On Philippine Literature, Culture and the Arts

Guide Questions for Ballet Philippines Encantada

2011-08-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Work in pairs (preferably a boy and girl)so that both sides of the gender divide will be represented.

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. In what sense does the oppression of women (including sexual oppression, i.e. rape)related to the destruction of the environment? Use a feminist ecocritical framework.

2. How are men (priests and soldiers)and women (the diwata, the babaylan and the other kababaihan) portrayed in Ballet Philippines' Neo-Filipino modern ballet Encantada? Reread the essays of Susan Sontag ("Dancer and the Dance"), Myra Beltran ("The Dance Artist as Babaylan" and Grace Nono Aves ("An Artist Reflection on the Babaylan")to acquire a more informed perspective.

3. Can you classify the performance as Apollonian or Dionysian, or a combination of both? Defend your answer. Read Camille Paglia's thorough discussion of the two concept in her essay "Pagan Beauty" which is included in the Siningcuent(r)o reader.

Deadlines:
for 3POL2 August 22, 2011
for 3ASN2 August 26, 2011

PETA's "Care Divas" Additional Show Dates

2011-06-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

PETA's Care Divas's return engagement for the months of June and July at the PETA Theater Center, Quezon City:

June 10, 8pm; June 11, 3/8pm; June 12, 3/8 pm; June 17, 3/8pm; June 18, 3/8pm; June 19, 3/8pm. July 9, 3/8pm; July 10, 3/8pm; July 15, 8pm; July 16, 3/8pm; July 17, 3/8pm; July 22, 8pm; July 23, 3/8pm; July 24, 3/8pm. Shows dates are subject to change. Call 0917-5642433 for tickets.

JEN Archives

2011-06-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

The UST Varsitarian - J. Elizalde Navarro National Workshop on Arts Criticism Fellows and Panelists thus far...

2009
Walter Ang, Geronimo Cristobal, Jr., Gregg Lloren, Katrina Macapagal, Maricris D. Martin, Katrina Stuart Santiago, Francis Sollano, Christian Tablazon, Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco and Randel Cabanilla Urbano.

Panelists/Lecturers: Oscar V. Campomanes, Gary Devilles, Ralph Semino Galán, Antonio C. Hila, Priscelina Patajo-Legasto, Ferdinand M. Lopez, Delfin Tolentino, Jr., Eric B. Zerrudo and Joselito V. Zulueta.

2010
Aidel Paul G. Belamide, Mary Jessel B. Duque, Anne Christine Ensomo, Luis Miguel Ereneta, Alona Guevarra, Joanna Parungao, Alvin Ringgo C. Reyes, Scott Saboy, Karren Seña, Jaymee Siao, Grace Subido and Frank Lloyd B. Tiongson.

Panelists/Lecturers: Oscar V. Campomanes, Gary Devilles, Ralph Semino Galán, Ferdinand M. Lopez, Delfin Tolentino, Jr., John Jack Wigley and Joselito V. Zulueta.

2011
Ma. Ailil Alvarez, Patrick Campos, Richard Karl Deang, Gino Francis S. Dizon, Mark Preston Lopez, Dawn Marie Nicole Marfil, Maxsim Moossavinassab, Miel Kristinan Ondevilla,Timothy F. Ong, Elka Krystle R. Requinta, Jaime Oscar M. Salazar, Ruth Molitas Tindaan and Jose Eos R. Trinidad.

Panelists/Lecturers: Myra Beltran, Jocelyn Calubayan, Oscar V. Campomanes, Gary Devilles, Ralph Semino Galán, Priscelina Patajo-Legasto, Ferdinand M. Lopez Delan Lopez Robillos, Delfin Tolentino, Jr., Rolando B. Tolentino and Joselito V. Zulueta.

(Hope my memory serves me right... If I failed to include a fellow and/or panelist for a particular year, please inform me immediately so that I can rectify the mistake...)

ILIGAN NATIONAL WRITERS' WORKSHOP 2011

2011-04-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc., and the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension (OVCRE) are accepting applications from writers to the 18th Iligan National Writers Workshop (INWW) to be held on May 23-27, 2011 in Iligan City.

Panelists this year are Erlinda Kintanar Alburo, Leoncio P. Deriada, Merlie M. Alunan, German V. Gervacio, Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, Antonio R. Enriquez, Ralph Semino Galan, Christine Godinez-Ortega and this year’s keynote speaker, Pearlsha B. Abubakar, 9th INWW Fellow (2002).

Fifteen (15) slots, five each from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and one (1) slot each for the Manuel T. Buenafe Writing Fellowship (MTBWF) and the Ricardo Jorge S. Caluen Bursary for Creative Writing or a total of 17 slots are available for writing fellowships to the 18th INWW.

Applicants are required to submit five poems, or, one short story, excerpt of a novel, or, a one-act play in Filipino, English or in Sebuano, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Waray, Chabacano (with English or Filipino translations) along with the applicant’s biodata, two 2X2 photos and a certification that his/her work is original. For short stories, excerpts of novels or plays, please submit a hard copy and a CD with the manuscripts encoded in MS Word. Those submitting excerpts of novels or works on progress — please provide a one page summary of the novel. Unpublished works are preferred and applicants who have attended regional workshops are given priority.

Writing fellows will be given free board and lodging and a travel allowance. Applications must be postmarked on or before March 25, 2011. No applications or manuscripts will be accepted if sent by fax or e-mail. Applicants are also advised to keep copies of their manuscripts since these will not be returned. Announcements of this year’s writing fellows are released during the third week of April 2011.

Applicants to this year’s workshop may download application and other forms at http://www.msuiit.edu.ph/research-extension/downloads.php.

Send all applications to the 18th INWW Director c/o OVCRE, MSU-IIT, Iligan City. For more information call Pat Cruz, Leda Gonzales or Ofelia Taneo at telefax (063) 2232343; or e-mail: inww_ovcremsuiit@yahoo.com

UST Holds 3rd National Criticism Workshop

2011-04-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

UST Holds 3rd National Criticism Workshop

The University of Santo Tomas is now accepting applications to the 2011 UST J. Elizalde Navarro National Workshop in Criticism on the Arts and Humanities to be held in Baguio City on the last week of May 29 to June 4, 2011.

The workshop is endowed and organized by the Varsitarian, the 83-year-old official student publication of UST. It is held in honor of the late Nationalist Artist for the Visual Arts and art critic J. Elizalde Navarro, who was art editor and critic-poet of the Varsitarian during his student days, and in connection with the Quadricentennial Celebration of UST which was established in 1611.

Fellowships will be given to 12 promising young critics who would like to enhance their analytical, research and writing skills.

To be considered for the fellowship, applicants should submit a scholarly, properly documented critical essay (10-15 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font) on the following art forms (painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, drama, music, film or photography) on or before April 30, 2011.

Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with an updated resumé, a recommendation letter from an academic mentor or an art critic, a certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.

Address all applications to Assoc. Prof. Ferdinand M. Lopez and Asst. Prof. Ralph Semino Galán, Workshop Conveners, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, España Street, Sampaloc , Manila. E-mail ralphseminogalan@gmail.com for further inquiries.

An Invitation to Literature Teachers and Professors in the Visayas

2011-04-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

An Invitation to Literature Teachers and Professors in the Visayas

Dear Sir/Madam:

Warm greetings from the Philippine PEN Board of Directors!

The Philippine Center of International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) is conducting a series of teaching literature workshops in selected regions of the Philippines this year. Called “For Love of the Word: Workshops on Teaching Philippine Literature in High School and College,” this project is geared toward retooling and upgrading the skills of literature teachers in both secondary and tertiary levels. This project is supported by PEN International in UK, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The first workshop was successfully held last March 25 in Far Eastern University-Manila.

The second of the series, a lecture-workshop on teaching poetry and fiction in English, Filipino and regional languages, will be held on May 6, from 8:30am to 4:00pm, at the University of San Agustin’s Conference Room, Blanco Hall, General Luna St., Iloilo City. PEN authors and Metrobank Outstanding Teacher Awardees Dr. Marjorie Evasco and Dr. Leoncio Deriada will serve as the facilitators.

In this regard, may we invite your faculty members to participate in this workshop? There is no registration fee. A workshop kit and a certificate of attendance will be given to each participant.

At this point, PEN is making arrangements with possible patrons to sponsor the lunch for the participants. We have not finalized anything though. However, may we assure you that there are decent and affordable eateries located within and outside the campus.

For pre-registration, please submit the name/s of your participant/s and your school to PEN. You may email PEN at philippinepen@yahoo.com, or please text +639175287491.

Thank you for your kind attention. We look forward to your participation.

Very truly yours,

Joselito B. Zulueta
National Secretary
Philippine Center of International PEN
c/o Solidaridad Bookstore
531 Padre Faura St., Ermita, Manila, Philippines
Tel. (632) 5230870; Telefax (632) 5255038
Email: philippinepen@yahoo.com
Website: http://philippinepen.co.cc/

To the Pamiyabe Fellows 2011

2011-01-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

Hi guys and gals! Here is a funny poem by the American poet laureate Billy Collins. Hope you have a laugh or two, as well as some insights why some metaphors work and others don't, why some lines sing without trying too hard to do so. Hope you have learned the basics in spinning tales (for the fictionists) and conjuring images(for the poets). Remember always the Three Rs necessary to become a wordsmith: Reading, Writing (the initial consonant is silent, right?), and Rewriting... Feel free to post comments or ask questions regarding specific aspects of the writer's craft.

Workshop
by Billy Collins

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now
so immediately the poem has my attention,
like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,
the way they establish this mode of self-pointing
that runs through the whole poem
and tells us that words are food thrown down
on the ground for other words to eat.
I can almost taste the tail of the snake
in its own mouth,
if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice,
which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,
but other times seems standoffish,
professorial in the worst sense of the word
like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.
But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,
especially the fourth one.
I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges
which gives me a very clear picture.
And I really like how this drawbridge operator
just appears out of the blue
with his feet up on the iron railing
and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging—
a hook in the slow industrial canal below.
I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s.

Maybe it’s just me,
but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.
I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?
And what’s an obbligato of snow?
Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.
At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,
and maybe this is just me,
is the way the scene keeps shifting around.
First, we’re in this big aerodrome
and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,
which makes me think this could be a dream.
Then he takes us into his garden,
the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,
though that’s nice, the coiling hose,
but then I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be.
The rain and the mint green light,
that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?
Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?
There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here
is really two poems, or three, or four,
or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.
This is where the poem wins me back,
especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.
I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,
but I still love the details he uses
when he’s describing where he lives.
The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,
the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,
the spool of thread for a table.
I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work
night after night collecting all these things
while the people in the house were fast asleep,
and that gives me a very strong feeling,
a very powerful sense of something.
But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.
Maybe that was just me.
Maybe that’s just the way I read it.

Paalam Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta...

2010-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Tanawing Walang Hadlang

Dahil nasunog ang aking kamalig
Wala nang humahadlang sa tanawin
Ng pinakamaliwanag na buwan.

-Masahide

oo, kitang-kita ko na ngayon
ang pangkalahatan ng kalangitan;
walang mga punong umuusbong,
walang nagtataasang hadlang
na pumipigil sa pagdaloy nito.

ang lahat inaangkin ko, gaya ng
pag-angkin nito ng buo kong pagkatao,
malinaw ang mata at walang abala.

parang bang tinitingnan ko ang mundo
sa kagandahan ng kanyang kawalan,
gamit mga bagong mata, bagong kaluluwa.
lahat ng mga linggal at mga pagbabawal
ng mga nakaraan kong buhay nalipol,
kasing linis ng kumot na kinula.

wala nang natira pa.

tila isa akong tabula rasa,
walang balakid na nakatingala
sa langit na hindi kumikinang,
ang buwan di natitigatig, buong-buo,
walang palawit kaya walang
sabit... bukod-tanging nag-iisa,
at ako na walang buhay na nakaraan;
at ang bukas ko ay kailangan pang
isulat muli para sa bagong pagkabuhay.

walang kapansin-pansin na mga palatandaan
ng dating ako dito habang nakatingala
sa isang malayang dumadaloy na langit
at sa nag-iisang buwang walang palamuti,
ngayon ako’y magsisimula muli sa pagtatag
ng mga kawing, makisama, tumutok,
habang kinakatha ko sa gabing ito ang akda
ng mga bagong araw na paparating, dito
mula sa isang tanawing walang hadlang.

(Salin ni Ralph Semino Galan ng tula ni Ophelia A. Dimalanta na pinamagatang "An Unobstructed View" from the poetry collection Lady Polyester: Poems Past and Present)

2010 GAWAD BUHAY! Second Quarter Citations

2010-11-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

PHILSTAGE bares second quarter citations for 2010 Gawad Buhay!

With 11 performance and technical citations in various categories, Tanghalang Pilipino’s Tatlong Mariya, a Filipino adaptation of Anton Chekov’s timeless classic Three Sisters, topped the second quarterly citation of the 2010 Gawad Buhay!: The PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts.

Tatlong Mariya is set during the Martial Law period and depicts the life of the three Ballesteros sisters who struggle to liberate themselves from the dreariness and hopelessness of their provincial existence while yearning for the excitement of their former happy and respectable life in Manila. It garnered citations for outstanding play, stage direction (Loy Arcenas), ensemble performance in a play, adaptation or translation (Rody Vera), female lead performance in a play (Angelie Bayani and Mailes Kanapi), female featured performance in a play (Che Ramos), male featured performance in a play (Mario O’Hara), set design (Loy Arenas), sound design (Jethro Joaquin) and lighting design ( Barbi Tantiongco).

Coming in second place with eight citations is Repertory Philippines’ Duets, a comedy of four different vignettes exploring the lighter nuances of romance and relationships in seemingly impossible but hilarious situations. It was cited for outstanding stage direction (Ana Abad Santos), ensemble performance in a play, female lead performance in a play (Joy Virata), male lead performance in a play (Miguel Faustmann), set design (Tuqxs Rutaquio), costume design (Joy Virata), sound design (Jethro Joaquin),and lighting design (Martin Esteva).

Also cited for individual achievements are Cris Villonco and PJ Valerio for outstanding female and male lead performances in a musicale (both for Repertory Philippines’ Romeo and Bernadette); Robert Sena for outstanding male lead performance in a musicale (PETA’s Si Juan Tamad, Ang Dyablo at ang Isang Milyong Boto); Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Rudy de Dios for outstanding female lead performance in a dance production (Ballet Manila’s Ballet and Ballads); Camille Ordinario-Joson for outstanding female lead performance in a dance production (Ballet Philippines’ Neo-Filipino 2010); and Veronica Ylagan for outstanding featured female performance in a dance production (Neo-Filipino 2010).

Now on its third year, Gawad Buhay! is the first-ever industry awards exclusively for the performing arts juried by an independent panel of critics, scholars, artists and theater enthusiasts. Outstanding individual and group achievements in various artistic and technical aspects of play, musical and dance productions and performances are honored based on quarterly citations deliberated by the jury who are required to watch all productions of PHILSTAGE member-companies for the entire year. From the four quarterly citations, the jury will select the final nominees qualified to win the awards by the end of the performance season. Awarding ceremonies will be during the National Arts Month celebration in February 2011.

PHILSTAGE is the only alliance of professional performing arts organizations in the Philippines. Its members include Ballet Manila, Ballet Philippines, Gantimpala Theater Foundation, Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), PETA, Repertory Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino and TRUMPETS.

Below is the complete list of the 2010 second quarter citations in various categories:

Outstanding Production of a Play: Tanghalang Pilipino’s Tatlong Mariya

Outstanding Musical Production: Repertory Philippines’ Romeo & Bernadette

Outstanding Dance Production: Ballet Manila’s Ballets and Ballads and Ballet Philippines’ Neo Filipino 2010

Outstanding Stage Direction: Ana Abad Santos (Repertory Philippines’ Duets). and Loy Arcenas (Tatlong Mariya)

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Play Production: The Casts of Duets and Tatlong Mariya

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Musical Production: The Cast of Repertory Philippines’ Romeo & Bernadette

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Dance Production: The Casts of Ballet Manila’s Ballets and Ballads and Ballet Philippines’ Neo-Filipino 2010

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play : Angeli Bayani and Mailes Kanapi (Tatlong Mariya); and Joy Virata (Duets)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Miguel Faustmann (Duets)

Outstanding Featured Female Performance in a Play: Che Ramos (Tatlong Mariya)

Outstanding Featured Male Performance in a Play: Mario O’Hara (Tatlong Mariya)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical: Cris Villonco (Romeo & Bernadette)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musical: Robert Sena (PETA’s Si Juan Tamad, Ang Dyablo at ang Isang Milyong Boto) and PJ Valerio (Romeo & Bernadette)

Outstanding Featured Female Performance in a Musical: No citation

Outstanding Featured Male Performance in a Musical: No citation

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Lisa Macuja Elizalde (Ballet and Ballads) and Camille Ordinario-Joson (Neo-Filipino 2010)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Rudy de Dios (Ballet and Ballads)

Outstanding Featured Female Performance in a Dance Production: Veronica Ylagan (Neo-Filipino 2010)

Outstanding Featured Male Performance in a Dance Production: No citation

Outstanding Original Script: No citation

Outstanding Original Libretto: No citation

Outstanding Original Music Composition: No citation

Outstanding Adaptation or Translation: Rody Vera (Tatlong Mariya)

Outstanding Musical Direction: No citation

Outstanding Original Music Composition: No citation

Outstanding Choreography (Dance): Bam Damian’s Reconfigured (Ballet and Ballads); Carissa Adea’s Rey-Sing, Novy Bereber’s To Whom It May Concern, and Alden Lunasin’s Words and Phases (Neo-Flipino 2010)

Outstanding Choreography (Play or Musical): No citation

Outstanding Set Design: Loy Arcenas (Tatlong Mariya) and Tuqxs Rutaquio (Duets)

Outstanding Costume Design: Joy Virata (Duets)

Outstanding Lighting Design: Martin Esteva (Duets) and Barbi Tantiongco (Tatlong Mariya)

Outstanding Sound Design: Jethro Joaquin (Duets) and Jethro Joaquin (Tatlong Mariya)

2010 Philippine PEN Conference

2010-10-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

2010 Philippine PEN Conference
December 4-5, 2010
Montebello Villa Hotel, Cebu City, Philippines

Solidarity in Literature without Borders
(Philippines, Africa, Middle East, Asia/Pacific, Europe, America)

Program

FIRST DAY OF CONFERENCE

Opening Ceremonies
National Anthem
Reading of the PEN International Charter: Susie Tan
Opening Remarks: Bienvenido Lumbera, Chairman, Philippine PEN
Introduction of Keynote Speaker: D. M. Reyes
Keynote Address: Simeon Dumdum Jr.

Coffee Break

First Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in the Visayas
Chair: Vicente Garcia Groyon
Panelists: Erma Cuizon, Isidoro Cruz, John Barrios

Lunch

Second Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in Mindanao
Chair: Jaime An Lim
Panelists: Anthony Tan, Steven Fernandez, Servando Halili Jr., Telesforo “Jun” Sungkit, Jr.

Coffee Break

Third Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in Luzon
Chair: Hermie Beltran
Panelists: Santiago Villafania, Priscilla Macansantos, Carlos Arejola, Sherma Benosa

Emcees/Convenors of the Day: Elmer Ordoñez, Susan Lara

Solidarity Evening Dinner with cultural program
Masters of Ceremonies: Jose Wendell Capili, Nick Pichay

SECOND DAY OF CONFERENCE

Fourth Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in Asia/Pacific and the Middle East
Chair: Ronald Baytan
Panelists: Nori Nakagami (Japan), Nguyen Bao Chan (Vietnam), Alvin Pang (Singapore), Robin Lim (Indonesia), a writer from Iran

Coffee Break

Fifth Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in North and Latin Americas
Chair: Marjorie Evasco
Panelists: Alice Sun-Cua, Menchu Sarmiento, Lina Zeron (Mexico), Elynia Ruth Mabanglo (USA), Marianne Villanueva (USA)

Lunch

Introduction of the Speaker: Karina Bolasco
The Jose Rizal Lecture
Resil Mojares

Sixth Literary Session
Panel on Writing and Writers in Africa and Europe
Chair: Jose Victor Torres
Panelists: Edgar Maranan, Paolo Manalo, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón (Spain),
a writer from Africa (tentatively, Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr or Joseph Ushie)

Closing Session
Resolutions

Emcees/Convenors of the Day: Charlson Ong, Shirley Lua

Overall Convenors
Bienvenido Lumbera, Joselito Zulueta

On-site Secretariat
Cesar Quinagan, Jun Cruz Reyes, Eva Nelmida

Call for Applications: Writer/Storyteller-in-Residence

2010-10-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

A professional writer and/or storyteller is sought for the position of Writer/ Storyteller-in-Residence at the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba. This four-month position, from approximately September 1 to December 16, 2011, will require the successful candidate to spend approximately 16 hours per week providing mentorship and practical artistic advice to developing writers and storytellers at the University of Manitoba, to give a limited number of readings and/or performances on campus, and to lead an informal non-credit workshop. The remaining time is to be devoted to the writer or storyteller’s own artistic projects. The successful candidate will receive a salary of $20,000.00 CAD, accommodation and return transportation to Winnipeg.

The Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture is an interdisciplinary centre with a mandate to promote the creation and the study of the verbal arts, both oral and written. Located at the University of Manitoba in the city of Winnipeg, the Centre sponsors readings, lectures, master classes and creative community projects that explore the connections between oral and written culture. Winnipeg is renowned for its vibrant arts community and its multicultural citizenry, including the largest urban population of Aboriginal people in North America. The Centre builds upon these local cultural strengths as a basis for its creative and critical work. To learn more about the Centre, visit http://umanitoba.ca/centres/ccwoc/

Applicants should provide a covering letter summarizing their qualifications for the position and describing the artistic work they would undertake during the residency. Applications must also include a CV or résumé of career achievements (publications, performances, awards, residencies), a writing sample of no more than 20 pages (doublespaced and typed in a standard 12-point font) and two letters of reference discussing the applicant’s skills as an artist and a mentor.

Candidates of all nationalities are encouraged to apply; however, full proficiency in English is required, and publications or performance credits in English would be an asset. The Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture is committed to principles of employment equity. The application deadline is November 22, 2010.

Electronic submissions of application materials are accepted at the Centre’s email address, but attachments must be in Microsoft Word, PDF, RTF or DocX only. Please direct inquiries and electronic application materials to ccwoc@cc.umanitoba.ca.

Applicants may also submit hardcopy applications to:

Dr. Warren Cariou, Director
Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture,
University of Manitoba
391 University College, 220 Dysart Road
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2M8 CANADA

Books and other materials sent in support of applications will not be returned.

2010 SEA Write Award

2010-10-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

The SEA Write 2010 award will take place at the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok on November 5, with HRH Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn presiding at the awards dinner and presentation ceremony.

As usual, a prominent writer has been invited as the keynote speaker. Taking his place at the podium this year will be Scottish writer Willam Dalrymple, a multiple-award winning historian and travel writer, as well as a distinguished broadcaster, critic, art historian, foreign correspondent and co-director of Asia's largest literary festival.

A Cambridge history graduate, Dalrymple has lived in Delhi on and off for the last 25 years. His interests include India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Mughal rule, the Muslim world, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Jains and early Eastern Christianity. All of his six books have won major literary prizes, as have his radio and television documentaries. His first three were travel books based on his journeys in the Middle East, India and Central Asia.

More recently, Dalrymple has published a book of essays about South Asia, and two award winning histories of the interaction between the British and the Mughals between the 18th and mid-19th centuries.

He is a regular contributor to "The New York Review of Books", The Guardian, The New Statesman, The New Yorker and Time magazine.

His latest book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, was published by Bloomsbury, and went to the No. 1 slot in the Indian non-fiction section best-seller list.

He is now beginning work on a history of the First Afghan War (1839 to 1842), and curating a major show of the late Mughal and Company School painting of Delhi for the Asia Society in New York, set to open in January 2012.

The winners of the 2010 SEA Write award who will be feted at the awards dinner are:

- WIJAYA - BRUNEI

Wijaya is the pen name of Yang Berhormat Pehin Jawatan Dalam Seri Maharaja Dato Seri Utama Dr Haji Awang Mohd. Jamil Al-Sufri bin Begawan Pehin Udana Khatib Dato Seri Paduka Haji Awang Umar.

Yang Berhormat Pehin is a prominent figure in the fields of education, literature, history, culture and religion in Brunei Darussalam. He started writing in the '40s and is interested in history, literature, language, culture and education. He has produced few books in many fields. Renungan is Yang Berhormat Pehin's first anthology of poems.

- AFRIZAL MALNA - INDONESIA

Malna grew to be a poet and cultural worker, dedicated in his arts. He has participated in many collaborative avant-garde arts and performance. His main domain, however, is poetry. In the '80s he was known as the proponent of "dark" poetry, a term used to describe the complex and innovative style of his art.

- DARA KANLAYA - LAOS

Douangchampa is the pen name of Dara Kanlaya, 72, author of some 60 short stories, over 90 poems, seven novels, and a two-hour play, Boua Deng. Dara started her career as a schoolteacher and began her writing in 1958. Now retired, she keeps writing and publishing children's books, novels and poetry. Dara's writing theme mostly deals with women's issues and gender, and promotes a better living standard for women through education. She also works as curator of old palm-leaf manuscripts, and studies classic Lao literature.

- ZAEN KASTURI - MALAYSIA

Zaen writes in various genres, including Yuda (a collection of short stories), Katarsis and Iga (collections of poems), and Angin Belantara (novel). Zaen is currently the new voice in the local literary scene who gives life to a fast forgotten, easily ignored discipline (literature).

- MARJORIE EVASCO - THE PHILIPPINES

Evasco's published works in poetry and biography are included in the canon of Philippine Literature. The Manila Critics Circle gave National Book Awards to all her five books: Dreamweavers; Ochre Tones: Poems in English and Cebuano; Six Women Poets: Inter/Views; A Life Shaped by Music; and Ani: The Life & Art of Hermogena Borja Lungay (2006).

- JOHAR BIN BUANG - SINGAPORE

Known by his pseudonym, H.B. Johar, attributes his interest and inspiration to write Sufic poems in the early '80s to his religious teacher, Syekh Muhammad Thaha Al-Muhammadi, who prayed for him.

- ZAKARIYA AMATAYA - THAILAND

Zakariya was born in Narathiwat province. He then spent five years in central India studying Islamic Sciences, Arabic Language and Literature at Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama College before returning home to study Comparative Religion at Mahidol University.

He initially discovered his passion for poetry during his years in India. During his junior year, his writing on free verse poetry had started to flourish when he took courses in Classic, Mediaeval and Contemporary Arabic Literature. Zakariya wanted to become a "bridge" between different cultures and languages.

- NGUYEN NGAT ANH - VIETNAM

Nguyen Nhat Anh is a Vietnamese author of incisive stories for both teenagers and adults. He is also a teacher, a poet and a journalist. He is regarded as one of the most successful writers for teens. His most well known novel, Kinh van hoa (Kaleidoscope), which contains 54 volumes, has recently been made into four drama series of the same name.

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR TP's BANAAG AT SIKAT

2010-10-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. In terms of both form and content, rate the overall performance of Tanghalang Pilipino's rendition of Lope K. Santos' Banaag at Sikat from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). Explain the reasons for your assessment.

2. Using Nicanor G. Tiongson's criteria in determining the Philippine-ness of a particular dramatic form/presentation: [1.)that it reflects the Filipinos' culture,2.) that it answers the need of the Filipinos at a given time, and 3.) that it works for the good of the many], how Filipino is Tanghalang Pilipino's Banaag at Sikat? Elaborate on your answer based on what you have learned in class regarding Philippine drama.

3. How does the rock musical Banaag at Sikat depict the class struggles between the rich and the poor? With whom do you empathize?

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR TP's AMERICAN HWANGAP

2010-10-04T02:41:00.001-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. In terms of both form and content, rate the overall performance of Tanghalang Pilipino's rendition of Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). Explain the reasons for your assessment.

2. Using Nicanor G. Tiongson's criteria in determining the Philippine-ness of a particular dramatic form/presentation: [1.)that it reflects the Filipinos' culture,2.) that it answers the need of the Filipinos at a given time, and 3.) that it works for the good of the many], how Filipino is Tanghalang Pilipino's American Hwangap? Elaborate on your answer based on what you have learned in class regarding Philippine drama.

3. What lessons in life or insights regarding the human condition can you glean from Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap as performed by Tanghalang Pilipino?

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR PETA's ANG POST OFFICE/ THE POST OFFICE

2010-10-04T01:56:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. In terms of both form and content, rate the overall performance of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) in their rendition of Rabindranath Tagore's Ang Post Office (The Post Office) from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). Explain the reasons for your assessment.

2. Using Nicanor G. Tiongson's criteria in determining the Philippine-ness of a particular dramatic form/presentation: [1.)that it reflects the Filipinos' culture,2.) that it answers the need of the Filipinos at a given time, and 3.) that it works for the good of the many], how Filipino is PETA's Ang Post Office (The Post Office)? Elaborate on your answer based on what you have learned in class regarding Philippine drama.

3. What lessons in life or insights regarding the human condition can you glean from Ang Post Office (The Post Office), a short play for children written by the first Asian wordsmith who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913?

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR BM's HALO-HALO NI JUAN

2010-09-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score. (Read my dance review of Ballet Philippines' Shoes++ to get some ideas on how to write a critical analysis on a dance performance.)

Please edit your paper so that it will merit a higher grade.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. Rate the overall performance of Ballet Manila in their 15th Year Anniversary Crystal Gala titled Halo-Halo ni Juan from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). Explain the reasons for your assessment.

2. Among the various dance vignettes of Ballet Manila's Halo-Halo ni Juan, which one (give the title of the dance number) did you enjoy the most and why?

3. Between classical/neoclassical ballet and modern/contemporary dance, which do you prefer? Give the title/s of the dance vignette/s that caught your attention in explaining your choice.

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR BP's SEPTEMBER GALA

2010-09-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Your reaction must be computer-printed on short bond paper using 12-point font (Times New Roman) with 1 and 1/2 spacing for better readability.

The more profound and well thought out your answers to the questions, the better the score. (Read my dance review of Ballet Philippines' Shoes++ to get some ideas on how to write a critical analysis on a dance performance.)

Please edit your paper so that it will merit a higher grade.

Answer each of the following in two to three paragraphs.

