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I begin with the nurture of images, and soon I am breathing out the
language of Poetry.
My eyes sweep in every direction; see everything, now in black and white,
now colored in actions and variations. They are my windows to reality. They quest and
I write what my eyes witness. I yearn for pain, for only then can I write
cram the page with words, with fragments and stanzas, just the way I frame my subjects
submit myself to the higher God. I am not afraid to die for words. I am a martyr, a
minion of Art, who will do what she can and try to describe what she cannot, in any way
possible.
squat on the floor, lie down and hitch one leg on a table. When writing becomes
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unbearable, I cry for a while, and then write again. I write death and bliss, knives and
smiles.
I envy the mystery of darkness. That is why, most of the time, I write in
the throbbing silence of the night, until the break of dawn when the sky turns apricot as if
The only failure in writing is when you get tired of it and stop doing it. It
is a journey where you stumble when criticized and humbly rise from the wrongs to face
the truth. Writing is traveling with words; there is movement on every corner of the
page.
A poet has a gallery of images inside her mind. She has a powerful, honed
sense of sight, for she sees the uniqueness in every mundane thing. She is a lone traveler
raring to exhibit each of the crafted portraits of herself to the keen eyes of her audience,
Penning Pictures
It is the function of art to renew our perception.
What we are familiar with we cease to see.
The writer shakes up the familiar scene,
and, as if by magic, we see
a new meaning in it.
- Anais Nin
I could have taken a picture of perfect scenery once, nine years ago.
I was nearing my tenth birthday. The summer sky was overcast. The wind
blew hard and it was a perfect time to fly the kite I had made with my own two hands
and my childish creativity. It was made out of a plastic bag, broomsticks, and rubber
bands. I was so excited that I even opted to skip a round of the game, “dangaway,”
kilometer from our subdivision. I have known the place since the time I and my
playmates tried to catch spiders there one dismal evening. I could not recall how many
times I set foot on that lot, but the only thing I remembered then was that every time I
visited the place, I felt as though I were seeing it for the first time. Tall, green grass was
dancing, swaying like passionate lovers, gently caressed by the wind. I felt awe-struck. In
that empty lot, I found my paradise. It was not the same as the miniature paper castles I
used to play with, but it was far better. It was as if I owned a piece of land which nobody
my kite hoping that they would kiss the azure sky. I wanted them to soar high, fly like
birds, unafraid of losing their stability. Perhaps I loved kites because of their persistent aim
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towards the absence, something which Clarissa Pinkola Estes called the wild woman.)
There was one time when one of my kites reached the highest point of its
flight. I pulled the string and maneuvered it carefully. I was at my happiest at that
I felt the place was worthy to be photographed. But how? I did not have a
camera to record everything, but I kept a diary with me to pen my frustrations. I started
There were about ten poems, a mixture of English and Tagalog poetry.
I always favored the rhyming scheme. During my childhood, children's books were always
available to me especially collections of fairy tales like “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “The
Emperor’s New Clothes,” etc. Mother always wanted us to read them, but my eyes chose
to wander among the pictures on the pages. I had no inkling at the time that I would one
day write poetry. However, my mother always told me that I inherited my love for
literature from her, because she too wrote poems and kept a diary in her youth. I could
remember that I had written sentences or clauses, perhaps, but most of my scribbles were
what my heart told me. It was more of an emotion rather than a form of rational
thinking where words became the melody of my heart’s song, trying to orchestrate it into
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a poem. Writing is a patient and a non-aggressive craft in which the writer seeks the need
My lust for pictures was heightened when I finally got my first camera
during grade VI, after the summer of kite-flying. It was an instamatic Canon imitation
camera that my mother had bought for the whole family to use. I was very excited when
Mama told me about it. She was very particular when it came to her things, and so it
seemed a miracle when she allowed me to take the camera to school. I never told her
Three years later and it was during my 3rd year in high school that I finally
examined it carefully and I glimpsed a smudge in the viewfinder. An image with colors of
viridian and scarlet blurred the lens the first time I peeped through the camera’s
viewfinder. To my curiosity, I peered once more, but this time I manipulated the lens. I
rotated the zoom lens, in and out, farther and closer until the smudge became sharper
and clearer. It had become more dramatic, more emotional. The image: a scarlet bud
with its petals cupped with green thin leaves, attached to its thorny stem with its deep-
black backdrop.
