Poetry readings, anyone?

We turn over this week’s space to a guest writer, the young Pedro Dumancas, who sent us a rather insightful piece titled “The Return of the Poets” — where he astutely recognizes the apparent sunrise industry involving poetry readings and performances, as well as their possible relationship with sociopolitical conditions.

Dumancas has obviously been a regular observer at such gatherings. What surprises is how he traces the current explosion in poetry awareness to a time well into the past, when he must still have been less than an adolescent.

True enough, a dynamic spirit seems to be a-borning with regards the appreciation and application of poetry.

At West Point, plebes are being taught poetry as a humanizing experience imbued with elliptical concerns, the painstaking evaluation of which clearly counterpoints the fast-track rigors in preparing to be an efficient, effective soldier. Thus, the US military academy cadets are eventually shipped out to Iraq and other trouble spots armed with a knowledge of Shakespeare’s sonnets, as well as a salient memory of war poems, especially by Chinese poets, who never write lyrically of actual battles but rather dwell peripherally on the loneliness of the frontier guard or the anguish of anticipation before actual combat.

Here we have Vim Nadera, UP Institute of Creative Writing director, applying poetry as therapy for cancer victims. Only recently, I met Gang Badoy of Rock Ed Philippines, a group involved in social and cultural work, who asked if I’d be interested in teaching poetry to inmates at the national penitentiary. It was all I could do from biting my lip, that is, holding the tongue back before it could quip that I might get to do that as a fellow detainee if the tides of luck don’t turn soon.

It was at Kape Isla at Serendra where I sat down with the Rock Ed group before a reading last Wednesday, the first held at the cafe. It featured 14 poets, a dozen of them in their 20s and 30s. (The other two were centenarians.) When the reading started, at one point a group of people passing by peered through an open glass panel and quickly remarked, “Oh, a poetry reading.” Such instant recognition.

And when the irrepressible Gelo Suarez took his act outdoors, with soaring decibels attending his “heightened language,” why, even a security guard seemed to take cognizance that here was yet another fool conducting public art, but certainly not a terrorist.

The fellow in uniform, together with the rest of the crowd milling at Serendra’s entrance, may have been well served by the precedent of a poetry reading conducted the previous week: A Different Bookstore’s hosting of “Silkmoon Speakeasy” — a duet between poets Marjorie Evasco and Mookie Katigbak.

That same hour on that fateful night (of the Glorietta blast two Fridays ago), UMPIL or Writers Union of the Philippines poets were holding our own reading at another fresh venue, the Ortigas Foundation library. The conflict in schedule pointed to an obvious trend that has caught on, for the long season. And as Dr. Evasco emphasized in her eventual account of the “Silkmoon” reading, that the simultaneous events pushed through in the aftermath of that Glorietta tragedy was an indication of greater need for the craft as practiced, verbalized and shared before an expanding audience.

“All the more was it the time for poetry,” she wrote. Echoing Frida Kahlo, she added: “Defenderse de los cabrones! We cannot allow those bastards to win the day and take away our poetry as well.”

Right you are, Marj. Here then, following, is Pedro Dumangcas’ wonderful thesis titled “The Return of the Poets.”

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Or have they ever really left? Don’t they write column after column, or teach in universities and occasionally grace readings? Or get reincarnated in the energies of the young?

We remember the months prior to the EDSA revolution. Those were very intense times. Everybody was a poet. But there was a handful, a rare breed that banded together, known as the PLAC 5 (Gémino H. Abad, Cirilo F. Bautista, Alfrredo Navarro Salanga, Ricardo M. de Ungria and Alfred A. Yuson). They stood out and became some sort of superstars to the envy of some minds in the left who had uncompromisingly paved the way for the coming revolution.

Some of these founders of the Philippine Literary Arts Council were moderates or late bloomers, but then because they had the gift of word and wrote and spoke with awakened conscience and with the sharpness and brilliance of our departed heroes, the revolution embraced them.

It was they who made us see clearly what was going on and what had to be done. It was they whom we identified with — we, the many who collectively also danced with the dictator, one way or another. We were mesmerized because they spoke in our language and not in dogma, and they did it so beautifully.

Some twenty years later these same poets can think back and smile and enjoy the memory of the heroic times when they once gambled with their lives and reputations. They must have also realized a long time ago that nothing much has changed except that they have gotten old and bulging somewhere.

