Two brown dots : poems / by Danni Quintos ; foreword by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Quintos, Danni, author.

Contributor:

Nezhukumatathil, Aimee, writer of foreword.

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

A. Poulin, Jr. new poets of America series ; v. 46.

A. Poulin, Jr. new poets of America series ; no. 46

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry.

American poetry--Asian American authors.

Genre:

poetry.

Poetry.

Physical Description:

104 pages ; 23 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Rochester, NY : BOA Editions, Ltd., 2022.

Summary:

"Selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, Danni Quintos carves a space for brown girls and weird girls in her debut collection of poems. Two Brown Dots explores what it means to be a racially ambiguous, multiethnic, Asian American woman growing up in Kentucky. In stark, honest poems, Quintos recounts the messiness and confusion of being a typical '90s kid--watching Dirty Dancing at sleepovers, borrowing eye shadow out of a friend's caboodle, crushing on a boy wearing khaki shorts to Sunday mass--while navigating the microagressions of the neighbor kids, the awkwardness of puberty, and the casual cruelties of fellow teenagers. The mixed-race daughter of a dark skinned Filipino immigrant, Quintos retells family stories and Phillipine folklore to try and make sense of an identity with roots on opposite sides of the globe. With clear-eyed candor and a wry sense of humor, Quintos teases the line between tokenism and representation, between assimilation and belonging, offering a potent antidote to the assumption that "American" means "white." Encompassing a whole journey from girlhood to motherhood, Two Brown Dots subverts stereotypes to reclaim agency and pride in the realness and rawness and unprettyness of a brown girl's body, boldly declaring: We exist, we belong, we are from here, and we will continue to be." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: I. Girlhood

Portrait of My Dad Through a Tent Window

Unbreak My Heart

On Being Asked to Represent Your Country

When Clothes Make You Cousins

Scary Spice

Crush Spell by a Fifth-Grade Witch

Cross Your Forehead, Mouth, & Heart

Age Eleven

Letter to My Childhood Crush

The Rules

Brown Girls

Sixth-Grade Invisibility Studies

Who I Wanted to Be Instead

Unpretty

Boobs

What Girls Learn

The Worst Part of Riding the Bus

Mispronunciation

The Mix CD I Made When I Was Sixteen

Youth Group

Ode to Country Dips

Eighteen

II. Motherhood

Trying

Luteal Phase Ends

The Eighth Month

First Milk

Breastfeeding

Breast Lump

Naptime Haibun

Breast Pain

Pandemic Fall Haibun

Something from Nothing

Letters to Imelda Marcos

III. Folklore

Milkfish

1991 and We Flew for Days

Pond's White Beauty

Self-Portrait as Manananggal

All Filipina Women Are Beautiful

Your English Is Good

Ghazal for Dogeaters

Five Hundred Years & Three Weeks Ago We Killed Magellan

How the Filipino Got Their Stereotype

How to Resurrect a Chicken

Cousin Dives Has More, This Time in Her Bowels

Where Good People Live

Eggplant

How My Dad Started Smoking

1991 and I Ride to Church

Quintos

The Oil Painting That Hangs on My Lola's Wall

Rosa De Rosario, 1929

Possible Reasons My Dad Won't Return to the Philippines

Python.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Other Format:

Online version: Quintos, Danni. Two brown dots

ISBN:

9781950774517

1950774511

OCLC:

1267388579