1. Rate the overall performance of Ballet Philippines from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). Explain the reasons for your assessment.

2. Among the various dance vignettes of Ballet Philippines' September Gala, which one (give the title of the dance number) did you enjoy the most and why?

3. According to Susan Sontag, the dancer is the most self-demanding of performing artists since Terpsichore's devotee aims for nothing less than perfection. Which of the dance vignettes (give the title of the dance number) embody this desire to transcend the limits of the human body? Explain your choice.

Poems to be discussed next meeting (August 31, 2010) in my British Literature class...

2010-08-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sonnet 75
Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washèd it away;
Again I wrote it with a second hand
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
“Vain man”, said she, “that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalise,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise”.
“Not so”, quod I, “let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew”.

Even Such is Time
Sir Walter Raleigh

Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from which earth and grave and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd’s swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Fellows of the UST National Criticism Workshop Bared

2010-05-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Fellows of the UST National Criticism Workshop Bared

The University of Santo Tomas is proud to announce the acceptance of the following young critics to the 2nd J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop in Criticism on the Arts and the Humanities: Aidel Paul G. Belamide (UP Los Banos), Hammed Q. Bolotaolo (Ateneo de Davao/ UP Diliman), Mary Jessel B. Duque (UP Diliman), Anne Christine Ensomo (Ateneo de Manila), Luis Miguel Ereneta (Ateneo de Manila), Alona Guevarra (UP Diliman),Maxsim Moossavinassab (UP Diliman), Waldo Reyes Petralba (De La Salle University/ UP Diliman), Alvin Ringgo C. Reyes (University of Santo Tomas/ De La Salle University) and Frank Lloyd B. Tiongson (UP Diliman).

The Criticism Workshop which will be held on May 23-29, 2009 in Baguio City is endowed and organized by the Varsitarian, the 81-year-old official student organ of UST. It is held in honor of the late Nationalist Artist for the Visual Arts and art critic J. Elizalde Navarro, who was art editor and critic-poet of the Varsitarian during his student days, and in connection with the 400th anniversary of UST in 2011.

The fellows are requested to get in touch with Asst. Prof. Ralph Semino Galán through his mobile phone (0920-9258639) and/or email (ralphseminogalan@gmail.com) for details regarding the arrangements of the workshop. Applicants who did not make the cut this year are encouraged to apply again in the future.

Paper Delivered at the Baguio Centennial Conference

2010-05-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Imaging and Imagining the City of Pines:
A Tour of Baguio’s Poetic Landscape

by Ralph Semino Galán

Tourism as a leisure activity in the postmodern age is at best problematic, since issues of authenticity and simulation emerge in the assessment of the actual experience, in media res or post facto. For in the age of digital reproduction in which the distinctions blur between the original work of art and its countless copies, there is also a corresponding erasure of the lines that separate reality from fiction, the genuine from the fabricated encounters in the realm of life. This is especially true in the tourism industry which deploys high technology in the form of promotional brochures with digitally enhanced photographs showcasing, as the case may be, alluring landscapes, seascapes and/or cityscapes as part of its overall advertising campaign.

In tourism studies, authenticity is a central concern as well as a major site of contestation. For even if pioneering scholar Dean MacCannell claims “that a major impulse for travel (is) a search for authenticity, the desire to encounter cultures and people that (are) not contaminated by industrial societies and their synthetic, commercialized mass cultures,” it is equally true “that tourism itself threatened authenticity, as those on the receiving end developed synthetic and commercialized versions of their own cultures specially for tourists.”

But poets, despite their apparent vulnerability as sentient beings who are highly prone to flights of fancy and daydreaming, have a strong resilience against the prevailing ideology of contemporary times that passes off packaged items and itineraries, sights and sounds included, as the real thing. This is inevitably so, because poets are also sensitive and sensible individuals with strong personalities who are quick to detect the sham from the shaman, pyrite from pure gold, cheap magic tricks from the truly magickal. Furthermore, most wordsmiths instinctively seek the sui generis in terms of personal experience so that they can generate in their verses insights which contain at the very least verisimilitude and at their very best veritas.

Authenticity, however, is quite difficult to determine even for poets, since the criteria that distinguish the true from the false are not clearly delineated. Scholars of leisure studies like David Harris recognize that

Authentic and inauthentic experiences alike are informed by
experiences and perceptions provided by a range of texts, quite
often film or television programmes. Standing in front of the
Egyptian pyramids, it becomes impossible to leave behind the
many photographs, films, and television documentaries that have
already provided interpretations of and lent significance to the
sight one is trying to interpret authentically. Otherness has already
been constructed in ways which make it familiar.

The same argument can be used against the possibility of authentically experiencing even for first time visitors the tourist spots and heritage sites of Baguio City, for these places have also been featured in numerous photographs, films and television documentaries. Moreover, multifarious opinions and commentaries about the City of Pines coming from various sources have already been circulating in the popular imagination ever since Baguio’s metamorphosis from a hill station to the country’s summer capital, thus making it impossible for a neophyte traveler to visit this Tourist Mecca without a priori knowledge of the place.

Nevertheless, ideological debates regarding the distinguishing characteristics of authenticity notwithstanding, I aver that poetic utterances are genuine. This is so, since poetry like the other authentic art forms is a product of the imagination, not in the negative sense of the belief in falsehood, but in the more positive sense of the image-forming power of the mind. For as Octavio Paz correctly asserts, “Reality recognizes itself in the imaginings of poets --- and poets recognize their imaginings in reality.” Or as Jeanette Winterson puts it,

I see no conflict between reality and imagination. They are not in
fact separate. Our real lives hold within them our royal lives; the
inspiration to be more than we are, to find new solutions, to live
beyond the moment. Art help us to do this because it fuses together
temporal and perpetual realities.

This paper is a cursory reading of a dozen lyrical poems about Baguio City composed by contemporary Filipino poets writing from English. It deploys the term “poetic landscape” in its double sense: poetic as an adjective to aptly describe Baguio’s picturesque landscape; as well as the fact that images of Baguio’s unique geography are partly constructed by the imagination of the bards whose poems are testaments that beyond tourist brochures with their packaged promises authentic experiences are still possible in the City of Pines. Furthermore, since this paper is concerned with the perception of Baguio as a tourist spot through the perspectives of outsiders, I have limited my selection of relevant poems to those which have been composed by contemporary poets who are not long-term residents of the Summer Capital.

Fascinating Baguio: A City with Many Names

According to The Baguio City Traveler’s Guidebook 2006 , aside from being known as the City of Pines, the Summer Capital of the Philippines has a good number of other monikers. This list of descriptive appellations include the following: City of Flowers, The Highest City in the Philippines, Honeymooners’ Paradise, Educational Center of the North, The Land of Ukay-Ukay, among others, for as the guidebook points out:

If we are to apply the feminine principle to a city, Baguio would
easily romp off with just not one but several beauty titles. For
that’s exactly how this highland getaway enchants --- or re-
enchants --- its many visitors who have bestowed her with many
names.

Baguio’s many names indicate that it has a myriad of images on display to delight the vision seekers, not to mention the countless sensory delicacies it has to offer for the other organs of perception. Rofel G. Brion’s “Baguio, 1995” presents some of these scenes, like “The market swell(ing) with strawberries,” “mouths spew(ing) fog,” the sun rising on Burnham Park, and “old women trekking up to church” along Session Road. But not all of the purported places of interest are necessarily flattering, like “the caves full of mud/And rocks instead of crystals.//”

Nevertheless, the charms of the City of Parks remain inexhaustible to regular visitors despite repeated encounters and the influx year in and year out of more and more tourists. This is the exact sentiment of the persona in Brion’s poem:

Thirty years and dozens of trips later
I still crave an extra night
Watching wood spark in the fireplace
And one more morning of Benguet coffee
I must drink very quickly
Before it gets much too cold.

The Upward Journey

From the National Capital Region (NCR), the five to seven hour sojourn to the City of Pines usually begins with a bus ride from one of the many terminals that dot Metro Manila. Unless they have the privilege of being driven the entire 250 kilometers, the best way for first time travelers to enjoy the upward journey to the City in the Clouds is by taking the midmorning bus at 9 A.M. or thereabouts. By doing so, they are bound to see the breathtaking panorama of mist-covered mountains and pine-clad ravines as the bus zigzags along the snake-like road at the tail-end of the voyage, earning Baguio the title the City of Many Scenic Approaches.
Lourd Ernest de Veyra executes the experience in “Ascending Baguio by Bus” not only in terms of the visual, but also in terms of the auditory. De Veyra who is both a poet and a musician chooses mostly acoustic details to recreate the sensation of traveling to the Summer Capital on a rainy night: “Slamdance of rain rioting against the pane/,” “A cold that hums like the sinister music outside/,” and “Percussive nightmares raging on the roof/ And the mind.//”

At the end of the poem, he makes a metaphorical and sensory leap by comparing the “Headlights dissolv(ing) in the distance” to “an imagined poem/ Word/ By/ Word,/ Lost to memory.//” De Veyra’s rendition of the upward journey to Baguio is impressionistic and personal, a refreshing change from the usual postcard-perfect but generic portrayal found in other travel accounts.

Lovers’ Lair

As the Honeymoon Capital of the Philippines, Baguio is the ideal trysting place for all sorts of romantic couples, whether straight or gay, married or otherwise, since its semi-temperate climate encourages intimacy and lovemaking. To provide temporary shelter for sweethearts celebrating their togetherness, the City of Pines has six exclusive mountain resorts like The Manor inside Camp John Hay and the Baguio Country Club, 38 deluxe and standard hotels, and 75 other lodging, pension and retreat houses for every type of budget.

Angelo V. Suarez’s “baguio suite” is a cycle of erotic poems bordering on the sexually graphic about the lovemaking of an adolescent heterosexual couple. The four verses articulate the activities of the male speaking voice and his female beloved as they spend several days in an inn located along Lower Legarda Street. In this lyric sequence, Suarez deploys the word “suite” twofold: as a set of rooms (in reality, the same boudoir that simply gets transformed in the persona’s imagination and memory); and as a series of musical movements in an immoderate symphony of young romantic love and lust, for the poems are certainly marked with a strong sense of rhythm as a result of the preponderance of alliteration and other rhetorical devices.

In the first movement, the swain celebrates the newfound freedom they are enjoying as sexual partners when he declares after a particularly heavy staccato of amorous artillery that,

…on this bed we finally

further a shared notion of bliss, a kind of peace,
a piece of heaven we used only to aspire for.
while inside this room surrounded by rumors,
we smile to ourselves, then coo, then kiss.

The persona observes in the next movement that the room does not really need an air-conditioner, for indeed Baguio is also known as the Ener-Con City of the Philippines because of its generally chilly weather. But the body heat they generate is sometimes too much for even the pine-scented breeze to cool down (“blessed be this continuity/ of skin”… “no need at all for air-con here,/ which is not to imply the cool is complete://”).

In the third movement, the beloved damsel knocks on the bathroom door as the persona is taking a shower oblivious of anyone but himself, since bathing is perhaps one of the most private rituals a man usually keeps to himself. But the desire for more intimacy is too much to bear for his smoldering loins, so he opens the door, grabs her towards him and wishes that in the future similar journeys will be taken by the two of them, so that they can forever “kiss/ away doubts, on-off droughts, & bouts/ that dragged (them) down to depths (they) wish/ (they) hadn’t been to before./”

The final movement finds the young couple saying their “ample goodbyes/ to bed and bath” as they brace themselves for the homeward journey. While having breakfast near a bus station, they “break the sorrow of leaving, only to follow// the path of remembering.” So they recall the places they have seen, the people they have met albeit with minimal interaction or exchange of words, for they are already a world unto themselves like all honeymooning lovers.

But what they surmise will be missed the most is the room itself and “the common/ bed, synthesis of skin & easy conversation ---/ (their) own shared space of infinity, intimacy.//” Suarez’s choice of commemorative space, an ordinary room in an unnamed inn, is a bit offbeat for a love affair of such passion and intensity. However, the nondescript setting of “baguio suite” makes its emotional narrative so unlike the run of the mill great romances with their manicured lawns and picturesque manors.

Earthquake Zone

But Baguio also has a bleaker, more sinister image in the Philippine literary imaginary, since it is the most heavily damaged city during the major earthquake that hit Luzon on July 16, 1990. In the words of Dolores Stephens Feria, the earthshaking experience is cataclysmic, nightmarish, almost apocalyptic:

For that first unspeakable impact of an intensity 8 tremor is
never purely physical --- have no illusions about that.
Those 45 seconds generate an emotional quality with a
bizarre inner dimension, making it conceivable for one to
age a couple of decades in a few minutes. That a near-
mystical paradox of outright transmutation is built into the
experience must also be admitted. For the pious and
orthodox it has to be an unsolicited God speak event, even
if punctuated with wailing and hysteria. For others, a
moment of blinding recall into Doomsday itself, both past
and future: for one cannot imagine what has never been
experienced at some time of unconscious memory. This
unavoidable fact is to be reflected on at length during
those four inky, unrelieved nights of darkness, during
starless hours when the bonfires of the terrified had
burned themselves out.

Alfred Y. Yuson’s “Seven Haiku on the Heave-Ho” textualizes in spare language the powerful seismic activity that shook Baguio to its very roots. Each of the seven haiku in the series is like an imagistic snapshot of a particular moment of the temblor, from the initial impact (“Heaves once, twice, the land./ Seethes, pulses, seeps cries of fright./ A mountain surprise.//”) to the effects of the aftershocks (“Lives quick to the fire./ Looms aftershock prayer./ Sleep of roads, floors, temples.//”).

The choice of the Japanese haiku as the lyrical form used to articulate the harrowing tragedy appears to be inappropriate, for how can seventeen syllables albeit multiplied seven times capture the magnitude of the catastrophe. Furthermore, the flippant-sounding title of the sequence seems to enhance the light, slightly irreverent treatment of the subject matter, which might be offensive to sensitive survivor-residents of the great Baguio earthquake. However, one must remember that the haiku has always been employed to deal with disastrous events in a few deft but transcendent strokes.

As an exemplar, nothing can compare to Masahide’s most famous pithy masterpiece:

My storehouse having been burned down,
nothing obstructs the view
of the brightest moon.

Read in this light, Yuson’s work is worthwhile, for indeed despite death and destruction “The mountain survives,” and so does the City of Pines.

Burnt Out Hearts

On the other hand, in “Baguio: The Demise” Jose Wendell P. Capili utilizes the aftermath of another disaster, the gutted down remains of the Pines Hotel that burned down in 1984, as one of the objective correlatives (“the turn and flow of stones/ we perceived from childhood/ as walls, doors and ceilings/” to express the emotional vacuity the personae in his elegiac poem are experiencing years after their major romantic breakup. A very private poet when it comes to his own emotions, Capili is able to obfuscate the obvious intensity of the emotions that are being stirred by the reunion, for he makes the ex-lovers focus on the physical landscape, rather than the inner turmoil they are feeling in each other’s formerly familiar presence: “the rustle of leaves/ behaving like music,” “the landscape of cones/ falling on mountain sleeves,” “pure hemp and other bell-shaped/ things awakening from/ a sudden gush of the wind.”

In the second half of the poem, through cryptic clues and elusive allusions, a demi-disclosure is made: to avoid inflicting pain on each other, both parties decide to build “shelters away from home/ cleansing bloodlines with/ the safe-keeping of knives.” Nevertheless, despite denying their genuine sentiments for each other, the truth emerges when the personae declare that “homecomings (fill) up the swell in (their) eyes.” The enigmatic ending (“We uncover Baguio’s reef of edges/ taking a plunge like mystified divers.//”) is both ominous and ambivalent: Are they taking a collective leap of faith? Or are they committing conjugal suicide? Capili’s open-ended poem is symptomatic of postmodern relationships which are characterized by uncertainty, indecision and the failure to take risks for the sake of love.

Session Road

Session Road is the main thoroughfare of Baguio City’s commercial district. It is also the oldest avenue of the Shopping Capital of the North as well as a historical site, for the Second Philippine Commission of the American Insular Government has held its sessions in a building proximate to where Baden Powell Inn is now located, hence the street’s name. As a tourist spot the lower part of Session Road, between Magsaysay Avenue and Governor Pack Road, serves as “the undeclared catwalk of Baguio, where people-watching at its best could be done while sipping coffee in one of the many cafés lining up the road.”

In Nerisa del Carmen Guevara’s “Session Road,” strolling on the sidewalks of Baguio’s most frenetic street becomes an analogue for the art of poetry. The personae in the poem who are all poets seem to exist in an imaginative if not imaginary world of their own, apart from the teeming multitude who saunter to and fro even at nighttime the length of Session Road. This group of wordsmiths “sigh metaphors/ Like white puffs of breath” as they plod along the busy street, unmindful of the other pedestrians whose prosaic pace are not in rhythm with their measured steps.

As to be expected the versifiers “appreciate/ The closeness of the stars,” since these heavenly bodies scintillating in the evening sky are desirable but distant, like unrequited love. The personae however are not averse to laughter, for true poets must embrace both the sorrows and the joys of life, the agony and the ecstasy. In the final analysis, the linguistic entity known as poetry, like the shadows the bards are casting on the pavement “Lengthened by the lamplights,” is nothing more than the product of the interplay between light and dark, pleasure and pain.

City of Parks

Aside from being a Garden City, Baguio is also known as the City of Parks. Besides Burnham Park and the Baguio Botanical Garden inside Forbes Park, there are other areas of sprawling greenery spread around the city limits that include Mines View Park, Wright Park, Sunshine Park, Club John Hay and Baguio Country Club, among others. This proliferation of public parks and private clubs have helped Baguio acquire the Department of Tourism’s Hall of Fame Award as the Cleanest and Greenest City in the Philippines, after successively holding the title in 1994, 1995 and 1996.

My own composition titled “Baguio, the Return” has for its objective situation the famous and now infamous Burnham Park. Located in the most precious piece of Baguio property, “the mother of all parks” has been designed and named after Daniel H. Burnham, a leading American architect and urban planner of his time. Originally conceived as an oasis in the heart of a bustling city, Burnham Park with its 12 clusters has since become a highly commercialized amusement center for tourists and indigenes alike. Its facilities include a man-made lake with swan-shaped rowboats for hire, a children’s playground, a cycling area, a roller skating rink, an athletic bowl, a grandstand, a picnic grove, themed gardens (Rose Garden and Igorot Garden), an orchidarium, as well as inexpensive eateries along the park’s periphery.

But Burnham Park also has a darker side. Due to Baguio’s rapid urbanization which is concomitant to its transformation from a hill station to the summer capital, Burnham Park in the evenings has become a red light district of sorts, especially for the homosexual tourist. This really comes as no surprise, since where there is capital in the cold cash sense of the word, the sex trade inevitably flourishes.

The persona in my poem however resists the easy lay that can be provided by the ever willing callboys who prowl the area like wolves. Instead he waxes romantic in his perpetual search for the metaphorical you, the significant other whose “absence/ (he) seek(s)/ among the pines.” Although his quest remains unfulfilled at the end of the poem among “the mist,/ like dragon’s breath/ that shrouds/ Baguio with myths//,” his yearning for true love in such an unlikely place subverts the very notion that the gay tourist only visits Burnham Park at night for purely sexual reasons.

A Season of Blooming

Every February, Baguio City commemorates the Panagbenga Festival, a month-long celebration whose highlight is the annual parade of blossom-bedecked floats and the street dancing that accompanies it. Panagbenga or “a season of blooming” concludes with the closing of Session Road to vehicular traffic and the transformation of its length into a night market replete with commercial stalls and al fresco cafés and restaurants. The event attracts tens of thousands of tourists who are eager to participate in the revelry and merriment the City of Flowers has to offer.

But historically speaking, the Panagbenga Festival is a fairly recent seasonal attraction invented by the local tourism industry in 1995 to help combat the devastating effects of the major earthquake that hit Luzon in 1990. Formerly known as the Baguio Flower Festival, the name has been changed in 1996 to Panagbenga upon the suggestion of artist-curator Ike Picpican, adding an indigenous flavor to the festivity.

Far from the madding crowd, Ophelia A. Dimalanta memorializes a “lone/ Gardenia” blooming near the Dominican House in Baguio City. In her poem “Flowers are not for Picking, are they?” the persona asks the reader to imagine the objective situation as if it were a painting by the Dutch master Jan Vermeer who is famous for his skillful handling of scenes from everyday domestic life as seen in natural light:

Imagine a Vermeer and swear
This is exactly how the eye catches the scene,
Illumined in its hush
By Baguio’s mist-borne light.

The persona is perfectly aware that despite their refreshing scent, velvety texture and natural beauty flowers are not meant for picking, since as she herself observes “for picked, they easily/ Wilt in mortal hands, their gloried peaks/ Nipped all too soon, arrested dreams./” But despite her erudition she gives in to the temptation by stealing a single blossom and ends up regretting the transgression, since gardenias close their petals and begin to shrivel the moment they are plucked. As a form of redress, the persona immortalizes the experience and the lessons learned:

... Confine it, now,
Its blurring scent with words, such as
Fashioned into poetry of the palest
Frostiest shades, to holograph and hang
For fame, postscripted in afterthought,
Thus: read, but pluck and plunder not
To your hand’s content. For there, too,
Are private rituals one may touch
From a proper distance. And no closer.

City in the Sky

Because of its high altitude, Baguio is also an idyllic place, fit for stargazing as well as to contemplate the immensity of the universe. For visiting urbanites, situated at some 1,500 meters above sea level, the Highest City in the Philippines represents release from the mundane cares of the material world. Baguio as Cloud-Kissed City, City in the Clouds, Skyland, is a postmodern Shangri-La, an earthly paradise that provides a temporary haven if not heaven for tourists who badly need a break from the vicissitudes of everyday life.

“City-bred and dazed,” the personae in J. Neil C. Garcia’s “Baguio. By Starlight” suspend their collective disbelief as they lay on the ground and stare at the night sky filled with “stars that shoot and fizz.” They are overwhelmed by the dimensions of the cosmos as the elements conspire to make them feel diminutive (“we withdraw into the downy folds of our bodies/ small and genuflected among the lower crags/ of our earth.”) Nevertheless, they are surrounded by “profound love” the rooster protecting his brood from the cold; lovers tossing and turning in bed like arachnids spinning the gossamer of their webs; Polaris moving toward “climax/ in a sensuous patch of sky.” Despite their jaded selves, the personae in the end become hopeful as the sense of wonder comes back to them, even if eventually it “fireballs, falls short and disappears/ in the star-filled eyes of the heart’s/ own gracious nights.//”

Wagwag Country

Originally intended as relief goods for underprivileged Filipinos, the used clothes donated by foreign countries and known nationally as ukay-ukay (wagwag in the local tongue) have become a main source of income for enterprising Baguio businessmen. It is beyond the capacity of this fledging researcher to determine the processes involved behind the commercialization of an originally noble and humanitarian initiative, since the scope of this paper does not include in its provenance the socio-economic aspects of the used clothes industry. Nevertheless, the ukay-ukay, whether you like it or not, has become a staple product of Philippine alternative fashion, for the apparels that are available in its rickety racks and dusty bins are one of a kind, ranging from vintage dresses to the most recent rip-offs.

Ronald Baytan’s “Ukay-ukay” celebrates the countless clothes in a variety of fabrics (“So muck silk and suede,/ Cotton and rayon,/ Polyester and lycra./”) which are available for purchase to the stylishly adventurous. So the you-persona in his poem rummages through box after box of garments, imagining himself wearing “suits of brown, black/ And navy blue, in shirts/ And shoes dressing/ Up the market street,” well aware however that each donated piece of clothing from abroad has a story to tell, whether its former owner is still alive or not. But what pricks his conscience in the end is not the thought of putting himself in a dead man’s pair of shoes; rather it is the thought that by buying an outfit which has been given for free, he is depriving his “little brown/ Brothers and sisters” of wearable clothes, for his acquisition however little it may seem to be in the scheme of things is nonetheless helping to perpetuate a trade practice that should have never existed in the first place.

Writers’ Haven

Baguio’s rich cultural heritage which combines the tribal indigenous, the foreign colonial and the modern postmodern has fueled the imagination of the local populace. As a result, the City of Pines has become a center of creativity for the different art forms, including literature, since it is the home to both established and aspiring writers, whether indigenous or migrant. The roster of wordsmiths that have graced this writers’ haven with their permanent or provisional literary presences reads like a who’s who in contemporary Philippine literature, even if we only include those poets who write exclusively or mostly in English: Cirilo F. Bautista, Edgardo B. Maranan, Luisa Aguilar Igloria, Francis C. Macansantos, Elizabeth Lolarga, Frank Cimatu, Pia Arboleda, Jhoanna Lynn Cruz, Jennifer Patricia A. Carino, and of course, my dear friend, the late Maningning Miclat.

As host city to University of the Philippines National Writers’ Workshop since 1993, Baguio has been further textualized by many young but talented poets. Isabelita Orlina Reyes’s “Workshop City” captures the emotional state of a writing fellow who observes that her “time in this city is unreal,” for “The wind moves at a rhythm different/ from (her) steps.” The persona then catalogs the sights which her valley-raised urbanized self finds peculiar or amusing:

…The thin air with its thick scent
of pine is an ever-present blanket,
and come dusk the shadows begin to melt
into the blackness. Fog fingers take hold
of trees, and I lose myself in forests
as much a part of the city as streets,
neon lights, people and mild gusts of smog.

But despite her awareness of the evanescence of the visit, the persona also knows that upon departure she will “go home bearing pretty gifts,” (a bagful both of sights and insights perhaps?) which is a feeling shared by most itinerant poets who have experienced firsthand the inexhaustible charms of Baguio.

Returning to the Lowland

For tourists from the Metropolis, a vacation to the City of Pines always ends with the homeward journey, a return to the lowland from whence they have come. Merlie M. Alunan’s “Baguio, the Last Day” captures the “panic of endings” experienced by the personae as they gather souvenirs hyperbolically:

…we broke off twigs,
Boughs, blossoms, hacked earth for sprouts,
Rootstocks and bulbs, forced seeds
From their green pods --- to bring home,
To bring home, we said.

Since reminiscing is not sufficient to satisfy their craving for things Baguio, they snatch everything within sight. But the personae are cognizant of the fact that some things are impossible to hold on to, like “The rush of wind among the pines,/ A hillside blaze of marigolds,/ Perfume of willow flowers/.” So they imbibe deeply the “sweet wine of air” and wind up tasting a trace of salt, instantly reminding them of their seaside origins. As the personae travel downwards along Marcos Highway, things begin to fall apart: the flowers droop, the fresh produce shrinks, and finally even their memories fade. In the end, the only thing they can carry with them as a keepsake is this realization:

All we could bring on the long trek home
The old knowledge --- we cut the same trail
Through which to return.

Some Concluding Thoughts

Visiting Filipino poets writing from English by virtue of their visionary function as opposed to the purely documentary have authentically articulated through their poems their personal encounters with the City of Pines. By providing prospective readers alternative images and more imaginative experiences, their verses subvert traditional representations of Baguio and the generic itineraries that are thus engendered and encouraged in tourist brochures and other promotional materials. For notwithstanding its many monikers and the concomitant insidious expectations each label brings into the big picture, the City of Pines undergoes what the Russian Formalists call ostranenie or defamiliarization in the deft hands of these wordsmiths, who bring back to the collective consciousness the missing freshness in the discernment of reality which has been deadened by habitual modes of perception. Baguio’s landscape, therefore, despite urban decay and overpopulation, will always remain poetic as long as there are bards who will sing her praises after apprehending from another angle of vision the sights and sounds this hill station turned summer capital has to offer that ordinary tourists tend to ignore.

NOTES:

See the entry on “Authenticity” in David Harris, Key Concepts in Leisure Studies, SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 2005, p. 25.
Op cit., p. 30.
Ocatavio Paz, “A literature of foundations” (Lysander Kemp, trans.), in Triquarterly Anthology of Latin American Literature, Jose Donoso and William Henken (eds.), New York, Dutton, 1969, p. 8.
Jeanette Winterson, “Imagination and Reality” in Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery, New York, Vintage International, 1995, pp. 142-143.
The Baguio City Travelers’ Guidebook 2006, Baguio City, Heritage Promotions, 2006, p. unnumbered.
Rofel G. Brion, Story, Quezon City, University of the Philippines Press, 1997, pp. 74-75.
Lourd Ernest de Veyra, Subterranean Thought Parade, Pasig City, Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1997, p. 10.
Angelo V. Suarez, else it was purely girls, Manila, UST Publishing House, 2005, pp. 22-25.
Ani, Volume V, Number 1, (Cordillera Issue), Manila, Coordinating Center for Literature, Cultural Center of the Philippines, January-April 1991, p. 15.
Alfred A. Yuson, Trading in Mermaids, Pasig City, Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1993, pp. 14-15.
Jose Wendell P. Capili, “Baguio: The Demise” in Philippines Free Press, 22 September 1999, p. 36.
The Baguio City Travelers’ Guidebook 2006, Baguio City, Heritage Promotions, 2006, p. 37.
Nerisa del Carmen Guevara, Reaching Destination: Poems and the Search for Home, Manila, UST Publishing House, p. 92.
Ralph Semino Galán, The Southern Cross and Other Poems, Manila, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, UBOD New Authors Series, 2005, p. 44.
Ophelia A. Dimalanta, The Time Factor and Other Poems, Manila, Interpress Publishing House, 1983, pp.1-2.
First appeared in J. Neil C. Garcia’s Our Lady of the Carnival, Quezon City, University of the Philippines Press, 1996, pp. 115-116, revised version provided by the author.
Unpublished manuscript provided by the author.
Isabelita Orlina Reyes, Stories from the City, Quezon City, University of the Philippines Press, 1998, p. 42.
Merlie M. Alunan, Selected Poems, Quezon City, University of the Philippines Press, 2004, p. 63.

UST Extends Deadline for 2nd National Criticism Workshop

2010-04-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

UST Extends Deadline for 2nd National Criticism Workshop

The University of Santo Tomas is still accepting applications to the 2nd J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop in Criticism on the Arts and Humanities to be held on May 23 to 29, 2010 in Baguio City.

The workshop is endowed and organized by the Varsitarian, the 82-year-old official student organ of UST. It is held in honor of the late Nationalist Artist for the Visual Arts and art critic J. Elizalde Navarro, who was art editor and critic-poet of the Varsitarian during his student days. This annual workshop is part of the academic celebrations leading to the 400th anniversary of UST in 2011.

