Galleons were sailing ships used by Spain for war and trade in the fifteenth through seventeenth century. The author of The Galleons, Rick Barot, was born in the Philippines, which was a colony of Spain during the era of galleons, so I expected this collection of poems to be about colonialism and mercantilism. In some places it is, but galleons and cargo also work as metaphors for treasures we carry inside. There is nothing didactic or judgmental in the poems. The author focuses on particulars, and descriptions that are both tangible and intangible, floating like a feather from connection to connection, and the end result is beautiful. All of the poems are written in couplets. My favorite lines in The Galleons are at the end of the last poem in the book: “I used to think to write poems, to make art,/ meant trying to transcend the prosaic elements/ of the self, to arrive at some essential place, where/ poems were supposed to succeed. I was wrong.”
Here’s what Poetry International says:
