Birth Language: Poems - Paperback

by Aimee Suzara (Author)

Aimee Suzara's second full-length book Birth Language centers on a Filipina-American time traveling through her history, twisted and haunted like the roots of a balete tree.

The book fuses English, Spanish, and Tagalog. It employs archival texts from as early as the 1500s when European conquistadors and explorers encountered the pre-colonial Philippine islands. Guided by the babaylan (shaman) and populated by mythical creatures like the mananneansal kapre, and sireno, the collection celebrates a history of resistance, reclaiming and redefining the self despite colonization, assimilation, and cultural loss.

Author Biography

Filipino American poet, playwright, performer, and educator, Aimee Suzara, is the author of the poetry collection SOUVENIR (Wordtech Editions, 2014) and two chapbooks, Finding the Bones and The Space Between (Finishing Line Press, 2013 and 2008). Her poems, prose, and plays have appeared in Kartika Review, California Language Association Journal, Orion Magazine, Raising Mothers, Poets.org, Mom Egg Review, and Women Re-Creating Classics(Bloomsbury 2025), among others. As a multidisciplinary performer, Suzara has collaborated with dance theater and music ensembles such as Deep Waters Dance Theater and the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Mills College. Based in Oakland, California, she teaches writing at Bay Area colleges and universities and through her coaching business, Wild Tongues.