Fellowships will be given to 10 promising young critics who would like to enhance their analytical, research and writing skills.

To be considered for the fellowship, applicants should submit a scholarly, properly documented critical essay (7-12 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font) on any of the art forms (literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, drama, music, etc.) on or before April, 2010.

Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with a resumé, a recommendation letter from an academic mentor or a literary/art critic, a certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.

Address all applications to the conference conveners: Assoc. Prof. Ferdinand M. Lopez and/or Asst. Prof. Ralph Semino Galán, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, España Street, Sampaloc, Manila. E-mail ralphseminogalan@gmail.com for further inquiries.

PALT 50th Anniversary and Convention

2010-04-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

PALT 50th Anniversary & Convention on May 27-28 @ Teacher's Camp, Baguio City

Dear Language and Literacy Advocates,

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Philippine Association for Language Teaching, Inc. (PALT, Inc.) will hold its National Convention and Seminar-Workshop on May 27-28, 2010 at Teachers Camp, Baguio City. With the theme “Looking Back - Learning Right - Moving Ahead,” this undertaking aims to provide language educators, supervisors, department heads, BPO trainers and teachers the opportunity to keep abreast with current developments in language (English and Filipino) and language teaching.

The Speakers are:

Dr. Thomas Krall (Former Editor, English Teaching Forum)

Dr. Nilda Sunga (Former Professor, Regional English Language Center)

Dr. Ma. Lourdes Tayao (University of the Philippines and University of the East)

Dr. Jovy Peregrino (University of the Philippines)

A registration fee of P 2,800.00 will be charged per participant to defray expenses for the accommodation, food, handouts, certificate, speakers’ fee and kit.

For more information, please contact:

Tel. no. (02) 433-4838, Fax no. (02) 926-6590

Cellphone no. 0917-378-9639 or 0919-453-5428

2009 PHILSTAGE Gawad Buhay!

2010-04-04T05:39:00.000-07:00

Ballet Philipines dominates 2009 PHILSTAGE Gawad Buhay!

With seven major awards, Ballet Philippines’ Neo Filipino emerged as the top winner in the 2009 Gawad Buhay!: The PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts held on March 26, 2010 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

A dance trilogy that pays homage to Filipino heritage and cultural diversity, Neo Filipino won the awards for citations for outstanding dance production, ensemble performance in a dance production, female lead performance in dance (Candice Adea), male lead performance in dance (Ronelson Yadao), female featured performance in dance (Marian Faustino for Amada), male featured performance in dance (Lucky Vicentino for Ulaging), adaptation or translation (Alice Reyes for Amada), costume design (Gino Gonzales), and lighting design (Katsch Catoy).

Two musical productions by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) tied for second place with four awards each. They are Si Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo at Ang Limang Milyong Boto and Ismail at Isabel.

The two-hour programme featured excerpts of nominated dance and musical productions performed by Ballet Manila, Ballet Philippines, Candice Adea, Joann Co, Sarah Abigail Cruz, Angel Gabriel, Victor Robinson III, and Richardson Yadao.

A distinguished achievement award called Natatanging Gawad Buhay was also conferred to theater icons Zeneida Amador and Celeste Legaspi and corporate supporter Avon Philippines.

PHILSTAGE is the country’s only organization of professional performing arts companies with a regular season programming of repertory development and performance pedagogy training. Its Board of Directors include PETA's Melvin Lee, vice president; Ballet Philippines’ Sandy Hontiveros, secretary; Repertory Philippines Gidget Tolentino, treasurer; Ballet Manila's Susan Macuja, Gantimpala Theater Foundation’s Tony Espejo, Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit’sMitch Valdes, TRUMPET's Audie Gemora, and PHILSTAGE Executive Director Elmar Beltran Ingles as members.

The Gawad Buhay jury is composed of Exie Abola, Walter Ang, Gilbert Cadiz, Ronald Elepaño III, Arvin Ello, Ralph Semino Galan. Rolando Inocencio, Glenn Sevilla Mas, Joy Parohinog, Joey Ting, and Basilio Esteban Villaruz.

Below is the complete list of winners:

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Dance Production: The Cast of BP’s Masterworks

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Musical: (Tie) The Casts of PETA’s Si Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo at Ang Limang Milyong Boto and Ismail at Isabel

Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Play: The Cast of TP’s Madonna Brava ng Mindanao

Outstanding Musical Composition: Vincent de Jesus (PETA’s Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo at Ang Limang Milyong Boto),

Outstanding Musical Direction: Gerard Salonga (REP’s Sweeney Todd)

Outstanding Set Design: Tuxqs Rutaquio (TP’s Streetcar Named Desire/Flores Para Los Muertos)

Outstanding Costume Design: Gino Gonzales (BP’s Neo-Filipino)

Outstanding Lighting Design: Katsch Catoy (BP’s Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Sound Design: Aries Alcayaga (PETA’s Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Adaptation or Translation: Alice Reyes (BP’s Amada in Neo-Filipino)

Outstanding Libretto: Vince De Jesus (PETA’s Si Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo at ang Limang Milyong Boto)

Outstanding Original Script: Tony Perez (PETA’s Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Choreography for Play or Musical: Carlon Matobato (PETA’s Ismail at Isabel)

Outstanding Choreography for Dance Production: Augustus Damian III’s Evacuation (BP’s Masterworks)

Outstanding Male Featured Performance in Dance: Lucky Vicentino (BP’s Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Female Featured Performance in Dance: Marian Faustino (BP’s Neo- Filipino)

Outstanding Male Featured Performance in a Musical: Marvin Ong (REP’s Sweeney Todd)

Outstanding Female Featured Performance in a Musical: Liesl Batucan (REP’s Sweeney Todd)

Outstanding Male Featured Performance in a Play: Dido Dela Paz (REP’s Portrait of the Artist as Filipino)

Outstanding Female Featured Performance in a Play: Peewee O’Hara (TP’s Mga Mansanas sa Disyerto/Apples from the Desert)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in Dance: Ronelson Yadao (BP’s Neo-Filipino)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in Dance: Candice Adea (BP’s Neo-Filipino)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musical: Audie Gemora (REP’s Sweeney Todd)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical: Mechu Lauchengco-Yulo (REP’s Sweeney Todd)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Lex Marcos (PETA’s Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play: Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (TP’s Madonna Brava ng Mindanao)

Outstanding Stage Direction: Nonon Padilla (PETA’s Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Dance Production: BP’s Masterworks

Outstanding Musical Production: PETA’s Si Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo at ang Limang Milyong Boto

Outstanding Play Production: PETA’s Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR BP's NEO-FILIPINO

2010-03-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR BALLET PHILIPPINES NEO-FILIPINO 2010

1. What contemporary situations and/or problems are tackled by the eight dance vignettes?
(Elaborate on your answer in 3 to 5 paragraphs.)

2. What particular dance vignette embodies the notion that “dance is a spiritual activity in physical form?” (Elaborate on your answer in 2 to 3 paragraphs.)

3. Among the eight dance vignettes, what is your favorite performance and why? (Elaborate on your answer in 2 to 3 paragraphs.)

Introduction to Drama Preliminary Exam 2009-2010

2009-12-26T09:26:00.000-08:00

Regarding Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Answer the following comprehension questions as articulately and accurately as you can.

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:

1. Summarize the back story before the play really begins. What actually happens in the play itself? What period of time is covered? How important is setting to this play? In what specific ways?

2. How, exactly, does the chorus function in this play? What is the significance of the chorus being made up of Theban citizens? Which opinions of the chorus are most important to the effects of the play?

3. Characterize Teiresias. How much does the play itself actually tell us about Teiresias? What function does he perform in the plot? In the play’s structure?

4. In what specific ways is the plot of Oedipus Rex tragic?

Choose one of the following writing suggestions and develop it into a three to five page essay.

WRITING SUGGESTIONS:

1. In an essay of about three pages, compare Oedipus at the beginning of the play with Oedipus at the end. Explain the differences in terms of tragic form.

2. Try to recount the events of the play from the point of view of Iokaste. In what sense is the play a tragedy for her? Write a three-page persuasive essay in which you argue that the play is Iokaste’s story.

3. What are the more significant and distinctive elements in the character of Oedipus? In what sense is he responsible for his tragic fate? In what sense is he a victim? How heroic is he? Write a three-page essay appraising Oedipus’s character and assessing his responsibility for the things that befall him.

To be submitted on January 14, 2010. All papers must be written on short bond paper using Times New Roman 12 point font, single space with an empty space between paragraphs.

National Book Development Board November 2009 Activities

2009-10-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

This November is all about our talented Pinoy writers, and the publishers of these talented Pinoy writers! Join the NBDB in a month-long celebration of Philippine Book Development Month. If you haven't picked up a Pinoy book recently it's about time you know that ang GALING PINOY, ay dapat BASAHIN!

I. The Writers, Their Works

How to Read… the next generation
A series of readings and intimate talks with young writers in the context of their literary genres and specific works

Venue: Filipinas Heritage Library

1. For poetry (November 10, 9am)
Featuring: Conchitina Cruz, Mikael Co, Mesandel Arguelles, and Joel Toledo
Moderator: Gémino Abad

2. For fiction (November 11, 1pm)
Featuring: Tara FT Sering, Edgar Samar, Dean Alfar, Angelo Lacuesta
Moderator: Jose Dalisay

3. For non-fiction (November 12, 9am)
Featuring: Luis Katigbak, Vlad Gonzales, Rica Bolipata Santos, Louie Cano, Carljoe Javier
Moderator: Antonio Hidalgo

II. Reading Nick Joaquin (November 16, 2009)
A discussion of Nick Joaquin as historian, novelist, poet and his contributions to the literary art form and the Filipino way of life.

1. NJ and his non-fiction
A lecture by fictionist Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo

2. NJ and his poetry
A lecture by poet Afred Yuson

3. Transforming NJ’s works into film
(Lecturer to be announced)

4. A film viewing of NJ’s work turned into a movie
Tentaive Venue: Greenbelt 3's My Cinema

III. Global Pinoy Literature (November 24, 5pm)
Coffee and conversation with three Man Asian Literary Prize winner / finalists Miguel Syjuco, Jose Dalisay, and Alfred Yuson and Gémino Abad, recipient of the Prize Premio Feronia – Citta di Fiano 2009.

Venue: Filipinas Heritage Library, by invitation only
Moderator: Isagani Cruz

IV. El Filibusterismo (November 25, 2009)
A sequel to the reading of Noli Me Tangere, the El Filibusterismo performance reading will be a showcase of talent from different fields of the art as artists and celebrity performers read / perform chapters of this historic and tumultous novel.

Venue: Greenbelt Park

V. Pinoy Story Writing Contest
A month-long story writing contest open to all writers, focusing on specific topics such as Pinoy romance, chick lit, horror fiction, literary fiction. Four winners will be selected and will be awarded P15,000 to be announced during the Books and Art Festival at the Greenbelt Park. Winners also have a chance of being published by Precious Pages, Summit Books, Anvil and PsiCom.

VI. Books and Art Festival (November 23 to 26)
A festival that will showcase the best of Filipino literature and art in one venue. For five days, Greenbelt becomes a haven for artists (literary and visual) and art lovers where they will get to experience this unique mixture of the arts at the heart of the city.

VII. Writing about Philippine Culture, Art, and Food (November 7 to 8 2009)
An overnight adventure for those who want to sample the native culture of Southern Luzon. This will involve a tour to local art galleries, native restaurants, and Ugu Bigyan’s pottery shop.

VIII. Davao Academic Publishing Seminar (November 19 to 21, 2009)
An academic publishing conference for Mindanao-based publishers and universities, with Google’s Erik Hartmann, De La Salle’s Dr. Isagani Cruz, UP Press’ Dr. Luisa Camagay, and ADMU Press’ Maricor Baytion among others.

Venue: Ateneo De Davao University

IX. Tulaan sa Tren 2 launch
The much-loved Tulaan sa Tren is back with more poems and the winners of the Tulaan sa Tren 2 Poetry Contest, judged by no less than the country's top poets National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera, Feronia Prize winner Gemino Abad, and Man Asian Literary Prize finalist Krip Yuson.

Venue: The LRT2 Cubao Station, by invitation

For details, visit www.nbdb.gov.ph!

NOTE TO MY STUDENTS AND FRIENDS: I am one of the featured poets of the Tulaan sa Tren 2. Please attend the launch on November 26, 2009 at 2PM... Hope to see you there!

Ballet Philippines' TALES OF THE MANUVU

2009-09-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW THE LARGER VERSION OF THE POSTER...

Guide Questions for Ballet Philipines "Master

2009-08-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

1. How does the first part of the show, composed of five dance vignettes and excerpts from full-lenghth ballets, highlight the vibrant diversity of Philippine culture and society? Among the five dance vignettes/excerpts, what is your favorite and why?

2. In what way does the second part of the show, made up of three dance numbers, exemplify Susan Sontag's idea that in the art form ruled by Terpsichore a transfiguration occurs and that "the dancer is the dance"? How do these three dance numbers embody Merce Cunningham and Lincoln Kirstein's definition of dance as "a spiritual activity in physical form"?

PHILSTAGE bares first quarter citations for 2009 Gawad Buhay!

2009-06-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

PHILSTAGE bares first quarter citations for 2009 Gawad Buhay!

Revivals and restagings dominated the first quarterly citations list of the 2009 Gawad Buhay!, the PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts.

With fourteen performance and technical citations, Ballet Philippines' Neo Filipino topped the first quarterly race. Coming in as close second with eleven citations, is the Philippine Educational Theater Association' s production of Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?, while Repertory Philippines' A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino received eight citations to claim the third berth. Another revival, Tanghalang Pilipino's ZsaZsa Zaturnah, placed fourth with seven citations.

A dance trilogy that serves as homage to the vast riches of the Filipino cultural heritage, Neo Filipino's Amada, Ulaging – Daog-dog sa Sang Libong Kulog and KatiTaog collectively won citations for outstanding dance production, ensemble performance, female lead performance in dance (Carissa Adea), male lead performance in dance (Biag Gaongen and Ronelson Yadao), featured performance in dance (Marian Faustino and Lucky Vicentino), choreography (Alice Reyes), adaptation or translation (Alice Reyes), musical composition (Kalayo), costume design (Gino Gonzales), lighting design (Katsch Catoy), and set design (Gino Gonzales).

Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?, a psycho-emotional journey into the lives, loves and relationships of three people, earned the jurors' citations for outstanding play production, stage direction (Nonon Padilla), ensemble performance, male lead performance in a play (Lex Marcos, Juliene Mendoza and Jack Yabut), original script (Tony Perez), musical direction (Jed Balsamo), lighting design (Ian Torqueza), sound design (Aries Alcayaga), and set design (Salvador Bernal).

Widely considered as the best Filipino play in English, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino was cited for outstanding play, stage direction (Jose Mari Avellana), original script (Nick Joaquin), female lead performance in a play (Liesl Batucan and Ana Bitong), featured performance in a play (Dido dela Paz), lighting design (Martin Esteva), and sound design (Lamberto Avellana, Jr.).

ZsaZsa Zaturnah, a hilarious tale of the adventures of a gay beautician-turned- Pinoy superhero, was cited for outstanding musical production, ensemble performance, lead female performance in a musical (Eula Valdes), featured performance in a musicale (Nar Cabico and Joey Paras), musical direction (Vincent De Jesus), and original music composition (Vincent De Jesus).

Also cited for individual achievements are Caissa Borromeo for outstanding female lead performance in a musicale and Kyla Rivera for outstanding featured performance in a musicale, both for Repertory Philippines' I Love You Because.

Now on its second year, Gawad Buhay! is the first-ever industry awards exclusively for the performing arts juried by an independent panel of critics, scholars, artists and theater enthusiasts. Outstanding individual and group achievements in various artistic and technical aspects of play, musical and dance productions and performances are honored based on quarterly citations deliberated by the jury who are required to watch all productions of PHILSTAGE member-companies for the entire year. From the four quarterly citations, the jury will select the final nominees qualified to win the awards by the end of the performance season.

PHILSTAGE is the only alliance of professional performing arts organizations in the Philippines. Its members include Ballet Manila, Ballet Philippines, Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), PETA, Repertory Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino and TRUMPETS.

Below is the complete list of the 2009 first quarter citations in various categories:

Outstanding Production of a Play: PETA's Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre? (PETA); and Repertory Philippines' A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (Repertory Philippines)

Outstanding Musical Production: Tanghalang Pilipino's ZsaZsa Zaturnah

Outstanding Dance Production: Ballet Philippines' Neo Filipino

Outstanding Stage Direction: Nonon Padilla (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?); and Jose Mari Avellana (Portrait of the Artist as Filipino)

Outstanding Ensemble Performance: The casts of Ballet Philippines' Neo Filipino; PETA's Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?; and Tanghalang Pilipino's ZsaZsa Zaturnah

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play : Liesl Batucan and Ana Bitong (Portrait of the Artist as Filipino)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Lex Marcos, Juliene Mendoza and Jack Yabut (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play: Dido Dela Paz (Portrait of the Artist as Filipino)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musicale: Caissa Borromeo (Repertory Philippines' I Love You Because); and Eula Valdes (ZsaZsa Zaturnah)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musicale: No citation

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musicale : Nar Cabico and Joey Paras (ZsaZsa Zaturnah); and Kyla Rivera (I Love You Because)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Carissa Adea (Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Biag Gaongen and Ronelson Yadao (Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Dance Production: Marian Faustino and Lucky Vicentino (Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Original Script: Nick Joaquin's Portrait of the Artist as Filipino; and Tony Perez's Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?

Outstanding Original Libretto: No citation

Outstanding Original Music Composition: Vincent De Jesus (ZsaZsa Zaturnah)

Outstanding Adaptation or Translation: Alice Reyes (Amada from Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Musical Direction: Jed Balsamo (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?); and Vincent De Jesus (ZsaZsa Zaturnah)

Outstanding Original Music Composition: Vincent De Jesus (ZsaZsa Zaturnah); and Kalayo (KatiTaog from Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Choreography: Alice Reyes (Amada from Neo Filipino); and Alden Lugnasin (Ulaging from Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Set Design – Salvador Bernal (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?); Gino Gonzales (KatiTaog from Neo Filipino); and Gino Gonzales (Ulaging from Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Costume Design: Gino Gonzales (Ulaging from Neo Filipino)

Outstanding Lighting Design: Katsch Catoy (Neo Flipino); Martin Esteva (Portrait of the Filipino as an Artist); and Ian Torqueza (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?)

Outstanding Sound Design: Aries Alcayaga (Saan Ba Tayo Ihahatid ng Disyembre?); and Lamberto Avellana, Jr. (Portrait of the Artist as Filipino)

Another 16th INWW Article

2009-06-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Region 8 fellows bag awards in national writers workshop
By Neil D. Lopido

Tacloban City (June 2) -- Two fellows in Eastern Visayas won the Jimmy Balacuit Literary Award in the recently concluded 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop held at the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) last May 25-29, 2009.

The two siday writers, who both graduated at the UP Tacloban College, were Harold L. Mercurio, from Calbayog City and Jhonil Bajado, from Maydolong, Eastern Samar.

Mercurio landed second place while Bajado placed third in Poetry Category. Cindy A. Velasquez of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City got the first place of the said literary award. Both Mercurio and Bajado received cash prizes and certificates from MSU-IIT and Jimmy Balacuit Foundation to include free registration, travel allowance, and board and lodging.

It Can be recalled that last year's INWW, three fellows from Eastern Visayas were also awardees of the same Literary Award in Poetry and Fiction. These writers were Leonilo Lopido from Dolores, Eastern Samar and Luciano Abia IV from Basey, Samar (Poetry Category) and Efmer Agustin of Abuyog, Leyte (Fiction).

The Iligan National Writers Workshop is one of the three institutionalized writing workshops in the country spearheaded by Prof. Christine Godinez-Ortega through the Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc. and MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

Ralph Semino Galan, one of the famous writers and alumnus of the INWW, was invited to give the keynote address to the 16th INWW.

Manuscripts were evaluated by Bro. Karl Gaspar, CSsR, C. Godinez-Ortega, Arlene Yandug, Ed P. Ortega, German Gervacio, Steve Fernandez and Zola Gonzalez Macarambon.

The panelists of this year's workshop were Ma. Rosario Cruz Lucero (UP Diliman), Jaime An Lim (FEU), Merlie M. Alunan (UP Tacloban), Victor N. Sugbo (UP Tacloban), Leoncio P. Deriada (UP Iloilo), German V. Gervacio (MSU-IIT), Steven Patrick C. Fernandez (MSU-IIT), Macario Tiu (Ateneo de Zamboanga), Ralph Semino Galan (UST), and Christine Godinez-Ortega (MSU-IIT).

The awarding ceremony was highlighted by the launching of the 15th INWW Proceedings, 'About Us' edited by Prof. Christine Godinez-Ortega and the Special Issue of the Mindanao Forum which combines the keynote lectures from Lumbera to Enriquez edited by Christine Godinez-Ortega and published by MSU-IIT OVCRE.

The 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop Closes

2009-06-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

Launches and Prizes: The 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop
by Steven Patrick P.C. Fernandez

The 16th edition of the Iligan National Writers Workshop wrapped up its sessions last May 29 in Iligan City.

Sixteen fellows went through the experience of having their works scrutinized in the INWW held at the Elena Tower Inn in Iligan City. From May 25 to 29, the panel and the fellows praised or panned poems, short stories, and a play hoping to hone skills and invigorate Philippine writing with new talents and insights.

The Iligan workshop, one of three institutionalized in the country, culminated with the Jimmy Y. Balacuit Sr. Awards to the most promising works.

The INWW distinguishes itself from the other workshops because it has repositioned regional literature from the fringes to the mainstream. This workshop draws participants from across cultures ensuring equal representations from Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. A bursary, too, from the Manuel E. Buenafe family prescribes that the 16th fellow be a Muslim or a lumad.

The scheme for a multi-lingual and multi-cultural workshop identifies the Iligan writeshop. Distinguishing the workshop, too, is the meticulous way proceedings are documented and published so that a run of the process of writing, criticism, and rewriting is kept for scholars to pore through. The Iligan workshop is the only workshop in the country that publishes its critiquing process.

This year, the INWW launched About Us, proceedings from last year’s workshop, and the Mindanao Forum (both edited by Godinez-Ortega), that anthologizes all fifteen keynote speeches from the start of the INWW in 1994. The speeches include those of National Artist Bien Lumbera, Cirilo Bautista, Ric de Ungria, Gemino Abad, Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta , Erlinda Alburo, Merle Alunan, Chari Lucero, Isagani Cruz, Deriada, Bautista, and those names that matter in contemporary Philippine Literature.

One other distinction: the INWW has initiated the practice to let former fellows who have made names in Philippine Literature deliver the keynote address during the opening program. This year, poet-critic Ralph Semino Galan delivered the address joining other alumni fellows who previously addressed past openings: Charlson Ong, Vicente Garcia Groyon III, Michael U. Obenieta, and Rebecca Anonuevo.

Tradition, too, calls for a performance of a literary work by the MSU-IIT Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), and this year, IPAG transcreated Godinez-Ortega’ s poem “Camp Bushra on Inquirer Page One” in a mix of dance, drama, film, and performance art.

The merry mix of languages and genres brought together writers-critics- scholars who are well established in their language turfs. Joining Deriada and Galan were Tony Enriquez, German Gervacio, Victor Sugbo, Mac Tiu, Alunan, Lucero, Godinez-Ortega, An Lim, and this writer.

The INWW awards are named after the late Jimmy Y. Balacuit Sr. who, as Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension, adopted the management of this workshop to anchor a writing program within the vision of the MSU-IIT. In his memory, his family has endowed cash prizes to the most promising writers in all genres awarded yearly by his wife Prof. Rosalinda C. Balacuit.

The 2009 Jimmy Y. Balacuit Sr. winners are:

Poetry FIRST PRIZE
Labyog / Sirkiro / Ang Pagpaabot sa Paglipot sa Aninipot
CINDY A. VELASQUEZ (Cebuano)

SECOND PRIZE
Balud / Ayaw Pagpudla an Tuog / Bump Cars
PHIL HAROLD MERCURIO (Waray)

THIRD PRIZE
Mga Dalan / Duyan-duyan / Iihapon Ko
JHONIL C. BAJADO (Waray)

Fiction
FIRST PRIZES
“The Order of Things”
GABRIEL P. MERCADO (English)

“Kataw”
MA. FE DE GUIA (Filipino)

SECOND PRIZE
“Alunsina’s Sky”
TIMOTHY JAMES M. DIMACALI (English)

The 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop Opens

2009-06-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

The 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop opens at 9 a.m., May 25, at the MSU-IIT Mini Theatre. Works in poetry, fiction, and drama in English and our regional languages by 16 fellows from around the country will be read and discussed by a distingushed panel of some of the most respected writers in Philippine Literature.

The Iligan workshop has set the tradition of publishing its proceedings and of inviting alumni fellows to give the keynote address. This year's keynote address will be given by poet-critic Ralph Semino Galan, alumnus of the 4th workshop 12 years ago.

This year's workshop will be highlighted by the launch of About Us (Christine Godinez-Ortega, ed.) and a compilation of all the keynote addresses (Mindanao Forum, 2009) since the workshop first opened in 1994. (The workshop was organized through the efforts and visions of workshop director Godinez-Ortega, Jaime An Lim, and Cirilo Bautista).

The workshop too pays tribute to the late poet-biologist Ed Ortega in afternoon ceremonies during the program's first day.

The Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG) performs a multi-media transcreation of Godinez-Ortega' s poem "Camp Bushra's Mosque on Inquirer Page One." (direction and music: Steven P.C. Fernandez, choreography: Kenn Erwin Velasquez, and installation art by the IPAG Creative Collective).

The Workshop is one of 3 institutionalized writing programs of the National Commission for Culture and the Art (NCCA). Partners of the NCCA are the Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc., the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, and the MSU-IIT Office of Multi-Media Information and Dissemination Unit Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension.

POETRY RE-FORMED, POETRY PERFORMED

2009-04-02T03:54:00.000-07:00

The verses were performed. Shapes were palpable, and the actions real.

Sitting through an hour-and-a-half of poetry, young audiences filled the theatre of the 11-run show Tula Tugma sa Sayaw at Dula wide-eyed at the spectacle impressing the theatre makers that the poems were indeed appreciated.

Tula re-formed and performed the poems of poets who were nurtured in the South: Anthony Tan, Christine Godinez-Ortega, Ralph Semino Galan, Don Pagusara, German Gervacio, and Marge Pernia-Evasco. The audience later dialogued with the poets. Joining this already-eminent roster of poet-conversants were Victor Sugbu and young writer Zola Gonzalez.

Collaborating with the poets were choreographer-performers Leilani Fernandez, Amado Guinto, Melvin Pascubillo, and Kenn Erwin Velasquez, and designer Vicmar Paloma. Providing performance and production support to the IPAG were the Stagecraft classes. Steven P.C. Fernandez composed the music, scripted the scenarios, and evolved the production from his concept.

Tula performed March 2-7 (3 shows a day) at the MSU-IIT Mini Theater. Its production was supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. IPAG prepares its touring schedules to schools in the coming season.

16 fellows to the 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop

2009-04-02T02:11:00.000-07:00

16 fellows to the 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop

The National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA) in cooperation with the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT)-Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Extension’s Multimedia Information & Dissemination Unit and the Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc., announce the 16 writing fellows to the 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop (INWW) to be held on May 25-29, 2009 in Iligan City. The writing fellows are:

LUZON:
FICTION (English): Timothy James M. Dimacali, UP Diliman/Pasay City; (Filipino): Ma. Fe de Guia, UP Los Banos/Caloocan City; POETRY (Filipino): Jason G. Tabinas, Ateneo de Manila University/ Pasig City; Arvin T. Ello, De la Salle University/ Paranaque City; PLAY(Filipino): Marianne Mixhaela Z. Villalon, UP Diliman/Quezon City.

VISAYAS:
POETRY (Waray): Phil Harold Mercurio, UP Tacloban/Calbayog City; Jhonil C. Bajado, UP Tacloban/Maydolong, Eastern Samar; (Cebuano): Russ Raniel A. Ligtas, UP Cebu/Cebu City; Cindy A. Velasquez, University of San Carlos/Cebu City; and (Hiligaynon): Sam S. Prudente, UP Diliman/Iloilo City.

MINDANAO:
FICTION (English): Gabriel P. Millado, UP Mindanao/Davao City; Justine May R. Torregosa, Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU)/Zamboanga City; Paul Alfonse J. Marquez, ADZU/Zamboanga City; POETRY (English): Anderson V. Villa, Ateneo de Davao University/Davao City; (Chabacano): Edgar Darren G. Bendanillo, Zamboanga State College of Marine Science & Technology, Zamboanga City; and, the Manuel E. Buenafe Writing Fellow (poetry-English): Everlyn T. Jaji, ADZU/Zamboanga City.

Panelists this year are: Ma. Rosario Cruz Lucero, Jaime An Lim, Merlie M. Alunan, Victor N. Sugbo, Antonio Enriquez, Leoncio P. Deriada, German V. Gervacio, Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, Macario Tiu, this year’s keynote speaker, Ralph Semino Galan and the INWW Director Christine Godinez-Ortega.

Evaluators of INWW manuscripts this year: Bro. Karl Gaspar, CSsR; C. Godinez-Ortega, Arlene Yandug, Ed P. Ortega, German Gervacio, Steve Fernandez and Zola Gonzalez Macarambon.

Highlights this year include the launching of the 15th INWW Proceedings, ‘About Us’ edited by Godinez-Ortega and the Special Issue of the Mindanao Forum containing 15 INWW Keynote Lectures [from Lumbera to Enriquez] also edited by Godinez-Ortega. Both are published by the MSU-IIT OVCRE.

All writing fellows are asked to confirm their attendance to the INWW with the INWW secretariat (call Alice) on or before April 24, telefax: (063) 3516131; email: aliciabartolome@yahoo.com & patpcruz@yahoo.com.

Call for Submission of Manuscripts to the 1st J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop for Criticism on the Arts

2009-03-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Call for Submission of Manuscripts to the 1st J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop for Criticism on the Arts

The University of Santo Tomas Varsitarian is now accepting applications to the 1st J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop for Criticism on the Arts to be held April 19-25, 2009 in Baguio City.

