This might take some time and effort…

I wrote a NOTE on my Facebook account and thought it might be good to post it here, slightly tweaked, since it’s news I would like to share with as many friends and readers as possible. So here it is.

-o-

“Parable of the Stupid Man” unexplained

I always find it difficult to explain my own work. It comes from a reluctance to set limits on how a reader might interpret a poem. Who was it that said “The poet is dead. All you have is this piece of writing. Read it.”

All I can say about the poem is that it was written out of a sadness that weighed like stones in a bucket that had to be transported by foot. The way is dark but it has to be taken. It would not make sense to stop and weep in the dark with a bucket of stones, all alone. Hmmm. What am I saying. Something and nothing. Again I fail to explain.

I can tell you when and where the poem was written. This is my entry at the top of the page where I typed it up.

16hulyo2012

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pb2

So around midnight nearly a year ago, for 18 minutes, I wrote this poem in my mess of an office which I call pb2. It is eight minutes to midnight as I write this while listening to Beth Orton’s Trailer Park album. The only company at this hour.

The first well I ever knew is not what’s in the poem. I didn’t even see the hole of this well from childhood. It was under concrete. In order to get water you had to use a heavy metal lever, pushing it up and down with all your might until the first drop came out. The handle was thicker than my arms. I couldn’t even get a drop up from underground to hit the grey concrete base.

The only well I remember drawing water from lies in a village in Batangas. I was 18, if I remember right. I had volunteered to go on a mini-immersion. That meant living with strangers who didn’t have the money to feed another mouth. I was the stranger actually, intruding in their lives like a bad dream. I lived with a family at the bottom of a hill, slept side by side among them in this one room – 8 children of different ages and the parents. Privacy was not an option. The well was for the whole area to share. I went there a number of times to get drinking water. The day I arrived at their house I was offered a glass of water from the same well. Tiny pets greeted my parched lips. Wriggling pets.

One of the days I drew water from that well was for my first ever shower. There’s a poem I wrote about that experience – “An Alien Washes / or City Boy from Elitist University Goes on Mini Social Immersion” – you can find that poem in my book ALIEN TO ANY SKIN (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2011).

I have said so much now without really saying more about the poem. Or have I? “Parable of the Stupid Man” is the last poem in the forthcoming collection SOUND BEFORE WATER also published by USTPH, to be released some time this year alongside KALMOT NG PUSA SA TAGILIRAN (twin books again!). The poem first appeared in Toe Good Poetry, an online poetry journal.

And so I get to the real reason I am writing this. I am hoping my friends and readers will spread the word about the poem being selected as a finalist at the Goodreads Poetry contest. There’s no monetary prize, just an inclusion in the monthly newsletter which reaches a good few million readers, or so the Goodreads.com people say. You have to join Goodreads.com, then join the Poetry! Group there in order to vote. Another poem of mine won some time ago, “People Like You,” which was also in ALIEN TO ANY SKIN.

Here are the links to the poem and the contest page:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/84666-goodreads-june-newsletter-top-finalists-poems—-please-select-one

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1341406

Please spread the word whether you vote for my poem or not. Read some new writing by people you don’t know. Leave a note at the contest page if you feel like it.

Maraming salamat. Thanks for finding time to read this.

Another poem from the forthcoming collection gets featured

“Parable of the Stupid Man” from my forthcoming poetry collection, Sound Before Water (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2013), has been featured on Toe Good Poetry! The link only stays while it is the feature poem, then you will have to find it in their archives.

I can say someone famous read the poem… like Kermit the Frog or Miss Piggy. But I’m afraid it’s just me you’ll hear there.

Oh, you don’t have to press PLAY if you’d rather hear the poem in your own voice. Just read the text. Some things cannot be undone – “unheard” in this case – once you press that button.  :)

A poem from one of the forthcoming collections featured on THE TOUCAN ONLINE

Sound Before Water (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2013) is creeping its way to the printers, but here’s a poem that The Toucan Online picked up. It’s a fairly old poem, written in the early 90s when I was still in Manila (probably still as a university student). It isn’t autobiographical. haha. I never thought much of this when I wrote it, and so it never ended up in any of the previous collections. But my online critique group, The Boathouse, thought it was worth being read and published. Or is that published and read? Well for me being read alone is big enough. So thank you to my Boathouse friends. And thank you to Laura of Toucan for agreeing with them.

Here’s the link to THE TOUCAN ONLINE.

(can’t remember if I posted this pic before… I need some coffee. haha)

Oh, yes I mustn’t forget to mention the other book that’s due to be released at the same time as Sound Before Water… Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran which roughly translates “Cat Scratch on the Side.” I dream of the day when all my books will be available in the two languages I currently speak. Luckily my Spanish never got past beginner’s, and my French never got past “moi?” My Afrikaans is limited to rough street cursing only. But I’ve nearly perfected Gollumspeak.

Ormoc Sunset. 24 March 1992

It’s interesting what comes surfacing from your past when you do something you’ve been meaning to do (or hearing people beg you to do)… such as clearing up what’s supposed to be an office and not a dumping ground. So here’s one. I never grew up with pastels. I had cheap crayons – mostly broken pieces, though not exactly hand-me-downs. This pastel on a Corona sketch pad 9″x12″ endured my silly stuff. But hey, this one has lasted this long, maybe it’s meant to be seen by other eyes. haha. Yeah right.

In Hibernation

I wish. But it isn’t possible. Just because one wants to hide in some dark corner and be undisturbed for a while doesn’t mean the rest of the world will actually leave you alone. 

To the readers of this blog, I assure you that I will be back soon – even make up for missing the chance to complete the 14 love poems I tried to post last month. 

A good nudge is what I need to get back into the groove of blogging.

First Glimpse of the front cover for Sound Before Water

Graphic designer John Marin Flores did the cover for my previous collection of poetry in English, Alien to Any Skin (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2011). I hope readers will appreciate this one as well.

When the Real World Takes You by the Hand

You drop everything and run. The real world will always be better than what we dare to share on this virtual level. Or so we hope. It is understandable how talking to nobody can feel like talking to everybody. You release something, maybe a new creature, maybe an old one. Maybe no more than sputters of zeroes and one that will never be seen again by anyone but yourself.

I’m trying to apologize here for not completing my 14 Love Poems posts at the right time. The real world took me by the hand. My new books, currently in production, demanded my attention as well a lot of other matters. I’m most excited about the new books – Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran and Sound Before Water. My publisher, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, intends to release them in April this year. Covers were designed by graphic artist John Marin Flores and the inside pages by Sam Immanuel Macaisa.

Some time soon I mean to complete 14 Love Poems. I still intend to make this small collection available to interested readers as a PDF. I wonder what’s the best way to set it up. Suggestions are welcome. Thanks for following this blog.