- Published: 5 October 2024
- ISBN: 9781784745776
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 96
- RRP: $40.00
Agimat
- Published: 5 October 2024
- ISBN: 9781784745776
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 96
- RRP: $40.00
'Romalyn Ante's mesmeric new collection is deeply rooted in the dualities of life, cultural identity, and the profound interplay of personal and communal experience. Vivid, lyrical, and always surprising, it is a testament to those who navigate the complex legacies of history toward healing and resilience. It is both a balm and a call to action, reminding us of the transformative power of bearing witness.'
Nathan Filer
‘Romalyn Ante’s first collection introduced us to a voice both vibrant and thoughtful. This collection grows out from this - now coming with a feeling of added power and forcefulness. This is a special book - both urgent and beautiful'
Niall Campbell
‘Ante is an alchemical wonder of a poet: unparalleled in her image-making, raw to both historical and contemporary damage and rich in cultures. Utterly original, AGIMAT is itself a talisman – a fiery binding of pain and a message of love to the wounded and lost. Keep these poems with you as I will – always’
Fiona Benson
‘If translation is always physical, often joyous work – the act of carrying meaning across the chasms separating languages – then AGIMAT is about the daily embodied acts involved in this labour. To live in translation is to be estranged. Yet the joy of translation comes from this very estrangement. Romalyn Ante makes us feel this, as estrangement transforms into its own vibrant space of joy. Ante’s irrepressible inquiries into translation create a colourful linguistic sanctuary’
Jason Allen-Paisant
‘With precision, deftness, and at times playfulness, AGIMAT weaves in mythical and modern imageries, the universal with the intimate. The result is a powerful and hopeful collection, filled with heart and beauty, that illuminates us to the many forms that caring and healing can take’
Cecile Pin
[A] spellbinding meditation on love and loss… Her poems throb vigorously with life… in the hands of Romalyn Ante the human self far exceeds statistics and the subtotal of all its scars
Observer
Ante’s second collection is rooted in her experience as an NHS nurse during Covid. She is unflinching in detailing the physical and emotional exhaustion of that labour… what unites the poems is her simple, beautiful language, and an awareness of the difficulty of healing
Guardian