I knew there was poetry in it: the colors, the subject matter, the thorn, and
the flower. I lusted for poetry, the moment I pointed my camera at the image. I felt there
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was pain in the image because I was squeezing the red rose with my eyes while viewing it
It is often said that the best segments of our lives are during childhood.
That is when we are first taught. That is why, every time I see an image of a rose, it
always brings me back to the time when I first held my own camera, the summer
A Poet’s Portrait
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-Emily Dickinson
room with the only streak of light coming from the window above me. I write in the
embrace of darkness, but I chase the only light the room could ever have. I write my pain
in the light of hope. Everything should be natural; the lighting, the subject, and the
pain of silence, hearing the piercing cry of the cicadas and the rustling of the leaves. I lock
myself inside the room and wander around the rambling streets of sentences; being one
You may call it insanity, but I call it my drug. No one knows about my
madness, as I secretly imprison it within the four corners of blank, white pages.
There, I aim to immerse myself in the wild nature of life as I showcase the
drama of a woman’s soul. I write other people’s stories without their permission; I steal a
part of their life, I keep secrets. I explore everything. I am not easily contented. I seek for
adventure.
if one wants to write, one should be willing to be disturbed. In that way can a piece of
I know that it is hard to conceal every scar, every pain, but it is through
writing that I can free myself. I speak of the kind of pain I have experienced, the empathy
I feel for other women, their stories and mine, all sharing this pain—a collective feeling of
write more pain, anger, hatred, and rage. Adrienne Rich once wrote:
Both the victimization and the anger experienced by women are real, and
have real sources, everywhere in the environment, built into society. They
must go on being tapped and explored by poets, among others. We can
neither deny them, nor can we rest there. They are our birth-pains, and
we are bearing ourselves. We would be failing each other as writers and
as women, if we neglected or denied what is negative, regressive, or
Sisyphean in our inwardness. (n.p.)
I know that I have a story to tell, and that poetry is the only genre that
can speak for my pain. It is a journey that I need to embark on perhaps with the Scar
Clan, or alone.
-Merlie Alunan
I tame the wild woman inside me. I feed her with Poetry. She lives inside
me. As with the other members of the Scar Clan, she learns to bear the pain. Everything I
want, she shares. She hunts like a foraging wolf in the woods, walks with me, cries with
me, laughs with me, and one day will die with me. However, I have not failed her since I
conceived her.
It was during the summer of 2008 when I finally decided to write about
women's poetry for my thesis after taking a Gender and Literature course under Prof.
During the first week of July, I approached Prof. Cruz. I showed her the
poems I wrote during the 2008 summer class at UP Diliman. I had started keeping an
online journal because during that summer I spent most of my time on the computer.
When my adviser and I finally discussed my poems, she noticed evident images of pain.
During that time, I knew that I wrote about women, but never realized
that most of the poems contained the images of pain. I only knew that I liked writing
about abortion, rape, infidelity, the darker side of life. Those were my start off points in
my writings. However, I was not able to pull off some of the poems, leaving only those
poems that exhibit my own kind of pain. These kinds of subjects interest me the most. I
drama; however, I would like to be honest with my readers because, as an audience, they
deserve to know.
a man. Everyday, I left our house for school before 6:30 in the morning. Despite the
birth of a new day, mornings never felt warm because the figure of a stalker reaching me
in the brisk dawn sent a chill down my spine. I felt his cold fingers creeping down my
back every time I rode a tricycle or a jeepney. It was always like that for months. I was
too afraid to talk about him, even to my father; who I believed was the only noble man
on earth. It continued until one day, I finally worked up the courage of revealing it to
Papa.
twice during elementary, and twice in college. I was just very fortunate that I was not
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book “Women who Run with the Wolves”
says that “the keeping of secrets cuts a woman off from those who would give her love,
succor, and protection. It causes her to carry the burden of grief and fear all by herself,
and sometimes for an entire group, whether family or culture.”(377) She further asserts
that when a woman keeps a shameful secret and buries it, it is horrifying to see the
enormous amounts of self-blame and self- torture she endures. All the blame and torture
that threatened to descend upon the woman if she tells the secret do anyway, even
though she has told no one; it all attacks her from within.
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I revealed three of those four “experiences” I had, to the people who were
closest to me, my father and mother. The one during my elementary was disclosed only
recently, to my college best friend. However, even though they were divulged to the
people closest to me, the emotional scars seem to throb every time I remember them.
