For almost 250 years, between 1564 and 1815, the Manila Galleons crossed the Pacific - bringing luxury goods, slaves and silver between Manila and the New World. Each of those ships had its own name - they were always named after the port they started from (even when the same ship made the trip multiple times) and the route was an important alternative to the much longer crossing via the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. Because of its route, it is often omitted - it does not connect the Old Spain ports to the new ones after all - but in those years New Spain is part of Spain.

Barot takes this history and builds a collection around it. The backbone of the collection are the 10 poems called "The Galleons 1-10" which are telling part of that story, including one of the middle ones being nothing more than a complete list of all the Galleons' names and years. It is like a chant, just a list that seems to go forever. And around it are the pictures that keep repeating in your head - the slaves on the ships, the slaves that made it to the other side and the ones that did not, the captains and the objects. But it is not about that part of history - the Galleons brought people which have future histories and they are part of the collection as well - those histories merged with the history of the world and became our histories.

Barot is Filipino-American and a lot of those poems are about his family and his own experiences - using what he knows to add a context to a little known part of history. You will not learn much about the Galleons from the collection but it will send you reading about them. And even the poems that are not about that route on the surface end up connected - because they are the center of the experiences of a lot of people from this diaspora.

Highly recommended. ( )

This book features poetry that is more traditional than many NBA longlist picks.

All of the poems in this book are formed of non-rhyming, often open, couplets. The poems all reflect on colonialism (particularly of the Philippines by Spain); immigration; family; nature; and the things the wealthy buy (from art to what Spanish galleons carried back to Spain).

I liked this entire book. There is a lot to think on, and his juxtapositions are excellent. I had to look up a few things--the diamond-encrusted "art" actual human skull, Jack Spicer (who I need to read), the Infanta Margarita and Velazquez--and I am glad I did, because it all connects together. ( )