In Paolo Javier’s The Feeling Is Actual, he writes: “I’ve been / a grand-gesture guy in the past. & in all likelihood, / I will continue to be one in the future.” Javier hits the big notes in this collection: sex, romance, even aging and regret. The poetry often comes in the form of prose, as the discussion of a play or movie takes the place of life, the characters you and I; of humorous investigation, both abroad (the Philippines) and at home (Queens); and of visual poetry, in which comics collide with sly wit. All this with the multi-cultural vantage we expect from the poet, which comes to the fore in later sections, abetted by found images and typography. “if im like a piece of bok choy / then you are probably / a piece of broccoli… /it's just the communication thing”. Listen to this book, watch it, lap it up. —Vincent Katz

The accents in The Feeling Is Actual are shrapnelled clips of attention that cluster in Javier’s incendiary field of poetic perception. The texts reconnoiter and reveal, scope and identify the minute registers of alienation and disjunction at the edges of words. Joker: “I’m a man of my word.” Words that jar with a syllabic static to recuperate a palpable interference in the channels of this racialized/radicalized writing. “a missed sipping/ a musty reeve.” And reified by the subtle concretions of cartoon and photographic imagery, subtle markings that can turn the page into a post and lead us through the high occupancy lanes of these performances and texts. This is rush-hour poetry, so pay attention! —Fred Wah

ISBN-13: 978-0-9846353-3-7 (pbk.) $16.00