Juggernaut is not for the faint hearted. Its poems careen from surgical to surreal, attend to the comical and criminal, and dispense an unflinching diagnosis of all that ails the self, the familial, the familiar, and the nation during and after the covid-19 pandemic. In one of this massive collection’s early poems, the persona rues that “life is all fright/and laughter shrouded/in colours” not quite the consolation we crave, but an argument against despair nonetheless, one that invites us to look more closely at the strange, artless beauty that limns our fragile existence. A formidable first book.

1. Philippine Poetry (English) 2. Philippine poetry (English) ? Collections.