A Thousand Eyes by Jim Pascual Agustin

From the back cover:
Sound Before Water is a rich collection of quietly astonishing poems organised into five sections. In the simplest language, he inks a duo of vulnerability and steely strength into each poem. Exile, belonging, homelessness and randomness are some of the topics he touches in these political and personal poems. Survival, the invisibility of threat, the ache of connections to loved ones, to animals and to the elements, are just some of his thematic threads.
Agustin's poetry is direct and lucid, lyrical and sharp, poised and polished. I cannot remember when last I read a collection in which every poem was so affecting.
Karin Schimke, The Cape Times
Subtlety is a key element in Agustin's Sound Before Water.
His muted tropes lend sharpness to his works.
One of the most prolific poets of his generation.
Rina Angela Corpus, GMA News Online
Agustin’s poems serve as reflections and illuminations in these troubled times and become ever more relevant when the bombardment of images induced by cultural capital numbs us, makes us complicit to these crimes and dehumanizes us.
Gary Devilles, Philippine Daily Inquirer
The poems in Sound Before Water are not easy. They’re not easy on the emotions and they’re not easy on the imagination. There’s a subtle sorcery in these poems that grant us sometimes amazing, sometimes revelatory and sobering, at times puzzling, surprises. Trusting in Agustin's mastery is helpful in reading this book, an act that rewards us in the end [with] the sense of a world made new and astonishing.
Ramil Digal Gulle, InterAksyon