Drivers at the Short-Time Motel

By Eugene Gloria

Ephemeral lives, and souls lost in the tattered fabric of war, displacement, and ruined love find hope, redemption, and a common voice in Eugene Gloria's artful concoction of American and Filipino vernaculars. While some of these thirty poems deal with the landscape and folkways of contemporary Filipinos, others locate themselves on the streets and byways of present-day America. Like many poets of dual heritage, Gloria's work is concerned with self-definition, with the attempt to reconcile a feeling of exile and homelessness. Frequently taking the form of character studies and first-person narratives, Gloria's poems poignantly illuminate the common man's search for connection to the self and to the world."Eugene Gloria's Drivers at the Short-Time Motel is propelled by an imagistic sincerity and paced lyricism. Each poem seems to embody the plain-spoken as well as the embellishments that we associate with classical and modern Asian poetry. Though many of the poems address the lingering hurt of cultural and economic imperialism, worlds coexist in the same skin through magical imagery. Gauged by a keen eye, history is scrutinized, but through a playful exactness. These wonderful poems are trustworthy." --Yusef Komunyaaka

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140589252
• ISBN13: 9780140589252
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great Words from A Promising New Talent

This was a challenging book of poems to read. It maps out an intelligent and complex world--the bicultural experience. Nostalgic and unidealistic, here is a Filipino-American voice struggling through the painful, always important memories attached to contrasting landscapes--those of the U.S. and the Philippines. My favorite poems were those that dealt with the speaker's immediate family. And though the language is beautiful in many of the poems, what really strikes hard is the honesty with which speaker tells his (and his family's) stories.Also recommend: Nick Carbo's SECRET ASIAN MAN and Bino Realuyo's THE UMBRELLA COUNTRY.