In Jon Pineda's debut collection Birthmark, loss takes the shape of a scar, memory the shape of a childhood, and identity the shape of a birthmark on a lover's thigh. Like water taking the form of its container, Pineda's poems swell to fill the lines of his experiences.

In Jon Pineda’s debut collection "Birthmark, " loss takes the shape of a scar, memory the shape of a childhood, and identity the shape of a birthmark on a lover’s thigh. Like water taking the form of its container, Pineda’s poems swell to fill the lines of his experiences. Against the backdrop of Tidewater, Virginia’s crabs and cicadas, Pineda invokes his "mestizo—"the Tagalog word for being half Filipino—childhood, weaving laments for a tenuous paternal relationship and the loss of a sibling. Channeling these fragmented memories into a new discovery of self, "Birthmark "reclaims an identity, delicate yet unrelenting, with plaintive tones marked equally by pain, reflection, and redemption.