Romalyn Ante AGIMAT Paperback Book

An alchemical wonder of a poet Fiona Benson, author of Vertigo & GhostVivid, lyrical, and always surprising . . . Both a balm and a call to action Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the FallA sparkling new collection from Romalyn Ante, nurse and prizewinning poet, moving between the Philippines and Wolverhampton, myth and the grind of the presentday NHS. this charms the buried light of stars this deflects bullets this unblooms a war In some Filipino clans, parents pass down to each child an AGIMAT, an amulet, in the hope its magic will protect and empower them. At the dawn of the pandemic, the poet a practising nurse in the NHS is thrown onto the frontlines of the war against COVID19.Past conflicts swim into the now. When she falls in love with a man of Japanese heritage, it forces a reckoning with her familys suffering under Japans brutal wartime occupation of the Philippines. Elsewhere, we meet the irrepressible goddess Mebuyan, who, in Philippine myth, nurses the spirits of children in the underworld. Here, she watches over young people in crisis a girl who cant stop cutting herself, a teenager who has leapt from a railway viaduct. These are poems of strength and solace they question what it means to fight, and what it takes to heal. | Romalyn Ante AGIMAT Paperback Book