This National Workshop in honor of Nationalist Artist for the Visual Arts and art critic J. Elizalde Navarro is offering ten fellowships to promising young critics who would like to enhance their analytical skills. Fellows will be provided free board and lodging for the duration of the workshop, and transportation cost from Manila to Baguio and vice versa.

To be considered for the fellowship, applicants should submit a scholarly, properly documented critical essay (seven- to twelve-pages, double-spaced, 12-point font) on any of the art forms (literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, drama or music) on or before March 31, 2009.

Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with a resumé, a recommendation letter from an academic mentor or a literary/art critic, a certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.

Address all applications to Ferdinand M. Lopez and Ralph Semino Galán, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, España Street, Sampaloc , Manila.

Send your queries to Prof. Ralph Semino Galan: aquaboy0221@yahoo.com

For My Art, Man and Society Students SY 2008-2009, 2nd Semester

2009-02-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS TO SUSAN SONTAG'S "IN PLATO'S CAVE":

1. In what way is photography a new visual code, grammar and ethics of seeing? How do photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at? How do photographs manipulate the scale of the world?

2. Compare and contrast the photographic image with the images in film and television? In what sense are photographs interpretations of the world just like paintings and drawings? Why does a photograph seem to have a more innocent, and therefore more accurate, relation to visible reality than do other mimetic objects?

3. Why is taking a photograph a form of appropriation? Why is there an aggression implicit in every use of the camera? How is the act of taking a picture predatory, a sublimated or soft murder?

4. What are the two ways in which photography furnishes evidence? How do modern states utilize photographs? How does a photograph pass for incontrovertible proof that a given thing has happened?

5. Like every mass art, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. For ordinary people, what then are the three main functions of photography? How important is the camera for the modern nuclear family? In what sense does photography bear witness to an extended family’s connectedness?

6. Why is the camera a necessary gadget for the tourist? In what way is taking photographs a threat to an authentic experience of the world? How does the ubiquity of cameras imply that time consists of interesting events that are worth photographing?

7. In what sense is photography an elegiac art, a twilight art? Why is a photograph both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence? All photographs are memento mori. Explain why this statement in reference to human subjects is true, whether they are grotesque or gorgeous.

8. Why is photography essentially an act of non-intervention, an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged? What are the necessary contexts of feeling and attitude that help create a moral outrage to photographed atrocities? Why does the shock of photographed violence decrease with repeated viewings?

9. How does the camera make reality atomic, manageable and opaque? Why does photography encourage a view of the world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery? In the nineteenth-century, according to the most logical aesthete Mallarmé everything in the world exists to end up in a book. Why does Sontag claim that in contemporary times everything exists to end in a photograph?

PETA and Tanghalang Pilipino plays dominate PHILSTAGE’s Gawad Buhay!

2009-02-19T01:19:00.000-08:00

PETA and Tanghalang Pilipino plays dominate PHILSTAGE’s Gawad Buhay!

With four major awards each, the Philippine Educational Theater Association’s Skin Deep and Tanghalang Pilipino’s Golden Child and Kudeta won the most number of production, technical and performance awards in the 2008 Gawad Buhay, the PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts, held last night at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

Ballet Philippines’ La Revolucion Filipina, Repertory Philippines’ Hamlet and Tanghalang Pilipino’s Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna figured in another three-way tie for the second most awarded production with three awards each.

Skin Deep, a musical comedy on ordinary people’s search for beauty and happiness, got the jury’s nod for outstanding musical production, original libretto (Vincent De Jesus), male and female lead performances in a musical play (Robert Seña and May Bayot, respectively).

Golden Child – winner of the outstanding production of a full-length play, stage direction (Loy Arcenas), ensemble performance (the entire cast), and set design (Loy Arcenas) – depicts the conflicts of introducing modern changes to a 20th century traditional Chinese household.

Kudeta, a hilarious take on a coup that toppled a country's president, won for outstanding translation or adaptation (George De Jesus III), lighting design (Dennis Marasigan), set design (Tuqxs Rutaquio) and featured male performance in a play (Bong Cabrera).

Among the big winners for the individual awards categories are Floy Quintos’ Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna, which won the outstanding production of a one-act play and original play, and Vincent De Jesus whose work on Skin Deep and Batang Rizal won for outstanding original libretto and musical direction, respectively.

Dubbed as the first-ever industry awards exclusively for the performing arts, Gawad Buhay! was juried by an independent panel of critics, scholars, artists and theater enthusiasts who were deputized to watch all productions of PHILSTAGE member-companies for the entire year. Outstanding individual and group achievements in various artistic and technical aspects of play, musical and dance productions and performances are honored based on quarterly citations deliberated by the jury.

In his acceptance speech for outstanding original play for Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna, playwright-director Floy Quintos expressed appreciation of the performing arts’ unique quality as a form of creative expression. “We have become the source of talents of other industries like film and television.”

CCP President Nestor Jardin, who was one of the awards presenters, praised the high quality of productions by PHILSTAGE member-companies. “There are many of these, and there can be no better proof of this than in the next category,” referring to the thirteen nominees for the outstanding ensemble performance.

“I am very happy that we are having this award while I am still dancing,” enthused Camille Ordinario-Joson who won the outstanding featured performer in a dance production for her work on Ballet Philippines’ Latin Heat.

The mostly theater practitioner crowd cheered on approvingly as Jose Mari Avellana’s name was announced by presenter Gary Lim as winner of the outstanding male lead performance for a play. Visibly touched and appreciative of the gesture, Avellana thanked the theater community and exhorted them to uphold quality works and continue the traditions of professionalism and family kinship in the profession.

PHILSTAGE President Fernando Josef, concurrent artistic director of Tanghalang Pilipino, expressed elation over the participation of a big number of nominees. “They came with friends and family. This is a historic event as we are witnessing the maturity of an industry that responds to audiences, artists and society.”

Directed by Dennis Marasigan and produced by Elmar Beltran Ingles, the awards ceremonies featured moving performances by Ballet Philippines’ Biag Gaongen, winner of the outstanding male lead performance in dance, and the cast of PETA’s Batang Rizal.

Below is the complete list of proclaimed winners in various categories:

Outstanding Production of a Full-Length Play: Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino);

Outstanding Production of a One-Act Play: Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna (Tanghalang Pilipino);

Outstanding Musical Production: Skin Deep (PETA.

Outstanding Dance Production: Ballet Philippines’ La Revolucion Filipina.

Outstanding Stage Direction: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child)

Outstanding Original Choreography: Agnes Locsin (La Revolucion Filipina);

Outstanding Original Play: Floy Quintos’ Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna;

Outstanding Ensemble Performance: The Cast of Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino);

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Jose Mari Avellana (Tuesdays with Morrie);

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play: Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna);

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musical: Robert Seña (Skin Deep);

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical: May Bayot (Skin Deep);

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Biag Gaongen (La Revolucion Filipina and Latin Heat).

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Lisa Macuja Elizalde (Ballet Manila’s Le Corsaire)

Outstanding Male Featured Performance in a Play: Bong Cabrera (Kudeta);

Outstanding Female Featured Performance in a Play: Cris Villonco (Hamlet).

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Dance Production: Camille Ordinario-Joson (Latin Heat).

Outstanding Original Libretto: Vincent De Jesus (Skin Deep);

Outstanding Translation/ Adaptation: George de Jesus III (Kudeta)

Outstanding Musical Direction: Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal)

Outstanding Set Design: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child) and Tuxqs Rutaquio (Kudeta).

Outstanding Costume Design: Faust Peneyra (Hamlet)

Outstanding Lighting Design: Dennis Marasigan (Kudeta); and

Outstanding Sound Design: Jethro Joaquin (Hamlet).

PHILSTAGE Gawad Buhay! nominees bared, CCP awards rites set on February 18

2009-02-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

PHILSTAGE Gawad Buhay! nominees bared, CCP awards rites set on February 18

The Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group, Inc. (PHILSTAGE), in cooperation with the Cultural Center of the Philippines, invites everyone to the presentation of the 2008 Gawad Buhay! The PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts tomorrow, February 18, 2009, 7:30 p.m. at the CCP Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

Gawad Buhay! is the first-ever industry awards conferred upon outstanding achievements in the performing arts by PHILSTAGE member-companies. Outstanding individual and group achievements in various artistic and technical aspects of play, musical and dance productions and performances will be honored based on quarterly citations deliberated by an independent jury panel composed of critics, performing artists, cultural researchers and scholars, and theater enthusiasts.

Fernando Josef, president of PHILSTAGE and artistic director of Tanghalang Pilipino, said that the awards program is part of PHILSTAGE’s efforts to enhance awareness and appreciation of the performing arts. “It seeks to further professionalize the performing arts industry in the Philippines by engaging our audiences – critics, artists, and the viewing public – in a creative dialogue.”

The other members of the PHILSTAGE Board of Directors are PETA's Melvin Lee, vice president; Ballet Philippines’ Sandy Hontiveros, secretary; Repertory Philippines Gidget Tolentino, treasurer; Actors Actors’ Leonardo Lim, Ballet Manila's Susan Macuja, Gantimpala Theater Foundation’s Tony Espejo, Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit’s Mitch Valdes, TRUMPET's Joel Reyes, and PHILSTAGE Executive Director Elmar Beltran Ingles as Board Members.

Directed by Dennis Marasigan, the awards ceremonies will have the country’s foremost theater personalities as awards presentors. The cast of PETA’s Batang Rizal and Ballet Philippines’ Biag Gaongen will render special production numbers from their nominated performances.

The jury panel is composed of theater and dance critics Exie Abola, Walter Ang, Gilbert Cadiz, and Basilio Esteban Villaruz; academics and cultural educators Arvin Ello, Joy Parohinog and Geofferson Ting; theater, film and television practitioner Rolando Inocencio; poet-critic Ralph Semino Galan; and regular theatergoer Ronald Elepaño III. As jury members, they have been deputized to watch all productions of PHILSTAGE member-companies throughout 2008 and held deliberations to come up with quarterly citations.

Complimentary tickets may be claimed from the Reception Desk 30 starting at 6:45 p.m. Below is the complete list of nominees:

Outstanding Production of a Full-Length Play: Batang Rizal (PETA), Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino), Hamlet (Repertory Philippines), and Kudeta (Tanghalang Pilipino).

Outstanding Production of a One-Act Play: Tanghalang Pilipino-Virgin Labfest 4’s Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte, Ellas Inocentes, Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna, and Three Sisters, A Noh Play.

Outstanding Musical Production: Altar Boyz (Repertory Philippines) and Skin Deep (PETA).

Outstanding Dance Production: Ballet Philippines’ La Revolucion Filipina, Latin Heat, and New Beginnings.

Outstanding Stage Direction: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child), Chari Arrespacochaga (Altar Boyz), Nor Domingo (Skin Deep), Jose Estrella (Three Sisters), Floy Quintos (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna and Kudeta), Tuqxs Rutaquio (Ellas Inocentes), and Dudz Teraña (Batang Rizal).

Outstanding Original Choreography: Bam Damian (Latin Heat); Alan Hineline (New Beginnings); Agnes Locsin (La Revolucion Filipina); Alden Lugnasin (Latin Heat); Max Luna III (New Beginnings); and Jason Zamora (Altar Boyz)..

Outstanding Original Script: Christine Bellen (Batang Rizal); Rogelio Braga (Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte), Layeta Bucoy (Ellas Inocentes); and Floy Quintos (Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna).

Outstanding Ensemble Performance: Altar Boyz (Repertory Philippines); Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street (Tanghalang Pilipino); Batang Rizal (PETA); Coppelia (Ballet Philippines); Ellas Inocentes (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino), Hamlet (Repertory Philippines) ; Kudeta (Tanghalang Pilipino); La Revolucion Filipina (Ballet Philippines); Latin Heat (Ballet Philippines); Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang (PETA); New Beginnings (Ballet Philippines); and Skin Deep (PETA).

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Arthur Acuna (Golden
Child); Jose Mari Avellana (Tuesdays with Morrie); Dido de la Paz and Joe Gruta (Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street); Mario O'Hara (Kudeta); Joey Paras and Arnold Reyes (Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte); and Jonathan Tadioan (Pamantasang Hirang).

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play: Lovely Balili (Ellas Inocentes); Liesl Batucan (Golden Child); Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (Ang Kalungkutan ng Mga Reyna); Tina Chilip (Golden Child); Jenessa Roque (Ellas Inocentes); and Irma Adlawan Marasigan (Golden Child).

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musical: Red Concepcion (Altar Boyz); Juliene Mendoza and Jett Pangan (EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson); and Robert Seña (Skin Deep).

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical: Isay Alvarez (May Bayot (Skin Deep); and Gail Guanlao Billones (Skin Deep);

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Biag Gaongen (La Revolucion Filipina) and (Latin Heat).

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Lisa Macuja
Elizalde (Le Corsaire)

Outstanding Male Featured Performance in a Play: Riki Benedicto and Bong Cabrera (Kudeta); Willy Casero (Batang Rizal); and Nor Domingo (Tosca).

Outstanding Female Featured Performance Mailes Kanapi (Ang Mga Gerilya ng Powell Street) and Cris Villonco (Hamlet).

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Dance Production: Camille
Ordinario-Joson (Latin Heat).

Outstanding Original Libretto: Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal and Skin Deep).

Outstanding Translation/ Adaptation: George de Jesus III (Kudeta) and Dennis Marasigan (Golden Child).

Outstanding Musical Direction: Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal) and Jojo Malferrari (Altar Boyz).

Outstanding Set Design: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child); Mel Bernardo (Mga
Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); Gino Gonzales (New Beginnings); Mio Infante
(Coppelia and La Revolucion Filipina); and Tuxqs Rutaquio (Kudeta).

Outstanding Costume Design: Ron Alfonso (Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); Faust Peneyra (Hamlet); Gino Gonzales (Golden Child); Michael Angelo Albay (Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); and Victor Ursabia (La Revolucion Filipina).

Outstanding Lighting Design: Katsch Catoy (La Revolucion Filipina); Martin Esteva (Hamlet); Dennis Marasigan (Kudeta); and Barbi Tan-Tiongco (Golden Child).

Outstanding Sound Design: Janice Dee (Kudeta); Jethro Joaquin (EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson); Jethro Joaquin (Hamlet); Shima Takesi (Tosca); and Gidget Tolentino (Altar Boyz); and J. Victor Villareal (Golden Child).

Power and the Beloved

2009-02-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

Power and the Beloved

The beloved
in the beginning
has no power,
a sight
whose beauty
is dependent
on the beholder’s
loving gaze.

He gains strength
the moment
he discovers eyes
fixed on him
with longing,
as if he is a statue
of a greek god
come to life.

By then the lover
has lost control
of his momentum,
water flowing
through his hands,
galatea escaping
pygmalion’s
sculptural grip.

But the lover
can always look
the other way,
his vision riveting
on another man,
or looking back
he can condemn
eurydice to shadow.

- Ralph Semino Galan

Baytan's Cartographies of Desire

2009-02-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Baytan’s Cartographies of Desire

by Ralph Semino Galán

The Queen Sings the Blues, Poems 1992-2002 (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2007, 102 pages), Ronald Baytan’s long-anticipated first volume of poetry, charts the beautiful but bleak landscape of homosexual love and lust, queer desire’s many blissful fruitions and equally numerous frustrations. The 47 poems comprising the compendium map out, as the sequencing seems to suggest, the metamorphosis of a Chinese-Filipino’s gay imaginary from a fairy tale princess to the proverbial queen of the world, a fact that is later confirmed in the illuminating exegetic essay written by the author himself which serves as the tome’s postscript.

Divided into six sections, the collection also immortalizes the queer spaces --- gay bars and bathhouses, cafés and discotheques, backrooms and motel suites, weekend resorts and performance venues --- in Metro Manila and its environs, which are also subject to mutations and permutations. For these liminal places existing in the outermost limits of spatial legitimacy have a temporal if not seasonal dimension, making them vulnerable (and thus valuable to those who will mourn their eventual closure) to the whims of the very same habitués whose epicurean predilection are perversely protean or even mercurial, to say the least.

Cine Café (the topic of discussion in the poem “Seafood” which is dedicated to this fledgling critic) typifies a Filipino queer space in the Metropolis that has undergone not a few transformations due to its former clientele’s lack of loyalty, and the fact that high culture is difficult to market while casual sex (often anonymous) sells like hotcakes. Conceptualized as a venue for the screening of art films, as well as an alternative setting for poetry readings and photo exhibits, Cine Café has then degenerated into a popular blue bar complete with a video room featuring pornographic movies and a shadowy backroom where anything and everything goes in the lascivious dark.

This does not really come (pun intended) as a complete surprise, for as Aaron Betsky articulates in his book Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, “The purpose of queer space is again ultimately sex: the making of a space either for that peculiar definition of the self as an engine of sexuality or for the act of sex itself.”

But I have sashayed too far on the rarefied catwalk of queer theory. So before I get carried away with my critical ruminations, allow me to accompany the poet-persona in his imaginary high heels (Note: There is a black stiletto beside each page number, not to mention a blue one on the front cover.) as he initially makes tentative forays into the better-lit avenues of gay love until he finally delves deeper into the darker alleys of homosexual desire.

The first part of the book titled “He who sleeps in my lap” contains lyrical verses that shimmer like shantung silk for the sheer strength of the persona’s unbridled faith that true love exists, and that failure in passionate connection is but the obverse side of the same romantic coin. The innocent persona in these poems believes in the workings of destiny (“Crossroad” and “Star-crossed”) in determining the beginning and the end of the affair. Nevertheless, being a true-blue romantic, hope springs eternal in his homosexual heart “that when he wakes up/ I shall be his dream.//” [“He who sleeps in my lap”].

In “Procrastinations” and “The Queen Sings the Blues”, the second and third sections respectively, the persona becomes more daring as he explores the steamier if not seamier side of the homosexual landscape. Aside from Cine Café where one encounters “spent phalluses/ That have shed copious tears/ In rooms filled with longing.//,” Baytan also commemorates the other queer spaces that have shaped his Otherness. But most of these remarkable gay landmarks are gone, like “Giraffe” (“Saints in drag abound/ Here, and men/ Await their first taste/ Of brotherly love.//) and “Blue” (It’s drag night once more./ Same old Shirley, Whitney, Tina,/ And Mariah in boas and sequins/ Belting about love, love, love./”).

The fourth section, “A Cycle for Rodney,” textualizes the persona’s gay (but not necessarily happy) relationship with a foreign national, which is emblematic of postmodern love affairs, interracial or otherwise. The five poems trace the trajectory of the homosexual liaison, from its hopeful birthing (“Bless me, Mama,/ Because like you, I know// Love has found me.//” [“Beginnings”]) to its inevitable demise (“You thought Love is forever./ And now all you have/ Is the parting/ Kiss, the last handshake,…” [“Endings”]).

As the title suggests, the fifth part features poetic “retellings” of Chinese legends and tales about the homosexual persona as a faithful lover and/or beloved as he appears in the Middle Kingdom’s history and lore: “The Cut Sleeve,” “Mizi Xia, Jade,” “Long Yang,” “Pan Zhang,” “Ruiji,” “Ruiji, Mother of Chengxin,” “Quan,” “Qinshu,” and “Emperor Wu, Confession.”

Baytan’s affirmative action in showing these heartwarming examples of gay love countervails his initial statement in his exegetic essay that homosexual romance does not last forever. The poems, in his own words, “emphasize love’s endurance and the joys of finding the One. I decided to retell the Chinese legends and tales... to show contemporary readers positive models of same-sex love in the old Chinese world. The men in the narratives may not have heard of the word “gay” nor saw themselves as “homosexual”… yet the power of the bonds between these men should suffice to tell the reader that love is possible.”

In “Crossing Borders,” the sixth and closing section, the wizened but world-weary persona reexamines his sensual and sexual experiences, making him realize in the process some life lessons with regards to homosexual love and lust. He comprehends for instance in “Distance (ii)” that the body has a language and a memory of its own: “And so I learn/ The body is not transient/ Nor forgetful;” and in “Threshold” that “desire/ Is a habit, a calling of flesh/ And spirit to repeat/ Presences…”

But the most powerful piece of this final cluster, if only because it is the most confessional and thus presumably the most honest as well, must be the last poem which derives its inspiration from the verses of both Louise Glück (“The Sensual World”) and Pablo Neruda (“XX: Tonight I Can Write”). Unabashedly titled “La Puta del Mundo,” the poem perfectly capture’s the persona’s eternal search for love through lovemaking and the resultant disillusionment that goes with it when the beloved decides to leave: “Why should it matter then if I could not/ Keep them or count them? I have lost// Faith in the possibility of encounters,/ In the meeting of lost halves.//”

Baytan’s lush lyrics, both in its luxuriant and lustful sense, plot the emotional arc of the Chinese-Filipino’s homosexual heart as it swings like a pendulum between desire and despair, love and longing, sex and solitude.

48th Dumaguete National Writers Workshop

2009-02-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

Call for Submission of Manuscripts to the 48th Dumaguete National Writers Workshop

The Dumaguete National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 48th National Writers’ Workshop to be held May 4-15, 2009 in Dumaguete City.

This Writers Workshop is offering fifteen fellowships to promising young writers who would like a chance to hone their craft and refine their style. Fellows will be provided housing, a modest stipend, and a subsidy to partially defray costs of their transportation.

To be considered, applicants should submit manuscripts in English on or before March 27, 2009 (seven to ten poems; or three to five short stories; or three to five creative non-fiction essays).

Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with a resume, a recommendation letter from a literature professor or a writer of national standing, a certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.

Send all applications or requests for information to Department of English and Literature, attention Prof. A.G. Soluta, Chair, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City.

PHILSTAGE’s Gawad Buhay! nominees bared...

2009-02-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

PHILSTAGE’s Gawad Buhay! nominees bared, CCP awards rites set on February 18

Ballet Philippines’ productions of New Beginnings and Coppelia romped off with seven major nominations in the fourth quarter citations list released by the jury of the 2008 Gawad Buhay! The PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts.

New Beginnings earned the jury’s nod for outstanding dance production, ensemble performance, choreography (Max Luna III and Alan Hineline), and set design (Gino Gonzales). Coppelia was cited for ensemble performance and set design (Mio Infante).

Tanghalang Pilipino’s Ang Mga Gerilya ng Powell Street earned citations for ensemble performance, male lead performance (Joe Gruta and Dido dela Paz) and featured performance (Mailes Kanapi).

Ballet Manila’s Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang was cited for costume design.

Gawad Buhay! is the first industry awards conferred for outstanding achievements in the performing arts by member-companies of the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group, Inc. (PHILSTAGE). The PHILSTAGE Board of Directors is composed of Tanghalang Pilipino’s Fernando Josef, president; PETA's Melvin Lee, vice president; Ballet Philippines’ Sandy Hontiveros, secretary; Repertory Philippines Gidget Tolentino, treasurer; Actors Actors’ Leonardo Lim, Ballet Manila's Susan Macuja, Gantimpala Theater Foundation’s Tony Espejo, Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit’s Mitch Valdes, TRUMPET's Joel Reyes as Board Members, and PHILSTAGE Executive Director Elmar Beltran Ingles.

While PHILSTAGE administers the awards, the final recipients will be chosen by an independent Jury Panel selected by the PHILSTAGE Board of Directors from a roster of critics, performing artists, cultural researchers and scholars, and the general public.

The public is invited to watch the final awards rites to be held at the CCP Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater) at 7:30 p.m. on February 18, 2009. Invited to present the awards are the country’s foremost theater personalities.
Below is the complete list of nominees:

Outstanding Production of a Play: Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Batang Rizal (PETA); Ellas Inocentes (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino); Hamlet (Repertory Philippines); Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Kudeta (Tanghalang Pilipino); and Three Sisters, A Noh Play (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4).

Outstanding Musical Production: Altar Boyz (Repertory Philippines); and Skin Deep (PETA).

Outstanding Dance Production: La Revolucion Filipina(Ballet Philippines); Latin Heat (Ballet Philippines); and New Beginnings (Ballet Philippines).

Outstanding Stage Direction: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child); Chari Arrespacochaga (Altar Boyz); Nor Domingo (Skin Deep); Jose Estrella (Three Sisters), Floy Quintos (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna); Floy Quintos (Kudeta); Tuqxs Rutaquio (Ellas Inocentes), and Dudz Teraña (Batang Rizal).

Outstanding Original Choreography: Bam Damian (Latin Heat); Alan Hineline (New Beginnings); Agnes Locsin (La Revolucion Filipina); Alden Lugnasin (Latin Heat); Max Luna III (New Beginnings); and Jason Zamora (Altar Boyz)

Outstanding Original Play: Christine Bellen (Batang Rizal); Rogelio Braga (Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte), Layeta Bucoy (Ellas Inocentes ); and Floy Quintos (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reytna)

Outstanding Ensemble Performance: Altar Boyz (Repertory Philippines), Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Ang Mge Gerilya ng Powell Street (Tanghalang Pilipino); Batang Rizal (PETA); Coppelia (Ballet Philippines); Ellas Inocentes (Tanghalang Pilipino/Virgin Labfest 4); Golden Child (Tanghalang Pilipino); Hamlet (Repertory Philippines); Kudeta (Tanghalang Pilipino); La Revolucion Filipina (Ballet Philippines); Latin Heat (Ballet Philippines); Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang (PETA); New Beginnings (Ballet Philippines); and
Skin Deep (PETA)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Play: Arthur Acuna (Golden Child); Jose Mari Avellana (Tuesdays with Morrie); Dido de la Paz (Ang Mga Gerilya ng Powell Street); Joe Gruta (Ang Mga Gerilya ng Powell Street); Mario O'Hara (Kudeta); Joey Paras and Arnold Reyes (Ang Bayot, angMeranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa IsangNakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte); and Jonathan Tadioan (Pamantasang Hirang).

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Play: Lovely Balili (Ellas Inocentes); Liesl Batucan (Golden Child); Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna); Tina Chilip (Golden Child); Jenessa Roque (Ellas Inocentes); and Irma Adlawan Marasigan (Golden Child)

Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Musical: Red Concepcion (Altar Boyz); Juliene Mendoza (EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson); Jett Pangan (EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson); and Robert Seña (Skin Deep)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical: Isay Alvarez (Skin Deep); May Bayot (Skin Deep); and Gail Guanlao Billones (Skin Deep);
Outstanding Male Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Biag Gaongen (La Revolucion Filipina); and Biag Gaongen (Latin Heat)

Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Dance Production: Lisa Macuja Elizalde (Le Corsaire)

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical: No citation
Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play: Riki Benedicto (Kudeta); Bong Cabrera (Kudeta); Willy Casero (Batang Rizal); Nor Domingo (Tosca); Mailes Kanapi (Ang Mga Gerilya ng Powell Street); Raffy Tejada (Tosca) and Cris Villonco (Hamlet);
Outstanding Featured Performance in a Dance Production: Camille Ordinario-Joson (Latin Heat)

Outstanding Original Libretto: Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal); and Vincent De Jesus (Skin Deep)

Outstanding Translation/Adaptation: George de Jesus III (Kudeta); and Dennis Marasigan (Golden Child)

Outstanding Musical Direction: Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal); and Jojo Malferrari (Altar Boyz)

Outstanding Set Design: Loy Arcenas (Golden Child); Mel Bernardo (Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); Gino Gonzales (New Beginnings); Mio Infante (Coppelia); Mio Infante (La Revolucion Filipina); Tuxqs Rutaquio (Kudeta)

Outstanding Costume Design: Ron Alfonso (Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); Faust Peneyra (Hamlet); Gino Gonzales (Golden Child); Jonathan Janolo (Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang); and Victor Ursabia (La Revolucion Filipina)

Outstanding Lighting Design: Katsch Catoy (La Revolucion Filipina); Martin Esteva (Hamlet); Dennis Marasigan (Kudeta); and Barbi Tan-Tiongco (Golden Child)

Outstanding Sound Design: Janice Dee (Kudeta); Jethro Joaquin (EJ: Ang Pinagdaanang Buhay nina Evelio Javier at Edgar Jopson); Jethro Joaquin (Hamlet); Shima Takesi (Tosca); and Gidget Tolentino (Altar Boyz); and J. Victor Villareal (Golden Child)

2009 Maningning Miclat Poetry Competition

2009-01-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR ENTRIES TO THE 2009 MANINGNING MICLAT POETRY COMPETITION

The Maningning Miclat Art Foundation is calling on young poets aged 28 and below to submit their entry to the 2009 Maningning Miclat Trilingual Poetry Competition.

The Poetry Competition consists of 3 divisions - Filipino, English and Chinese. An entry must consist of at least eight (8) but not more than fifteen (15) poems. Authors may join all the divisions but can submit only one (1) entry in every division. All entries should be original in every language and not a translation of another entry.

All entries should be submitted in four (4) copies, double spaced on 81/2 x 11 inches bond paper with one inch margin on all sides and with ARIAL or TIMES NEW ROMAN size 12 font. Entry should be submitted with pen name only. Real name and pen name should be submitted in a separate sealed envelop together with a biodata, copy of birth certificate and a notarized declaration of originality and authenticity of authorship of the entry.

Entries must be addressed to the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation, Inc. (MMAFI), 2nd Floor Mile Long Building, Amorsolo St., Legaspi Village, Makati City (Tel No. 816-7490 to 91) not later than 5:00 P.M. of April 15, 2009. Entries sent by mail should be postmarked/invoiced not later than April 1, 2009.

The Maningning Award, handed out yearly since 2003, honors China-born Maningning Miclat, a trilingual poet and writer, and a prize-winning visual artist. She won the Grand Prize in the non-representational category of the Art Association of the Philippines Art Competition in 1992. She celebrated her 28th birthday on April 15, 2000 by launching her trilingual book of poetry, “Voice from the Underworld” (Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2000). It is the first book of poetry in the world in Filipino, English and Chinese languages written solely by one author. Her life was cut short when she passed on in September of the same year.

The landmark book, which was chosen by the Manila Critics Circle as finalist in the 2000 National Book Awards, includes Maningning’s poems in Chinese. She was one of the world’s Top 39 women poets writing in Chinese. Some of the poems were anthologized in a book published in 1995 during the International Women’s Year held in Beijing .

The Maningning Miclat Art Foundation was founded in 2001 to carry on the artist/ poet’s legacy, encourage creativity, and support and award young outstanding poets and artists. Poetry competitions in Filipino, English and Chinese languages are held during odd numbered years while Painting competitions are held during even numbered years.

