World Poetry Day onwards

Still can’t get over Mike Bigornia’s unexpected demise three weeks ago. Quite ironic that our usually celebratory, highly literary month of September also had to involve such a loss. As if it weren’t bad enough that the September 11 catastrophe that has led to yet another war also occurred on the same luckless month.

And now, despite all indications to the contrary, can we hope for an October of rebuilding hope?

Mike’s passing brings back to mind and heart the early loss of another dear friend, the poet-journalist Alfrredo Navarro Salanga. Freddie left us exactly a baker’s dozen years ago. That was when World Poetry Day was commemorated globally on October 15. Now I don’t hear about it anymore. Could it have fallen out of favor or disuse, or its organizers given up on the date?

I’m at least glad to hear that today, tonight, if twelve hours behind Manila time, our poet-friends in New York are getting together at the Manila Garden restaurant in Manhattan – in communal rekindling of hopes and spirits as well as to toast one of our kindred, Luis Cabalquinto, on the release of his new collection of poetry, Bridgeable Shores: Selected Poems (1969-2001). [Galatea Speaks, an imprint of Muse Publishing/Kaya Press, at www.kaya.com].

Eric Gamalinda, Luis Francia and his wife Midori, Nick Carbo and his wife Denise Duhamel, Eileen Tabios who wrote the Intro to the book, Allan Benamer, Paolo Javier, possibly Bino Realuyo, Gina Apostol, Lara Stapleton, Bert Florentino, and the rest of our "usual suspects" among Fil-Am writers and their friends affiliated with the Asian-American Writers Workshop, will happily assemble for the book party. Wish we were there.

Here’s toasting to you too, Luis, and to the ties that bind and provide constant affirmation.

Four days later, on Friday, October 19, clear across a sad and angry, security-conscious country, at the Philippine Consulate General on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, Consul and Mrs. Edwin Bael and Robert Little Jr. and Linda Maria Nietes of Philippine Expressions Bookshop host Authors’ Night 2001, with seven new titles by Filipino and Filipino American authors to be launched. These are:

The Kissing: A Collection of Stories by Merlinda Bobis, the gifted poet, fictionist, playwright and performer who’s been based at the University of Wollongong in Australia (she’s on a U.S. book tour and will render a 15-minute performance at the launch);

A Child in the Midst of Battle: One Family’s Struggle for Survival in War-torn Manila, a memoir by Evelyn Berg Empie written in collaboration with her son Stephen Mette (now a resident of Rancho Palos Verdes in California, Mrs. Empie "is of Filipino-Spanish-German roots... and whose father owned Berg’s Department Store in Escolta of pre-war Manila");

Spring, Autumn, Sunset: A Collection of Inspirational and Compassionate Poetry by Enriqueta Cartagena Mayuga, a practicing physician from Pasco, Washington;

Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella, an illustrated book for children by Myrna de la Paz Mulhern, a Manila-born playwright-director who revived this Filipino tale that "has disappeared from mainstream folk literature – a casualty of more than three hundred years of Spanish colonization and a century of Americanization."

A Mat Weaver’s Story: The Legend of Bungansakit, a 600-verse epic poem about pre-Hispanic ancestors in Basey, Samar, by Wilmo C. Orejola, a practicing physician and inventor from New Jersey;

American Son: A Novel by Brian Ascalon Roley, a first book that has drawn positive reviews in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times (an early chorus we hope to join ravingly soon); and

Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans by Leny Mendoza Strobel, a Professor with the American and Multicultural Studies Department at Sonoma State University.

Dr. Strobel’s book "is about the healing of the Filipino colonized psyche through the recovery and re-imagination of Filipino identity and culture... (and) the emergence from the ‘culture of silence’ to critical consciousness that is able to develop frameworks about the Filipino American experience."

These notes were prepared by Linda Nietes, to whom we owe thanks for the posting on this noteworthy affair. Should you find yourself in LA this weekend, do try to join the Fil-Am literary tribe in its annual exultation over the "Printed Word." It starts at 6 p.m.

