"Like the poet, I watched some of the grown-ups around me swallow the bitterness of the so-called American Dream, and together, we hungered for something more. Feast reminds us that we can break this cycle of bitterness and transform it into beautiful, imagined futures. To be eaten does not have to be othering; it can be a way of knowing and understanding. Perhaps this is why the poet ends the poem “Bitter Melon” with an invitation to us readers: “taste me. / taste me.”"
—Hilary Sun, Northwest Review
“…a lushly beautiful collection that follows a world populated by mothers and daughters, the food and plants that connect them, and their Filipinx culture and language.”
—Angela María Spring, Washington Independent Review of Books
“…We are hungry to understand our histories and our families in all their gluttony, temperance, and appetites. We want to know their stomach pangs, their favorite flavors, how they like to eat and how we can prepare that food for them. We are hungry for a poet who can put all this into words. Graciously inviting us through twilight and rain with the guidance of their balintataw, Ina Cariño provides us with this luscious, mystical, defiant Feast.”
—Amanda L. Andrei, Barrelhouse
“Cariño’s collection adeptly grapples with the tensions of existing in the United States as an immigrant and a queer person alongside the beauty of Filipino culture and lineage. Their debut feels boldly autobiographical, and Feast does not hesitate to use the physical body as a canvas to explore these themes. … There is no doubt that Ina Cariño is an important poet of our age, one who will not hesitate to share the stories they find in beautifully gripping detail.”
—Lena M. Tinker, The Harvard Crimson
"One morning, I listened to “Everything is Exactly the Same as it Was the Day Before” and extra-knew I needed to read Cariño’s extraordinary debut as soon as possible."
—Connie Pan, Book Riot
“Feast relays various lush feasts of language and of food”
—Cindy Juyoung Ok, The Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books
"'To be other is to read badly-/drawn maps,' writes Ina Cariño, 'to hum / with a revolutionary's love song.' I love the vividness of these poems, the language of the senses that's so alive on each page of FEAST. But these poems aren't just beautiful, sensual lyrics. There is more at stake here. Cariño is a kind of poet who claims family and identity with style that's akin to spell-making. "I dream in a tongue not my own" the poet says, and we see it instantly: Here, even a simple act of cooking rice can become a ceremony, a rhapsody of liberation. All of this is done not with literary pretension but with vulnerability and honesty. If Ina Carińo says 'names are spells,' it is because this poet aims to write actual spells, and not just with the pen, but with breath: 'I am the last spell, the only song left. deliberate utterance of bone.' Here, we are in presence of something special, I think. Bravo." —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa “This book is not just a sensory feast, it’s a whole literary event—each poem full of candor and heart. It arrives dressed and dripping for a stunning, most spectacular debut!”
—Aimee Nezhukumatathil
