Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

One Time Big Time elegizes, with the distinct depth of maternal grief, the sons and daughters stolen by the Duterte regime’s war on the poor. In a time of simultaneous global calamity, this sprawling collection is an essential and unflinching witness to the immeasurable cost of state-sponsored violence. Yet through this indictment, Vyxz Vasquez unearths, with the clarity of maternal love, an unrelenting optimism. Here, the poems tumble through the dark in an attempt to articulate the momentousness of each speck of blood disappearing into unlit alleys. The desire to live—its suffocating heft when facing the barrel of a service weapon—becomes a weight we must carry for each other.

—Pauline Lacanilao Arnould, Captor

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vyxz Vasquez (she/hers) is a PhD student of literature at the University of California San Diego and has an MA in creative writing from the University of the Philippines. She has three chapbooks: “One Time Big Time,” “Pensionados,” and “;”. Her work has been supported by the UP National Writers Workshop, Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, Tin House, Community of Writers, and Kenyon Review Workshop. She is a proud mother to Sago.