I told myself that I should free this scarred woman inside me, free her of
any emotional dilemmas and painful undertakings, and so I thought that as a healing
device, I should write about my woes and share them as a work of art, through writing
poetry.
impulse of the writer when it comes to crafting his or her own works. For after all, a
writer depends solely on herself when it comes to her craft. To quote Cirilo Bautista:
The writer labors in isolation, and he is not even sure that the
poem or story will turn out the way he intends it to. He only has
himself to rely on in his attempt to explicate the mysterious
meanderings of his soul. It is a painful and demanding
commitment.(np)
When I write, I do not go back to the words I have written, but I continue
until everything is done. I do not bother to go back to a line just to check the grammar or
correct any misspelled words. I want the process to be pure, raw in its form.
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I write for myself. I write because this is how I see things. To quote
Professor De Veyra:
However, as writers, we don’t just watch the things that surround us, but
we see and connect to those things in such a way that we feel we become one with those
objects. It is a collective feeling shared with the self and the objects.
I write my wounds, my own pain and the pain I feel in empathy for other
women. These are the wounds I have experienced during my childhood, my desire to
free the agonies I have felt and the struggle of writing my own pain in all honesty and
without being shameful of it. I believe this is the reason I adore the company of words.
met in my first year considered reading as their favorite pastime. I envied them, their
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passion in reading, how their eyes scrutinized every word on the page. In high school, I
could seldom finish a book. It actually pained me to do so, because for me, finishing a
book was like leaving the characters of the story that had became part of you. However,
I gave reading a second thought: what if I started devouring the pages and finishing every
novel that I read? I told myself that I had nothing to lose, so I might as well give it a try.
So I started reading. I had a hard time finishing the first long novel I read,
but I was persistent. It was “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown. I craved literature after I
finally said goodbye to the characters of that book, and I was never as satisfied as I was
after I finished reading it. I started visiting book sales, scavenging, foraging, rummaging as
I read the works of Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Emily
Dickinson, Merlie Alunan, Marjorie Evasco, Gemino Abad, Ricardo de Ungria, and other
writers whose works were discussed in our Philippine literature and poetry classes.
I like Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy.” She was first introduced to me when I
took up AH 4 and discussed it under Mr. John Bengan’s class. I like the line where she
mentions:
After reading the entire poem and being struck by the above lines I noticed
that her poem is very strong and violent. I believe that Plath as a confessional poet drew
some of her musings from her experiences. She would not be able to write such work of
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masterpiece without referring to her deeply troubled life. Her poems used the images of
incest, her madness, etc. The poet is never afraid to write about intimate, taboo subjects.
Death King”:
I hired a carpenter
to build my coffin
And last night I lay in it,
Braced by a pillow
Sniffing the wood…
When I finished reading the poem, I told myself that I wanted to write
something like Death King and so I came up with my own version of it. Anne Sexton’s
poetry is said to be difficult to separate from her life, as her works started out as being
about herself.
I adore the brilliance of Virginia Woolf when it comes to criticism and her
short story entitled “The Mark on the Wall,” as well as her long essay entitled “A Room
of One’s Own,” which was given to me by my college best friend. According to Woolf,
for a writer to be able to write, she should have money and a room of her own.
So that when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your
own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an
invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.
(114)
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I started liking the poems of Emily Dickinson when Rigil Lumingkit and I
reported about her life and discussed three of her poems in Prof. de Ungria’s class. I love
In fact, I had already purchased a collection of her poetry even before the
report. Her poems are mostly about the agonies and ecstasies of love, the unfathomable
nature of death, the horrors of war, God and religious belief, etc. Reading Dickinson’s
idiosyncratic vocabulary and her images that allude to death and other painful subjects
was inspired to write “Amakan” because of Merlie Alunan’s “Bringing the Dolls.” Before I
wrote the final form of “Amakan,” I had a version patterned after Merlie Alunan’s poem.
However, my adviser asked me to explore other objects. Then, she let me read a poem
by Mitsuye Yamada entitled “The Club.” From then on, I started to conceptualize my
own version. This time, it was an object the Visayan people call “Amakan.”
I look up to the poet Gemino Abad. It was during Poetry 1 that Sir Nino
required us to read Abad’s book entitled “Getting Real.” According to Abad, “one learns
the writing of poetry from the reading of it- and, of course, the doing, the writing and
steady practice of it. One's guru may in fact be one’s favorite poet. We must assume that
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that experience has nurtured his interest in poetry, his delight in language.” (304) There
are times when, after reading a poem, I envy the writer. Honestly, I envy how a certain
writer succeeds in evoking meaning in his poem, a meaning that the reader experiences
I love the images of Ricardo de Ungria’s book “Waking Ice.” Reading the
poems in that collection, I felt empathy for the poet. There’s so much pain in it, I felt it
was one of the saddest moments of my life after reading it. It was as if I mourned for the
loss of the poet’s son whom he feels he had not loved enough.
My desire to write concrete poetry or visual poetry started during our class
in American Literature under Mr. Bengan’s class. He let us read the poems of e.e
cummings. One of which is the poem a leaf falls structured and written in this manner:
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
in his style and so I decided to try and make my own concrete poem. It started with the
poem “Workshop” where I indented the word “fall”. I tried once more and so I was able
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to write “Kite,” “Memory,” and “Distant Love.” One of the many reasons I included
concrete poetry in the collection is that I want my poems to look like pictures.
I also read the book by Clarissa Pinkola Estes entitled “Women who Run
with the Wolves.” I first encountered the book during our Gender and Literature class
under Prof. Cruz. It’s a book about wild woman archetypes. Our group was tasked to
read the tale of the Red Shoes as it is alluded to in the novel of Julia Alvarez entitled
“How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” I started searching for the Estes book. It was
during the summer of 2008 when a friend and I were roaming the stores of Alabang
Town Center that I found a copy. I read through some of the chapters and it inspired me
to write about women. The chapters entitled Battle Scars: Membership in the Scar Clan
interests me the most. I identify myself among the members of the scar clan, trying to heal
the wound of the wild woman inside me and the confessional poets who were never
Processing Poems
I always see something I could press tighter
or enwrap more completely.
There’s no trifling with words —
can’t be done:
not when they’re to stand ‘forever.
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- Virginia Woolf
her experience of being a writer. For her, writing is how the writer perceives the reality,
the actuality that surrounds her. And according to her, when writing, one must share
I wrote my first poem in college during our Creative Writing 101 class
when we were required to pass a mini thesis. It was a poem structured in modern haiku
about heartache. Ms. Jean Claire Dy asked us to write the collection through using the
different genres of literature like poetry, sudden fiction, essay, etc. It was on that
and to my friends.
Seeing helps us find reason in the way we can perceive the things around
us. However, to see is to have a negotiation between the objects and the people around
you. When we deal with an object through seeing, we do not simply view it as it is, but
In poetry and other literary texts, the writer's ability to look and see --
embodied in the term insight -- is deemed of prime importance.
However, seeing is not as simple as it seems. It involves a negotiation
between what we see and what we know of what we see. Moreover,
seeing also requires a negotiation between how we see things and how
others see things. It is in these negotiations, therefore, that we are able to
investigate the others way of seeing and, in the process, explore still more
ways of apprehending the world and arrive at an insight. ( 47)
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was originally entitled “Untitled,” until Cherry Alcantara read it and considered the
Poetry class. I situated myself in the room and pondered about the comments I received
from the class. It was originally posted as one of the entries in my blog, but I scavenged it
I didn’t expect that the poem “Workshop” would be published in Sun Star
Davao. I read “Workshop” last January 2009 in the poetry reading sponsored by the
Davao Writers Guild at Matina Town Square. I was nervous that time, but when I finally
took the microphone, I became fearless. It was hard to read my poem in front of an
audience because I have never been used to it. However, I uttered the words with great
Among all of the poems I submitted during the October 2008 workshop
for the first phase of thesis writing, this was the only poem the panel had liked. During the
workshop, Prof. de Veyra said that I should let the images speak for themselves rather
than the speaker speaking for the poem or let the images speak for themselves rather than
have somebody describe the whole scene. Furthermore he explained, “paint an instant
picture and do not say anything in a picture that would bring the reader in a
contemplative mood. Make the reader think.” He also mentioned that the details are
important in the poem, for example, the colors blue and red, the weight that the speaker
carries, etc.
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Writing poetry, like writing essays and fiction, is never easy. It was almost
like a matter of life and death, I might say. However, hearing my professors’ criticisms
during the workshop inspired and challenged me to continue writing and never give up.
he hurls my paper
up in the air,
Our eyes witness
as my syllables
fall
like loosened
leaves of a tree.
