The Galleons: Poems

The Galleons: Poems

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award A New York Public Library Best Book of 2020 For almost twenty years, Rick Barot has been writing some of the most stunningly crafted lyric poems in America, paying careful, Rilkean attention to the layered world that surrounds us. In The Galleons , he widens his scope, contextualizing the immigrant journey of his Filipino-American family in the larger history and aftermath of colonialism. These poems are engaged in the work of recovery, making visible what is often intentionally erased: the movement of domestic workers on a weekday morning in Brooklyn; a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, fondly sharing photos of his dog; the departure and destination points of dozens of galleons between 1564 and 1815, these ships evoking both the vast movements of history and the individual journeys of those borne along by their tides . “Her story is a part of something larger, it is a part / of history,” Barot writes of his grandmother. “No, her story is an illumination // of history, a matchstick lit in the black seam of time.” With nods toward Barot’s poetic predecessors—from Frank O’Hara to John Donne— The Galleons represents an exciting extension and expansion of this virtuosic poet’s work, marrying “reckless” ambition and crafted “composure,” in which we repeatedly find the speaker standing and breathing before the world, “incredible and true.” Praise for The Galleons "In his impressive fourth collection, Lamdba Literary Award-winning poet Barot ( Chord ) critiques imperialism and capitalist excess through the recurring symbol of the galleons that sailed the Spanish conquistadors to the New World. 'Galleons' poems feature lists of plundered objects, names of ships, and even the poet's Filipina mother's life story. Each is a journey through Barot's labyrinthine thought process; rarely does he go where you'd expect . . . Barot skillfully synthesizes historical themes with a personal vision that establishes a meaningful relationship to the reader." ― Publishers Weekly , Starred Review " The Galleons reckons with origins and histories, both personal and public, on a global scale . . . [it] sweeps the reader along in an unfolding narrative tide." ―The Rumpus "This ambitious new work by multi-award-winning poet Barot ( Chord ) presents his family's immigration from the Philippines to America as part of a larger investigation: What is history, and how does it comprise our stories? . . . The result is a quietly assured unwinding of a key aspect of human history." ― Library Journal , Top Ten Spring Poetry "My favorite poetry collection so far of 2020 . . . There's something so clean and compressed and illuminating about each of the book's meditations in couplets that once you finish one, you want to read another." ― Jason Koo, Kenyon Review "I've long admired Barot's writing, and this is his strongest work to date: the poems are psychologically and emotionally complex, while never losing their essential lyricism . . . It's a wonderful book." ― Paisley Rekdal, Orion Magazine " The Galleons , rich with somber beauty and insight, concludes that the spinning threads in the vortex of history are after all made by ordinary bodies: they engender complex lineages, loves, wars, sorrows, triumphs, and losses." ―RHINO Poetry “In Rick Barot’s masterful book, The Galleons , the past is weighted down―heavily inlaid with riches and masterpieces, all of which are inscribed with someone’s grief. Throughout the collection, the speaker conducts research which is likened to a ritualized mourning, finding the source of someone’s pain turned into someone else’s wealth. The poems achingly coalesce into understandings of art and domination. Ultimately, Barot’s unflinching ability to serve as a conduit for these revelations results in poems that are astoundingly beautiful. The Galleons is significant, the work of a poet at the height of his powers.” ―Oliver de la Paz “ The Galleons is a book of realizations. It’s a very American book, and an important one for our time. The freight of New World goods―its trinkets, totems, bodies―washes up on the shore of the speaker’s mind as he contemplates circumstance, privilege, and sacrifice left in the wake of imperialism. Moreover, these poems actively relinquish the desire to romanticize history, and in this manner the very notion of epiphany is called into question. Poem after poem undertakes the difficult lesson of arriving at the limitations of seeking transcendence through art. The Galleons represents a turning point in Rick Barot’s work, and it’s a frankly amazing experience to chart these waters with him.” ―Cate Marvin “Both stately and restless, Rick Barot’s The Galleons wrestles European mercantilism with an intimate grip, tracing a personal and historical journey from the Philippines to the Americas. With his ‘grudging faith / in the particular,’ Barot deftly osci