Evasco’s ‘It isTime to Come Home’
“PUSHING towards my seventh decade and reckoning half a century of this chosen life in writing, I find myself gathering the poems I have kept in my notebooks since my fourth collection,” says Marjorie Evasco.
The gentle and intuitive, multi-awarded, kind-hearted poet, scholar, and mentor’s fifth collection of new poems and poems from her four previous collections (which are now all out of print) metamorphosed into a new book. Through this latest collection, the author invites the reader “to follow the layered paths of my writing life from the time I crossed my home’s threshold in 1973 to go elsewhere, only to return again and again, in various magical and meandering ways, to the kiss of poetry on my forehead.”
The metamorphosis of the book, according to Evasco, started in 2013 and came to final form from 2019 to 2022, when she was appointed writer-in-residence of De La Salle University, where she’s also a University Fellow and Professor Emeritus in Literature.
The handsome hardbound 416-page book, It Is Time to Come Home: New & Collected Poems (Milflores Publishing, Inc., De La Salle University Publishing House, 2023) won this year’s 21st Gintong Aklat Award for Best Book of Poetry in English and the National Book Awards’ Philippine Literary Arts Council Prize for Best Book of Poetry in English.
Evasco’s poetic odyssey started with Dreamweavers: Selected Poems 1976-1986, her first collection published in 1987 after 10 years of writing and publishing individual poems in periodicals and journals. The book she calls her “book of origins” was her tribute to the tradition of art-making by women in the country, especially the dreamweavers of the T’boli tribe, the weaving masters of Lake Sebu in South Cotabato. It won the National Book Award (NBA) from the Manila Critics’ Circle for English poetry.
From left, the author with Marjorie Evasco, Dinah Roma, and Dr. Jasmin Llana of the De la Salle University Literature department
Her second book, Ochre Tones, was a bilingual collection of poems in English and Binisaya/Cebuano. Launched 12 years after the first, she calls this book her “book of changes,” which she organized into four sections, each representing the primary elements: earth, water, fire, and air. It was granted the 1999 NBA for English poetry.
The third collection, Skin of Water: Poetry in English and Spanish Translations by Evasco’s poet-friends from the Philippines, Spain, and Latin America, was published in 2009. It was chosen by the South East Asia Writers Award (SEAWrite) in granting the prestigious prize to Evasco in 2010.
Evasco’s poetic odyssey started with Dreamweavers: Selected Poems 1976-1986, her tribute to the tradition of art-making by women in the country
Her fourth collection in 2013, Fishes of Light/ Peces de Luz: Tanrenga in Two Tongues contains a selection of tanrenga in English and Spanish, written with Cuban poet Alex Fleites.
Evasco’s other books, apart from numerous anthologies, are: A Life Shaped by Music: Andrea O. Veneracion and the Philippine Madrigal Singers, 2001 National Book Award winner for biography; Ani: The Art and Life of Hermogena Borja Lungay, Boholano Painter in 2006; From the Blood of Martyrs: The De La Salle University Story–Vol 3: 25 Years of Rebuilding & Development of De La Salle College (1946-1971) in 2011; Valentina’s Valor: The Life and Times of Valentina Galido Plaza in 2018; and Creative Nonfiction: Crafting a Knowledge of Self, Others, and the World, written by Evasco with Susan Lara, Ginaline David, and Celine Laroza in 2020. Meanwhile, her Six Women Poets: Inter/Views also earned the National Book Award for Oral History in 1986.
Apart from the SEAWriter Award in 2010, Evasco is also a recipient of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’(NCCA) Ani ng Dangal Award in 2011, Gawad Alagad ni Balagtas for Poetry in 2004, and Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan in 2005, among others. Five of her books won the Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Awards for poetry, oral history, biography, and art. The prolific poet and writer also enjoyed international writing residencies and fellowships like the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers in Scotland, Bellagio Conference and Studies Center, Como, Italy, and International Writing Program, University of Iowa, among others.
Talking about her journey in poetry, she mentions the teacher-poet Merlie Alunan as the one who led her on the path of writing, while the master that honed it was Edith L. Tiempo. She adds, “I continue to love the poetry of metaphysical poet John Donne, sonnet-master Shakespeare, and the modern metaphysical poets Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Edith L. Tiempo, Virginia Moreno, Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, and Gjertrud Schnackenberg.”
Her creative and scholarly work have been published in journals in the country, in Asia, Europe and North America. Her research, meanwhile, has focused on women in the literary and visual arts, as well as on the development of writing poetry in English and in the major Philippine languages, particularly Cebuano-Binisaya.
