Aileen Cassinetto presents the Introduction to
Follower of the Seasons: A Onethology in Symphony by Oscar Peñaranda
(Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2023)
One of the most important figures that defined a generation and movement, Oscar Peñaranda has produced a body of work that chronicles the labors and leavings of Filipino and Asian American lives. Capacious in scope and intentionality, this long awaited new collection of poems and prose — with its motley crew of balikbayans, tourists, sex workers, drummers, bums, the unhoused, the unnoticed noticers, and the manongs — illuminates the many ways in which our lives bear upon each other. Peñaranda weaves through time and landscapes with nuanced characters, exploring interiors, vernaculars, memory, and shared history, to bring us closer to kapwa: “Pakiramdam yan. Kutuban. To feel unspoken clues is one of the first things we learn to learn.” Perhaps the most indelible image is the birdman of the I-Hotel whom the narrator observes with such insight and tenderness: “Come by later/ And take these crumbs/ And put them in one of your bags/ For your morning walks,/ Manong.” Seamed with grit and grace, this book is more than an essential collection. It's what we are to each other, and all the ways we have become a country and community in diaspora.
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Aileen Cassinetto is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, 2023 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 Awardee, and co-founder of Paloma Press, the first Southeast Asian publishing house on the San Francisco Peninsula. Her work has appeared in American Poets, Anthropocene, Poetry, and poets.org, among others. In 2023, she co-edited the award-winning anthology, Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States, a companion to the congressionally mandated Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). aileencassinetto.com
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