Traceable Relation [Paperback]

A collection of linked essays and poems concerned with the vitality of art and writing in the wake of grief. At the intersections of poetry, sonic/ visual text, nonfiction, and arts writing, Traceable Relation portrays a writers practice within a lineage of aesthetic and practical sensibilities conveyed in the personal effects of her late father and the concrete tasks of communal mourning. In her ongoing practice of speaking nearby various works of film, sound installation and pop music, innovative, contemporary writing emerges from the diasporic arts of memory and survivance.Kimberly Alidio, a poet, essayist, historian, and teacher, is the author of five poetry collections: Traceable Relation (Fonograf Editions, 2025); Teeter (Nightboat Books, 2023), winner of both the Nightboat Poetry Prize and the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry; why letter ellipses (selva oscura, 2020); : once teeth bones coral : (Belladonna*, 2020), a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; and after projects the resound (Black Radish, 2016). Essays have appeared in e-flux, Poetry Foundation, American Quarterly, Social Text, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of American History, and the anthology, Filipino Studies: Palimpsests of the Nation and Diaspora (New York University Press, 2016). She has been awarded fellowships, prizes, and artist residencies from the University of Arizonas MFA Program, Kundiman, Naropa Universitys Summer Writing Program, the Center for Art and Thought, the University of Illinois Asian American Studies Program, and the Spencer Foundation/ National Academy of Education. Any traceable relation points to untraceable voices, references and lineages too faint or tenuous to glimpse. Here, it prompts an ardent inquiry into the uses and limits of language, a foundational critique of colonial damage, and a tender appraisal of form. It's no surprise that Chantal Akerman is among the many who inform this book which, like that directors films, inhabits life l/