In Names above Houses, Oliver de la Paz uses both prose and verse poems to create the magical realm of Fidelito Recto—a boy who wants to fly—and his family of Filipino immigrants. Fidelito’s mother, Maria Elena, tries to keep her son grounded while struggling with her own moorings. Meanwhile, Domingo, Fidelito's fisherman father, is always at sea, even when among them. From the archipelago of the Philippines to San Francisco, horizontal and vertical movements shape moments of displacement and belonging for this marginalized family. Fidelito approaches life with a sense of wonder, finding magic in the mundane and becoming increasingly uncertain whether he is in the sky or whether his feet are planted firmly on the ground.
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“Oliver de la Paz has created a unique work: a novella in the form of a sequence of prose poems; a lucidly inventive allegory of migration, exile, and belonging. With grace and elegance, he evokes the magical, myth-making culture of his Philippines and brings it to a very real California in the person of Fidelito, a boy who wants to fly, and his parents, Domingo and Maria Elena. Oliver de la Paz has the strength and wisdom to step lightly with the heaviest burdens. He is stunningly good. Names above Houses celebrates the trials and indestructibility of a family and is a durable refreshment, an essential document of life at the cultural crossroads.”—Rodney Jones, author of Elegy for the Southern Drawl
“Oliver de la Paz creates the legend of Fidelito—a boy whose yearning to fly becomes a metaphor for immigration, sexual awakening, religious passion, and the imagination of a poet-in-the-making. 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. Through Fidelito, de la Paz weaves the odysseys of Jesus and Icarus into a lush and wonderful wanderlust.”—Denise Duhamel, author of The Star-Spangled Banner
“Names above Houses points to a new direction in Asian American poetry in which the creative genius of Oliver de la Paz hangs in the sky as luminous neon verse. He takes the urbane colors of John Berryman and mixes them with the sensuous hues of Arthur Sze. This is a book enriched with unexpected shifts of language, vertical and horizontal perspectives, and a full spectrum of emotion and insight.”—Nick Carbó, author of Secret Asian Man
From the Publisher
Rodney Jones, final judge of the 2000 Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry, writes of his selection of NAMES ABOVE HOUSES: “Oliver de la Paz has created a unique work: a novella in the form of a sequence of prose poems; a lucidly inventive allegory of migration, exile, and belonging. With grace and elegance, he evokes the magical, myth-making culture of his Philippines and brings it to a very real California in the person of Fidelito, a boy who wants to fly, and his parents, Domingo and Maria Elena. Oliver de la Paz has the strength and wisdom to step lightly with the heaviest burdens. He is stunningly good. NAMES ABOVE HOUSES celebrates the trials and indestructibility of a family and is a durable refreshment, an essential document of life at the cultural crossroads.”
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More About the Author
Oliver de la Paz is the author of three collections of poetry, Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby (SIU Press), and the forthcoming Requiem for the Orchard (University of Akron Press). He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American Poetry. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, his work has appeared in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. He teaches at Western Washington University.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Poetic Debut that Doesn't Disappoint!,
By eduardo C. corral (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Names Above Houses (Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry) (Paperback)
Oliver De La Paz's prose poems are beautiful. There are lines in here that stop you cold: The harbor lights close like a sequined hand; she blesses the room with her blue arcs. The prose poems are a narrative, the poems have the shape and allure of photographs in a family album, of a boy who flys and of his family. I love the fact that the prose poems "hover" at the top of the page, echoing the desire of the boy to soar. With this book, I have no desire to display any critical/theory skills. Let others do that. I want to remember the pleasue this book brought me: turning to the next page; highlighting specific lines; bending back the covers; calling my friends to read them a poem. This is a gift I rarely recieve.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Names Above Houses (Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry) (Paperback)
All I can say is WOW. I went to hear Oliver de la Paz read from his book . . . he's an incredible reader. What's surprising about the book is how tight the prose poems are in their craft and language. There's a tragic whimsy in the poems--I laughed aloud at times, but often wondered at what cost was my laughter? This book has something important to say about the immigrant experience without the message being preachy. You've got to get this book, teach this book, walk the streets with this book under your arm.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving, lucid narratives,
By Jeannine Hall Gailey (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Names Above Houses (Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry) (Paperback)
This collection about an invented family, Maria Elena, Domingo, and Fidelito, the son who sprouts wings, has a lucid dream-like quality, especially in the wonderful prose poems that string togethr the narrative of the book. Oliver has a real gift for drawing the reader in with painterly images and surreal, but gut-wrenching, emotional language. From "When Fidelito is the New Boy at School:""Fidelito gazes outside. There are other milder distractions: some of the children eat their shirts and some burst into rain. A road burns into a corner. In the power lines above the playground, a grackle's steel eye murders the earth." A fantastic debut - can't wait for his next book!
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