Other authors and literati expected to attend are novelist and performance artist Noel Alumit; scholars and co-authors (of Confrontations, Crossings and Convergence: Potographs of the Philipines and the Unied States, 1898-1998, which we reviewed over a year ago) Dr. Enrique de la Cruz and Pearlie Rose S. Baluyut; essayist Prosy Abarquez de la Cruz; children’s story writers Cecile Caguingan Ochoa and Fe Panaligan Koontz; poet Loreta M. Medina (whose book Heading Home was described by Marjorie Evasco as "a pilgrim’s testament to the shape of her solitary transit... each word naming a homesickness every pilgrim knows by heart."); academician, non-fiction author and tri-media (theater, film and television) performer Nenita Pambid Domingo; fictionist and memoirist Lia Relova Scott Price; and six-time Palanca winner for playwriting Mar Puatu, who has also written a novel since he migrated way back in 1977.

The program for Authors Night includes a part called "In Memoriam," which will honor the memory of the dear departed among our literary circles: poet Carlos A. Angeles; poet and fictionist Valorie Slaughter Bejarano; writer Royal F. Morales; and poet, essayist and memoirist P. C. Morantte.

Again, we join our brethren in spirit, and wish their affair to be a most memorable evening.

Particularly exciting are the prospects of having a Filipino American author, the remarkable novelist Brian Ascalon Roley, win the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Award, which is to be announced the day after by the Pacific Rim Institute based at the University of San Francisco. Roley’s American Son is one of five fiction finalists out of 301 books entered from all over the world.

Although we have yet to meet him, we have marveled at Roley’s scintillating prose, and wish him that prize, tomorrow if not tomorrow and tomorrow ...

Back here at home, Saturday, October 20 turns into a red-letter day on two fronts: the Grand Meng Seng Hotel in Davao City where writers and teachers gather for a full day’s seminar-workshop with lectures by Jing Hidalgo, Jimmy Abad, Pete Lacaba, Jaime An Lim and this writer, who will also launch a new title; and Sanctum at Intramuros, where the second issue of the new literary magazine MUSA will be launched and celebrated with a special reading.

MUSA’s pilot issue was launched last month at Starbucks in Legaspi Village, with no less than Dr. Edith L. Tiempo, "Mom" and/or National Artist for Literature to everyone, in attendance. She happened to be on a brief visit from Dumaguete.

Selling for P50 per copy, MUSA: The Philippine Literature Magazine, is a bilingual monthly that features poems, stories, short plays, essays, features, interviews with writers, book reviews, and regular columns by Jimmy Abad, Merlie M. Alunan, Teo Antonio and Roland B. Tolentino. Editor-in-Chief is the young writer Ana Ablaza Baluyut, who accompanied the PLAC poets to the Singapore Writers Festival last month, and writes about it in this new issue.

Issue 2 is a big improvement over the first one, which suffered from all sorts of glitches, from grammatical to graphical. Carlomar A. Daoana is a valuable addition to the staff, and here he proves it with his cover story on "Pop Poetry" and an on-line interview of Virginia-based wordwinner Luisa A. Igloria. But the publication still needs a mature, overseer-ing eye, or a diligent oversight committee to perform the critical blue-pencil function, especially for the English text, where usage can welcome a push and a shove toward correctness, perchance felicity.

Still and all, congratulations to Ana and her well-meaning cohorts for providing another venue for our homegrown literature.

Two other literary journals accept submissions from up-and-coming and established writers. At the recent launch of Beauty for Ashes: Remembering Maningning Miclat at UP Diliman, we received a copy of ANI, the regular anthology produced by the Literature Division of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). We were surprised to learn that this recent issue is already the 27th since its launch in 1986.

Editor-in-Chief Herminio S. Beltran, Jr. says it now comes out on an annual basis, usually in the the third quarter when CCP celebrates its anniversary.

The latest issue is titled "Ngayon ang Kinabukasan: Pinoy Writing Beyond 2K." Futuristic pieces are well-organized, especially the section on fiction, which gives readers a treat by featuring the first, second and third prize winners of last year’s Palanca awards for Futuristic Fiction in both Filipino and English. This makes for the strongest section in the journal, with Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak, Lakambini "Bing" Sitoy and Mario A. Aguado providing enjoyable sci-fi-oriented stories. Then there’s a short play in Filipino by Palanca Prize record-setter Rene O. Villanueva.

