Barbara Jane Reyes

Barbara Jane Reyes Poems

Once, when there was no light, the wind danced with the sea, whose glassy surface became untame funnels and silver crested waves as she leapt and spun. How the wind also spun and let out a mighty roar. You have heard this one before, no? How earth convulsed as if laughing. How seafloor forced her fingertips skyward. How she freed her body from the silent, murky depths.
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Barbara Jane Reyes Biography

Barbara Jane Reyes is an American poet whose work "explores the translatable and untranslatable collisions of writing, self and culture." She was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. As an undergraduate, "served as editor in chief for maganda magazine, and witnessed the emergence of Filipino American literary figures." She received her M.F.A. at San Francisco State University. She is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago, 2003), Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish, 2005), for which she received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, and Diwata (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2010). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including 2nd Avenue Poetry, Asian Pacific American Journal, Boxcar Poetry Review, Chain, Crate, Interlope, New American Writing, Nocturnes Review, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Parthenon West Review, as well as in the anthologies Babaylan (Aunt Lute Books, 2000), Eros Pinoy (Anvil, 2001), InvAsian: Asian Sisters Represent (Study Center Press, 2003), Going Home to a Landscape (Calyx, 2003), Coloring Book (Rattlecat, 2003), Not Home But Here (Anvil, 2003), Pinoy Poetics (Meritage, 2004), Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area (Avalon Publishing, 2004), 100 Love Poems: Philippine Love Poetry Since 1905 (University of the Philippines Press, 2004), Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005), and Graphic Poetry (Victionary, 2005). She has taught Creative Writing at Mills College, and Philippine Studies at University of San Francisco. She lives with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo, in Oakland, CA.)

The Best Poem Of Barbara Jane Reyes

Again, She Tells the First Story

Once, when there was no light, the wind danced with the sea, whose glassy surface became untame funnels and silver crested waves as she leapt and spun. How the wind also spun and let out a mighty roar. You have heard this one before, no? How earth convulsed as if laughing. How seafloor forced her fingertips skyward. How she freed her body from the silent, murky depths.

She who was born of the rocks fell in love with the one who was born of sea spume. There upon the rocks, they spread seeds and soil, and from these the bamboo sprouted. It rooted itself in those rocks, and some say kidlat split this bamboo open.

Others say a great serpent ruled the sea, and set upon his crown, a gleaming stone upon which the skyfolk spilled dark earth. I do not know why they tried to bury the serpent, but because of this, he hissed and lashed at them. The sea was once sweet and cool as rainwater. In the north, a medicine woman told us of her people's prayers for salt. Hot winds brought to them fragrances of the dead. After the waters receded, how the shores became the color of clear crystals and blood.

Hija, I bring the sea tobacco leaves and fruit, but still no stories come to me. I plead with her, O diwata, pakitanggap po ninyo ang aking handog. O diwata, ang inyong mga salita lamang ang hinihingin ko. Today as ever, she gives me but silence.

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