Maningning Miclat was co-author, if posthumously, of the book, Beyond the Great Wall: A Family Journal, which won a 2006 National Book Award for biography. The Manila Critics Circle citation reads: “From 1971 to 1986, the Miclat family lived in the People’s Republic of China and this gathering of essays from Mario, Alma, Banaue and the late Maningning Miclat flow together in a majestic yet personal recollection of a time and place between times and places. Beyond the Great Wall signifies the act of celebration through memory, and moving on through returning.”

Grand winners in the 3 divisions of the Poetry Competition will each receive P28,000.00 together with a Julie Lluch trophy and the special collector’s edition of the books “Voice from the Underworld,” “Beauty for Ashes: Remembering Maningning,” and “Beyond the Great Wall.”

For more information on the 2009 Maningning Miclat Art Competition, please email maningningfoundation@gmail.com or acmiclat2008@yahoo.com.

Visit www.maningning.com.

And for those with Facebook account, see Manigning Miclat Fan Page.

The Beauty of the Sea

2008-12-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

The Beauty of the Sea

On a clear day like this,
the view of the sea
from the promontory
where you stand

is breathtaking,
its surface breaking
like a precious gem
into prisms of light.

So you scamper
to the beach below,
the sand crunching
beneath your feet

and scoop a cupful
of blue in your hands.
But already the humor
inside you changes,

since beauty betrays
always, making you sigh,
for once captured
it begins to slip through

your fingers, the way
water escapes your grip
no matter how long
or hard your try.

16th Iligan National Writers Workshop (INWW)

2008-12-19T02:38:00.000-08:00

16th Iligan National Writers Workshop (INWW)

The National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA), the Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc., and the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension (OVCRE) are accepting applications from writers to the 16th Iligan National Writers
Workshop (INWW) to be held on May 25-29, 2009 in Iligan City.

Sixteen (16) slots, five each from Luzon and Visayas and six from Mindanao are available for writing fellowships to the INWW. Of the slots for Mindanao, one (1) is for the Manuel T. Buenafe Writing Fellowship preferably for Muslim or Lumad applicants.

Applicants are required to submit five poems; or, one short story; or, for the novel, a summary and 2 chapters for this work-in-progress; and, a one-act play in Filipino, English or in Cebuano.

For entries in Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Waray and Chavacano, translations in English are required. Please submit along with the application form two, 2X2 photos. The application form may be downloaded at www.msuiit.edu.ph (go to Department of Research-MMIDU). Please submit a hard copy and a CD with the manuscripts encoded in MS Word97. Unpublished works are preferred. Applicants must have attended at least one regional/local writers workshop, no exceptions.

Writing fellows will be given free board and lodging and a travel allowance. Applications must be postmarked on or before February 15, 2009. No applications or manuscripts will be accepted if sent after postmarked dates or by fax or e-mail.

Applicants are also advised to keep copies of their manuscripts since these will not be returned. Send all applications to the 16th INWW Director, Christine F. Godinez-Ortega c/o OVCRE, MSU-IIT, Iligan City. For more information contact Pat Cruz or Alice Bartolome or Cherly Adlawan, tels. (063) 3516131; or e-mail: patcruz@yahoo.com/cherlyadlawan@yahoo.com/aliciabartolome@yahoo.com.

BUHAY! : TANGHALAN AT BAYAN

2008-12-04T02:51:00.000-08:00

PHILIPPINE LEGITIMATE STAGE ARTISTS GROUP, INC.

BUHAY! : TANGHALAN AT BAYAN – THE PHILSTAGE PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL

BUHAY! : TANGHALAN AT BAYAN, a theater festival that showcases works by PHILSTAGE member-companies focusing on various themes and expressions of the principles of good public governance and good citizenship, continues with performances in the cities of Pasig, Manila, and Pasay. All performances are presented free to the public.

On Sunday, December 7, 2008, 10:00 A.M., the Triumphant Peoples Evangilistic Theater Society (TRUMPETS) performs “PAMILYA MALETA”, a two-part musical drama about the social displacement of Filipino families whose members are caught in the global diaspora of Overseas Filipino Workers. Written by Itchell Lacsamana, Raquel Villavicencio and Roselyn Perez with stage and musical direction by Sweet Plantado-Tiongson, the production presents the struggles of the OFW’s as they pursue a better life – abusive foreign employers, death of loved ones, financial difficulties, loneliness and depression. Featuring the TRUMPETS Actors Ensemble, “PAMILYA MALETA” it will be performed at the Word Community, Pasig City

Tanghalang Pilipino, the resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, presents “PRAGRES” on Monday, December 8, 2008, 1:00 P.M. at the Far Eastern University Auditorium, Morayta St., Manila. A musical adaptation of the short story by National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, “PRAGRES” is set during the Martial Law and shows the travails of a provincial senior clerk of a government agency as she seeks endorsement of her service promotion. As she encounters one bureaucrat after another, she drowns in incompetence and corruption. To be performed by the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors’ Company, the play was directed by Herbert Go from the adaptation by Dulaang Sipat Lawin.

Ballet Manila presents a special performance of “MGA KUWENTO NI LOLA BASYANG” on Saturday, December 13, 2008, 10:00 A.M., at the Aliw Theatre, CCP Complex, Pasay City. Based on the stories by Severino Reyes, the Ballet Manila production comprises three parts: Ang Prinsipe ng Mga Ibon (Choreographed by Osias Barroso, Music by National Artists as arranged by Mon Faustino), Ang Kapatid ng Tatlong Maria (Choreographed by Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, Music by Joey Ayala), and Ang Mahiwagang Biyulin (Choreographed by Tony Fabella, Music by Ryan Cayabyab)

As part of the Festival, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) staged “BATANG RIZAL” at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City on November 23, 2008.

On Saturday, December 13, a focused group conference-workshop will be conducted where selected students, teachers and public sector viewers of each production will be invited together with theater practitioners, public officials, and social critics for critical interaction and ventilation of informed opinions and ideas on various issues tackled in the productions. The proceedings of the conference-workshop will be published and disseminated among theater practitioners, opinion and policy makers.

For inquiries, please call or send SMS to 0916-591-8815 or 0929-4447888.

SPACE AND THE BELOVED

2008-12-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Beside you, my perception
of space transforms:
it contracts like a womb,
the whole world excluded
as other faces recede
in the background until
only your visage remains
in my range of vision.

Or it expands like a balloon,
barriers between you
and me broken, the walls
separating us from mankind
collapsing like a house
of cards, as we embrace
the universe in the sphere
of our inclusive affection.

-Ralph Semino Galan

A Collation of Postcolonial Poems

2008-11-25T07:23:00.000-08:00

A collation of postcolonial poems

By A.R.D.S. Bordado

AS "GUESTS" in that faraway home called the English language, Filipino poets have the great burden of having to write in a language where they may feel unwelcome. But At Home in Unhomeliness: An Anthology of Philippine Postcolonial Poetry in English (UST Publishing House, 2007) shows that Filipino writers have not only mastered English, but also built their own home there.

Featuring 82 poems from some of the countries most promising young poets in English, At Home in Unhomeliness has been released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists). Founded by Thomasian man of letters and National Artist F. Sionil Jose, Philippine PEN is the local branch of the International PEN, a worldwide association of writers that upholds freedom of expression and the coming together of various cultures through literature.

At Home is edited by J. Neil C. Garcia, a magna cum laude graduate of UST AB Journalism in 1990. He is a prolific poet and critic.

In his introduction, Garcia notes the desire of postcolonial writers to recover their lost precolonial identities. "Needless to say, language is a crucial issue in postcolonial literature and in the identity politics that underwrites it," he writes. "It simply can't be sidestepped, I suppose: colonized peoples who speak (and write) in the language of colonization necessarily confront the problem of consciousness, and therefore, of identity."

Different themes make up the anthology—personal takes on reality, spirituality and even a pinch of politics. Wanderlust poems such as Jose Wendell Capili's "The Great Australian Landscape" and "Gorilla Bay" show the Filipino sensibility imbibing foreign geography.

The latter poem describes the beauty of the bay: "Gastropods on a drift/ conceive enclosures of/ bubbles shimmering forth,/ polished and white among/ rocks, splashing as spring/ time turns supremely aqua/ marine, even less torrential." Dinah Roma-Sianturi's "Borobudur" infuses vision to Indonesia's famed Buddhist monument: "Up there, you said, is a vision/ not of stupas but of bodies/ circling the void to wake the divine."

Paolo Manalo's "At the Chocolate Kiss" tells of the experiences of young people out on their first date: "You can tell them by the stars in their eyes/ And that uneven spread of baby powder/ On their faces./(…)/She tries to look prettier/ Than she already is. He tries to look. . ./ No, not at her breasts." Jennifer Patricia Cariño's "Residence" tackles mature love: "This residence/ We may lose, but you are where I truly live./ There is a space for you in this body yet."

For poet and UST Professor Ralph Semino Galán, misery is a wellspring for poetry. "Magician" shows the painful art of letting go: "Star-clad, I offer my wounds/ to the universe, faith transforming/ pain into poetry, suffering into song."

The collection reminds readers that language remains a problem in Filipino poetry in English. Whether or not our postcolonial poets have established identity in their works is still a blank page to be filled. According to Garcia, because the upshot of colonization is still unfolding, the search for postcolonial identity has yet to be concluded.

PHILSTAGE Third Quarter Citations

2008-11-17T03:49:00.000-08:00

PHLSTAGE Jury Announces Third Quarter GAWAD BUHAY! Citations

Productions by Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), Ballet Philippines and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) dominated the third quarterly citations of Gawad BUHAY!, the performing arts awards program organized by the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group (PHILSTAGE).

Tanghalang Pilipino’s Golden Child romped off with a total of twelve citations while Ballet Philippines La Revolucion Filipina and PETA’s Batang Rizal tied with seven citations each.

Winner of the Tony and Obbie Awards in the United States, Golden Child tells the story “of a traditional Chinese family on the cusp of jarring change”. It merited jury citations for outstanding play, stage direction (Loy Arcenas), ensemble performance for its cast, female lead performance in a play (Liesl Batucan, Tina Chilip, Irma Adlawan Maasigan), male lead performance (Arthur Acuǹa), translation (Dennis Marasigan), lighting design (Barbara Tan-tiongco) , sound design (J. Victr Villareal), set design (Loy Arcenas) and costume design (Gino Gonzales).

Ballet Philippines’ La Revolucion Filipina earned seven citations for outstanding dance production, choreography (Agnes Locsin), ensemble performance, male lead performance (Biag Gaongen), lighting design (Katsch SJ Catoy), set design (Mio Infante) and costume design (Victor Ursabia). It tied with PETA’s Batang Rizal which received citations for outstanding play, stage direction (Dudz Terana), ensemble performance, featured performance (Willy Casero), original script (Christine Bellen), libretto and musical direction (Vince De Jesus).

Major citations were garnered by Tanghalang Pilipino’s The Virgn Labfest entries Ellas Inocentes, Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte, Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna, Three Sisters and Pamantasang Hirang. PETA’s Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang and Tosca also figured prominently in the citations list.

Gawad BUHAY!, otherwise known as the PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts, honors outstanding accomplishments in theater, dance and music among PHILSTAGE member-companies. Quarterly citations, nominations, and winners are juried by an independent panel of performing arts practitioners, critics, academicians and enthusiasts invited or selected by the PHILSTAGE Board of Directors.

“The jury members are required to watch all productions of Philstage members to ensure a fair selection process,” stressed PHILSTAGE President Fernando Josef. The jury meets quarterly for the citations from which will be culled the nominees qualified to vie for the annual award to be announced and honored in fitting ceremonies during the National Arts Month in February 2009.

PHILSTAGE groups together the country's leading and established performing arts companies which include Actors Actors, Inc. (AAI), Ballet Manila (BM), Ballet Philippines (BP), Gantimpala Theater Foundation (GTF), Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), Repertory Philippines (REP), Tanghalang Pilipino and the Triumphant Peoples' Evangelical Theater Society (TRUMPETS). It can be reached via email philstage@tri- isys.com.

Following is the complete list of Gawad Buhay! citations for the third quarter of 2008:

OUTSTANDING PLAYS: Tanghalang Pilipino's Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang
Habal- Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte, Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna, Ellas Inocentes, Golden Child, and Three Sisters; and PETA's Batang Rizal

OUTSTANDING MUSICAL PLAY : No citation

OUTSTANDING DANCE PRODUCTION : Ballet Philippines' La Revolucion Filipina

OUTSANDING STAGE DIRECTION : Loy Arcenas (Golden Child), Jose Estrella (Three Sisters), Floy Quintos (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna), Tuqxs Rutaquio (Ellas Inocentes), and Dudz Terana (Batang Rizal)

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE : Casts of Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang
Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte, Batang Rizal, Ellas Inocentes, Golden Child, La Revolucion Filipina, and Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang,

OUTSTANDING FEMALE LEAD PERFORMANCE (PLAY) : Shamaine Centenera Buencamino (Ang Kalungkutan ng Reyna); Lovely Balili and Jenessa Roque (Ellas Inocentes); and Liesl Batucan, Tina Chilip, and Irma Adlawan Marasigan (Golden Child)

OUTSTANDING MALE LEAD PERFORMANCE (PLAY) : Arthur Acuna (Golden Chil), Joey Paras and Arnold Reyes (Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habalsa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte); and Jonathan Tadioan (Pamantsang Hirang)

OUTSTANDING FEATURED PERFORMANCE (PLAY) : Willy Casero, (Batang Rizal), and Nor Domingo and Raffy Tejada (tosca)

OUTSTANDING FEMALE LEAD PERFORMANCE (MUSICAL): No citation

OUTSTANDING MALKE LEAD PERFORMANCE (MUSICAL) : No citation

OUTSTANDING FEATURED PERFORMANCE (MUSICAL) : No citation

OUTSTANDING FEMALE LEAD (DANCE) : No citation

OUTSTANDING MALE LEAD PERFORMANCE (DANCE) ; Biag Gaongen (La Revocion Filipina)

OUTSTANDING FEATURED PERFORMANCE : No citation

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCRIPT : Christine Bellen’s Batang Rizal, Rogelio Braga’s Ang Bayot, ang Meranao, at ang Habal-Habal sa Isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte, Layeta Bucoy’s Ellas Inocentes, and Floy Quintos’ Ang Kalungkutan ng Reytna

OUTSTANDING LIBRETO : Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal)

OUTSTANDING ADAPTATION OR TRANSLATION : Dennis Marasigan (Golden Child)

OUTSTANDING MUSICAL DIRECTION : Vincent De Jesus (Batang Rizal)

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHY: Agnes Locsin (La Revolucion Filipina)

OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN : Katsch SJ Catoy (La Revolucion Filipina) and Barbara Tan-tiongco (Golden Child)

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN : J. Victor Villareal (Golden Child) and Shima Takeshi (Tosca)

OUTSTANDING SET DESIGN : Loy Arcenas (Golden Child), Mel Bernardo (Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang), and Mio Infante (La Revolucion Filipina),

OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN : Ron Alfonos (Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang).
Gino Gonzales (Golden Child) and Victor Ursabia (La Revolucion Filipina)

TIME AND THE BELOVED

2008-11-12T02:36:00.000-08:00

When I am with you
time moves differently
it accelerates
like a bullet train
a speed boat
a jet plane
the surroundings blurring
into a haze of faces
a labyrinth of landmarks
a whirlwind of words
as I focus my attention
on you and you alone.

Or it decelerates
into triple slow motion,
so that a second stretches
and lasts a lifetime,
a gesture takes forever
to accomplish, an utterance
becomes comprehensible
only several centuries after,
and I end up remembering
the timbre of your voice,
the texture of your arms,
the tint of your eyes.

- Ralph Semino Galán

IPAG Performances: 2nd Half Sked

2008-10-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

Ranaw” on extended run

[see Ranaw video trailer]

Cheering audiences have filled to watch IPAG’s latest theatre favorite, “Ranaw: Isang Alamat” (Ranaw: A Legend). The first 17-run series of this dance-musical opened Sept. 13 and closed Sept. 25.

A second 10-run series has been set Nov.10 - 14, at the MSU-IIT Mini Theatre, to accommodate demand from more audiences to watch the play. Drawing from its “matinee” appeal with its “general patronage” content, “Ranaw” attracted the audiences for its compelling music, dance, story, and visuals. The play won in the 1985 Playwriting Contest of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and has received a number of acclamations since its first major tour in the 1980’s.

A Davao City road show is set starting in January 21, 2009.

The dance-music play presents our pre-colonial tribes in turmoil that prophesy our fragmented state today. Dug from the research of the late Dionisio Orellana, the play chronicles the journey of a lesser known Mindanao epic hero Bato Lakungan who traverses triumphs and painful reversals of fortunes in his attempts to unite the North-Central Mindanao tribes. “Ranaw” was produced under an NCCA subsidy. It is set to go on tour in Davao City in the third week of January, 2009.

Poetry to Performance

[watch "Origami" video excerpt]
IPAG offers Tula Tugma sa Dula for the Philippine Arts Festival in 2009. Poems written by some of the leading poets based in the South will be transformed into a multi-media experience. This popularizes poetry to a wider audience as the word transcreating into movement, sound, and color.

Collaborating with our performing artists, choreographers, and composers are wordsmiths whose work will be reshaped: Marge Evasco, Anthony Tan, Ralph Semino Galan, Henry Opulencia, German Gervacio, and Christine Godine-Ortega. It premieres February 11, 2009 at the MSU-IIT Rooftop Theatre in Iligan City .

“Tales” and "Tatlo" continue to delight

[view Tatlo trailer video]

IPAG’s long-running “Tales From Mindanao” and its sequel "Tatlo sa Isa" completed its 1st leg of a national tour last August thrilling Manila as it has done in the last 17 years playing to full houses and captivating audiences. (IPAG estimates this string of dance-music vignettes has fascinated almost a million audiences around the country and the world.)

Davao hosts the 2nd leg which begins in the 3rd week of November. “Tales” and its sequel “Tatlo Sa Isa” are set to hit the provinces of Davao and South Cotabato again this season, and Cagayan de Oro in February, 2009.

Ranaw: Isang Alamat
Nov. 10 – 14, 2008
10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m.
MSU-IIT Mini-Theatre , Iligan City

Tatlo sa Isa
Nov. 18 – 24, 2008
Davao and South Cotabato , various venues

Tales From Mindanao
Nov. 26 – Dec. 5, 2008
Manila schools, various venues

Ranaw: Isang Alamat
Tales From Mindanao
Jan. 21 -24, 2009
Davao City, various venues

Tales From Mindanao
Feb. 5, 2009
XU, Cgn de Oro City

Tula Tugma sa Dula
Feb. 11-13, 2009
7:30 p.m., CASS Rooftop Theatre
MSU-IIT, Iligan City

Ranaw: Isang Alamat
[dates depend on open sked of the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino of the CCP]

Three People in One Island
International road tour
Spring, last week March – April 2009
U.S. East and West coast

Performance schedules may change without prior notice. Please contact IPAG Marketing for immediate and specific information [09167006209 or +63-4922354, fax: 2232494 email: ipagarts@yahoo. com web: www.msuiit.edu.ph/ipag]

Winners of the 58th Palanca Awards for Literature

2008-09-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE 58TH DON CARLOS PALANCA MEMORIAL AWARDS FOR LITERATURE

Filipino Division

Nobela

Norman Wilwayco

Elmo Basangdahon

“Gerilya”

Grand prize, Nobela

MAIKLING KUWENTO

Maria Lucille G. Roxas

“Game Show”

1st prize, Maikling Kuwento

Lemuel E. Garcellano

Oona

“Anghel Kalahig”

2nd prize, Maikling Kuwento

Rommel B. Rodriguez

“Kabagyan”

3rd prize, Maikling Kuwento

MAIKLING KUWENTONG PAMBATA

April Jade B. Imson

Pinatola I’ Kilid

“Si Karding at ang Buwaya”

2nd prize, Maikling Kuwentong Pambata

Allan Alberto N. Derain

Alon Darang

“May Tatlong Kurimaw”

3rd prize, Maikling Kuwentong Pambata

SANAYSAY

Jing Panganiban-Mendoza

Sestina Amara

“Ang Pagbabalik ng Prinsesa ng Banyera”

1st prize, Sanaysay

Michael M. Coroza

Harana ng Puso

“Ang Mabuhay Singers at Ako sa Pag-awit At Pag-ibig”

2nd prize, Sanaysay

Eugene Y. Evasco

Latido Del Corazon

“Agaw-Buhay”

3rd prize, Sanaysay

TULA

Mikael de Lara Co

“Ang Iba’t Ibang Ngalan ng Hangin”

1st prize, Tula

Renato L. Santos

“Sari-Saring Salaghati…”

(at good-bye-my-kangkungan)

2nd prize, Tula

Niles Jordan Breis

Maria Socorro Antimonado

“Rubrica” mga lakbay-nilay at

pagbubunyag

3rd prize, Tula

DULANG MAY ISANG YUGTO

Floy C. Quintos

Noel Carillon

“Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna”

1st prize, Dulang May Isang Yugto

Debbie Ann Tan

Golden Piat

“Teroristang Labandera”

2nd prize, Dulang May Isang Yugto

Allan B. Lopez

“Masaganang Ekonomiya”

3rd prize, Dulang May Isang Yugto

DULANG PAMPELIKULA

Emmanuel A. Dela Cruz/ Michiko Yamamoto

Setsuko

1434456 “The Singalong Singhs”

1st prize, Dulang Pampelikula

Dennis M. Marasigan

“Joy”

2nd prize, Dulang Pampelikula

Alfred Aloysius L. Adlawan

“Padyak”

3rd prize, Dulang Pampelikula

Kabataan sanaysay

Allen D. Yuarata

“Nang Dumating Si Joe”

3rd prize, Kabataan Sanaysay

Regional Languages Division

MAIKLING KUWENTO - CEBUANO

Macario D. Tiu

Sandino De Jesus

“Tsuru”

1st prize, Maikling Kuwento-Cebuano

Edgar S. Godin

Surealiza Maldoy-on

“Bingo”

2nd prize, Maikling Kuwento-Cebuano

Lilia T. Tio

Antonia

“Sapatos”

3rd prize, Maikling Kuwento-Cebuano

MAIKLING KUWENTO - HILIGAYNON

Leoncio P. Deriada

Ma. Asuncion Magbanua

“Ang Pagbalik sang Babaylan”

1st prize, Maikling Kuwento-Hiligaynon

Alice Tan Gonzales

“Dawata, Anak”

2nd prize,Maikling Kuwento-Hiligaynon

Marcel L. Milliam

Luis Batchoy

“Bitay”

3rd prize, Maikling Kuwento-Hiligaynon

MAIKLING KUWENTO - ILUKO

Danilo B. Antalan

Karissabong

“Dangilen”

1st prize, Maikling Kuwento-Iluko

Ariel S. Tabag

Saniata T. Bannawag

“Littugaw”

2nd prize, Maikling Kuwento-Iluko

Aurelio S. Agcaoili

Alegoria A. Nasudi

“Alegoria Uno”

3rd prize, Maikling Kuwento-Iluko

English Division

Novel

Miguel Syjuco

“Ilustrado”

Grand prize, Novel

SHORT STORY

Ian Rosales Casocot

Tatiana Pedillo

“Things You Don’t Know”

1st prize, Short Story

Tara FT Sering

Tinkerbell

“Good People”

2nd prize, Short Story

Nadine L. Sarreal

Sarah L. Natahan

“Night Sounds”

3rd prize, Short Story

SHORT STORY FOR CHILDREN

Celestine Marie G. Trinidad

“The Storyteller and the Giant”

1st prize, Short Story for Children

Kathleen Aton-Osias

“The Mapangarap and the Dream Trees”

3rd prize, Short Story for Children

ESSAY

Jose Claudio B.Guerrero

Headmistress Millie

“Talking to a Fu Dog on a Wedding Afternoon”

1st prize, Essay

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Pregnant Pause

“Mirrors”

2nd prize, Essay

Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz

Bubu Banchi

“Sapay Koma”

3rd prize, Essay

POETRY

Francis C. Macansantos

“Morphic Variations”

1st prize, Poetry

Ana Maria Katigbak

Constance Pendleton

“Sl(e)ights”

2nd prize, Poetry

Marie La Viña

Dee Perez

“The Gospel According to the Blind Man”

3rd prize, Poetry

ONE-ACT PLAY

Maria Clarissa N. Estuar

Bluekessa

“Anybody’s Revolution”

1st prize, One-act Play

Percival Intalan

P. Parker

“Secret Identities”

2nd prize, One-act Play

Joachim Emilio B. Antonio

“Newspaper Dance”

3rd prize, One-act Play

FULL-LENGTH PLAY

Peter Solis Nery

Guglielmo Dellamaggidra

“The Passion of Jovita Fuentes”

1st prize, Full-length Play

Kabataan Essay

Miro Frances D. Capili

“Rated X”

1st prize, Kabataan Essay

Cristina Gratia T. Tantengco

“Things That Lie Beyond The Postcards”

2nd prize, Kabataan Essay

Elfermin M. Mallari, Jr.

“The Roads and Dreams That Meander”

3rd prize, Kabataan Essay

We would also like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to our esteemed judges for sharing with us their time and expertise, and for their dedication to the development of Philippine Literature.

Filipino Division

NOBELA

Lualhati T. Bautista, Tagapangulo

Jun Cruz Reyes

Dr. Domingo G. Landicho

DULANG PAMPELIKULA

Roy C. Iglesias, Tagapangulo

Mark A. Meily

Frank G. Rivera

DULANG GANAP ANG HABA

Dr. Ricardo G. Abad, Tagapangulo

Nonilon Queaño

Manuel Buising

DULANG MAY ISANG YUGTO

Rodolfo C. Vera, Tagapangulo

Chris Martinez

Elmer Gatchalian

MAIKLING KUWENTO

Lamberto E. Antonio, Tagapangulo

Dr. Fanny A. Garcia

Levy B. Dela Cruz

MAIKLING KUWENTONG PAMBATA

Ani Rosa S. Almario, Tagapangulo

Augie D. Rivera

Christine S. Bellen

SANAYSAY

Dr. Lilia F. Antonio, Tagapangulo

Roberto T. Añonuevo

Dr. Imelda Pineda-De Castro

TULA

Romulo Baquiran, Jr., Tagapangulo

Rhoderick V. Nuncio

Marra PL. Lanot

English Division

NOVEL

Antonio A. Hidalgo, Chairperson

Dr. Soledad S. Reyes

Shirley O. Lua

FULL-LENGTH PLAY

Malou L. Jacob, Chairperson

Fernando C. Josef

Glen Sevilla Mas

ONE-ACT PLAY

Dr. Jerry C. Respeto, Chairperson

Ronan B. Capinding

Nathaniel Joseph F. De Mesa

SHORT STORY

Charlson L. Ong, Chairperson

Dr. Jose Neil C. Garcia

Vicente Garcia Groyon III

SHORT STORY FOR CHILDREN

Ma. Elena Paterno-Locsin, Chairperson

Zarah C. Gagatiga

Ma. Luisa S. Felix

ESSAY

Karina A. Bolasco, Chairperson

Dr. Nilo L. Rosas

Dr. Ronald Baytan

POETRY

Dr. Marjorie Evasco, Chairperson

Dr. Jaime An Lim

Dr. Cesar Aquino

MAIKLING KUWENTO-CEBUANO

Dr. Teresita G. Maceda, Tagapangulo

Dr. Belen Calingacion

Atty. Manuel Faelnar

MAIKLING KUWENTO-ILUKO

Herminio S. Beltran, Jr., Tagapangulo

Ma. Leonida Fres-Felix

Rufino Rebudal

MAIKLING KUWENTO-HILIGAYNON

Dr. Corazon D. Villareal, Tagapangulo

Dr. Isabel Sebullen

Ms. Ada J. Loredo

KABATAAN SANAYSAY

Ligaya T. Rubin, Tagapangulo

Violeta A. Laraya

Perfecto T. Martin

KABATAAN ESSAY

Dr. Jose Wendell P. Capili, Chairperson

Ralph Semino Galan

Benilda S. Santos

The Perfect Touch Massage Centre

2008-09-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

Tired? Overworked? Stressed Out?

For an affordable price of P250/hour,
avail of our massage services either
in the comforts of your own home or
in our clean air-conditioned space at
1107-B Batangas St., Tondo, Manila.
Our operation hours are from 11 A.M.
to 11 P.M.

For your inquiries and
reservations, call (02) 408-7627.

2LIT Preliminary Examination

2008-08-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

Poem 10
José García Villa

First, a poem must be magical,
Then musical as a sea gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering.
It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows,
And it must kneel as a rose.
It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks like a bride.
And over all, I would like to hover
God, smiling from the poem’s cover.

The Dangers of This Craft
Fatima V. Lim Wilson

How we sing, even as we are boiled alive.
Those who torment us strain to sustain
Our last notes. In a landscape
Of sameness, our crooked towers scrape
Sensibilities, the well-trained eye.
Why when starved, do we thrive?
Remembrance of childhood’s bread
Rising. The taste of dulcified
Droppings of air. Our well-
Meaning friends beg us, please,
Speak in the measured tones
Of the mediocre. Show off
Our mastery of muteness,
The ambidextrous virtuosity
Of work-stained hands. Let
Those knitting needles, heavy
Handled axes fly. Why must
We hear voices? See the moving
Parts of still objects? And so,
We insist we no longer see
Through whitewashed walls.
We confess our dreams of flying
Have ceased. We scheme,
The miracle of money keeping us
Awake. Our pleasure lies
In memorizing the exactness
Of recipes. We are found to be
Most eloquent when quiet, even
As we argue happily with the teeming
Inhabitants opening doors in our heads.
We stare seemingly unmoved at the fire
Of our burning books, all the while
Enthralled, reading secrets in the flames.
They think they’ve killed us off
Even as somewhere, everywhere, a child
Recalls the beat of the ocean womb.
They dance upon our tombs, unaware
Of how they have fallen
Victim to the rhythm
Of our singing bones.

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche...

2008-08-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

XX

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos."

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche esta estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque este sea el ultimo dolor que ella me causa,
y estos sean los ultimos versos que yo le escribo.

- Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

2008-07-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

XX

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, "The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance."

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

- translated by W.S. Merwin from the Spanish original
written by Pablo Neruda, 1971 Nobel Prize Winner

For 3CA3 (Literature 103)

2008-07-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

GUIDE QUESTIONS
Answer in essay form the following questions (50 points total):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

1. (a) In "Poem on Returning to Dwell in the Country", what is the meaning of Tao's observation that "the life of man is like a shadow-play"? (b) What details in the poem support this observation?