ANI Tomo 27 is excellently designed by Edward S. Cabagnot, who obviously had a field day coming up with the computer art for the cover and inside pages. He must have been on a sabbatical from his usual (vitriolic) emceeing chores.

The notes on contributors are sorely incomplete, however, so that we’re left curious as to the relation between Filipino poet Luisito V. Queaño and English translator Nonilon V. Queaño. Son and father, or brothers, we wonder.

This issue is predominantly Filipino in its poetry, although editor Beltran admirably offers poems in both Filipino and English, as does Carlo A. Arejola. Melecio F. Turao has the best poems in English.

Another, fresher venue as a regular publication is TOMAS, the bi-annual literary Journal of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Studies headed by Dr. Ophelia A. Dimalanta. Issue No. 4 came out last month, with F. Sionil Jose and Joselito B. Zulueta as Issue Editors. It has been a clean, well-designed and handsome affair, albeit some typos still get in the way of pluperfect enjoyment.

The essay section in the latest issue is particularly strong, what with contributions from Leonard (and not Leonardo) Casper, Juan T. Gatbonton and Elmer Ordoñez. The poetry section includes the latest works of Dimalanta, Zulueta, Hermie Beltran, Mike Coroza, Ramil Digal Gulle, Christine Godinez-Ortega, Doris Trinidad, Singaporean poets Goh Poh Seng and Leong Liew Geok, Larry Francia in bi-lingual form, and someone misnamed Yuzon.

Antonio Enriquez and Linda Ty Casper offer new stories, while Elena Luna conducts an interview with National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose. Here’s quoting briefly from dear Frankie:

"Most writers have only one thing to say but they try and say it in so many different ways. In this sense, I have already said what I have always wanted to say, but... I will continue to utilize this fertile ground at my feet."

Might as well end with another quote from another of our four living National Artists for Literature. Mom Edith was in Manila again a couple of weeks ago. She was conferred an honoris causa, Doctor of Humanities, by De La Salle University at its commencement exercises held at the PICC on October 6. She delivered the address, titled "Taking the Forward Look."

Here’s a brief excerpt:

"Your speaker, as you know, is a literary writer and educationist. And expectedly, I will speak this morning as a literary writer and teacher, but not necessarily to deliver encomiums on great literature and authors and their remarkable works and their debatable critical theories.

"If we were to ask any reasonable person what, in his opinion, is the prior need of our world today, very likely he would say, ‘The world needs peace.’ And who would gainsay that reply in the face of the disasters of the last century occasioned by wars, and still being perpetrated today in the horrendous deeds of terrorism around the globe...

"... Thus, there are those who fear that because of clichés and the formula habit, love is not properly understood and is being replaced by mutual suspicion, separatedness, and hate – and in the consequent absence of harmony and peace, the forces of violence and terrorism could continue to pervade our world.

"But here again, we have the peace-makers who fight clichés and defy the habit of formula; these are the inventive poets among us, to whom clichés are anathema. The poet Robert Frost eschewed the cliché ‘Love your neighbor.’ He said it in a different way, a more inventive way, his words capturing our attention when he said, ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.’ Such words could make loving one’s neighbor an existing component of peace in society.

"One final idea about peace. There are those who say that human beings are too prone to anger, and too inclined to hot-headed retaliations. Peace cannot prevail when the leaders of aggrieved countries are too ready to pump the gun or drop the bomb. And it is true that not just the leaders, but the citizens as well are bound to keep their cool. And I have known of people – for there are such people – who remain unruffled, whose dignity does not forsake them when they are confronted by very unpleasant or humiliating situations. For example, there is the very fine case of the unflappable professor of philosophy who was lecturing to his class on the nature of truth. Truth is always a challenging subject, and he got so excited that his dentures fell out. Everyone was terribly embarrassed, but the professor simply picked up his teeth, put them on, and said, ‘Class, those were the only false things that came out of my mouth this morning."

"We can have peace, as long as there are professors like that, who may occasionally get the proverbial absent-mindedness, but who are not flummoxed by difficult and unpleasant confrontations."

Thanks, Mom. And a Happy World Poetry Day to you too.