The renowned modernist poet of experiment and innovation known as “The Pope of Greenwich Village” and a pioneer of Filipino American poetry A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his first U.S. poetry collection published by Viking Press in 1942,  Villa was admired for “the reverence, the raptness, the depth of concentration in [his] bravely deep poems” (Marianne Moore). Doveglion (Villa’s pen name for dove, eagle, and lion) contains Villa’s collected poetry, including rare and previously unpublished material. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. ? Villa seems to me to possess one of the purest and most natural gifts discoverable anywhere in contemporary poetry.? ?Mark Van Doren ? [Villa is] a poet with a great, even an astounding, and perfectly original gift. . . . The best of his poems are among the most beautiful written in our time.? ?Edith Sitwell Villa seems to me to possess one of the purest and most natural gifts discoverable anywhere in contemporary poetry. Mark Van Doren [Villa is] a poet with a great, even an astounding, and perfectly original gift. . . . The best of his poems are among the most beautiful written in our time. Edith Sitwell a Villa seems to me to possess one of the purest and most natural gifts discoverable anywhere in contemporary poetry.a aMark Van Doren a [Villa is] a poet with a great, even an astounding, and perfectly original gift. . . . The best of his poems are among the most beautiful written in our time.a aEdith Sitwell Jose Garcia Villa (1908–1997) was a Filipino poet, writer, and critic. He used the pen name “Doveglion,” which was a combination of the words “dove,” “eagle,” and “lion” and was what he believed was his true persona. His notable works include The Anchored Angel , The Emperor’s New Sonnet , and Footnote to Youth .  John Edwin Cowen is a poet as well as a professor of literacy and education at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. His collection of poetry, Mathematics of Love: Poems by John Edwin Cowen , was published in 2011. He also edited Doveglion: The Collected Poems of Jose Garcia Villa .  Luis H. Francia a writer and professor with Hunter College’s Asian American Studies department. His writing has appeared in various publications including the  Village Voice  and  The Nation.  His works include  Eve of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago ,  The Artic Archipelago , and  Museum of Absence.  Additionally, he coedited  Flippin’: Filipinos on America ,  Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899–1999.  Introduction I knew of him, of course. In Manila, he possessed an outsized reputation both for his bohemian ways and, more importantly, his pronouncements on the state of Philippine letters. His selections of stories and poems that he judged worthy of notice had all the weight of papal encyclicals. When Filipino writers referred to José Garcia Villa as the “pope of Greenwich Village,” they were only half joking. And here I was, one spring evening in the early 1970s, at Smith’s Bar, a nondescript watering hole in the Village. Once a week, he and his poetry-workshop students from the nearby New School for Social Research would walk over to Smith’s for drinks (a very dry martini in José’s case) and animated, all-night conversations. New to the city and to the wide precincts of America, I was living with Henry, my oldest brother, now deceased, and his lovely wife, Beatriz. It was they who had brought me to meet José. Nothing remarkable marked that night. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Like any other impressionable young writer meeting a legendary figure, I expected the poet to display verbal pyrotechnics. After all, he was notorious for his withering put-downs, which made me understandably wary, for much as I wished to hear his mots justes—and I did quite often later on—my desire lacked any trace of masochism. He was unfailingly polite that night, no doubt owing to the presence of my brother who, being a filmmaker, had no need for José’s imprimatur and could therefore banter with him. And he was very fond of Beatriz, herself a writer but not a poet. I don’t remember what I said, or replied, to the questions José put to me—the same sort of questions any fellow expatriate would have asked, out of politeness and friendly curiosity. The following year, I enrolled in his New School course, and having completed that (or “graduated,” a favorite Villa term), I then signed up for the workshop at his apartment in the West Village, and studied wit