Names Above Houses: Poems

In Names above Houses, Oliver de la Paz uses both prose and verse poems to create the magical realm of Fidelito Recto—a boy who wants to fly—and his family of Filipino immigrants. Fidelito’s mother, Maria Elena, tries to keep her son grounded while struggling with her own moorings. Meanwhile, Domingo, Fidelito's fisherman father, is always at sea, even when among them. From the archipelago of the Philippines to San Francisco, horizontal and vertical movements shape moments of displacement and belonging for this marginalized family. Fidelito approaches life with a sense of wonder, finding magic in the mundane and becoming increasingly uncertain whether he is in the sky or whether his feet are planted firmly on the ground.

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Names Above Houses: Poems

In Names above Houses, Oliver de la Paz uses both prose and verse poems to create the magical realm of Fidelito Recto—a boy who wants to fly—and his family of Filipino immigrants. Fidelito’s mother, Maria Elena, tries to keep her son grounded while struggling with her own moorings. Meanwhile, Domingo, Fidelito's fisherman father, is always at sea, even when among them. From the archipelago of the Philippines to San Francisco, horizontal and vertical movements shape moments of displacement and belonging for this marginalized family. Fidelito approaches life with a sense of wonder, finding magic in the mundane and becoming increasingly uncertain whether he is in the sky or whether his feet are planted firmly on the ground.

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Names Above Houses: Poems

Names Above Houses: Poems

by Oliver de la Paz
Names Above Houses: Poems

Names Above Houses: Poems

by Oliver de la Paz

Paperback(1st Edition)

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Overview

In Names above Houses, Oliver de la Paz uses both prose and verse poems to create the magical realm of Fidelito Recto—a boy who wants to fly—and his family of Filipino immigrants. Fidelito’s mother, Maria Elena, tries to keep her son grounded while struggling with her own moorings. Meanwhile, Domingo, Fidelito's fisherman father, is always at sea, even when among them. From the archipelago of the Philippines to San Francisco, horizontal and vertical movements shape moments of displacement and belonging for this marginalized family. Fidelito approaches life with a sense of wonder, finding magic in the mundane and becoming increasingly uncertain whether he is in the sky or whether his feet are planted firmly on the ground.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780809323821
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
Publication date: 02/01/2001
Series: Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Series
Edition description: 1st Edition
Pages: 96
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Oliver de la Paz was born in Manila and raised in Ontario, Oregon. He has served as the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College and currently teaches at Arizona State University, where he received his M.F.A. in creative writing. His poems have appeared in the Literary Review, Quarterly West, Third Coast, and Asian Pacific American Review and in the anthology Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentsxiii
1In the Year of the Rat3
The Romance of Bait11
At Sea Domingo Learned to Steady His Hand12
Insects in Maria Elena's Kitchen13
The Flood of Ants14
A Parable15
Before Takeoff, Fidelito Prays16
Fidelito Sails over Manila17
On His First Flight Over18
Fidelito Haunts Airports19
On the Downward Escalator20
Manong Jose, While Cleaning His Last Window Before Coffee, Sees Fidelito and Is Pleased Though Wary21
Fidelito Prays to the Wind, Asking for Advice, but Not Really Asking22
2School Years25
When Fidelito Is the New Boy at School26
Why Maria Elena Calls the Boy's Name So Many Times in a Day27
Fidelito Takes Flight up a Ladder28
For Hours, Fidelito Hangs from the Topmost Branch Before Letting Go29
She Leaves the Water Running30
Fidelito Suddenly Becomes Afraid of Heights31
From the Ocean, Fidelito Pulls32
The Fisherman's Chronicle33
Grounding34
In Sleep He Practices Flying35
Three Madonnas36
The Fourth Madonna37
Carpenter Ants38
From a Country with One Million Maria39
A Cupboard Full of Halos40
Fidelito Dreams the Village41
Domingo, Too Old for Fishing42
The Romance of the Television43
When Fidelito Says He'll Fly Away44
Domingo's Advice for Fidelito45
Nine Secrets the Recto Family Can't Tell the Boy46
Origami Dove48
Manong Jose Remembers Fidelito's First Fall49
Fidelito Contemplates How Powerful He Has Become and Thinks of Ways to Alter Weather Patterns50
3Mind-Swimming53
After the Boy Goes to Bed54
Domingo's Blood Clot55
The Romance of the Amputated Leg56
How Domingo Disappears57
In the Dream with Blue Snow58
The Death of Domingo Recto59
What Fidelito Knows of His Father60
Maria Elena Puts His Good Shoes Away62
What the Kitchen Was63
The Way the Blessed Mourn64
Earth and Sky65
Birds and Their Various Fevers66
A Plan to Control the Weather67
Under the Stained Glass Saints68
The Puzzle of Kites69
The Box of Stars70
What the Laundry Told Maria Elena71
Wren Jealousies72
An Anatomy of Birds73
The Miraculous Ascension of Fidelito Recto74
Manong Jose Discusses How the Boy and His Strangeness Grew into His Name75
When Fidelito Grows Up, Maria Elena Reads76
With the Grace of Basket Weavers77
Fidelito Speaks of One Evening at the Turn of a Century but Mentions No Particular Century78
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