Exploring Immigrant Lives in Hari Alluri's "The Flayed City" – A Must-Read for Filipino-Canadian Poetry Lovers

The Flayed City by Filipino-Canadian poet Hari Alluri has been praised by US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as a work that "carries a new, quiet brush of multi-currents, of multi-worlds to paint this holographic life-scape." In this collection, Alluri offers an intimate look into the lives of city dwellers and immigrants through charged poems that sweep together "an archipelago song" scored by memory and landscape, history and mythology, desire and loss.

Driven by themes of residual displacement, family, violent yet delicate masculinity, and undervalued yet imperative work, Alluri's lines quiver with his distinctive rendering of praise and lament. Steeped with "gravity and blood," his poems create vivid imagery where "the smell of ants being born surrounds us" and "city lights form constellations // invented to symbolize war."

The Flayed City provides a powerful glimpse into a secondary world whose cities, cultural histories, and trajectories are hybrids or "immigrated" versions of our own. This collection is a significant contribution to Filipino-Canadian literature, showcasing the talents of Filipino-Canadian authors and offering a unique perspective on the immigrant experience.

For fans of Filipino-Canadian poetry and those interested in the nuanced lives of immigrants, The Flayed City is a must-read. Hari Alluri's work stands out as a testament to the rich, hybrid cultural narratives that shape our world. Don't miss this extraordinary collection from one of the prominent Filipino-Canadian poets of our time.