Marianas Variety editor and long-time Saipan resident Zaldy Dandan has published his first collection of verse, “We Will Kiss Like It’s Air and We’re Running Out of It.” The 39 poems in the collection feature topics ranging from the point of view of a baby boy about breastfeeding to a triptych depicting the melodramatic comedy (or comedic melodrama) of  the Philippine Revolution.

The book’s cover features artwork by Pacific Island Times publisher and Guam artist Mar-Vic Cagurangan. The collection is available on Kindle and amazon.com.

Dandan was first inspired to write poetry and verse after reading John Ciardi’s “How Does a Poem Mean”  in his early 20s. Since then, he has been awarded fellowships to national writing workshops in the Philippines and his creative works have been published in the Philippines and in Tayo, a literary magazine based in San Francisco.

“[Inspiration] can be anything really. A word, a phrase, an image, a memory, a person, another poem,” Dandan says.