Books
a thousand voices whispering
ISBN 9781965439104
"a thousand voices whispering is a living archive of memory, grief, and resilience. It is an intimate chorus of voices carried across oceans and generations. Through poetry that moves like both prayer and testimony, Biala transforms family histories of migration, trauma, and survival into sanctuaries of connection and courage. Immediately personal and collective, this collection insists on remembering, even when remembering hurts, and shows how poetry can document, heal, and sustain. It is a vital contribution to the literature of diaspora and survival, a book that will linger like a song refusing silence."
— Tshaka Campbell, Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Emeritus
one inch punch
ISBN 9781625492937
one inch punch is a collection of poems responding to the call of ancestors and our own broken bodies, spirits and earth. Each poem offering flows from gut, muscle, and memory into fingertips to strike from the closest distance between "us" and "them," reminding us that beyond each rise to action we must remain rooted in love.
her beckoning hands
ISBN 9781625490872
2015 American Book Award Winner
her beckoning hands is a collection of poems as prayer flags, offerings across the ocean, earth and sky. Biala's poems respond to family members, ancestors, spirits, deities, and beings whose voices have called out to her, and whose stories are of daily blessings, suffering, joy and longing.
continental drift
ISBN 0-931122-95-3
These stark, tender, sensual, and political poems explore stories of the generations who have left their native lands to live in America, particularly those from the islands of the Philippines. This collection goes beyond chronological storytelling into the dance of simultaneous experiences called forth by tragedy, family, and love.
“her beckoning hands is at once lullaby and ethnography, Hip Hop and meditation, usurping formal poetics and instead choosing to dance into the fluidity that is the potential of poetry in our daily exchanges.”