Fat Forward Books | Locus

Locus

Jason Bayani

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Life in a multicultural, multiethnic nation like the United States leads to complicated, sometimes fragmented experiences of our background and identity.

In Locus, Jason Bayani’s poetry explores the experience of identity that haunts Pilipinx-Americans in the wake of the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act, a critical moment left out of most histories of Asian-American life in the United States. Bayani’s poetry seeks to recuperate this silenced experience, rendering the loss of memory migration entails and representing the fragments of cultural history that surface in a new national context.

Drawing inspiration from the mixing and layering of musical fragments in DJ culture, Locus lays down tracks of memory to create a confident declaration of a distinctly Pilipinx-American voice, history, and artistic power. Indeed, his work reveals how these new creations often tie us to the most fundamental parts of ourselves: our families, our cultures, the vague memories passed down through generations.

In Locus, Bayani both renders the challenges of migration and captures an experience of selfhood and history, asserting a central place for migrant identity and experience in American culture.

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Fat Forward Books\ \ Samantha Puc\ \ • Jun 8

Pride Recommendations 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Happy Pride from #FatForwardBooks! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ If you’re looking for fat & LGBTQIA+ books to add to your TBR this summer, we’ve got you covered—and if you’re looking for even MORE fat & LGBTQIA+ books, be sure to check out our 2025 recs in our highlights!

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45 books

Fat Forward Books\ \ Samantha Puc\ \ • Aug 15 2024

Fat Liberation Month: Poetry

While you’re expanding your library (and/or your library holds list!) this #FatLiberationMonth, have you paid attention to your poetry section? If you haven’t, don’t fret! We have recommendations.

📚 Revenge Body by Caleb Luna 📚 Locus by Jason Bayani 📚 A Fate Worse Than Death by Nisha Patel 📚 What They Leave Behind: A Latinx Anthology edited by Vanessa Chica Ferreira 📚 Song of My Softening by Omotara James 📚 Fat Art, Thin Art by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Stay tuned for more fat book recs in other genres and age groups, and check our stories for a refresh of what we recommended last year! ✨ You can shop everything via @bookshop_org at the link in our Story and bio.

Compiled by Samantha Puc (@theverbalthing) & Jihye (@cranberryfossil)

#FatReads #FatBookRecs #QueerAndFat #FatAndTrans

6 books

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