All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems
Michelle Peñaloza

2024 James Laughlin Award Winner
2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Winner

All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems challenges colonized ideas of history and truth, particularly in relation to Filipinx/a/o history and its colonization by the United States. Engaging with archival materials and playing with the sounds of remembered words and their unique associations, Michelle Peñaloza confronts violent and ironic tensions within historical narratives, subverting erasure and creating her own cultural fluency that speaks to growing up in diaspora and the complexities of identity, motherhood, and the transmission of love across generations.

“This collection is remarkable. It overflows with medicine and inspiration”
—Jen Soriano

“Peñaloza’s singular voice recasts both personal and global history; our losses are no longer just sites of grief, but totems of power and resiliance.”
—Angela Garbes

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize and two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes. Some of her honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation and grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Upstate Creative Corps, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Literary Arts, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists). The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She now lives in Covelo, California.

Paperback / $19.00 (Can. $25.00) / ISBN 978-0-89255-627-4 / 96 pages / Poetry