Award-winning poet Dinah Roma launches third book

De La Salle University literature professor Dinah Roma launched her third book of poetry, "Naming the Ruins," in Sydney last month, according to a release from DLSU.

Published as part of Vagabond Press' Asia Pacific series, the book "ruminates on the guises of ruins in our encounter with everyday—how in the slow shedding of surfaces we inevitably excavate our deepest resources, from where we rise to an awareness of what renders us vulnerable and enduring, what allows us to trace and inhabit landscapes at once ineffable and sublime," the publisher says on its site.

While in Australia, Roma also participated in two events at the Sydney Writers' Festival: the Asian Contemporary Poetry Reading Marathon and the panel discussion Open Words and Worlds.

"[A]side from listening to Pulitzer Prize-winning Alice Walker (whom I’ve read as a university student), meeting other writers, and reading my poems on Radio National Australia, I was also very glad to have met the Filipino community in Sydney. Many responded deeply to my [Typhoon] Haiyan poem and, I guess, these connections are what really matter after all,” said Roma about her experience.

“It was a privilege to have been able to represent not only DLSU but the country. And I’m glad that DLSU acknowledges the importance of supporting our writers and artists in having our voices heard elsewhere,” she added.

Poet and Vagabond Press publisher Michael Brennan said that with the Asia Pacific series, “I’m trying to create a space that will be open and expansive. We’ve done six three-poet collections so far, along with Dinah Roma’s magnificent 'Naming the Ruins', and it’s a very exciting start to what I hope will grow rapidly to be a series where people around the world can gain access to a broad and inclusive range of contemporary work from Asia Pacific.”

Roma's previous poetry collections are "A Feast of Origins" (UST, 2004) and "Geographies of Light" (UST, 2011). — BM, GMA News