ABOUT THE BOOK

In this virtuosic ensemble of poems sung in keys traditional and procedural, Christine V. Lao appraises the capacity of words to trace the gap, discern the displaced, and refract the lost. Resolute and spirited, the poems honor the poet’s duty to reckon with erasures past and present, with violence both enforced by the state and ensconced in intimate relationships, without absolving language of its role in the imposition of these harms. Training its attention on legal documents and the lexicon of law, Affidavit of Loss confronts the terrifying power of language as law to dictate the course of our lives, laying bare the persistent desire to find other ways of being in the power of language as poetry.

—Conchitina Cruz

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christine V. Lao is the author of Musical Chairs: Stories, a finalist of the 19th Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award. She teaches writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Previously, she practiced law and served as a judicial staff head at the Supreme Court of the Philippines in Manila.

“Affidavit of Loss” received the Gawad Antonio Mercado Abad for Best Dissertation from the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman.