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.
Showing posts with label By Others. Show all posts
Showing posts with label By Others. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The 16th Iligan National Writers Workshop Closes
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)
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)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
POETRY RE-FORMED, POETRY PERFORMED
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.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A Collation of Postcolonial Poems
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.
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.
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