Wake

This was written way back in the 1980s during the height of the struggle to oust the Marcos regime. One of the professors in UP Tacloban, who was active in the campaign, was abducted by the military and was never seen again.

–

We shared deaths years ago and
Beaded time with our prayers
Our rosaries grow thick with callus

Today we share another death
We keep vigil —
Our tears do not dry

Our grief cannot be stilled like
Our tongues heavy with keening
Speaking litanies of accreting sorrow

Maybe tomorrow we will unbury our dead
Fill the air with our lament
Wake the living with our wildest wails

To stop the staccato of bullets that
Scatter our hearts
Deafen our will with fear

Child’s Play and Other Poems

I uploaded my first collection of poetry, Child’s Play and Other Poems. It’s long overdue but, what the heck! Thought I’d just get it over with so I can move on to my next collection. Hope you enjoy this. (I’ll just link you to the issuu.com site, as I can’t have the automatic link here.)

Poster poems

With the Davao City transport strike — drivers and operators were protesting the arbitrary increases in fine charges — we were given the option to report for work or not. I took the day off since most of the students commute from different parts of Davao City. So I continued reviewing my photo files.

And I saw this photo of a framed poster poem that brought back memories of my Dumaguete days. Back then, I was a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program of Silliman University. One of my teachers was Merlie Alunan, who wrote the poem “Bringing the Dolls.” She also involved us in one of her projects for the provincial tourism office — transforming poetry into posters.

The framed poster above now hangs in Merlie’s daughter’s restaurant in Tacloban City. That was also one of my happy memories — dining at Merlie’s house, and enjoying the company of her children. You can just imagine how great the food was as four out of Merlie’s five children now own and run their individual restaurants.

Sinews of Syllables

It was the third Sinews of Syllables show tonight. Seen above is Arian Rey Tejano, a UP Mindanao Dance Ensemble member and Creative Writing student, doing his choreography for his own poem “First Taste.”

Sinews of Syllables was initiated two years ago by Jean Claire Dy and John Bengan for the Creative Writing Program of UP Mindanao. They thought of helping the graduating Creative Writing students who were required to perform their literary pieces before the public.

Instead of the usual readings by writers of their own works — which would usually be a dull event, as some writers aren’t the best readers (not even of their own pieces) — the two Creative Writing faculty members conceived of a showcase that would combine literature with other art forms.

So Sinews of Syllables became this annual show that had Creative Writing students performing their pieces to music, or choreographed as a dance, or interacting with video images projected onto the stage, and so on.

This year, with Jean Claire and John busy with their preparations for their study grants abroad, the students did a great job of putting up a show by themselves. And what a show it was — among other performances was Arian Rey doing a choreographic piece for his poem, one other student dramatizing a scene from his short story, another in manananggal (witch) costume and “suspended” onstage as she performed her poem about witch caught in the act of lovemaking.