Names Above Houses

Back Cover

poetry “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 Oliver de la Paz was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Ontario, Oregon. He has served as the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College and currently teaches at Arizona State University, where he received his M.F.A. in creative writing. His poems have appeared in the Literary Review, Quarterly West, Third Coast, and Asian Pacific American Journal and in the anthology Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Literature. crab orchard award series in poetry Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Erin Kirk New Cover illustration: Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Pasyon, 1996, acrylic on canvas and wood board (8 x 10 inches each) Southern Illinois University Press 1915 university press drive mail code 6806 carbondale, il 62901 www.siupress.com isbn 0-8093-2382-6 isbn 978-0-8093-2382-1 ...