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of this poem. It was only a minor revision, with few words added and altered. In the first
In the revised version of the first stanza, I noticed that it had more impact
In the second stanza, I changed the verbs into present form, because they
should be parallel, and Prof. de Ungria suggested changing the last two lines
The revised version of the second stanza had a proper line cut and was
more concrete compared to the original. Also, I decided to change the word “syllable” in
the final stanza to “words”, as that was more appropriate. In the third to the last line, I
separated the word “fall” from the other words so as to have an image and structure in
the stanza, as if the word “fall” fell like the leaves from a tree.
like loosened
leaves of a tree.
When one is writing, she should not write with the sole aim of pleasing
her readers, for Art is subjective. What you consider beautiful might not be pleasing to
the eyes of others. It is difficult to write, but whatever outcome you might get from your
audience, you should know how to accept those criticisms. Harsh criticisms are inevitable;
but, they will help the writer to improve her work, one way or another. There may be
challenges that a writer experiences, like how the leaves need to let go of the tree, but the
tree lives on. That is writing: we write, we commit mistakes. We learn from them, and
we grow.
explore, just like a photographer. For it is only through writing that I can become naked
and free. I am willing to discover, to peep into the holes, to sail with the waves and
enjoy my sweetest recoil. I always fancy the solitude of the sea. Its calmness is disturbing;
he was strong ,
I could feel his warm breath right before my horrified face-
his arms wrapped around me like vise
it was engulfing, devouring, hungry
I gathered myself
In the embrace of cold
During the workshop, most of the poems in the collection had the setting
in the first stanza; however, it was suggested to start the poem “in medias res”, or in the
middle of things. The poem “Undertow” was one of the poems that was criticized. I
to set the mood of the poem. I believe it helped to dramatize what happened in that
afternoon. Beginning the poem with that setting contributed a lot to achieving the tone
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of its narrative. The poem was inspired by an incident that happened to me one summer
afternoon. I was talking with a male friend, and I didn’t notice that during our
conversation there was something going on inside his mind. It was hard for me to recall
everything, as I felt I had really been harassed, but I thought I had achieved artistic
In the workshop, the panelists noted that some of the poem's images were
so clichéd that they stole the emotion of the piece. It was originally entitled “Shattered
Innocence,” but I realized that the title was too obvious, so I changed it to “Undertow”
and made it more dramatic. I omitted some adjectives and sharpened more of my verbs:
instead of
he pushed me on the white blank wall,
his hands on my breasts as he hooked me,
penetrating the hole,
in
and
out
in
and
out
In the second revision, I was more aware of the proper line cuts, and how
manipulate and properly use language, the reaction from the readers will be very
My ars poetica, which I have included with my new poems, was written
solely for the purpose of having something to publish in my private blog, but when I
skimmed through my blog’s site, I found it interesting and included it for my thesis
collection. I recalled the moment when I was writing this entry. I wrote it during a time
when I couldn’t think of anything to write. I battled with my imagination as I saw myself
When I submitted the poem to my adviser, I was surprised when I read her
comments. It was only during that time that I was conscious of the alliteration and the
beat of the poem. It only had a minor revision. The first stanza was originally written as:
array of images
grasping, getting
a touch of a thought
imagining images
grasping, getting
a touch of a thought
I also deleted the 5th line on the 3rd stanza because it seemed out of
Final draft :
In the final stanza, I deleted the words to your wonder and wandering
souls and restructured the ending.
The revised final stanza of the poem was much better. I enclosed the word
caging in parentheses and brought down the other four remaining words.
lead me
possess me in your name
gather my meandering madness
at the center of the page
as you encircle,
(caging
me in a poem).
Writing is a fight. It is always a battle between the writer self and the critic
self. But when I wrote the poem “Bars,” I won over my critic self. I told myself that if the
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critic self had defeated me, I would not have been able to finish the poem, as I could only
obtain several first stanza versions of it. It pays to believe in your writer self.
narrative about a child whose family makes its living through weaving and selling
“Amakan,” as well as the tragedy that her mother experiences every time her father
comes home drunk. It was inspired by my father’s childhood experience and the pain he
I first wrote the poem in Bisaya, the kind of Bisaya I have grown to use in
General Santos City and translated it myself into English. It was so hard for me to
translate it into English. Gemino Abad in “Getting Real” talked about the importance of
language in poetry:
….a fine sense for language is what I would affirm as the basic poetic
sense. That poetic sense knows only too well that language is treacherous;
without mastery of its ways-its vocabulary, grammar, syntax, rhetoric- it
falsifies and mangles what it has really been unable to bear. Each word
must carry its meaning without hurt. (264)
Unang higayon pud sa akong papa nga muuli nga hurot na ang amakan ,
Nga wala iyahang anak-
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Ug iyahang asawa
Nga kanunay niyang
Ginapuspusan.