2. (a) In "I Built My House Near Where Others Dwell", why is it paradoxical, or apparently self-contradictory, that though the persona lives near other people he does not hear the "clamor of carriages and horses"? (b) How does he explain this paradox?

3. (a) What does the persona of "To the Assistant Prefect Chang" mean when he says that he plans to "unlearn"? (b) What is the significance of his loosening his robe?

4. (a) How would you describe the mood of "The Hill"? (b) What emotions does the poem evoke?

5. How do the final two lines of "On an Autumn Evening in the Mountains" tie the rest of the poem together?

Note: Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 25, 2008, during the first hour of our class period: 3:00-4:00 PM. I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

For 3CA2, 3JRN1, 3ECO1 (Literature 103)

2008-07-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

GUIDE QUESTIONS:
Answer in essay form the following questions (50 points total):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

1. (a) In Song 24 ("I Beg of You, Chung Tzu") what is the persona's relationship with Chung Tzu? Support your answer. (b) What internal struggle is the speaker experiencing?

2. (a) In which season is Song 34 ("Thick Grow the Rush Leaves") set? (b) How do the seasons and the natural images relate to the persona's emotions?

3. (a) In "Poem on Returning to Dwell in the Country", what is the meaning of Tao's observation that "the life of man is like a shadow-play"? (b) What details in the poem support this observation?

4. (a) In "I Built My House Near Where Others Dwell", why is it paradoxical, or apparently self-contradictory, that though the persona lives near other people he does not hear the "clamor of carriages and horses"? (b) How does he explain this paradox?

5. (a) What does the persona of "To the Assistant Prefect Chang" mean when he says that he plans to "unlearn"? (b) What is the significance of his loosening his robe?

Note: Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 23, 2008, during the first hour of our class period: 11:00-12:00 AM (3CA2); 3:00-4:00 (3JRN2); 6:00-7:00 (3ECO1). I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

For 1BES1, 1ECO2, 1JRN2 (Literature 101)

2008-07-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

Summary of the Novel Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate)

from SparkNotes

In a style that is epic in scope yet intensely personal in focus, Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of Tita dela Garza, the youngest daughter in a family living in Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. Through twelve chapters, each marked as a "monthly installment" and thus labeled with the months of the year, we learn of Tita's struggle to pursue true love and claim her independence. Each installment features a recipe to begin each chapter. The structure of Like Water for Chocolate is wholly dependent on these recipes, as the main episodes of each chapter generally involve the preparation or consumption of the dishes that these recipes yield. The details of additional secondary recipes are woven throughout the narrative.

Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of Tita dela Garza, the youngest daughter in a family living in Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. Tita's love, Pedro Muzquiz, comes to the family's ranch to ask for Tita's hand in marriage. Because Tita is the youngest daughter she is forbidden by a family tradition upheld by her tyrannical mother, Mama Elena, to marry. Pedro marries Tita's oldest sister, Rosaura, instead, but declares to his father that he has only married Rosaura to remain close to Tita. Rosaura and Pedro live on the family ranch, offering Pedro contact with Tita. When Tita cooks a special meal with the petals of a rose given to her by Pedro, the still-fiery force of their love (transmitted through the food) has an intense effect on Mama Elena's second daughter, Gertrudis, who is whipped into a lustful state and flees the ranch in the arms of a revolutionary soldier. Meanwhile, Rosaura gives birth to a son, who is delivered by Tita. Tita treats her nephew, Roberto, as if he were her own child, to the point that she is able to produce breast milk to feed him while her sister is dry.

Sensing that Roberto is drawing Pedro and Tita closer together, Mama Elena arranges for Rosaura's family to move to San Antonio. This separation devastates Tita. A short time later, news arrives that Roberto has died, most likely due to his removal from Tita's care. The death of her nephew causes Tita to have a breakdown, and Mama Elena sends her to an asylum. Dr. John Brown, a local American doctor, takes pity on Tita and brings her to live in his house. He patiently nurses Tita back to health, caring for her physical ailments and trying to revive her broken spirit. After some time, Tita is nearly well, and she decides never to return to the ranch. No sooner has she made this choice than Mama Elena is injured in a raid by rebel soldiers, forcing Tita to return. Tita hopes to care for her mother, but Mama Elena bitterly rejects Tita's good will. She refuses Tita's cooking, claiming that it is poisoned. Not long after, Mama Elena is found dead from an overdose of a strong emetic she consumed for fear of poisoning.

The death of Mama Elena frees Tita from the curse of her birthright and she accepts an engagement proposal from John Brown, with whom she has fallen in love. In the meantime, Rosaura and Pedro have returned to the ranch and have produced a second child, Esperanza. Immediately, Pedro's presence throws into question Tita's love for John. The night that John officially asks Pedro to bless the marriage, Pedro corners Tita in a hidden room and makes love to her, taking her virginity. Soon after, Tita is certain that she is pregnant and knows that she will have to end her engagement to John. The affair between Pedro and Tita prompts the return of Mama Elena, who comes in spirit form to curse Tita and her unborn child. Tita is distraught and has no one in whom she can confide.

In the midst of Tita's despair, the long-lost Gertrudis returns to the ranch as a general in the revolutionary army, at the helm of a regiment of fifty men. Tita is overjoyed at the return of Gertrudis, who is just the companion she seeks. Gertrudis forces Tita to tell Pedro about the pregnancy. He is gladdened at the news, and he drunkenly serenades Tita from below her window. Outraged, Mama Elena's ghost returns, violently threatening Tita and declaring that she must leave the ranch. For the first time, Tita stands up to Mama Elena and, in forceful words, declares her autonomy, banishing her mother's spirit, which shrinks from an imposing presence into a tiny fiery light. As she expels the ghost, Tita is simultaneously relieved of all her symptoms of pregnancy. The light from Mama Elena's ghost bursts through Tita's window and onto the patio below where Pedro still sits, setting fire to his entire body. After rescuing Pedro, Tita is consumed with caring for him and helping him recover. John Brown returns from a trip to the United States and Tita confesses to him her relations with Pedro. John replies that he still wishes to marry her but that she must decide for herself with whom she wishes to spend her life.

Years pass, and the ranch focuses its attention on another wedding, this time between Esperanza and Alex, the son of John Brown. Rosaura has died, freeing her only daughter, Esperanza, from the stricture that had previously forbidden her, as it had Tita, from marrying. With Rosaura dead and Esperanza married, Tita and Pedro are finally free to express their love in the open. On their first night together, Tita and Pedro experience love so intense that both are led to a tunnel that will carry them to the afterlife. Tita turns back, wanting to continue in life and in love with Pedro. Once she does, she realizes that Pedro has already crossed over. Wanting desperately to be with him, Tita attempts to ignite her inner fire by eating the candles that had lit the room until they extinguished themselves at the moment of Pedro's death. When she succeeds in recreating the climate of true passion, she reenters the luminous tunnel and meets Pedro in the spirit world. The final union of their bodies and spirits sets fire to the entire ranch, and the only remnant left of their love is the recipe book in which Tita recorded her wisdom.

GUIDE QUESTIONS:
Answer in essay form the following questions (40 points total):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

1. Discuss the role of tradition in the novel and the impact it has on the characters' lives. What does the novel tell us about the domestic life of Mexican women? Elaborate. (10 points)

2. The three dela Garza sisters possess different personalities. By tracing their trajectories through the course of the novel, discuss the way each sister embodies a female stereotype. What statement might the author be making through these types about options in the lives of Mexican women? Expound on your answer. (20 points)

3. In your opinion, is Tita a strong female figure? A feminist character? Explain why or why not. (10 points)

Note:Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 22, 2008, during our class period: 8:30-10:00 AM (1BES1); 10-11:30 (1ECO2); 1:30-3:00 (1JRN2). I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

Use the extra time you have on Thursday after the film viewing to form discussion groups, so that your answers to the questions will be deep rather than shallow.

For 1LM2 (Literature 101)

2008-07-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

Summary of the Movie Dead Poets Society

by Jessica See

Dead Poets Society explores the conflict between realism and romanticism as these contrasting ideals are presented to the students at an all boys preparatory school. Welton Academy is founded on tradition and excellence and is bent on providing strict structured lessons prescribed by the realist, anti-youth administration. With the dawning of each new semester, hundreds of parents abandon their sons, leaving them in the tried hands of Welton staff in hopes that they will raise doctors and lawyers. When a replacement English teacher arrives, who happens to be a Welton alumnus, he brings with him a passion for teaching romanticism, thus opening a never-before-seen world to his students.

The story is predominantly viewed through the eyes of Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), a newcomer to Welton, and his roommate Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard). Todd is painfully shy and terrified that what he might say is insignificant and meaningless. This is particularly disturbing to him since he is repeatedly told that he has "big shoes to fill" being the younger brother of a former valedictorian. Neil, on the other hand, is bright and full of ambition, which is unfortunately squelched by his overbearing, controlling father. Mr. Perry dictates every detail of his son's life including extra curricular activities, future plans, and specifically what others think of him.

The new English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams) begins his teachings with a fervent lecture on their imminent deaths, explaining to the students that their lives are fleeting so they should seize the day to make their lives count, to leave a legacy of "carpe diem." He continues his teaching by instructing the class to rip out the pages of their books which describe a scientific way to determine the greatness of poetry. He teaches them the works of the romantic poets such as Thoreau and Lord Byron and employs outdoor exercises to warn them of the dangers of conformity and the power of sports as a way which human beings push each other to excel.

Amidst these eccentric activities, the students, intrigued with their new teacher, learn that he was a member of the Dead Poets Society. When asked, Keating describes glorious moments of creating gods, but warns them to forget about the idea. Nevertheless, they repeatedly sneak off campus to convene their own version of the Dead Poets Society. Todd is allowed to attend as an exception: since he does not want to read aloud, he keeps minutes of the meetings. Throughout these meetings, each character is able to develop his own romantic or realist nature.

The shocking clash between realism and romanticism begins to unfold when Charlie Dalton (Gale Hansen) prints an obnoxious article in the school news in the name of the Dead Poets. The administration is appalled and begins an investigation. Meanwhile, Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles) fall madly in love with a girl who is practically engaged to the son of his parent's friends. He pursues her relentlessly, driven by romantic ideals, in the face of the threats on his life by her boyfriend. Neil realizes that his real passion in life is acting and proceeds to land the role of Puck in a Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theater. He begins to weave a tangled web of deception by failing to inform his father, then lying to Mr. Keating when his father finds out and demands he quit the play. Feeling trapped, after his final performance and a standing ovation, he takes his own life.

This horrible outrage echoes through the hallowed halls of Welton, applying even greater pressure to the Dead Poets Society. When Mr. and Mrs. Perry demand a thorough investigation, Welton administration links the Dead Poets Society, which they determined as the cause for the upheaval, to Mr. Keating. Each member is called before the administration and their parents to sign a confession statement indicating that Mr. Keating filled their minds with these lofty ideals ultimately leading to Neil's suicide. Richard Cameron (Dylan Kussman), ultimately a realist concerned most with doing what is already determined to be right, signs the statement and encourages the rest of them to do the same. Knowing full well that Keating was not responsible, Cameron lets him take the rap to free himself.

Angered by this betrayal, Dalton punches Cameron in an impulsive fit displaying his final romantic act, only to be expelled. The last to sign, though unwillingly, is Todd, thus removing John Keating from his treasured position. In one final scene, displaying the beauty of a balance between the two ideals, Todd is able to cry out to Mr. Keating, who stopped by the class to collect his belongings, "O Captain, my Captain!" Todd, who previously had no identity, contributed his verse to mankind, climbing to the top of his desk to salute his fallen teacher, who changed his life.

GUIDE QUESTIONS:

Answer in essay form the following questions (20 points each):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

1. In John Keating's romantic philosphy, why it important to seize the day, "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"?

2. Explain why women should also practice carpe diem in relation to the poem "To the Virgins, to make much of Time", the most famous piece written by the Cavalier poet Robert Herrick.

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
and while ye may, go marry;
For having lost just once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Note: Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 21, 2008, during our class period (9:00-10:00 AM). I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

For 1LM1 (Literature 101)

2008-07-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

Movie Analysis of Moulin Rouge

by Yazmin Ghonaim

Moulin Rouge (2001) brings to the screen the visual and aural spectacle associated with the famed music hall (inaugurated in Paris in 1889), the home of the exuberant cancan dancers often described as "the most exotic sex market in Paris". Focusing on the bohemian art and lifestyle of the Montmartre-based entertainment center, director Baz Lurhmann (William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet; Strictly Ballroom) employs what he terms the "Red Curtain" style of filmmaking, where the film viewer sees the Moulin Rouge's celebrated stage as the exalted mise en scène of a simple love story.

When the Moulin's most desirable entertainer and courtesan, Satine (Nicole Kidman: Eyes Wide Shut), mistakenly identifies penniless writer Christian (Ewan McGregor: Eye of the Beholder; Velvet Goldmine) as a wealthy suitor and her highest bidder for that evening, the misinformation tricks her into wanting to seduce the lucky lad. Unaware of the misunderstanding and dumfounded by her beauty and her eagerness to please him, Christian fails to deliver the expected performance, yet manages to enrapture Satine with an inspiring song about his genuine love and poetic sensibilities. Soon, however, the appearance of the destined client, the powerful Duke of Worcester (Richard Roxburgh), shatters the enchantment. The ambitious Satine dismisses Christian and decides to clear her mind of the ethereal sentiment he inspired. Yet her heart, as if captured by the artist's saving virtue, would henceforth send the material girl conflicting counsel.

Moulin Rouge invests vastly in depicting the picturesque quality of the world that its characters inhabit. Impressive set designs house the adequately costumed characters, while choreography, color, sound, impatient editing and an active camera capture the extravaganza of the time and the place. Moulin Rouge slightly furthers its raison d'être by insinuating the artistic and social revolution that prompted a democratization of leisure (or a "leveling of enjoyments" where all classes merged) and that lay the foundation for the 20th century's production of mass culture. Appropriately, Moulin Rouge includes artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (played by John Leguizamo), who is known for immortalizing the subjects of brothels, bars and dance halls in his paintings, prints and posters. (In the film, Lautrec is defined as the carrier of the bohemian maxim of "Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love".) Yet what prevents Moulin Rouge from being classified as simply an amusing representation of the historical setting is its surprisingly effective application of modern songs (by artists that range from the Beatles to Elton John, Madonna to U2). Some memorable songs such as "All You Need Is Love" and Elton John's "Your Song" are interpreted by Kidman and McGregor, whose imperfect voices --rather than categorize the actors as mediocre singers-- seem to express their characters' inherent humility toward their aggrandized notions of love. Furthermore, the new versions of these classic songs refresh the words and accentuate the harmony of their meaning. Although Kidman's personification of the struggling starlet is more convincing than that of the voluptuous cabaret performer, all of Moulin Rouge's players manage to transcend their theatrical persona to embody --within their cinematic reality-- their true identities.

GUIDE QUESTIONS:

Answer in essay form the following questions (20 points each):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

1. Plato and Aristotle agree that Art is an imitation of Nature, since both classical Greek philosophers subscribe to the Mimetic Theory of Art, which means that all works of art closely resemble life and reality. Pastiche, on the other hand, is a dramatic, literary or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists, often with satirical intent. In Moulin Rouge, does art imitate life or does life imitate art, or does the movie embody both tendencies? Elaborate on your chosen answer as best as you can.

2. The play within the play is an effective literary device in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. How effective is the deployment of "Spectacular, Spectacular" (the play within the movie) in enhancing and emphasizing the doomed love between Christian and Satine, which becomes the main storyline of the film? Elaborate on your chosen answer as best as you can.

Note: Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 21, 2008, during our class period (10:00-11:00 AM). I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

Love Woman Triumphant

2008-07-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

LOVE WOMAN TRIUMPHANT

by Ralph Semino Galán

Like her four previous collections, Love Woman (Manila: UST Press, 1998, 107 pages) is replete with exquisitely-felt, expertly-crafted poems, thus, affirming once again her status as one of the best Filipino poets writing in English past or present regardless of gender. Her fifth book of poems, which derives its "metaphorical center" from Doris Lessing's novel Love Again, is divided into four parts. "Love Woman," the first section, contains 19 poems on a variety of themes seen from the perspective(s) of a woman's constantly compassionate heart and ever expansive mind: love in its various shapes and shades, the social malaise of poverty, abortion, the Ozone Disco disaster, ars poetica, music, and the sheer exuberance of amorous experience.

In "A Matter of Choice," a poem divided into two parts, she tackles with great sense and sensitivity the controversial issue of abortion. Dimalanta’s poetic perception is never myopic as she convincingly presents both sides of the proverbial coin with her characteristic flair for verbal dexterity (notice the wordplay: "all the ugly/uns of this world… my too young/ un of my luckless undelivering womb.) ---

This is pure bereavement./ A cipher with its host/ of the
never-should-have-beens,/ here where life begins and
ends/ in a spate of blood, spite, unfaith,/ unhope, unlove
and all the ugly/ uns of this world, so where,/ where is
there life?/ What has been withdrawn, disjected?/
Nothing but the ugly uns/ you have been spared, my too
young/ un of my luckless undelivering womb.//
("A Gift of Unlife")

Confined within a mayfly’s lifespan no matter/ you will
live forever, oh, yes.../ yes... yes... it is good,/ this air,
this sun, this rhythm/ of grass counterpointing/ your
every breath, His Finger/ tracing diverse designs, like
you,/ Pure Song, lifework, schemed/ for in a world rife
with salvaged/ graces, wombed in a cell,/ as cosmic and
expansive/ as your young beginning dreams.//
("Of Life")

She employs the same ambivalent angle of vision in "A Mountain's Passing," a paean/lament, eulogy/elegy on the closure of the gigantic garbage dump site better known to the layman as Smokey Mountain:

…soon he would be/ standing, looking up, not knowing/
after this mountain's rite of passing,/whether to hymn
or cry.

In “What Poetry Does Not Say,” she reiterates her belief that the subject matter of poetry is best expressed paradoxically by the most careful of non-expression:

For poetry never says;/ it unsays. To say/ is to confine,
contain,/ to unsay explore the/ vaguely all-hovering./
Presence of the unseen,/ deliberately left out...

Poetry or the meaning/fulness of poetry, therefore, for her is something elusive, evasive and equivocal, like love. It is quite similar to poet-critic Gémino H. Abad's definition of insight as "illumination of a thought that no idea expresses, a radiance of feeling that no thought catches."

But in "Perhaps a Few Poets" she is also cognizant of the fact that poets in this day and age are an obsolete breed, a somber choir of "ineffectual angel(s)." At best, they are mere "apologist(s) and rhapsodist(s)/ for ancient and dying faiths," for poets cannot solve through metaphors the more practical problems of the real world.

The last three poems of the first section, along with "Waiting Game," "Slidings," "It is in Her Eyes" and "Romancing the Lake," are investigations on “the precious rhetorics of love.” “Love Woman 1,” a poem dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales, interprets in another light the surrounding circumstances of the car crash that nipped in the bud the life of England’s Rose:

this final private fling,/ this binge of anonymity,/ this silken
intimacy,/ white heat of pain’s intensest peaking/ caught
raw shorn of royal trappings,/ one instant dredging/ of the
body’s last reserves/ from those hurt places of the past/ in
one last heightened rewind,/ in a tight desperate grip of
present,/ the heart’s leap/ out of its crook/ into blazing,
brazing space.

"Love Woman 2" is a nameless, abstracted, almost archetypal female who avers that "love is elision/ perpetually sliding into new/ faces, new syntax, nothing/if not something else." And for this "lovely freak of nature," time and space are her only adversaries, as she offers herself to the growing sphere of her affection, "her far-flung provenance."

"Love, Lie Still…" is a painfully delicious and delicate piece about the "necessary fictions" of true love. The persona-lover and the beloved-other are in bed, physical or metaphysical it does not matter, where "bland breasts/ inevitably resting upon mindless/ hands… just there, serenely/ dreaming, so naturally together.//" But dreams are bound to end like all forms of romantic love, so how maintain the illusion/collusion to keep the flames alive?

The solution provided by the poem is deceivingly simple "to lie still," but the phrase is loaded with a good number of possible semiotic readings. The two most plausible are: to be immobile and let the wave of disillusionment pass, or to keep on churning falsehoods to retain a semblance of truth. Love as illumined by these three poems does not seem to exist without its concomitant deprivations, through "various subterfuges, "imaginary space(s)" and "lost possibilities."

On the other hand, "Turkish Resonances," the second part of the collection, recounts a weeklong sojourn she has taken with a group of fellow Thomasians in Asia Minor. Introduced by a journal entry, the nine travel poems are like impressionistic snapshots and philosophical postcards of the various places and spaces she has visited in Istanbul, Ephesus, Delphi, and Athens, the shimmering gem in the crown of Hellenic Civilization.

"Along the Bosphorus" recreates the experience of being ferried across the throat-shaped body of water that unites the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, the same strait that separates Europe from Asia:

This ferry furrowing through the/ Bosphorus straddling
between/ heart and mind pulling us/ from one continent
to another/ in a pulsating wavelike dancing/ in a matter
of minutes…

"The Parthenon Seen and Shot from Hotel Aphrodite" transforms a fiasco into a poetic contemplation of the subject-object dichotomy. The persona and a you (whose identity is not revealed in the text) took snapshots of each other with the famous Greek edifice serving as the background. The resulting photographs were dismal, to say the least, but the poet’s inner vision redeems them from the trash can of the real world and transmutes them into the metaphorical realm of poetry:

Not quite worthless shots, really./ See there?/ Excavate
deeper/ into the stony sites/ of the receiving mind...//
The Parthenon and you,/ I and the Parthenon,/ Subject-
Object,/ One repressed the other/ played up alternately
both,// Contemplator and text,/ Singer and Song,/
Separate and One.//

Reminiscent of William Butler Yeat's often-quoted poem, "Flying to Byzantium" is a contemporary, if not postmodern, rendition of the quest for the transcendental. But unlike Yeats whose search for eternity is through art and artifice, Dimalanta pursues “sites/ for ruined dreams to sit on/ long after golden birds/ on golden boughs/ have run out of songs.” Her poetic persona therefore is more world-weary, aware as she is that nothing really remains of human monuments but ruins and memories.

Dimalanta's transit poems are never purely descriptive, for her journeys are both inward and outward oriented. She seldom catalogues scenes and scenarios for their own sake. More often than not, she examines her travel experiences from a philosophical or aesthetic vantage point. As a result of her constant confabulations, landscapes become inscapes, not only mere routes of escape, and random sights and sounds become the sources of specific poetic insights: “from mythology to the/ mundaneness of moods…” [“Delphic Capers], “Enchantment is in retrospect.” [“Along the Arcadian Way”], “And to fathom this mystery/ we have ourselves to be/ unfathomable…” [“Meryam Ana at Ephesus”].

In keeping with the spirit of the Philippine Centennial, the third section, subtitled “Our Voices, Our Zones,” verbalizes in a series of character sketches and dramatic monologues the patriotic feelings and ruminations of six women associated with the Revolution of 1896: Teodora Alonso, the mother of Jose Rizal; Josephine Bracken, Pepe’s girlfriend who became his wife two hours before his execution; Patrocinio Gamboa y Villareal, a Jaro heroine; Tandang Sora, the famous katipunera; Gregoria de Jesus, Andres Bonifacio’s wife and “comrade-at-arms;” and Teresa Magbanua Ferraris, another female fighter from the Visayas.

The six poems are quite interesting as socio-political commentaries, for they provide us with possible portraits of these women warriors, heroines whose contribution to the Revolution have often been ignored or effaced by the patriarchal chroniclers of history. Taken in this context, the six poems can be considered as alternative versions of certain historical events, a herstory of the Revolution, écriture féminine counteracting phallogocentric writing. Hear their heroic female voices rise above the totalizing din of male discourse:

Coming home, it seems she really/ has not left home at all./
Home is in the heart’s lush country... and her own/ gentle
hovering and insinuating/ female voice in subtle shades
rising/ as passions in the dark and spreading/ in the
nascent light of faith like/ white confettis in the night.//
("Tandang Sora: Confettis at Pugad Lawin")

Certainly soon, God would will/ to have this woman voice/
take a leap into the elements,/coming out naked in its
wounding/ under a shower of blazing meteors,/ to claim
despite the onus/ of her sex and the curse of her time,/
what godfully is hers alone.//
("Gregoria de Jesus: Beloved Comrade-at-arms")

Nay Isa fought not only with a skill/ akin to or even
excelling man's/ but also with the grit and heat/ and heart
of one woman's being/ ignited in a body text of rage/
and leonine grace and feriocity.//
("Teresa Magbanua Ferraris: Not for Nothing, Brothers")

Reprinted from Flowing On, her third collection of poems, "Other Voices, Other Zones," the fourth and last section, articulates in a sequence of dramatic monologues the sentiments of four heroines from distant lands. Winnie Mandela, Benazir Bhutto, Laila Abou Saif, and Sisulu are polyester women, whose participation in politics, sexual or otherwise, do not diminish the silkiness of their sensibilities. Listen, for the instance, to the voice of Benazir Bhutto:

shahid, i bear your vision/ in my womb like a foetus/ i
shall deliver and send forth/ into the thickest nights,/
wide into the farthest/ reaches of the country’s core...

Or the more feminist utterance of Laila Abou Saif:

sisters of all colors/ and calling, under this skin/ flows
the same blood with/ one intensity and power,/
sputtering forth the same/ sparks, in anger, in need...

Dimalanta’s fifth volume of poetry focuses on love in all its multifarious guises and disguises: romantic love, erotic love, love for the poor and the disenfranchised, love for her dearly departed writer-friends Bienvenido Santos and Edilberto Tiempo, the love of words and the wonderful worlds they create, the love of music, Wanderlust, the love of country, and womanly love for her “gentle,/ loving, long chafing brood.” Love Woman recognizes the fact that in the final analysis, everything essential, whether ephemeral or eternal, is a manifestation of the four-letter word, the Tetragrammaton that defies definition and the constraining cage of language.

Dimalanta’s poetic voice is sui generis; no other poet, nor poetess for that matter, composes poetry the way she does. Thus, her liguistic stamp, being both distinct and distinctive, and the difficult themes she has chosen to tackle make her fifth collection of poems a singular contribution to contemporary Philippine Poetry in English. For in this her latest offering, she has transcended the traditional paradigm of feminine/feminist by becoming what Josephine Acosta Pasricha calls "the true female... reconciling the maternal cyclical structures with the linear time of history and contemporary politics, thus, understanding herstory (sic) and the future of man/womankind."

For 2LIT (Poetry)

2008-07-10T02:02:00.000-07:00

THE JOY OF WRITING

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

- Wislawa Szymborska

Answer in a 3-5 page essay the guide question below (maximum score is 50 points):
(Remember that ARTICULATION is what matters most.)

Compare and contrast the different functions of writing in the movie "Atonement" and in the poem "The Joy of Writing" by Polish Nobel Prize for Literature winner Wislawa Szymborska.

Note: Submit your computer-printed or typewritten essays on July 22, 2008, during the first hour of our class period: 2:30-3:30. I will not accept late papers, nor handwritten answers.

Ariel

2008-07-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

ARIEL
(after Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid")

under the piscean sea
of feelings, i live
princess of the deep.
my love is a turbulence
breaking near the water's
edge.

since what i long for
is an earthly prince
dry yet fertile like land
far yet warm as the sun
shimmering on the sea's
surface from my vision
below.

but this watery love
like the sea spray
is doomed, for i am
a mermaid forever caught
in the ocean's overwhelming
grip.

My Kind

2008-07-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

MY KIND

I have no oven large enough,
Dear Sylvia, to roast
my head like a lamb for dinner.

Nor a brand-new car parked
in a garage, Dear Anne,
to etherize my soul.

Nor stones heavy with sin,
Dear Virginia, and a river deep
as forgetting to drown myself in.

Nor do I live in a building,
so high like the bluest
of skies, Dearest Maningning.

Sisters in rhyme, in crime,
how then shall I make my quick
and extraordinary exit?

Or shall I kill myself slowly
with beer and cigarettes,
bit by bit?

Pistang Panitik 2007

2008-06-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

PISTANG PANITIK 2007
The 28th Manila International Book Fair
World Trade Center

After the success of last year’s "Pistang Panitik," LIKHAAN: The U.P. Institute of Creative Writing, in partnership with the Book Development Association of the Philippines, Prime Trade Asia, Anvil Publishing, the National Book Development Board and Read Or Die, will mount "Pistang Panitik 2007" at the World Trade Center from August 30, 2007 to September 2, 2007 to coincide with the 28th Manila International Book Fair.

"Pistang Panitik" was conceived by UP ICW Director Vim Nadera as a literary festival where readers and writers alike can meet and greet. This year’s "Pistang Panitik" is much more ambitious as it spans over the 5 days of the Manila International Book Fair and will focus on the five living National Artists For Literature: Virgilio Almario, Bienvenido Lumbera, Alejandro Roces, F. Sionil Jose, and Edith Tiempo. It aims to re-introduce to contemporary audiences all their contributions to Philippine culture and the arts through commentaries by noted literary critics, performances by theatrical and poetry groups, and reader reactions.

Araw ni Bienvenido Lumbera
AUGUST 30 Function Room A 1:00-3:00 PM

KRITIKO: Dr. Roland Tolentino, Dr. Rod Nuncio, at Dr. Rosario Torres Yu
TAGAPAGTANGHAL: Bb. Susan Magno
MULA SA MAMBABASA: Kristin Mandigma & Marianne Suba

Araw ni Francisco Sionil Jose
AUGUST 31 Function Rm A 1:00-3:00 p.m.

KRITIKO: Dr. Neil Garcia, Dr. Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta at Prof. Ferdie Lopez
TAGAPAGTANGHAL: Under Siege
MULA SA MAMBABASA: Mia Sereno & Israel Realin

Araw ni Virgilio Almario
SEPTEMBER 1 Function Rm B1:00- 3:00 p.m.

KRITIKO: G. Roberto Añonuevo, Prof. Mike Coroza at G. Rogelio Mangahas
TAGAPAGTANGHAL: Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo
MULA SA MAMBABASA: Kristel Autencio, Renita Norada

Araw ni Alejandro Roces
SEPTEMBER 2 Function Rm A1:00- 5:00 p.m.

