Mix-Mix: Poems

Throughout this triumphant collection, Dani Putney stretches again and again across the Pacific, searching for some way to be “the most Filipinx version / of myself”—a “yearning for an archipelago / denied to me at conception” that juxtaposes uneasily, in fact brilliantly, with the yearning of American men for Filipina women. Caught between two countries and three languages, Mix-Mix will suspend you, too, in the traditional Filipino dessert of which its name is the English translation: you’ll find yourself in a tall glass, surrounded by the sweet, the colorful, and the cold.

In Dani Putney’s new collection Mix-Mix, the poet writes “imagination is all I have when history gives me nothing”—and yet, lush imagination is what allows this poet’s stunning work to breathe and bloom, as the speaker grapples with existence as a mixed-race nonbinary Filipinx American. “Mix-mix,” a translation of the name of a Filipino dessert called “halo-halo,” refers, yes, to the complex idea of miscegenation, but also to the trauma experienced via imperialist notions of what it means to be both of and other, as well as what it’s like to be at once queer and brown. The book is also rife with nostalgic food references describing nourishment from the Philippines: “chicken / adobo, a row of fish heads, / & my mom’s favorite, pork / blood stew”—imagery that feeds even those unfamiliar with the dishes. Still, because the speaker was “born with ghosts in [their] eyes,” it is clear why they “want / to touch the history in [their] bones”—as if everything that matters is contained, hidden within. Yes, imagination is potentiality and nourishment, and the future is malleable, yielding under the brown body’s efforts to find home in both self and surroundings. Putney’s important collection proclaims “I am the ultimate possibility”—an anthem for the colonized everywhere.

In Mix-Mix, Putney’s second poetry collection, the reader embarks on an achingly poignant exploration of identity, sexuality, heritage, and family framed as a latent coming-of-age story Putney weaves together into captivating verse that effectively blends evocative diction and poetic conventions. This intimate narrative delves deep into the speaker’s life as they confront their mixed-race lineage in language that is bold, eschewing conversational propriety in critical moments, rendering the intoxicating effect of shaping the reader into Putney’s confessor and confidante. Putney deftly unravels the uneven intricacies of a Filipina mother and a late white father’s mail-order marriage by embracing the full depth of the complexities such a dual heritage brings with it, set against the challenging backdrop of queer sexuality and non-binary identity. Each poem owns its page and provides a compelling and necessary piece of the larger puzzle at play here coming into clearer view as the speaker grapples in honest and stark fashion with the reality of how the Past must necessarily inform the Present, through pop-culture references, reflections on parental relationships, and an unapologetic dive into their queer experiences, all of which are articulately intertwined to create an original tapestry of modern American verse. In Mix-Mix, the reader may feel the inescapable weight of Putney’s circumstances stemming from the life one is born into, but this is only in order for Putney to better illustrate how empowering those personal truths can become if given the chance, and how illuminating those same truths can prove to be in helping us find our place in the world. Mix-Mix, as a testament to such self-discovery, will resonate long after the final page has been turned and culminates in a stirring collection of poems that burn and crackle in the light of unwavering faith in the fact that a life truly lived must be fully examined, no matter the cost.