2008 Woodie Awards
De la Paz emerges on poetry scene
Poetry seen as easily accessible to novice readers
Caley Ochoa, Staff Writer
Issue date: 2/20/07
Last Updated: 8/9/07
"Poetry across campus can be mysterious to readers beyond the humanities. I think this would be a beautiful reading for someone who has never been before," Lamon said.
The content of the poems is somewhat strange and fantastical, like reading a complex and insightful fairy tale.
Many of the titles are long and run into the substance of the poem such as "See how my thumb spreads the clouds?/ It is simple. My arm moves the white ocean./ Flight is just that. Easy sleep-like nodding/ In class to the teacher's constant talk."
De la Paz's poem "Fidelito Contemplates How Powerful He Has Become and Thinks of Ways to Alter Weather Patterns" allows the reader to hear Fidelito's distinct voice and sense his unapparent power and importance in his world.
As an emerging poet, de la Paz's work is worth attention. Even the inexperienced poetry reader can understand and enjoy "Names Above Houses" which mostly consists of prose poems with a common plotline.
The book reads like a novella although the richness of de la Paz's diction makes it clearly poetic.
"I fell in love with the book the first time I read the first line," Senior Rachel Gray said.
De la Paz explores themes of identity and belonging, weaving together the story of a family between two different worlds and cultures and their struggle to adapt and retain their former ways and culture.
"As Fidelito's family trades Filipino omens of baby teeth and rats for those of the 'moonlike glow' of American television romances and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, de la Paz's deft storytelling-part magic realism, part Aesop fable-seamlessly pulls us from one adventure to the next," Denise Duhamel, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," said.
Oliver de la Paz will be visiting the Whitworth campus this week with a poetry reading this Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Robinson Teaching Theatre.
His second book, "Furious Lullaby" is due out this year and will be published by Southern Illinois University Press.
The content of the poems is somewhat strange and fantastical, like reading a complex and insightful fairy tale.
Many of the titles are long and run into the substance of the poem such as "See how my thumb spreads the clouds?/ It is simple. My arm moves the white ocean./ Flight is just that. Easy sleep-like nodding/ In class to the teacher's constant talk."
De la Paz's poem "Fidelito Contemplates How Powerful He Has Become and Thinks of Ways to Alter Weather Patterns" allows the reader to hear Fidelito's distinct voice and sense his unapparent power and importance in his world.
As an emerging poet, de la Paz's work is worth attention. Even the inexperienced poetry reader can understand and enjoy "Names Above Houses" which mostly consists of prose poems with a common plotline.
The book reads like a novella although the richness of de la Paz's diction makes it clearly poetic.
"I fell in love with the book the first time I read the first line," Senior Rachel Gray said.
De la Paz explores themes of identity and belonging, weaving together the story of a family between two different worlds and cultures and their struggle to adapt and retain their former ways and culture.
"As Fidelito's family trades Filipino omens of baby teeth and rats for those of the 'moonlike glow' of American television romances and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, de la Paz's deft storytelling-part magic realism, part Aesop fable-seamlessly pulls us from one adventure to the next," Denise Duhamel, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," said.
Oliver de la Paz will be visiting the Whitworth campus this week with a poetry reading this Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Robinson Teaching Theatre.
His second book, "Furious Lullaby" is due out this year and will be published by Southern Illinois University Press.
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