Alton Melvar M. Dapanas (they/them) is an essayist, poet, and translator from the southern Philippines. Author of three books of prose-poems and lyric essays including M of the Southern Downpours (Australia: Downingfield Press, 2024), their original writings and translations have appeared in World Literature Today, BBC Radio 4, Michigan Quarterly Review, Wasafiri, and elsewhere. They serve as editor-at-large for the Philippines at Asymptote Journal. Find more at https://linktr.ee/samdapanas.
Books
M of the Southern Downpours
Downingfield Press, 2024
In the Name of the Body: Lyric Essays
Wrong Publishing, 2023
Mourning Mebu’yan
Atomic Bohemian, 2024
Towards a Theory on City Boys: Prose Poems
Newcomer Press, 2021
Selected work
Miguel
Poetry Ireland Review, 2026
Five Prose Poems
Arc Poetry, 2023
Two Dagli
Modern Poetry in Translation, 2022
Two Poems
Modern Poetry in Translation, 2025
Excerpt from “Kagay-an and a Love in the Time of an All-out War”
The Massachusetts Review
Five Flash Nonfiction from “The Autobiography of the Other Lady Gaga”
Michigan Quarterly Review, 2025
Regla
World Literature Today, 2026
Wasi
World Literature Today, 2023