ARCHIPELAGO DUST is a first book by Karen Llagas and recipient of a Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize. Llagas has an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and a BA in Economics from Ateneo de Manila. A recipient of a Hedgebrook residency and a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, she works as a Tagalog interpreter & instructor, and a poet-teacher with the California Poets in the Schools. Advance words include, from Victoria Chang, "Llagas' poems reveal an introspective speaker, one who reflects on the adopted "America" around her with such thoughtfulness and grace" and, from Rick Barot, "LlagasÕs lyricism gives back a complex and sensuous measure to the world she writes about, in poems that are haunted, tender, and ardent."