Thinking out loud, wishing softly: an open letter

In the past few weeks, I have no idea how or why, I gained a number of new followers to this little blog. Some look like legitimate poetry lovers, others probably liked a single post they found at random and decided to follow what I write anyway. Whatever each reader’s reasons may be, I would like to say THANK YOU. I hope to one day hear from you.

A bit of looking back, looking forward now.

My first book of poetry, Beneath an Angry Star (Anvil Publishing, 1992), came out two years after I graduated from university. The book was one of the first in that publisher’s series of titles which appeared with, literally, back-to-back authors. Each poet had his/her own front cover. You had to flip the book to read the other. Romulo Baquiran, Jr’s Filipino poetry appeared with mine.

Two years later came Salimbayan (Publikasyong Sipat, 1994) a poetry book which I shared with two good friends, Argee Guevarra and Neal Imperial.

After a long gap, two books came out at the same time in 2011 (I had already been living in South Africa since October 1994). University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, with Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo at the helm, launched Alien to Any Skin and Baha-bahagdang Karupukan. As far as I know, no other Filipino poet has published two poetry books in two languages (not just translations of the same set of poems) at the same time. It was a great year.

This year, if all goes as planned, that is bound to be repeated with the publication of Sound Before Water (by end of August or early September) and Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran (September or October). I believe I have found my ideal publisher in UST Publishing House. The care they showed to both author and book has impressed me to such an extent that I find it unimaginable not giving them first look at future manuscripts.

There are plans to eventually put these titles out on digital format. I am hoping to convince them somehow that it will be worth their while to do that sooner rather than later. I want to ask them to take a leap with my poetry books – to begin with, the two titles in English (Alien to Any Skin and Sound Before Water) – and make them accessible to possible readers (buyers!) outside of the Philippines.

This is me hoping against hope that a small wish will be heard by the few followers of this blog. But one can’t just expect kindness and support out of thin air, one has to offer something. Here goes.

I’m busy putting together two new poetry manuscripts in English. One of them (tentatively called Sky for Silent Wings) has a section called “Endings are Beginnings” which contains a nine-poem cycle I am very proud of. I will send you the whole section if you send me a request in the form of a comment to this post. Your message should have your email address – which I promise not to make public – to which I shall send the file. If, after reading the poems, you think my poetry deserves to reach a wider audience, then please return to this post and show your support.

There is no obligation for you to buy my books – in print or future digital format. Although doing so would obviously make my publisher happy to continue supporting my work.

Is this too much to ask? 🙂 I wish to thank you in advance.

-o-

And for those who may want to see some of my poems which appeared in ALIEN TO ANY SKIN, a number of them are featured in The Houseboat.