The moment is just as horrible. People continue to disappear. EDSA 1 or 2 or both combined have not changed anything. A stark visualization of realities can be clearly seen through three different and separate works based on actual accounts, rendered by Cinekatipunan project director Kiri Lluch Dalena, a multi-media artist and sculptor:

1) A short film showing a black and white photo of the late journalist and EDSA hero Joe Burgos, joyful and embracing an 11-year-old son, moments after the EDSA revolution; and in that same photo, the little boy disappears right in front of our very eyes, with minimal text appearing shortly that says: “Do not let their legacy disappear”;

2) A series of photographs of a woman activist in the same striped shirt she wore on different occasions: a family birthday celebration, addressing a crowd during a rally, in a restaurant with friends, and in the end, on the grass in some remote place, lifeless, in the same striped shirt but this time soaked in her own blood;

3) A video installation with monitors embedded in heaps of discarded debris, the screens showing running shots of bloody and lifeless hands. The boy in the picture is now a full-grown man; his name is Jonas Burgos and he has been missing. The woman in the striped shirt is Eden Marcellana, mother of two little girls, abducted in April 21, 2003 and found dead the day after. And the hands in the video installation are those of the hundreds of salvaged victims in the recent past — while the artist took shots of the bodies to accomplish the task as a volunteer in documenting human rights violations.

Specific shots of the lifeless hands were also taken which later ended up in a video installation, each hand telling an even more powerful visual story that the audience could fill in on how the countless murders were carried out.

The last time we were stunned this way was in the early ’80s, prior to EDSA, through the works of Lani Maestro at the CCP, and when it rained walking fingers while Cirilo Bautista read his poem to a full-packed UP Abelardo Theater.

Dalena’s Burgos clip is part of “Rights,” a collection of film clips or poetry in film made by several independent filmmakers. It was initially labeled unfit for public screening by the MTRCB. Once again, short films of protest against the increasing cases of disappearances and summary killings of journalists and activists are considered subversive. (Columnist’s note: “Rights” was passed by the MTRCB on second review, after voluntary changes that included a disclaimer and additional text.)

Things are becoming worse today, and that’s an understatement. Many of us may fail to see it because we have become numb, or been overwhelmed by the new distractions not there before: the Internet, hyper commercial cable TV, mall culture, and yes, texting.

It’s probably this prevailing indifference that has also compelled the return of the poets in the new generation of multi-disciplinary poets that include performance poets and the so called multi-media poets. They are coming around in droves, with varied sensibilities — wired, in blogs, on radio, and yes, in traditional café readings that have become fashionable, based on the crowds these have drawn.

In these readings old-timers read with the young ones, teachers with the students, award-winners with the up-and-coming, book authors with the amateurs. This is a good thing, never mind if a few have become some kind of heartthrobs, or muses, labeled as hot. They are not just reading; they are also incorporating their poems with performance, music and sounds, films and PowerPoint presentations, and sometimes with the use of cell phones.

The latter-day poets are open to experimentation and collaboration with other artists. They have high regard for their seniors whom they look up to with endearing respect and admiration. They expose themselves to the different creative processes and are not intimidated by their fellow artists in the other disciplines, which explains why we also see them and their works in exhibits, musical gigs and film screenings.

Contributory factors to this recent development are varied. Widely acknowledged is the support of enduring institutions like the Palanca awards, the Dumaguete workshop, and the recent Maningning Miclat Awards, among others. There are also new energies that are evolving out of the university-based support systems, particularly strong these days in UST and Miriam College.

“Chromatext” which was a component of Pinaglabanan Galleries’ programming in the ’80s was recently resurrected at the CCP. PLAC’s Caracoa poetry journal is back, and hopefully as a series the way it was. The holding of regular readings in cafes must have also inspired recent interest in poetry — particularly the Writers’ Night conducted by Vim Nadera at Conspiracy on Tuesdays, and the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights staged by Joel Toledo at Mag:net Katipunan.

For the month of October alone, Mag:net Katipunan had seven readings, which included a night with visiting British performance poet Francesca Beard. On the 29th of this month, poetry will go to Mag:net Bonifacio High Street for the first time, with Trix Syjuco hosting. The plan is to do it alternately with an open mic night, with Tricia David (of the Intramuros Sanctum fame) hosting.

Whether this is just another craze or the beginning of regularly providing an updated textual articulation so as to wake us up from our indifference remains a question. Many participants and observers may be dwelling mostly on relative indulgences, and may have overlooked that the boy in Joe Burgos’ embrace is gone, nowhere to be found.

What is important for now is that they, the poets, have returned, slowly getting through the distractions, connecting with their generation, and interestingly, conducting it in the company of some of the wise old men who once helped articulate that a revolution was in place.

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NOTE: Remaining readings in October include the ARREST Poetry Night (to coincide with the launch of the ARREST artists mural in the CR Gallery) at Mag:net Katipunan tonight at 7pm, and also tonight, starting at 8pm, the first ever reading at Mag:net High Street in The Fort, featuring “Cesare and the Electric Underground Collective” and hosted by “hearthtrob” Trix Syjuco. “Rights” CDs (P120) and Caracoa copies (P100) are available for sale at Mag:net Katipunan.