The problem I encountered while translating the poem was the lack of
terms to use. That’s why when I started translating the Bisaya version of the poem to
Hiligaynon I remembered the poet Merlie Alunan, in her essay “Splitting Tongues:
Literary experience in a Multilingual Culture,” where she discusses writing in the regional
language. According to her, “some works cannot be written in any language other than
version, and the Hiligaynon translation, which I did with my father's help.
speaker. I had a hard time searching for the right words to use, like the word sukdap, a
Hiligaynon term for the woven bamboo strips, the result being what we call Amakan. I
Hiligaynon because of the accessibility of the terms I wanted to use in the poem.
However, it is still appropriate to use the word Amakan in the Bisaya version of the
poem in replacement to the word sukdap in the Hiligaynon version. So I retained the
The reason I chose to present the Hiligaynon version to the panelists was
During the workshop, the panelists noted that I should tighten the poem,
make it compact, but preserve the poetic sensation. According to Prof. Montes, the poem
lacks earnestness and sincerity. I should also take note of the rhythm of the language, as
Hiligaynon is noted for its emphasis on rhythm as suggested by Mr. John Bengan. I
realized that the poem lacked authenticity or sincerity because it was not naturally written
in Hiligaynon.
I had a hard time during the process of revising the poem. In this poem,
proper line cutting is very important. During the first draft in the Hiligaynon version, the
lines were still longer than in the revised version in Bisaya, for example, in the first line of
(Bisaya)
Bisaya) gibunalan niya si mama ug amakan
na among ginatahi
ug ginalukdo kung udto
sa ilalom sa kasulaw sa adlaw
I also omitted the second stanza, because I noticed that the poem worked
without it:
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When I asked my board mates to read the Hiligaynon version, they told
me that the Hiligaynon version of Amakan was much better than the Bisaya. So I decided
Amakan (Hiligaynon)
After revising the Bisaya version of the poem, changing its ending and
translating it into Hiligaynon, I was again tasked to translate it into English, because the
Creative Writing program requires all poems to be translated into English. This time I
asked a third year Creative Writing student, Maureen Devorah Ronquillo to do the
English translation.
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poem in Bisaya than in Hiligaynon because I believe I am more capable of writing and
expressing it in Bisaya , and most primarily I’ve grown up speaking this language unlike
Hiligaynon. Furthermore, Marjorie Evasco in her article “Songs and Substance” discussed
several women poets who write in Cebuano. She tapped the issue of the works of Merlie
Alunan about the notion of “nation and region” according to Evasco “those who write in
their native tongues are aware of the politics of their choice, realizing it is an effort to
restore or regain lost ground and to assert them as medium for the works of imagination”
(n.p).
I write because this is how I perceive reality. I also write to express what I
feel. If I feel the need to scream, I scream. I make noise around the parameters of blank
pages. I laugh if I feel like laughing. I am not afraid to do many things, even if they are
beyond my limits.
-Maya Angelou
writings, through my poems. Someday, when I become a poet, I would like to chronicle
my pain. After all, Bliss and Melancholy are not too different. Both are emotions.
I was captured by Pain. It was like a bandit, a thief who kept me from
becoming free. Nevertheless, I was thankful, for without having experienced this kind of
Hiding a thing in private is poison. It doesn’t free the mind, the body, nor
the soul. There’s no use in hiding. I do not want the wild woman in me to continue
grieving. I want us both to be free, to wander among the empty pages, to write more
This is me-
my story,
A showcase of my Poetry-
The snapshots of my pain
REFERENCES
De Veyra, Antonino S. “The Writing Eye”. Siliman Literary Journal Vol. 45 No. 1
(2004).February 8, 2009 < http://ninosoriadeveyra.files.wordpress.com
/2008/06/sj4512004nino.pdf>
Estes, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of
the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballantine books, 1992.
Mcquade, Berkeley Christine and Donald Mcquade. Seeing and Writing. New
York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press,2000.
< http://www.westga.edu/~aellison/Other/Rich.pdf>
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World
inc., 1957.