The Future Is a Country I Do Not Live in

In her enchanting collection of poems, Cynthia Buiza traces 'the shape of memories, / the noise they make,' with a delicate, uncompromising touch. Her calm, melodious lines push open the doors we tell ourselves we cannot open, doors to rooms that hold what we believe we cannot face - 'mother, lover, loss.' Distilled from years of longing and griefwork, of solitary walks and communal rituals, Buiza's wisdom is sweet wine for bitter times.'-Boris Dralyuk, poet, translator and Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles Review of Books'Cynthia Buiza's poetry continues to witness, unceasingly, inviting us to join her in what I call as the last vigil to a passing world, where despite the odds and doubts, she continues to recollect the tracks and thoughts of our fugitive, fragile lives, now enshrined in a foreign tongue she has recoiled and reconciled as her own domicile, a second skin.'-Kristian Sendon Cordero, poet and translator'What does poetry look like from the notebooks of a life thoughtfully walked? These pages reflect the maturity of consequence, filled by a migrant advocate, world citizen, and a spirit who has held poetry long enough to understand its torrents. Poetry, for those who stroll outside its white walls, is a 'miracle at dawn.' And there are many miracles in this debut collection - language as a 'dance between mercy and grace' - so much thinking, so much survival, so much courage, from a poet who paves her journey by documenting the everyday vanishings and appearances.'-Bino A. Realuyo, author of The Gods We Worship Live Next Door and co-founder of The Asian American Writers Workshop'Many worlds collide in the poetry of Cynthia Buiza, but what remains with the reader are the worlds of the new country vis-a-vis the old homeland. Silt and silk, stone and star, a vast country and an archipelago 'with too many names for islands.' People suffer and live in her poems; violence and hope commingle here. 'She maps this line of desolation from one continent to another...' It is a poetry teeming with images moist and melancholy, 'ghosts frozen in the dead eye of memory.' The rough-grained world of the everyday and the slippery world of dreams are present, 'surfacing in her dreams/ trailed by a lullaby of crickets nesting... in secret places.' This is an assured debut for a poet whose wise and wonderful voice deserves to be heard, loud and clear.'-Danton Remoto, author of Riverrun, A Novel, Winner of the National Achievement Award for Poetry, Writers' Union of the Philippines