KRITIKO: Dr. Isagani Cruz, Prof. Lito Zulueta, at Prof. Danton Remoto
TAGAPAGTANGHAL: Alitaptap Storytellers Philippines
MULA SA MAMBABASA: Rachel Teng, Karen Inocencio & Paolo Cruz

Araw ni Edith Tiempo

KRITIKO: G. Alfred Yuson, Dr. Gemino Abad, Prof. Ralph Semino Galan
TAGAPAGTANGHAL: Ony Carcamo
MULA SA MAMBABASA: Pamela Punzalan & Mia Marci

Note: The revised version of "Articulations of Both Heart and Mind: The Love Poems of Edith L. Tiempo", the paper I read for this literary event will be published in the June 2008 issue of UNITAS, UST's scholarly publication for the arts and the sciences. Many thanks to John Jack Wigley, the Acting Director of the UST Publishing House, for believing in my capacity as a literary critic, albeit a fledging one.

Ubod New Authors Series

2008-06-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

UBOD NEW AUTHORS SERIES

The National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) through the National Committee on Literary Arts (NCLA) will formally launch the “Ubod New Authors Series,” which features 40 of Philippine literati’s newest gems, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Lobby, Roxas Blvd., Pasay City, on Dec. 6 at 6 p.m.

The series consists of 50-page chapbooks (5½” x 8½”) of selected poems, fiction, creative nonfiction and drama in English, Filipino and other Philippine languages written by young and promising Filipino writers. Ubod is the Tagalog and Cebuano word for “heart extracted out of palm or bamboo.”

Presidential assistant on culture and NCCA executive director Cecile Guidote Alvarez, CCP vice president and artistic director Fernando C. Josef and NCLA head Joselito Zulueta will present the first copies of “Ubod” to the authors.

An overview of the series will be presented by Ricky de Ungria, UP Mindanao chancellor and former head of the NCLA from 1998 to 2001, when “Ubod” was first hatched.

There will also be remarks from Gemino Abad, general editor of “Ubod,” and Hermino Beltran, head of the CCP Office on Literature and former head of the NCLA from 2001 to 2004, during which “Ubod” started to be implemented.

The writers of the series are Sid Hildawa, Naya Valdellon, Gabriela Lee, Raul Moldez, Rosendo Makabali and Ralph Semino Galan for poetry in English; Joseph Salazar, Edgar Calabia Samar, Richard Gappi, Joselito de los Reyes, Joselyn Floresca, Enrico Torralba, Marieta Culibao, and Jema Pamintuan for poetry in Filipino; Santiago Villafania for poetry in Pangasinan; and Estellito Baylon Jacob for poetry in Bicolano.

The series also features Anna Felicia Sanchez, Peter Mayshle, Ian Casocot, Mildred Malaki and Arifa Jamil for fiction in English; Alwyn Aguirre, Vlademeir Gonzales, Alvin Yapan, Maricris Calilung and Ernesto Carandang Jr. for fiction in Filipino; Julio Belmes for fiction in Iluko; Januar Enero Yap for fiction in Cebuano; Genvieve Asenjo for fiction in Kinaray-a; and John Barrios for fiction in Aklanon.

Also included on the series are the works of Georgina Verdolaga and Maryanne Moll for creative nonfiction in English; Debbie Ann Tan, Christopher Gozum, and Liza Magtoto for drama in English; and Bay-viz Canleon, Edward Perez, Dennis Marasigan and Chris Martinez for drama in Filipino.

Note: This event happened almost three years ago, but since I am waxing nostalgic while creating this online archive of my life as a writer, I might as well include this press release as well as two pictures courtesy of Ian Casocot.

Ralph Semino Galan with Ian Casocot at the CCP Main Lobby.

Dalawang Tula Tungkol sa Baguio

2008-06-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

ANG PAG-IBIG NG BAGUIO

Malamig ang pag-ibig ng Baguio
kasinlamig ng mga mata mo
O irog ko.
Ang mga mata mong
di nakatitig sa aking pag-iisa:
dalawang ilog na dumadaloy
patungo sa puso ng iba.

Nagiging yelo ang puso ko
dahil sa lamig ng labi mo
O mahal ko.
Tulad ng Baguio,
ang dampi ng iyong halik
ay kasinlamig ng habagat,
pinamamanhid ang aking balat.

Nakapatong sa mga balikat ko
ang mga nanlalamig na daliri mo
O sinta ko.
Ang mga daliri mong
kasinlamig at kasimbango
ng mga punungkahoy ng Baguio:
mga berdeng kandilang nakatirik

sa libingan ng aking pagnanasa
sa puntod ng aking pag-asa.

******************************************************

BAGYO NG ALAALA, ALAALA NG BAGUIO

Binabagyo ako ng mga alaala.

Amoy pine trees ang simoy ng hangin.

May nalimutan ba akong gawin
kaya’t ako ngayo’y inaabala
ng mga imahen?

Sarisaring simbolo ang gumagambala
sa puso ko’t diwa,
hinihiwa
nila ang aking damdamin,
gaya ng paghiwa ng mga Igorot
sa tigang na lupa
para malikha
ang Banaue
Rice
Terraces.

Ang isipan ko naman ay binubulabog
ng mga tunog ng kalikasan:
Ang mga kuliglig na kumakanta
ng kakaibang melodiya...
Ang mga ibon na humuhuni
sa Burnham Park ng aking guniguni...

Nararamdaman kong umiinit
ang aking katawan
nang ang iyong mukha sa aking isipan
ay nasilayan.
Ang iyong mukha
na nagpapatunaw sa ginaw
na dala ng bagyo ng alaala,
ng alaala ng Baguio...

Ano ba ang nagawa kong kasalanan
at ayaw akong iwanan
ng mga nagliliyab mong larawan?

Sumpa

2008-06-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

SUMPA

If love is a yearning to be like (even to become)
the beloved, then hatred, it must be said,
can be engendered by the same ambition,
when it cannot be fulfilled.
-Salman Rushdie,
The Satanic Verses

Isinumpa kita:
Hindi ka liligaya sa piling ng iba
habang ako ay nag-iisa sa kama,
binabalutan ng kumot ng kalungkutan,
nakapatong ang ulo sa unan
ng pinakamalupit na pangungulila.

Isinumpa kita.
Sa kabilugan ng buwan,
nagsindi ako ng maitim na kandila
at ibinulong ko sa hangin
ang lihim na panalangin, ang orasyon
para sa mga mangingibig
na hindi marunong magmahal.

Isinumpa kita,
paulit-ulit --- umaga, tanghali, gabi ---
tuwing nakikita ko sa iba ang kaligayahan
na ipinagkait mo sa akin;
sa mga oras na naaalala ko
ang iyong maiinit na yakap at halik,
ang pitik ng iyong puso.

Isinumpa kita.
Ang pinakamabisang gayuma
ang ginamit ko laban sa iyo,
na walang iba kundi ang tindi
ng aking pag-ibig na binaliwala mo
at naging marubdob na poot ---

Isinumpa kita, dati kong sinisinta:
Hindi ka liligaya sa piling ng iba!

-Ralph Semino Galán

On a Boat to Puerto Galera

2008-06-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

ON A BOAT TO PUERTO GALERA
(for Jun, Rommel and Donald)

the ship of fools
ferries us across the strait
that separates luzon
from the yearned for
shores of mindoro.

leaving our city lives
behind, we stand on deck
straining our eyes
against the glare of light
frolicking on water.

we sigh, imagining
the sand of white beach
crunching beneath
our feet, the sun bronzing
the skin of our backs.

passing by the islands
of verde and maricaban
we shiver, thinking
of the warm sea embracing
our bodies like a lover.

heaving with the heavy
cargo of our foolish
fantasies, we disembark thus
in puerto galera
way ahead of schedule,

long before our rusty galleon
has reached the safety of harbor.

Postcard Poem

2008-06-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

POSTCARD POEM
(Maria Cristina Falls Reprise)

Picture-perfect,
I have seen your silent screams
tear across the pages
of my dreams. Two voices
streaming in unison
to some imaginary sea,
stopped short
by the edges of this paper
strengthened like a dam.

-Ralph Semino Galan

Islands and Icebergs

2008-06-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

ISLANDS AND ICEBERGS
(Or, How to Read a Poem)

Imagine the paper
on which this poem is written
as an ocean.

Imagine these words
as either islands or icebergs
floating on the surface.

Imagine yourself
as an explorer, a cartographer
of heart and mind.

From the safety
of your imagination’s ship,
what do you see?

A mountain peak;
perhaps a ribbon of smoke
from an old volcano?

A drifting glacier;
a pair of polar bears frolicking
on thin ice?

You ask: Where
is the connection, the link
between each to each?

You ask: Must I hop
from this island to the next,
feeling after feeling?

Or must I move
from one iceberg to the other,
thought after thought?

And I answer,
take a deep breath and dive
into the dead calm.

Taste, feel, smell;
see what was once invisible
listen to the silence ---

Read again.

- Ralph Semino Galán

Fortune Telling at Ora Cafe

2008-06-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

FORTUNE TELLING AT ORA CAFE

You arrive all alone
full of fear and apprehension
in this cafe that promises
to foretell your future, as if
your goddamn life with all
its complexities can be reduced
to a pack of cards, the twisting
path of your destiny as clear-cut
as a crystal ball, your strange fate
a text written in the stars.

And so the psychic-seer
reads the signs of your chosen
form of oracle, predicting events
that may or may not happen,
depending on how you see things
as they occur; the accuracy
of his third eye a matter yet
to be seen, his prophetic words
a cipher yet to be decoded
in the succeeding days to come.

But you believe him,
at this particular point in time
yes, you completely believe him:
the major and minor arcana,
the alignment of the planets;
so you leave this cafe with a sense
of certainty that disappears
the very next day, in the tumult
and turbulence of tomorrow's
unpredictable unfolding.

-Ralph Semino Galan

Magician

2008-06-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

MAGICIAN

I wave my pen like a wand
and cast a spell to conjure images
of the past: the silk of your skin

I had touched a thousand times,
the impish smile in your eyes,
your firm thighs. Athame in hand,

I slash the veils of illusion
one by one, and stab my devoted
heart with the dagger of art.

I let the blood spill like music,
tears flowing like the solemn lyrics
of a dirge. I let everything go.

I remove my robes and remember
that the path to wholeness
is not in safety but in vulnerability.

Star-clad, I offer my wounds
to the universe, faith transforming
pain into poetry, suffering into song.

-Ralph Semino Galan

Virgin Labfest 4 Highlights

2008-06-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Stellar Roster of Artists in VIRGIN LABFEST 4 at the CCP
(June 25- July 6)

The Virgin Labfest 4, the most awaited theater festival in the country today, will be held once again at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from June 25 until July 6, 2008, with a stellar roster of writers, directors and actors headlining the performances of 18 one-act plays and staged readings of six other works. Now on its fourth year, the Virgin Labfest, has earned a solid reputation for its exciting and provocative line-up of "untried, untested, unpublished and unstaged" plays from playwrights both young and old. Complementing these are a workshop for high school students who wish to learn more about the craft of playwriting, a contest for owners of blogs (web logs or online journals), the launching of Ma-Yi Theater Company’s anthology Savage Stage, and a public interview with National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose by journalist Howie Severino.

FEATURED WRITERS

The line-up for Virgin Labfest 4 includes plays by National Artist F. Sionil Jose, award-winning playwrights Layeta Bucoy, Tim Dacanay, George de Jesus III, George Vail Kabristante, Allan Lopez, Job Pagsibigan, Floy Quintos, Debbie Tan, J. Dennis Teodosio and Argel Tuazon, as well as newcomers to the Festival such as Carlo Garcia, Anna Maria Gonzales, Jovi Miroy, Khavn de la Cruz and Malaysian writer Koh Jun Eiow.

DIRECTORS

Returning to direct the plays are Virgin Labfest “veterans” Jose Estrella, Njel de Mesa, George de Jesus III, Ana Valdez Lim, Nick Olanka Cats Racsag, Tuxqs Rutaquio, Roobak Valle, J. Victor Villareal and Toshiisa Yoshida, and festival first-timers Krystal Banzon, Jeff Camanag, Mayen Estañero, Hazel Gutierrez, Chris Millado, Floy Quintos, Paolo O’Hara and Leo Rialp. Rody Vera is the Festival’s Artistic Director.

ACTORS

Among the over one hundred actors participating in the performances and readings are Tommy Abuel, Irma Adlawan Marasigan, Kalila Aguilos, JK Anicoche, Lovely Balili, Ian Bautista, Riki Benedicto, MacDonnel Bolaños, Nonie Buencamino, Shamaine Buencamino, Tara Cabaero, Paolo Cabañero, Nar Cabico, Bong Cabrera, Kathlyn Castillo, Ricci Chan, Chrome Cosio, Dido de la Paz, Abner Delina, Anna Deroca, Bituin Escalante, Gigi Escalante, Mica Froilan, Bart Guingona, Jef-Henson Dy, Tess Jamias, Nanding Josef, Mailes Kanapi, Skyzx Labastilla, Monica Llamas, Russell Legaspi, Lorna Lopez, Clottie Lucero, Nicco Manalo, Missy Maramara, Juliene Mendoza, Wenah Nagales, Jerald Napoles, Madeleine Nicolas, Phil Noble, Peewee O’Hara, Gem Padilla, Joey Paras, Leo Ponseca, Cheryl Ramos, Arnold Reyes. Bembol Roco, Ness Roque, Amihan Ruiz, Tuxqs Rutaquio, Katherine Sabate, Carme Sanchez, Gilleth Sandico, Jonathan Tadioan, Noel Taylo, Joel Torre, Onyl Torres, Lou Veloso and Randy Villarama.

LINE-UP OF PLAYS

“This year, there will be five sets of one-act trilogies, each dealing with a central topic or unifying theme ranging from comedies to political commentaries to gender issues to ghost stories, and a program consisting of three productions from Virgin Labfest 3.” says Vera. One of these is a program especially geared for children, consisting of plays commissioned by the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, based on published children’s stories.

OTHER EVENTS

National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose will share his thoughts with Howie Severino in a forum titled “From Page to Stage: The Novelist in Front of the Footlights” on July 5.

Staged readings of six other “virgin” plays will also be presented every night from June 25 to 29. On July 3, there will be a reading of selected excerpts from Ma-Yi Theater Company’s anthology Savage Stage, most of which have been performed by the company.

The Labfest Blogfest offers active bloggers to win prizes. All they have to do is attend the first weekend performances and write a web blog or online journal within 48 hours after watching the program they saw. Winners will be chosen for each set of Labfest plays and receive gift certificates and other merchandise.

In the Virgin Labfest Lab, high-school students who are interested in theater and playwriting will be mentored throughout the festival by writer-director Njel de Mesa, after which the students are expected to write short plays to be presented in a staged reading on the last day of the Festival.

The Virgin Labfest 4 runs from June 25 to July 6 and is presented by the Writers Bloc and Tanghalang Pilipino with the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, in cooperation with Boysen Paints, Japan Foundation Manila Office, and Miss Mae Paner. For schedule and ticket inquiries, please call the CCP Box Office at 832-3704 or Ticketworld at National Bookstore branches at 891-9999.

15th Iligan National Writers Workshop

2008-06-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

15th ILIGAN NATIONAL WRITERS WORKSHOP

The 15th Iligan National Writers workshop capped this year’s event with the Jimmy Y. Balacuit Awards to the following fellows:

FICTION:
First: Sara Jane Domingo Sebastian (Luzon, fiction, Filipino) -- "Amahinasyon"
Second: Efmer E. Agustin (Visayas-Cebuano) - "Kasayuran ug Borloloy"
Third: Samantha Echavez - (Luzon-Fiction English) " The Whore Fairy"

POETRY:
First: Erick Dasig Aguilar (Luzon- poetry Filipino) "Baseco, Baseco II, Baseco III"
Second: Leonilo P. Lopido( Visayas-Waray poetry) - "Pagliay-liay, Alugan, Hi Pititay"
Special Prize for Individual Poem - Nino Manaog (Visayas-English poem) -"Encanto"
Honorable Mention for Individual Poem - Luciano L. Abia (Visayas-Waray poem) - "Lagatob han dughan hin batan-on nga mangirisda"

The 1st Manuel Buenafe Writing Fellow Award was presented to Yakan fellow Marion Guerrero. This endowment named after poet-fictionist Buenafe who grew up in Lanao and later became UN-FAO representative is awarded by the Buenafe heirs to ensure an additional Mindanao slot in the competitive workshop. Next year, historian Ricardo Jorge Caluen will award his bursary.

Complementing the awards ceremonies during the closing program was the launch of Fire and Faith in Writing (Christine Godinez-Ortega, ed.), published proceedings of the workshop last year. [The Iligan workshop publishes its proceedings every year to document the creative writing process.]

The fellows also read their poems and those of last year’s in a concert entitled “Kape, Lipstik, ug Balak Gikan sa Malipayong Kinabuhi.“

Panelists include Ortega, the workshop director, keynote speaker Antonio Enriquez, Ralph Semino Galan, Victor Sugbo, Chari Cruz-Lucero, German Gervacio, Leo Deriada, and Steven P.C. Fernandez.

The Iligan workshop is one of three institutionalized national workshops in the country today. It is supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and conducted by the Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc. and the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology Media --- of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension.

Note: This article was written by Steven P.C. Fernandez.

Naming the Trees

2008-06-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

NAMING THE TREES
(Dumaguete City, May 1995)

Héloïse and Abélard ---
On the boulevard, we baptize
two acacia trees
by pressing our palms
on their ancient boles,
like wizened priests.

Héloïse, with her wimple
of leaves, lifts her branches
wildly to a cruel sky;
her virginity intact, the fruit
of her desire unpicked.

Abélard, in his castrated
glory, hides his shame
beneath the brown habit
of bark; his roots shaken,
his seeds unspread.

Héloïse and Abélard ---
On the boulevard, we name
two trees after the tragic
lovers of Medieval times,
secretly hoping not to repeat
the same sad fate.

- Ralph Semino Galan

Isabel Allende's First Three Novels

2008-06-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Naming the Spirits: Feminist Nomenclature
and Mythic Characterization
in the First Three Novels of Isabel Allende

by Ralph Semino Galán

“What’s in a name?” Juliet asks Romeo in their iconic balcony scene in Shakespeare’s famous romantic tragedy. Does it really matter? Is it really true that the flower “which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?” The answer of course is no, since a name by itself determines a person’s identity and attributes, and oftentimes even his or her destiny, though sometimes in ironic or pastiche-like manner.

This paper is a semiotic-cum-socialist feminist analysis of Allende’s first three novels, namely The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows and Eva Luna. The close reading undertaken by this researcher reveals that the nomenclature in the three long narratives functions as a rhetorical strategy to provide nominal signs to discerning readers regarding the scope of her egalitarian and humanitarian concerns. There are at least four levels of naming in the aforementioned Latin American tales that point out to female (and eventual male) liberation from the binary opposites that bind them together but paradoxically at the same time keep them apart: the title of the novel as the first semantic sign the reader encounters, storytelling itself as a form of naming, the subversion of the surname as a patriarchal tool of domination, and the use of first names to create feminist characters with mythic proportions as bearers of light, life and love.

Furthermore, this paper argues for the necessity to reassess and rename the members of South America’s literary canon in the light of Allende’s fictional achievements as a novelist who asserts that “It’s not a question of changing male chauvinism for militant feminism, but of giving both women and men a chance to become better people and to share the heavy burden of this planet.”

Honeymooning with Words

2008-06-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Honeymooning with Words

by Ralph Semino Galán

Love is a favorite subject among Filipino poets, regardless of gender. For despite the influx of modern and postmodern ideologies, the pervasive influence of the Romantic spirit is still prevalent in Philippine literature, especially in poetry. It therefore comes as no surprise that even a gay-identified writer like Danton Remoto has composed extensively verses expressing the intricacies of love and lust, desire and devotion, passion and compassion.

In his third book of poetry aptly titled Pulotgata: The Love Poems (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc, 2004, 88 pages), Remoto delves the depths of the human heart through lyrics in English and Filipino that sing of the anxiety and the excitement, the agony and the ecstasy which accompany the act of love.

The joy of loving and the consummation of desire are celebrated in the verses "Tonight I Will Live in Your Skin," inspired by Pablo Neruda's penultimate love poem in Veinte poemas de amor y una cancíon desesperada, "Water," "Fire and Ice," "Autumn," "Room," "Black Silk Pajamas," "Song of the Flute," "Destination," "Dawn," "The Seat of Love," "The Ring" and "Sky," among others.

On the other hand, the pain of parting and the power of memory to redeem those special moments, which otherwise would be lost to oblivion, are articulated in the following pieces: "Childhood," "Burning Season," "Chairs," "Snowstorm," "Departure," "Rain," "Stairway," "In Tagaytay," "Winter," "All the Clichés," "At Bellarmine" and "Song of Rumi."

The poems in Filipino, whether of the first or second persuasion, are more precise and direct, penetrating the heart of the matter with the sharpest of inquiries and insights: "ano kayang bitag/ ang itinatago ng buhay/ para sa akin?//" ["Pagdidilim 1."], "ibig maging buhangin/ upang masarayan// kahit minsan man lamang/ ng kanyang talampakan.// ["Baler, na Bayan Niya"], Pag-ibig ay tinig na tila sagwan/ humahati sa dagat ng kawalan./, ["Hindi Kinang ng Buwan"], "tinipong hininga ng mga mangingibig! ---/ at sandaling inisip/ ang karahasan ng pag-asa" ["Kabalyero"], "Ikaw,// na iniwan akong nag-iisa,/ walang kaibigan// o kasama,/ kundi mga wikang dayuhan// at paiba-iba.//" ["Wika"].

There is a seeming simplicity in Remoto's poetry in his choice of words and images. He does not employ verbal fireworks for effect and efficacy. Nor does he rely on arcane and orphic tropes that obfuscate the reader into believing that something profound is being revealed. Instead, he uses carefully selected metaphors and similes to convey his thoughts and feelings.

For Imagism has a very strong influence on Remoto's versifying, via Amygism (after Amy Lowell, who published the three-volume anthology Some Imagist Poets) and the Bagay poetry espoused by Rolando Tinio and company. A close reading of the poems will reveal that they conform to most of the guiding principles of Imagism/Amygism, "that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous," and that "concentration is of the very essence of poetry."

The image-making of Remoto is best described as elemental, evoking connections between the male body and the natural world, between powerful emotions and stark details of flora and fauna. Here are some prime examples: "My breath will begin by flowering/ in the caves of your ears.//" ["Tonight I Will Live in Your Skin"], "I will be the Falls of Dochart hurtling itself/ down the hills of Breadalbane,/ the rocks rumbling with my cascading force.// ["Water"], "Water slides down/ the leaves/ like tongue on skin" ["Rain"], "Swans skimmed the skin/ of your surface./" ["Winter"], "summer's thunder/ lighting up the sky/ oh heat thick/ as desire/" ["The Way We Live"], "My fingers brushing against/ the ferns in the mountain/ of your hair.//" ["Destination"], "your lips brushing// like a butterfly's wing/ against my lips./ ["Dawn"].

Among the poems in Filipino are the following: "Duhat na hinog ang mga mata ng gabi." ["Gabi"], "tila mga ibong hapo/ na humahapon sa pugad/ ng iyong puso.//" ["Kaarawan"], "Sa aming likuran,/ ang mga sanga/ ay nagiging kandila./ May talab/ ang kanilang lagablab.//" ["Ang Tawag"], "Matang may kubling// lungkot,/ mga salitang maigsi,/ manipis pa/ sa hugis-suklay na buwan.// ["Simula"], At ang iyong mga daliri'y/ naglalakbay, pumapasok,/ nawawala/ sa mga ulan ng aking buhok.// ["Pulotgata"].

There is also a sense of immediacy to Remoto's love lyrics, for almost all of the poems are written in the present or present perfect tense. Hence, the presence of the persona, the controlling consciousness, permeates the scene of each poem, the objective situation, even the spaces in between.

Another interesting feature of Remoto's poetry is its capacity to transcend traditional gender barriers, despite its homosexual underpinnings. Except for a few homoerotic pieces which some conservative readers might find rather offensive, most of the other poems are written in good taste, with the right amount of tenderness and tenacity of spirit.

Although a good number of the 57 poems in Pulotgata are reprinted from his two previous collections Skin Voices Faces and Black Silk Pajamas, the book is still worth buying, especially for die-hard romantics, since Remoto's love poems still remain fresh and clear and genuine, despite the passages of the years. For new readers, the book is a good introduction to the work of a highly accessible poet who writes proficiently both in English and Filipino.

My Fair Maladies

2008-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

My Fair Maladies: Funny Essays and Poems on Various Ailments and Afflictions

Edited by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo

Description: Almost everyone has suffered, at one time or the other, from some ailment, real or imagined. In true Pinoy fashion, we all cope by laughing about it, proving that laughter, indeed, is the best medicine. The 64 funny essays and poems in this book are all about the maladies that have afflicted some of the best writers in the country today—from a wandering eye to the big C, from an irrational fear of insects to a full-blown nervous breakdown. They are interspersed with nuggets of information on the illnesses.

Note: I have a poem in this anthology dedicated to Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf and Maningning Miclat, you get the drift? Hehehe!

A Crepuscular Scene

2008-06-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

A CREPUSCULAR SCENE
(After a photograph by Al Dimalanta)

Watch the sun setting,
an overripe orange of light
sinking into the darkness

of the sea. Watch the ship
sailing to distant shores,
destinations and destinies

you can only dream of.
Watch the seconds slip by
like the wind whipping

your face. Watch and weep
for these transitive things
inevitably disappearing

before your bloodshot eyes.

For Maningning, Seven Years After

2008-06-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

FOR MANINGNING, SEVEN YEARS AFTER
(September 29, 2007)

If I do it now, somersault
headfirst into the river of concrete
from the rooftop of the building

where I teach, will it create
a scene: a semi-abstract painting
of pain slightly obscene, face

distorted, body contorted, almost
Cubist, but with clots of red
darkening the impromptu canvas?

What lesson is there to learn
from the freefall of my leave-taking,
the picture perfect trajectory

of my utter failure to survive?
Will poet-friends revive me in songs
and elegies, words transforming

my rotting flesh into parable,
legend, myth? Or will I be forgotten
after the tabloid's rabid headline,

shame on my name, the anguish
I relish: a mad troubadour
plunging into inevitable oblivion

without your star's redeeming light?

Note: The late Maningning Miclat was a young and talented poet-painter of the Philippines. She had won many national and international prizes for her poems and paintings.

Virgin Labfest 4 Schedule of Shows

2008-06-13T04:12:00.000-07:00

VIRGIN LABFEST 4 Schedule of Shows:

PLAYS
(Tanghalang Huseng Batute/ CCP Studio Theater)

VIRGIN LABFEST 3 REVISITED
June 25 (W) – 3PM/8PM / July 4 (F) – 8PM / July 5 (Sat) – 3PM

Njel de Mesa‘s Mga Obra ni Maestra
Directed by Njel de Mesa
Featuring Abby Gonzales, Nympha Gonzales and Cashlyn Cuarez

A hilarious and biting play about three young children with superpowers and are heavily conflicted between saving the world or fulfilling the grueling, tedious domestic duties that their parents have ordered them to do.

Layeta Bucoy‘s Ellas Inocentes
Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio
Featuring Janessa Roque and Lovely Balili

Two sisters, whose innocent conversation and unmalicious observations of a household not quite their own, reveals the violence and inhumanity of the adults around them.

Yoji Sakate‘s Three Sisters
Directed by Jose Estrella
Featuring Mailes Kanapi, Marj Lorico, Cheryl Ramos, Bong Cabrera, Joel Garcia and Lowell Conales

A moving ghost story and a touching memorial to the ravages of war and the significant resonance of war in theater.

* * PROGRAM 1 * *
KAPAMILYA, KAPUSO, KABISYO
June 26 (TH) – 3PM/8PM / July 5 (SAT) – 8PM / July 6 (SUN) – 3PM

Hase Hiroichi’s Amoy ng Langit
Directed by Toshiisa Yoshida
Featuring Mailes Kanapi, Martha Comia, Ana Deroca,Mica Froilan and Tara Cabaero

Ghosts are known to roam the world of the living because of unfinished business. This small and simple play about suicide, leaving and death happens on the rooftop of a school where no one is allowed to loiter. Yet a spirit manages to reconnect before finally heading “home.”

Layeta Bucoy’s Las Mentiras de Gloria
Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio
Featuring Bart Guingona and May Bayot

Gloria, whose cancer kills her, appeals to her fraternal twin Utoy, to whom she appears as a bleeding ghost, to maintain the lies that she has been spreading to her faculty colleagues in the university. Utoy is compelled to obey by forced guilt and a macabre 'umbilical' connection. But beneath these secrets and lies are more secrets and lies and it seems the death of Gloria, no matter how sanitized, would only leak their foul stench even more.

Carlo Garcia’s Ang Mga Halimaw
Directed by Paolo O'Hara
Featuring JK Anicoche, Amihan Ruiz, Kristine Balmes, Alvin Obillo, Nar Cabico, Isab Martinez, Mara Marasigan,Philip Evangelista and Oscar Garcia and the Dulaang Sipat Lawin

Small time criminals think big like their bosses. In this car scene, drama effectively unfolds with strange bedfellows for characters and a wonderful poetic wit that speaks the language of the damned. These murderers, who include an Operadang Bakla, a Taxi Drayber and a Lalaking May Pakpak make for one short glimpse of surreo-realism.

* * PROGRAM 2 * *
KATOTOHANAN, KATARUNGAN, KAPATIRAN
June 27 (F) – 3PM/8PM / July 2 (W) – 3PM / July 6 (SUN) – 8PM

F. Sionil Jose’s Dong-Ao
Translated by Rody Vera
Directed by Chris Millado
Featuring Carme Sanchez, Nanding Josef, Tommy Abuel, Bembol Roco, Dido de la Paz, Gigi Escalante and Monica Llamas

Dong-ao is a traditional Ilokano funeral ceremony where relatives and friends pay tribute to the deceased. In this short play, Pepe Samson, the lead character in F. Sionil Jose’s novel Mass is dead. Several characters speak in front of his coffin, before he is laid to rest: Senator Reyes, Pepe’s Aunt Bettina, his college professor-mentor Badong Hortenso, his parish priest friend Father Jess, Colonel White Sidewall, and an old woman Tia Nena who served in the parish where Pepe once stayed. The divergent views uttered by the characters depict a fragmented nation, teetering between complete collapse and newfound hope and direction.

