How does a queer brown body move through the American panorama? In Amphibian, Joseph O. Legaspi explores the metaphor of “amphibious living”—adapting, surviving, and flourishing in varying geographies—as it pertains to immigrants and to queerness. These poems draw on the natural world to illuminate personal experiences and, in turn, closely examine cultural, environmental, and societal constructs and concerns. Dwelling in landscape as a guide into the interior, Amphibian journeys not only between earth, water, and air, but also into the past, cataloging an immigrant’s departures, arrivals, and returns to native soil. This moving collection is at every turn liberating, fraught, and altered.
“Legaspi’s Amphibian is teeming with rich musicality, aromatic imagery, and striking turns. This is a true ecological mural of relational belonging.” —Geffrey Davis, author of One Wild Word Away
“Amphibian is a book of feverish wonders. Legaspi is a poet of the senses. The heat is palpable, the poems sing.” —Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters
“These exquisite poems explore what it means to be amphibious—and the malleability and alchemy required to thrive in two different terrains.” —R. Zamora Linmark, author of Pop Vérité
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Joseph O. Legaspi 