Join us for an exclusive Rumpus Poetry Book Club conversation with Oliver de la Paz for his poetry collection THE DIASPORA SONNETS led by Rumpus Poetry Editor, Brian Spears.

About the July Poetry Book Club selection:

De la Paz evocatively explores his search for a sense of “home” in THE DIASPORA SONNETS (Liveright; July 18, 2023), a formally inventive collection of sonnets. Here, poems flit with dulcet lyricism and nostalgia from coast to coast, spanning across prairies and deserts, musing on shadowy dreams of a faraway country along the way. With a virtuoso’s deft touch, THE DIASPORA SONNETS break and rejoin poetic tradition, powerfully capturing the peculiar pangs of a diaspora “that has left and is forever leaving.” For fans of Diane Seuss and Victoria Chang, a coruscating collection that eloquently invokes the perseverance and myth of the Filipino diaspora in America.

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author of six poetry collections, including The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. A recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Artist Trust, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, his work has appeared in the New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, and Poetry, among others. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and lives in Holden, Massachusetts.

Brian Spears is Senior Poetry Editor at The Rumpus and author of A Witness in Exile (Louisiana Literature Press 2011). He lives in Des Moines.

Sliding scale, pay-what-you can. All funds support The Rumpus.

Rumpus Poetry Book Club presents Oliver de la Paz, author of Diaspora Sonnets