Allan Lopez’s Masaganang Ekonomiya
Directed by J. Victor Villareal
Featuring Katherine Sabate and Abner Delina

Framed by an unfinished game of chess between Vera, a highly decorated military
officer, and Guzman, an esteemed activist, the play unfolds as an interrogation of Gomez, a younger militant. In layered scenes that shift from intense examinations to harrowing scenes of humor, budding fascism, and brutish attacks on human sensibility, ‘Masaganang Ekonomiya’ offers an emasculated contemporary look on the age-old conflict between the establishment and the insurgents, in the context of a globalization- obsessed nation.

Tim Dacanay‘s Pamantasang Hirang
Directed by Hazel Gutierez
Featuring Jonathan Tadioan, Ian Bautista, Nicco Manalo, Ryan Guzman, Nicole Andrew Guila, Russell Legaspi, Alexis Dorola, Jay del Rosario, Jonathan Cabrera and Jacqueline Amper.

At a fraternity initiation in the state university, ambitious Congressman Chok Villanueva, an alumnus interfering with the proceedings, uses everything at his disposal to win back his friend, Dan, an advertising man who went back to the university to revive his literary talents. No institution is sacred, and everything is subverted, as persuasion fails and spirals downward to an orgy of brutality and excess.

* * PROGRAM 3 * *
PAGBABAGO, PAGHAHANAP, PAGKAKATAON
June 28 (SAT) – 3PM/8PM / July 2 (W) – 8PM / July 3 (TH) – 3PM

George Vail Kabristante’s Ang Kuwento ng Menginga ng New York City na Kamukha ng Bee-Stung Lips ni Julia Roberts
Directed by George de Jesus III
Featuring Ricci Chan, Jojo Riguera, Xeno Alejandro, Jef-Henson Dee and Gem Padilla

Denise fulfills the almost impossible condition given him by Victor, his sole object of obsession. He undergoes a sex change operation hoping that Victor’s promise of love will finally be requited. To Denise’s utter dismay, the condition turns out to be a half-forgotten joke. This melodramatic (and literal) reversal of fortune becomes black hilarity in the hands of George Kabristante. More like his reprise and variation on a theme that he started in last year’s Labfest, My Padir is an OCW.

J. Dennis C. Teodosio’s Gumamela
Directed by Roobak Valle
Featuring Phil Noble, Chrome Cosio,, Riki Benedicto and Russell Legaspi

"Gumamela" is more than just about hibiscus rosa sinensis or its botanical characteristics and pharmacological effects. It tells the bitter-sweet- campy story of man who contemplates what's there in 40 missed calls, in 40 minutes of waiting, and in 40 years of loneliness, love, and life, between serious bouts of suicide attempts and the desire to eat a sumptuous slice of chocolate cake.

Rogelio Braga’s Ang Bayot, Ang Meranao,at ang Habal Habal sa isang Nakababagot na Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte
Directed by Nick Olanka
Featuring Joey Paras and Arnold Reyes

An unusual rendezvous of two beautiful and sharp-tongue outspoken creatures living at the margins of our society. Take a peak on their engagement as they courageously travel— devoid of any inhibitions, political correctness, and social graces—that rough and ‘older than history’ roads of discrimination, hypocrisy, bigotry, social divides, corruption and unspoken violence to arrive in a decent friendship. The play is a bitter yet funky peppered with a Radio Active Sago Project kick-ass take on the cruelties of our society that condones discrimination which is definitely not so cool.

* * PROGRAM 4 * *
PAGKAGAHAMAN, PANLILINLANG, PANANAMPALATAYA
June 29 (SUN) – 3PM/9PM / July 3 (TH) – 8PM / July 4 (F) – 3PM

Floy Quintos’ Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna
Directed by Floy Quintos
Featuring Shamaine Buencamino, Tuxqs Rutaquio, Nar Cabico, Jonathan Tadioan, Riki Benedicto and Jerald Napoles

Megalomania is witnessed by Marcel, a hairdresser who accedes to the leader of the land’s Yolanda Cadiz. The empty, vacuous preoccupation with hair and beauty is after all, the most important ingredient to governance. The elegance of decadence and its inevitable slide into self-destruction introduces one of this year’s Labfest’s most endearing/terrifying characters.

Debbie Ann Tan’s Mga Babaeng Too Bright
Directed by Ana Valdez-Lim
Featuring Peewee O'Hara, Mailes Kanapi, Kathlyn Castillo, Charissa Litton and Wenah Nagales

To settle who among the two is stronger in a woman, Harmony and Discord was given a scenario where their counterparts Ms. Ferra and Georgia Oh influence the lives of Porcelaine and Virni. Porcelaine is an egoistic woman who got a Toobright Scholarship. Virni is a manipulator, but when she met Porcelaine, they somehow agreed on what constitutes art. The interplay of the women and the "Goddesses" results in a battle where no one is the winner and the loser. The
politics of women are hard to define, they can betray each other and they can come together. In this world of faux art, what is real and what is unreal?

Koh Jun Eiow’s Ang Dalawa Niyang Libing
Translated by Terrence Co
Directed by Leo Rialp
Featuring Noel Taylo, Billy Parjan, Tina de Guzman,Sherwin Sozon, Mc Do Bolanos, Alexis Dorola, Jeffrey Ramos, Jorge Walter Ladera, Paul Domine, Cara Mercado and Ailen Mojica

This play is based on a true story that happened in Malaysia. An old Malaysian- Chinese businessman dies leaving his wife and son the beginning of their troubles. In the middle of funeral, following the traditional Chinese ceremony, two Muslims come to claim the body of their brother Muslim insisting that the dead man should be buried in proper Muslim cemetery. They have proof that the deceased Lin Shunfu has converted to Islam. His official I.D. bears the name of a Muslim. Thus begins the travails of a family caught in between two faiths and a government unable to address the problem that has turned into a national issue.

MGA PREMYADONG KUWENTONG PAMBATA
July 5 (S) – 10AM/3PM / July 6 (SUN) – 10AM/3PM
(Bulwagang Amado Hernandez)

Njel de Mesa’s adaptation of Terangati by Victoria Anonuevo
Directed by Njel de Mesa
Featuring Bong Cabrera, Nar Cabico and the Koine Theater Foundation

This is a retelling of the Manobo version of the sky maiden who marries a mortal lad. Terengati, the protagonist whose name means bird hunter, does exactly that – he hunts birds for a living. Like other folktales, this story is rich in fantasy and has a touch of romance. Terengati’s search for his wife is as an adventure that may be hard to believe but its resolution is realistic and is drawn from actual family experience.

Argel Tuazon’s adaptation of Bru-ha-ha-ha- ha-ha, Bru-hi-hi-hi- hi-hi by Ma. Corazon Remigio
Directed by Mayen Estañero
Featuring Eric Sindol, Kat Castillo, Nicco Manalo and Bea Sara Angoba

Maggie is terrified whenever she sees Mrs. Magalit, an old woman who lives by herself. She laughs like a witch and surely acts like a witch. Her face is wrinkled and looks oh so frightening. And the way she laughs, sends chills down Maggie's spine. But is Maggie just imagining things, or is Mrs. Magalit a real terrible witch?

Job Pagsibigan’s adaptation of Uuwi na ang Nanay Kong si Darna by Edgar Samar
Directed by Catherine Racsag
Featuring Tess Jamias, Paolo Cabañero, Ian Lomongo, Vanessa Liwanag and MarkGil Bacea.

STAGED READINGS
(Bulwagang Amado Hernandez)

June 26 (Th) – 6: 30 P.M.
Jovi Miroy’s Billboard
Directed by Chris Millado

Lovers and loveseekers come together in La Luz Beach resort, unwittingly giving dramatic rendition to Plato's Symposium and his discourses on love.

June 27 (F) - 6:30 P.M.
George de Jesus III's Kung Paano Maghiwalay
Directed by George de Jesus III

The myriad variations of breaking up is presented here like a symphony divided into rippling movements; a tribute to the loss of love and the painful confrontations to truth.

June 28 (S) – 6: 30 P.M.
Khavn de la Cruz’s Newtopia
Directed by Khavn de la Cruz

It is 2084. A couple, Bernard and Julia, struggle to fight for freedom, privacy, love and even Unhappiness against this pseudo-perfect society controlled by Mr. Big Boy in Khavn' de la Cruz's anti-rock opera.

June 29 (Sun) – 6:30 P.M.
Carlo Garcia’s Ama Namin
Directed by Krystal Banzon

Daniel and Joseph reverses the classic Odysseus tale into a battle of wits and guts, revealing the horrible face of corruption in the course of this compressed drama between father and son.

J. Dennis Teodosio’s Asunto
Directed by Dennis Marasigan

Brando and George, a rather odd couple, confront a two-faced swindler and learn a thing or two about truth and justice in the Philippines .

Ogie Braga’s Ang Mga Mananahi

The soft-spoken, otherwise silent weavers of uniforms for the Moro rebels produce not only clothes for their warriors but subtle ideologies for freedom and dignity.

July 3 (Th) – 6:30 P.M.
Excerpts from Savage Stage
Directed by Ralph Peña
Featuring Nonie Buencamino, Shamaine Buencamino, Red Concepcion, JD De Guzman, JJ Ignacio, Irma Adlawan Marasigan, Joel Torre

Selected excerpts from four plays, three of which are included in Ma-Yi Theater Company’s anthology, Savage Stage, edited by Joi Barrios Leblanc: Project Balanggiga by Sung Rno and Ralph Peña, peregriNasyon by Chris Millado and Middle Finger by Han Ong. The fourth play takes scenes from Ma-Yi’s upcoming production of Ralph Peña’s new play Nebraska which will premiere in New York in 2009.

The Milflores Guide to Philippine Shopping Malls

2008-06-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

The Milflores Guide to Philippine Shopping Malls

Edited by Antonio A. Hidalgo

This extraordinary guide book to Philippine shopping malls has informative and entertaining essays by 27 of the best writers in the country on 35 malls nationwide. It is must reading for all:

Wise shoppers desiring the best bargains in town;

New mallers venturing forth into the world of malling;

Mallers curious about other malls;

Mallers wanting to see the larger picture of malling;

Local travelers going to out-of-town malls;

Tourists wishing to experience Philippine shopping malls; and

Lovers of good writing

Note: I have two essays included in this book.

An Anthology of New Voices in Philippine Poetry

2008-06-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

Crowns and Oranges: An Anthology of New Voices in Philippine Poetry

edited by Cirilo F. Bautista and Ken T. Ishikawa

Contributors included in the book:

Anina Abola, Alex Agena, Arnold Aldaba, Mark Angeles, Marthy Angue, Glenn Vincent Atanacio, Imelda Morales Aznar, Michael Balili, Javier Bengzon, Anna Bernaldo-Romulo, Marie Bismonte, Raymond Calbay, Catherine Candano, Karen Ann Capco, Jennifer Cariño, Mark Cayanan, Jose Jason Chancoco, Mikael de Lara Co, Michelle Camille Correa, Keith Cortez, Vincent Coscolluela, Jonathan Davila, Raymond John A. de Borja, Anjeline de Dios, Rodrigo V. Dela Peña, Ruel De Vera, Frederic Dimzon, Mervin Joseph Espina, Ralph Semino Galan, EJ Galang, Liwanag Jethro Jose Gallaga, Frances Maureen Giron, Ramil Digal Gulle, Mark Frederik Gumban, Carljoe Javier, Ana Maria Katigbak, Arkaye Kierful, Marie La Viña, Gabriela Lee, Carlos Luz, Paolo Manalo, Mayo Uno Martin, Samantha Martiñez, Melvin Medes, Alessandra Rose Miguel, Raul Moldez, JR Moll, Michael Morco, Ana Escalante Neri, Victor Dennis T. Nierva, Rodellen Paccial, Clarisse Fuschia Paderna, Haidee Palapar, Bj A. Patiño, Ned Parfan, Allan Pastrana, Noelle Pico, J. Lorenz Poquiz, Gerald Feljandro Ramos, José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes, Jun de la Rosa, Romel Samson, Raphael Doval-Santos, Michellan Sarile, Joseph Saguid, Angelo Suarez, Andrea Teran, Joel Toledo, Marvi Torres, Czeriza Shennille S. Valencia, Michelle Varron, Santiago B. Villafania and Lawrence Lacambra Ypil

PEN Philippines 2007 Poetry Anthology

2008-06-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

At Home In Unhomeliness: An Anthology of Philippine Postcolonial Poetry in English

Editor: J. Neil Garcia

Featuring 82 poems by 29 of the Philippines’ best young poets in English.
From the Introduction: By subtitling this collection “An Anthology of Philippine Postcolonial Poetry, this is precisely what I wish to editorially endorse, what I wish the prospective reader (local or translocal) to remember, what I intend to announce at the outset: these poems, like the rest of Philippine literature in English, will in fact be largely incomprehensible when decontextualized from the histories that engendered them–particularly the violent histories of colonization that the Philippines, as a geopolitical and indeed national reality, has endured.

Michael Balili
Ronald Baytan
Catherine Candano
Jose Wendell Capili
Jennifer Patricia Carino
Mark Anthony Cayanan
Mikael de Lara Co
Conchitina Cruz
Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
Raymond John de Borja
Cecille La Verne de la Cruz
Lourd Ernest de Veyra
Israfel Fagela
Marc Gaba
Ralph Semino Galan
Ramil Dagal Gulle
Sid Gomez Hildawa
Joy Icayan
Mookie Katigbak
Kris Lacaba
Paolo Manalo
Arvin Abejo Mangohig
Allan Pastrana
Dinah Roma-Sianturi
Rafael San Diego
Michelle Sarile
Angelo V. Suarez
Joel Toledo
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil

The Southern Cross

2008-06-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

THE SOUTHERN CROSS

Four stars transfix my fate
like a miraculous medal.
It is up there for me to see:
a crucifix. Around it,
a scapular of stars.

Like Christ, I too must bear
a cross: a plastic cross
around my neck, across my soul.
Beads of sweat and prayers
dangling like rosaries

And each time I stargaze
light pierces my hands, my feet:
like a stigmatist.
And then I bleed, profusely,
Red and lovely like a rose.

Southern saints are crucified
in this part of the southern sky.

Help Save Mother Nature

2008-06-09T03:54:00.000-07:00

Two Tinago Falls poems

2008-06-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

Tinago Falls
(Buru-un, Iligan City)

Hidden, like everything beautiful
is this waterfall. In the heart
of this forest, she is here:
cascading gracefully like a lady,
virginal, the lacy drop
a veil covering her face
in myth and mystery.

I have combed her hair,
a leafy crown of emeralds,
to witness her majesty
as she free-falls forever
from the deep ravine of discovery
to the calm, collected waters
in the ice-cold basin
of memory.

Tinago Falls II
(for Ted and King)

clinging to cliffwalls
are the vines of our destinies:
tiny tines, shaped
like fingers, tenaciously
grasping granite rock.

the cascades of our passions
are laced with fear,
dropping whitely, like sheets
of silk, covering
our secrets and desires.

hovering over the azure pool
of our impure delights,
deceitful dragonflies like men
are urging us to swim
in the shimmering skin of sin.

Rereading de Ungria, Reassessing Alunan

2008-05-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

Rereading de Ungria,
Reassessing Alunan

In its attempt to popularize and make accessible contemporary Philippine literature to scholars and the general public, the University of the Philippines Press has been publishing an ongoing series of books collectively called the U.P. Jubilee Student Edition. Written by very young but talented poets, fictionists and playwrights, some of these tomes are seeing print for the first time. The rest are reprints of contemporary classics penned by more established senior writers.

Belonging to the second category are the poetry collections of Ricardo M. de Ungria and Merlie M. Alunan titled Decimal Places: Poems (121 pages) and Selected Poems (84 pages), respectively. Decimal Places and Alunan's two previous compendiums (Hearthstone, Sacred Tree and Amina Among the Angels) have been out of print for quite some time, which makes the two wordsmiths best-selling authors.

But the term "bestseller" used in the Philippine context is quite misleading, since we are not a reading republic, and the usual print run for a book of poetry is a measly 250 to 300 copies. For even if our literature in English has not remained inchoate as predicted by Fr. Miguel A. Bernad, S.J. in 1957, the fact remains that because of the dearth of readers our writers cannot still earn a living from their writing.

By making the books of these two exemplary poets more affordable, the UP Press is leading the crusade against literary illiteracy and the death of the Filipino author. But aside from introducing de Ungria and Alunan to a new generation of readers, the 2004 editions also invite long-time informed readers, this critic included, to reread and reassess these writers' poetic outputs.

Decimal Places, first published in 1991 by Anvil Publishing, Inc., traces de Ungria's poetic peregrinations in America as well as in other more exotic places like China and Japan. "North Star Sonata" eloquently expresses the persona's attempt to make sense of his first encounter with America: "Hardly a thing here to recognize,/ but a new beginning."
Other poems that enunciate the decimating effect (to reduce by one tenth) of the States on a third word visitor include "Avatar at the Gas Station, Lower East Side," "Media Noche in St. Louis," "Carillonneur," "Bibelots," "Wahrtraum," "Island," "Civil Liberties," "The Staten Island Ferry Ride," and "Angel Radio," among others.

De Ungria is a master magus of both the long and the short poem. He can wax lyrical like in "The Aspiring Theorist," "The Krag-and-Bayonet Phase," "White," "Archeology," "Bella Bona Roba," "Sovegna Vos," "Lore" and "Pillow Talk." Or he can be more narrative like in "The Seed of Ten Thousand Things," "Commerce and the Man," "Genius Loci," "Antschel Quintet," "Pure Mind Mile," "Bienvenido," "Festina Lente," "The Necessary Distances," "Room for Time Passing" and "Angel Radio."

The most fulfilling of these extensive verses is "Sui Veneris/ The Poet of No Return," the lengthiest poem of the entire collection, and an erotic one to boot: "Yet between our arms retrieved from the other/ The groinwarmth hammers a ciborium of space/ Where the sky retains a blue above this night/ And the slippery shine of celestial rims/ Domes her as she unsnarls and rises,/ Patting her hair, to open a window/ Draw air to breathe, implicate in her warmth/ Accretions of feelings and affections snug/ With the motes on the screen and grillwork.//"

Like all excellent poetry, the pieces in Decimal Places paradoxically are direct and oblique, public and private, narrative and lyrical, both.

Unlike de Ungria's poetic terrain, the domain of Alunan's poesy is more domestic, focusing on family affairs, whether happy or sad, comic or tragic. A cycle of poems from Hearthstone, Sacred Tree celebrates her children's rites of passage and her own moments of ahimsa in connection with their coming of age: "Time decrees, you must leave/ your elfin friends behind./" ["Anjanette: first communion"]; "when what's at stake/ is loyalty or love,/ hers are the true rights./ Her own faiths she must keep, not I." ["Bringing the dolls"]; "If prophets have mercy,/ oh let him be/ master still/ of a world edgeless/ and forever." ["The boy Abraham"].

On the other hand, the selections from the second collection Amina Among the Angels have a wider gyre, covering more spaces, both real and imaginary. Her Baguio poems are brimming, not only with stark images, but with sharp insights as well: "I'd warrant, my love,/ more's to gain in a night's history of drinking/ than crabby saints or poets can say in a lifetime's telling.//" ["Crab Story"]; "All we could bring on the long trek home/ The old knowledge --- we cut the same trail/ Through which to return.//" ["Baguio, the last day"]; "Swallowing hard our emptiness/ we rushed down again, driven still/ by this terrible urge --- for friends,/ it may be, we thought, for talk,/ the warmth round the communal fire,/ our hands dipping for meat/ from the common bowl.// ["Hunger"].

But the most poignant piece of the second section is the title poem that commemorates the poet's mother, who had passed away long before the catastrophic flashfloods and landslides that overwhelmed Ormoc, Leyte in 1991 and took the lives of her husband and other members of her immediate and extended family: "But you've gone ahead to this hill earlier,/ three years, you weren't there to witness…/ how in a panic,/ we pried and scraped and shoveled from the ooze/ what had once been beloved, crammed them/ coffinless without ritual without tears…/

Alunan's poetic powers have remained potent, despite the constant intrusion of the mundane world of the academe into the magical realm of the Muses. For even if she is not as prolific as the other bards of her generation, the consistent alchemy of her versifying is beyond doubt one of the finest among our female conjurers.

By offering the marvelous works of these sorcerers and their apprentices at very reasonable prices, the UP Press and its former director Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, the mastermind behind the series, deserve all the acclaim from everyone of us who still believe in the ability of the written word to redeem the world.

Mangohig's Visual Pleasures Versified

2008-05-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

Mangohig's Visual Pleasures Versified

Desire in its many declensions is seldom tackled in Philippine poetry with such a great amount of candor and charisma, for sexual matters, like so many things better left unsaid, have always been considered as a taboo topic in our traditional, almost medieval, Roman Catholic society. But Arvin Abejo Mangohig, in his first volume of verses titled The Gaze: Poems [Quezon City: UP Press, 2004, 87 pages], dares to transgress this forbidden ground twice over by textualizing the dangerous geography of gay love and lust.

The 74 poems in this collection chart the homosexual body's manifold hidden valleys of pain, as well as its mountain peaks of pleasures. For Mangohig commemorates in his gay erotic poetry the consummation of passion and its aftermath, love reciprocated or unrequited, and the myriad constellation of stars and scars connected to the fantasy/ reality dichotomy of romantic relationships.

The title poem provides the thematic thread of the entire collection, which revolves around the bittersweet landscape of casual encounters and sexual escapades: "I am what makes you go to fractal places/ what makes you believe in meetings by chance." ["The Gaze"].

There is much voyeurism and scopophilia in Mangohig's work, and nothing and no one is spared of his persona's penetrating homosexual gaze: nameless gay men having sex in restrooms, lovers real or imagined, himself masturbating, even the lovemaking of his own parents. Here are some exemplary samples: "When I saw them, my first two men, making love/ right in front of me, beautiful in their context,/ in a public toilet, in the middle of the day,/" ["Anonymous"], "After the first bout of lovemaking, spent/ yet strangely very much rested, gathering energy,/ I would ask only lovers who I knew loved me back/ when and where they got that particular scar//" [How Not to Forget a Lover], "Days and weeks and months of staying inside/ the house, touching no one but myself/ I feel my skin growing thick above me,/ ["Metamorphosis"], "Someday I will ask my mother/ how they made me: doggy-style?/ missionary? some position that/ can be represented by a number?// ["The Voyeur"].

Mangohig also celebrates certain components of the male anatomy in a subsection of the book aptly titled "Body Parts." In evocative-cum-provocative poems like "wrist," "armpit," "nipples," "ear," "birthmark," "toenail," "pubic hair," "back," "thigh," "eye," "finger," he catalogues every minute detail of the homosexual physique. But my personal favorite is "asshole," in which the paronomasia becomes both sexual and self-depreciating "… puckering/ like an asshole being rimmed, asshole/ that you turned out to be,/ asshole that I loved.//"

Jamake Highwater, in his very fascinating book titled The Language of Visions: Meditations on Myth and Metaphor, compares "The Hanged Man" of the tarot pack with homosexuality as metaphor. He avers, without batting an eyelash, that "Homosexuality haunts the public conscience because it is feared as a latent and contagious matter of choice. Yet, through all of this, homosexuality remains a profound metaphor of the unbounded possibilities of desire, just as homophobia persists as a symbol of the limits of the capacity of human beings to cherish one another."

Interestingly enough, Mangohig makes use of the hanged man as a central trope, whether consciously or unconsciously, in one of his poems: "I am hanging upside down. I have fallen/ off the earth for sure this time…" [Out-of-Body Experience]. For the homosexual situation is a life in suspension, but this inverse position is also the source of his resistance, if not outright rebellion, against the strict moral codes of patriarchal society. Since the hanged man, despite his predicament, manages to smile playfully at the world and its prevalent heterosexism, which the black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde describes as "the belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance."

But the best poems in the collection are those that deal with genuine desire and true love, for Mangohig is more than capable of rhapsodizing the heartfelt sentiments of a hopeless romantic. In pieces like "Bodies," "Our Own Good," "At the Train Station," "Last Night," "The End of the World," "The Heart-Gut," "At the Library," "Since," "Faithfulness," "First," "(Postmodern) Love Poem," and "A Lover is About to Break My Heart", the poetic persona's byronic self comes to the fore, volcanic but vulnerable, hurting but hurtling through the coordinates of homosexual time and space.

The most poignant of these love poems deserves to be quoted in full: "For no reason other than love/ while shaving I think of you and grow careless// So that my face has become/ a record of the slips of my razor// Each nick adding value/ to my history of bleeding.// ["Shaving"]
Mangohig's gay erotic poetry pushes the envelope of what can be properly verbalized in verses, and thus valorized as art. But by daring to speak about what for most people is unspeakable, he defies the conventions of polite society and good literature through what Jonathan Dollimore labels as a "transgressive aesthetic."

Adventurous readers who want to be startled by the stark images of gay desire and spellbound by the sharp insights on homosexual love should grab a copy of Mangohig's book while supply lasts.

The Ophelia Dimalanta Reader

2008-05-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

One Final Reader/ Reading

A living writer who has devoted nearly an entire lifetime to the service of the Muses certainly deserves a retrospective compilation of the substantial body of work s/he has produced thus far. Such is the case of The Ophelia A. Dimalanta Reader: Selected Poetry (UST Publishing House, 2004, 264 pages), the literary matriarch's two-book series of her poems, short stories and essays, as well as the academic attention given to her ouevre by some of the country's top literary critics. The first volume collates the best pieces from her six previous poetry collections, most of which have been published by the Pontifical University's press: Montage (1974), The Time Factor and Other Poems (1983), Flowing On (1988), Lady Polyester: Poems Past and Present (1993), Love Woman (1998) and Passional: New Poems and Some Translations (2002).

Meticulously selected by the grand poetess herself, the poems in the present compendium represent not only her personal favorites, but what she feels/thinks are the most significant of her verse compositions. Having done his undergraduate thesis on Dimalanta's first four collections, this critic could not help but agree with almost all of her choices.

Included in this personal anthology are the poems about being a woman in all her complexity from Montage, the transcendental travel pieces from The Time Factor, more transit poetry and four feminist dramatic monologues from Flowing On, the Iowa-inspired verses from Lady Polyester, the Mediterranean lyrics and centennial poems celebrating seven women revolutionaries from Love Woman, as well as her spiritual/erotic musings from Passional.

But what is interesting about the book is the way the poems are arranged, for they are not sequenced in chronological order. Instead, the selected pieces are grouped together into five sections based on some common thematic threads, which are as follows: 1. On Poetry, Poetics, Poets, and Music, 2. On Faiths Romantic and Transcendent, 3. On Life, Death, and the Hovering In-between, 4. Montage: The Different Images of Woman, and 5. Journeys: Persons, Places, Sites and In-sites.

The first part presents her personal poetics, her own definition(s) of what her versifying is all about, as well as paeans to exemplary writers, musicians and visual artists. For new readers of Dimalanta's masterpieces, the three overtly ars poetica poems are perfect take-off points for a better appreciation of her brand of poetry: "And poetry can only claim/ or disavow so much like love,/ its rantings beclouding what has/ finally been uttered or not,/ ineffable as dawn's too soon/ tiptoeing fingers…a smile/ that never gets to the lips.//" ["What Poetry Does Not Say"], "This strange stasis/ This something else apart/ An instant of vision/ Throat-lumps turned truths/ Bled into being//" ["Poeisis: A Making"], For that plain, unfrilled face of truth,/ For what is big and terrible, grim/ And painful and beautiful, way beyond/ Pain's range, like love's quietus.// [“Poet in Search of a Tragic Theme”].

The second section contains some of her most memorable and mesmerizing lyrics, like "The Time Factor," "A Kind of Burning," "Out of the Mouths of Babes," "Finder Loser," "Mayflower Pilgrims," "Romancing the Lake," "Love in a Contemporary Key," "Surreal Loves 1 and 2" and "Passional," to name a few. "Stowaway Love," a relatively unknown poem except for those who are avid followers of Dimalanta's poetry, is an excellent companion piece to the more popular "A Kind of Burning": "this far, strange,/ i still catch/ the sound and sense/ of your every emerging thought/…. like one stowaway love,/ into the burning din/ of this kind of dying.//"

The selections in the third part constellate around the issues concerning existence and extinction, as well as the experiences in between. The most significant of these pieces have the crumbling/burning house as its central metaphor, a catastrophe that did occur in August 1991. "On a House About to Crumble" and "She Must Have to Go and Soon" anticipates the actual destruction of the said edifice in some sort of poetic prophesy, while "An Unobstructed View" and "One Final Burning" transmutes the tragedy into poetic experience, thus transcending it.

Images and imaginings of womanhood dominate the fourth section. Ranging from the feminine to the feminist, the poems celebrate the multifarious and multiple aspects of the female identity. "Montage," "Amarantha," "Rat Story 1 and 2," and "Love Woman" depict the many faces of Eve as "complex, questioning/…elemental, prevailing.//" On the other hand, the joys and sorrows of motherhood are textualized in "Quickening," "Birth," "Children and Lovers," "Coming to Grief," and "Sons and Mothers." A series of feminist dramatic monologues and character sketches are presented in two subsections titled "Our Voices Our Zones" and "Other Voices Other Zones" respectively.

The last and longest part proffers travel poetry at its best. "Coasts Apart" describes the style of her journeying: "I get terribly entrapped/ in safety belts and contraptions/ tangling with camera and straps/ and postcards and homeborne deals.//" In terms of description and design, wit and wisdom, the most gratifying pieces are "Pale Thoughts Upon a Pale City," "On a Slow Boat to Bohol," "He Rages," "Nara," "Sunbathing at Malibu," "Flowing On," "The Heart of Waiting," "Flowing in with Eyes of Fire in Carmel by the Sea, October 1987," The Parthenon Seen and Shot from Hotel Aphrodite," and "At the Foot of the Sphinx," among others.

Dimalanta's idiolect has remained inimitable all these years. Her mode of expression is extraordinary, in the sense that nobody else but her can get away with juxtaposing Latinate polysyllabic words and Anglo-Saxon monosyllables with such ease and aplomb. The verve of her versifying has not diminished, despite the wear and tear of her countless quotidian tasks, like running UST's Center for Creative Writing and Studies as its Director in perpetua.