, Bottlecap Press, Black Lawrence Press, Haymarket Books, Ecco, Milkweed Editions, Seagull Books, Hub City Press, Nightboat Books, Signature Books, Four Way Books, Curbstone Books, Kaya Press, Kith Books, Saturnalia Books, Ohio University Press, University of Wisconsin Press, Jackleg Press, Semiotext(e) and Brick Books.
Chapbook Poem of the Month: Collection
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for March 2024, “Collection” from Dreamsoak by Will Russo, along with a few words from the poet.
Meet Our Contributor: C.M. Crockford
Meet our contributor, C.M. Crockford, a writer and editor originally from New Hampshire, now living in Philadelphia with his cat, Wally.
New Poetry Titles (3/19/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 3/19 from Bottlecap Press, Autumn House Press, Knopf, Guernica Editions, Tin House Books, Milkweed Editions, University of Wisconsin Press and Book*Hug Press.
Meet Our Contributor: Mike Bagwell
Meet our contributor, Mike Bagwell, a writer, poet, and software engineer in Philly. He’s published two poetry chapbooks and has a full-length collection forthcoming in 2024.
New Poetry Titles (3/26/24)
Check out new poetry books for the week of 3/26 from Bottlecap Press, Nightwood Editions, Harbour Publishing, McClellan & Stewart, Carcanet Press, University of Regina Press, At Bay Press, Guernica Editions, Beltway Editions, University of Georgia Press, Lost Horse Press, University of New Mexico Press, University of Massachusetts Press, Book*Hug Books, Haymarket Books, Archipelago, Autumn House Press, Hat & Beard Press, Tigerlily Press, and GASHER Press.
Meet Our Contributor: Francesca Leader
Meet our contributor, Francesca Leader, a Montanan living elsewhere who writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Read about her writing life in her Contributor Q&A.
April ‘24: Of SPD, Genocide, and Book Reviews
Editor Aiden Hunt writes about distribution woes, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and what we have coming during April in the Editor’s Note.
New Poetry Titles (4/2/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/2 from Bottlecap Press, Green Linden Press, Stanchion Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Small Harbor Publishing, Milkweed Editions, Graywolf Press, Wave Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, New Directions, Invisible Publishing, Brick Books, Sixteen Rivers Press, Penguin Books, City Lights Publishers, And Other Stories, BOA Editions Ltd, OR Books, Not a Cult, Copper Canyon Press, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Beacon Press, Biblioasis, Nightboat Books, Amistad, House of Anansi Press, Hub City Press, Seagull Books, Fordham University Press, Iron Pen, Persea Books, Central Avenue Publishing, CavanKerry Press, W. W. Norton & Company, University of Akron Press and Red Hen Press.
Contributor Poem of the Month: Self Portrait
Read the Contributor Poem of the Month for April 2024, “Self Portrait” by Mike Bagwell, along with a few words from the poet.
On Cindy Juyoung Ok’s ‘House Work’: A Review Essay
Editor Aiden Hunt’s essay reviews Cindy Juyoung Ok’s poetry chapbook, ‘House Work’, published by Ugly Duckling Presse in March 2023.
New Poetry Titles (4/9/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/9 from Faber & Faber, Small Harbor Publishing, Bottlecap Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, Green Writers Press, Loom Press, Paraclete Press, Able Muse Press, Caitlin Press Inc., Stephen F. Austin University Press, University of North Texas Press, McGill-Queen’s University Press, University of New Mexico Press, Curbstone Books, Milkweed Editions, Red Hen Press, Wave Books, Alice James Books, Paul Dry Books, Copper Canyon Press, Coffee House Press, powerHouse Books, Dial Press, Knopf, Nightboat Books, SUNY Press, Belle Point Press, White Stag Publishing, and Anhinga Press.
New Poetry Titles (4/16/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/16 from Bottlecap Press, Knopf, HarperOne, Small Harbor Publishing, Red Hen Press, Copper Canyon Press, Nightwood Editions, Southern Illinois University Press, Seren, Sarabande Books, Phoneme Media, BOA Editions Ltd., W. W. Norton & Company, JBE Books, White Stag Publishing, ECW Press, knife | fork | book and McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Chapbook Poem of the Month: Study of Daylight
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for April 2024, “Study of Daylight” from Love Letters from a Burning Planet by MJ Gomez, along with a few words from the poet.
Review: And Yet Held by T. De Los Reyes
As if an exploding star: T. De Los Reyes’s love-poems of self-discovery in the ordinary magic of the everyday. Read the review by new PCR contributor, Drishya.
New Poetry Titles (4/23/24)
Check out new poetry books for the week of 4/23 from Bottlecap Press, Biblioasis, Copper Canyon Press, Red Hen Press, Milkweed Editions, University of Arkansas Press, Seren, Carcanet Press Ltd., Talonbooks, Unbound Edition Press and BOA Editions Ltd.
On ‘A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt’ by Bri Stokes
C.M. Crockford reviews “A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt” by Bri Stokes, a poetry chapbook published by Bottlecap Press in November, 2023, in this essay.
New Poetry Titles (4/30/24)
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