Ghost Face deals with the following themes:Parenthood, adoption, identity, migration, poetry as memoir, family mythologies, and mourning, The poetry is raw, intimate and deals with complicated and poignant family histories.
"Don't be lulled by the seeming plain-spokenness and ease of Santos' poetry. Underlying his simplicity is a hard-earned wisdom and the courage of living with the truth of loss. Wherever he takes you to Angkor or Lisboa, to Paris or his backyard, these poems with their fragments and glimpses of connections will 'feel real.''' - Phoebe Wang, author of Admission Requirements
"Greg Santos' poems play with themes of parenthood and adoption, while exploring the geographies of growing up with Cambodian ancestry in a mixed Spanish and Portuguese family." - CULT MTL
Greg Santos is the author of Blackbirds (Eyewear, 2018), Rabbit Punch! (DC Books, 2014), and The Emperor’s Sofa (DC Books, 2010). He is of Cambodian, Portuguese, and Spanish descent. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. He regularly works with at-risk communities, and teaches at the Thomas More Institute. He is the poetry editor of carte blanche. Santos lives in Montreal with his wife and two children.
In Ghost Face by Greg Santos, we balance gracefully between the past, the present, and steadily through what haunts us. With each engaging poem, we’re reminded that stories shape our world and how poetry invites us in to partake in the narrative. In a history made of tweezers, / removing a splinter from a child’s palm, we question, Dear ghosts, / where do your atoms reside?–with pain comes healing, with history comes inquiry. Santos’ poems are inventive, smart, and skillfully written and his work does not disappoint. Ghost Face is a beautiful collection that thoughtfully examines family mythologies, identity, and a longstanding belief in ghosts. These are poems I kept returning to, a book I could not put down. –KELLI RUSSELL AGODON, AUTHOR OF HOURGLASS MUSEUM & THE DAILY POET: DAY-BY-DAY PROMPTS FOR YOUR WRITING PRACTICE