All Heathens - Paperback

by Marianne Chan (Author)

Marianne Chan's brilliant debut collection masterfully develops themes of identity and the long-term effects of colonization.
--Largehearted Boy

All Heathens is a declaration of ownership--of bodies, of histories, of time. Revisiting Magellan's voyage around the world, these poems explore the speaker's Filipino American identity by grappling with her relationship to her family and notions of diaspora, circumnavigation, and discovery. Whether rewriting the origin story of Eve ("I always imagined that the serpent had the legs of a seductive woman in black nylons"), or ruminating on what-should-have-been-said "when the man at the party said he wanted to own a Filipino," Chan paints wry, witty renderings of anecdotal and folkloric histories, while both preserving and unveiling a self-identity that dares any other to try and claim it.

Author Biography

Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in West Branch, The Journal, Poetry Northwest, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Carve Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She serves as poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine.