Handspun Rosaries

Moving through memories of growing up as a Filipina American immigrant and her reflections on woman's place in a society still dripping Christian-centric values and reeking of colonial heritage, Dina Klarisse's Handspun Rosaries follows the poet's lifelong interrogation of God. This debut collection is a birds' eye-view of a lapsed Catholic's tectonic beliefs, its poetry mingling with prayer and narrative. In these communions, the poet scavenges for the remnants of faith left on her identity, reflecting on definitive moments with the pious grandmother in its title piece, "Handspun rosaries," and reminiscing on the comfort of family rituals in "Asian Supermarkets" and "7pm Sunday Mass." In poems like "Charbydis" and "Pouring Salt," the poet dissects the monsterization of women in mythology and legend, weaving together feminist and post-religious readings to create new narratives of the self. A collection of questions and answers and all that comes in between, Handspun Rosaries invites its reader to challenge the tenuous barriers of dogma and look beyond them for a new, expanded horizon of belief and faith.