Today is World Poetry Day, let's honor Shakespeare, Li Po, Villa, Rio Alma, Balagtas

MANILA, Philippines - A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman. — Wallace Stevens

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.  — George Sand

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.   — Plato

I believe all of us love poetry. Yes — believe me — you do! Last year in literature class (I teach part-time at La Consolacion College Manila in Mendiola), some of the girls in my class groaned when I announced that we’d be studying poetry. It was as though I was about to teach them rocket science! To prove to them that they were mistaken in thinking of poetry as boring or esoteric, I instructed all of them to get pieces of paper and write down the lyrics of their favorite songs.

After my students scribbled the lyrics, I called on them to take turns standing up and read out loud the song lyrics; then I told them that those were poems. They not only discovered they loved poetry, some even told me they realize that they are poets.

Today, March 21, is “World Poetry Day” thanks to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) which declared this special day in 1999. What better time for us to pause, savor and reflect on poetry than in this contentious period of heated elections, so that we can be reminded about the sublime, the eternal and the true?

To all the many election candidates out there seeking power, don’t forget these words of the late US President John F. Kennedy: “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”

Poetry not only can cleanse corruption and cynicism in our society, poetry is an elixir to the mundane preoccupations or even pressures of our earthly human existence. It shouldn’t only be the elites of this world like Alexander the Great (who slept every night with a copy of Homer’s Iliad under his pillow and who once spared the life and home of a poet even as he burned down a conquered city), the emperors of China, anti-corruption official Qu Yuan, Mao Zedong, John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton who loved and benefited immeasurably from poetry — we should, too!

Thanks to the brilliant and exceptional girl I’m courting (she’s smarter than me and even her Mandarin is better than mine because she studied one year in Beijing), my new iPod Touch is now loaded with pop songs, movies, plus readings of Pablo Neruda’s love poems read by Hollywood stars like Madonna (please Google “You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda read by Madonna on YouTube” and I suggest you read this poem while listening to her recite the verses!), Julia Roberts, Glenn Close, Andy Garcia, Ethan Hawke, Sting, Ralph Fiennes and others.

I’ve always loved poetry, though I have for years stopped writing (but plan to do so again). During my high school and college years, I’ve written prose as well as poetry in both English and Tagalog. In fact, in college, our Ateneo literary journal Heights published my various English poems alongside my pencil sketches, and I wrote Tagalog poems for almost every issue of the Tagalog school paper Matanglawin.

While still a college student, I’m grateful that multi-awarded poets published my college poems in English or Tagalog like Jose “Pete” Lacaba of Midweek magazine and the Caracoa poetry journal of the Philippine Literary Arts Council led by the group of the late Alfrredo Navarro Salanga. I wish to share some of the many poems that I love.

‘Invictus,’ ‘Trees,’ ‘Charge Of The Light Brigade,’ psalm 23, li po, du fu

As a student, among the poems I read and will never forget are the following which I encourage everyone to Google or research in National Bookstore, Powerbooks, Fully Booked, Book Sale, A Different Bookstore or your libraries — the 1875 poem “Invictus” by English poet William Ernest Henley (this poem, a century later and a continent away, inspired political prisoner Nelson Mandela to endure, becoming the title and subject of the recent wonderful Hollywood film of the same title), the 1794 poem “The Tiger” by William Blake, the 1854 poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Lord Alfred Tennyson, the 1914 poem “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke who died during World War I at the age of 27 (the manuscript is still in King’s College of Cambridge), the 1913 poem “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer, the 1751 poem “Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard” by Thomas Gray, the 19th-century Sonnets from the Portuguese anthology with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 44 love sonnets, especially “Number 43” with the immortal first lines “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” and many others.

As a student, I also memorized whole poems such as the magnificent King James version in English and also the Hokkien version of King David’s Psalm 23, plus some poems from the classic Chinese poetry anthology 300 Poems from the Tang Dynasty era such as Li Po’s classic “Moonlight” which tells of his thinking of his ancestral hometown.

In a recent Hollywood movie, The Blind Side, the character Michael Oher chooses the 1854 poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Lord Alfred Tennyson as the topic for an essay in his English class. His adopted dad explains the poem as being a metaphor for American football, with the players as the cavalry and the coaches as the generals, that despite the doomed fate of the soldiers due to their officers’ errors, that honor and brotherhood are very important. In the 1981 war epic film Saving Private Ryan, a character named Corporal Upham quotes a line from this same poem (“Ours is not to reason why...”) in reference to the search for Private Ryan.

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In our society and in our often cynical or overly materialistic world, we not only should keep alive the love of poetry, but we should also honor our poets in order for us to truly achieve progress as human beings and to advance civilization. In China, when I travel to explore that continental-size nation as a tourist, it is not the breathtaking economic progress, the gleaming skyscrapers, the world’s fastest trains or the dazzling mega-cities which impress me, but the timeless and priceless wealth of the culture.

For all the outward manifestations of physical progress, I most admire their love of and respect for the written word, for reading, books and yes, for poetry. When I visited Chengdu City in Sichuan province three years ago, I was amazed to visit the Du Fu Thatched Village Museum which is a museum honoring the great Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu with total land area of 39.5 acres! But more than monuments, every Chinese kid knows the ancient classical poems of Li Po, Du Fu and others.

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Huseng Batute, Villa, Balagtas, Rio Alma, Lacaba, ‘Dead Poet’s Society’

In the Philippines, we should honor, remember and read the poems of José Garcia Villa (who had a special status as the only Asian poet among a group of modern literary giants in 1940s New York that included W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and a young Gore Vidal. His pen name was “Doveglion” — for dove, eagle, and lion. The Penguin Classics edition of his poems is available in local bookstores), José Corazón de Jesús or “Huseng Batute” (poet of the American colonial era who penned the 1929 poem “Bayan Ko” which has become a famous patriotic protest song), the Tagalog equivalent of William Shakespeare Francisco Balagtas (whose 222nd birth anniversary is coming up this April 2), Jose Rizal, Unyon ng Mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) leader and genuine National Artist Virgilio “Rio Alma” Almario, Jose “Pete” Lacaba, Emmanuel Lacaba, Alfrredo Navarro Salanga, Lope K. Santos, Cirilo Bautista, Philippine STAR columnists Krip Yuson, Butch Dalisay and Danton Remoto, Gemino Abad, Fidel D. Rillo, Jr., Marjorie Evasco, Vim Nadera, Ricardo de Ungria, Eric Gamalinda, Marne Kilates, Bobby Añonuevo, Maningning Miclat, Paolo Manalo, award-winning Cebu City Judge Simeon Dumdum, Jr., Mookie Katigbak, and many others.

Poets and writers — like teachers and other artists in our society — should be honored because they are the culture heroes of nations. Look at Li Po, Qu Yuan, Du Fu, Wang Wei and even Mao Zedong of China, Shakespeare and William Blake of England, Dante of Italy, King David of the Jewish people, Victor Hugo of France, Goethe and Friedrich Schiller of Germany (last year in October I visited their homes which are still well-preserved as museums in the city of Weimar) and many others. A nation should not only aspire to be rich materially in terms of economic growth and higher gross national product, but also to be rich in spirit!

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Last but not the least, I wish to share what the character played by Robin Williams said in the movie Dead Poets Society which can hopefully remind us that we do not live by bread alone, and why poetry is important. He said: “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.”

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Thanks for your letters, all will be answered. E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or at my Facebook account.