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Cultural
Evidence
is evidence that waves of the Asian Pacific can arrive upon the sandy
shores of American English. Cariaga is a poet alert to written and oral
traditions and what can be done to accomodate them in the many directions
that American poetry can take.
--Victor Hernandez Cruz
This deeply thoughtful assemblage from Catalina Cariaga documents the
search for cultural clues suggested by her title. She reveals her generational
memory both circumstantially and directly, where in her childhood "the
sea is a woman," the barong (traditonal shirt) is an ironic
symbol, and Billie Holiday, grunion, and the exact procedure for citizen's
arrest--like a palimpsest--further define her point-of-view. Her calm
speech fragments stand in the present, but step--with serious urgency--into
this past, to trauma, the origins of identity, and her inherited love
of language. This is a brave, innovative, and ultimately searing book.
--Joyce Jenkins
Catalina Cariaga is a pyrotechnic burst of light in the horizon of American
poetry. Cultural Evidence is a worthy book of poems for all library
and lovers of avant-garde literature.
--Nick Carbo
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