Julia Wong Kcomt

Vice-royal-ties Julia Wong Kcomt

The poems in this chapbook by the Chinese Peruvian poet Julia Wong Kcomt play with binaries: in power, love, language, country, and identity.

Translated by Jennifer Shyue. The title of BI-REY-NATO, Julia Wong Kcomt's sixth poetry collection, is a homonym for virreinato or viceroyalty, but can also be broken down into its component words: bi (bi/two), rey (king), and nato (born). Likewise, the poems in this chapbook play with binaries: in power, love, language, country, identity. The salt in the air of seaside Lima, the setting of the first section, condenses into the salt that trails through the second section, set mostly in Argentina.

Poetry.