Yellow Arrow Publishing is thrilled to introduce Yellow Arrow author Isabel Cristina Legarda and the cover of her soon-to-be-released chapbook, Beyond the Galleons. Reserve your copy today (wholesale copies are also available for a discount)—Beyond the Galleons will be released April 9, 2024.
yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/beyond-the-galleons-paperback
Beyond the Galleons is a meditation on Filipino experiences of colonization, ancestral connection, alienation, and the ghosts that haunt people living in geographic or psychological diasporas. Isabel juxtaposes historic moments from the days of Spanish and American colonial rule with threads of real women’s lived experiences to raise awareness of multicultural histories that might be less known or talked about.
Isabel was born in the Philippines and spent her childhood there before moving to Bethesda, Maryland. She holds degrees in literature and bioethics and is currently a practicing physician in Boston, Massachusetts. Beyond the Galleons first looks at the complicated interactions between Filipino natives and their colonial subjugators, shifting from Spanish to American imperialism, and culminating in imagined individual voices descended from those who lived through these histories. Tagalog, baybayin, Spanish, and English weave together to help tell a sometimes forgotten, sometimes ignored history. Isabel’s poems contemplate longing, resilience, and the need to hold on to memory while moving forward beyond pain.
About the cover, Isabel said, “I am in awe of what [Yellow Arrow creative director] Alexa Laharty produced and absolutely love the cover. With no visual art ability or aptitude, I had only vague ideas as to what a fitting design would be, and she brought together images that really capture the themes of historic memory and cartography, literal and figurative, that I try to explore in many of the poems.”
Find Isabel on Instagram and Twitter @poetintheOR or learn more about her at her website ilegarda.com. You can learn more about Isabel in a conversation between the author and Melissa Nunez, Yellow Arrow interviewer.
yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/dwelling-possibility-interview-isabel-cristina-legarda
Beyond the Galleons comes out in April 2024; make sure you preorder your copy today.