Evasco emphasizes that feminist politics informed the writing of the generation of Filipino women who were involved in the struggle for political liberation in the late ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, and that feminist literary scholarship reinstated the role of the female shaman called babaylan, who was the poet and healer of the community.
Merlie Alunan, in her Introduction to It Is Time to Come Home, writes: “Indeed Evasco’s poetry seeks a world where woman is no longer overused and devalued. The woman’s life must move in five phases, from innocence, to knowledge, to wisdom and defiance, and thence to freedom. Freedom is her fulfillment. Her poetry threads beauty and sweetness in each phase, and also the perils and the pain.”
To celebrate this well-loved poet, mentor, and friend on her 70th birthday on Sept. 21, 2023, an online festschrift of around 500 pages was launched with 78 contributors. (https://rhizomesandrhythms.art)
The festschrift titled Rhizomes and Rhythms, the Liber Amicorum or book of friends, say the editors Gerardo Largoza and Dinah Roma, aims “to celebrate the serendipity of friendship, those moments that take over our lives to root and flourish in ways we would never be able to fully explain.”
For the festschrift, I contributed Dalit (a short traditional Filipino poem consisting of four lines with eight rhyming syllables each) which is a narrative and lamentation on the death of my husband in April 3, 2021, plus a memoir on the lasting friendship between the celebrator Marj Evasco and me and my late daughter Maningning whom she mentored in poetry.
Dalit ng Pahimakas at Pag-ibig
Dalit sa Biyernes Santo
Kay tagal kang iniwasan / Kaakuha’y dinalisay / Bakit sa isang iglap lang / Bangis mo ay ipinataw.
Di naman dapat magbiro / Kahima’t April Fool’s Day pa / Pero itong pinili mo / Sabay ng semana santa.
Araw ngayon ng pangilin / May tawag na panalangin / Hiling ko sana ay dinggin / Pakinggan ang aking daing.
Sa iyong pagkabayubay / Katubusan ang ‘yong pakay / Para sa sangkatauhang / Sadyang iyong minamahal.
Sumasamo ako sa ‘yo / Sa Linggo ng pagkabuhay / Kami man ay magbanyuhay / Lakas, lusog ay ibigay.
02 Abril 2021
Dalit Sa Araw Ng Resureksiyon
Wala kang kalaban-laban /Sa mabangis na kaaway./ Libong sakit dinaanan / Lagi namang naigpawan.
Iba ang lupit ng Covid!/ Ito ang aking dinibdib: / Di man kita nasamahan / Sa iyong huling hantungan.
Di alam ang susulingan / Napalipad sa kawalan / Nahati ang katauhan / Mabubuo? / Di ko alam.
Kaya pala nagmadali / Mga tula’y pinag-iwi, / Inayos, may pagmamahal / At umabot sa Likhaan.
‘Sang koleksyon ng sanaysay/ Sa akin ay ‘yong iniwan / Pangako ko minumutya / Aklat itong matatala.
Ang ‘yong nobela’y naiwan / Ang nais mo ay ganyan lang /Tingnan natin, aking mahal / Nais ko s’yang maitanghal.
Lumisan kang may iniwan / Hanggang huli’y lumalaban. / Sabi Niya’y pahinga na’t / Dami nang pinatunayan.
Sa Araw ng Resureksiyon / Siya ang sa ‘yo’y kumalong / Di kami dapat malumbay / Misyon mo ay matagumpay.
04 Abril 2021
DALIT Sa 40: Sa Piling ng Bathala
Apatnapung araw nga ba? / Tila isang kisapmata / Sa kabilang banda nama’y / Parang ang tagal tagal na.
Bakit ganyan pakiramdam? / Mundo’y kabalintunaan / May sa init, may sa lamig / Merong tuwa, may ligalig.
Parang ang mundo’y nagunaw / Sa tindi ng pamamanglaw / At ang puso’y humihiyaw / Dinig pa ang alingawngaw.
May lungkot ma’y may pag-asa / Tayo pa ri’y magsasama / Sadya tayong tinadhana / Buhay, kaluluwa’y isa.
Kaya’t ngayong araw na ‘to / Patitibayin ang dibdib / Haharapin ang hilahil / Mapa-unos, mapa-bagyo.
Alaala ay kay dami. / Sapat sapat nang iiwi /Hanggang magkakitang muli /Sa langit na itatangi.
13 Mayo 2021
‘Apatnapung araw nga ba? / Tila isang kisapmata / Sa kabilang banda nama’y / Parang ang tagal tagal na’
Memoir
The poems above contributed for a dearest friend Marjorie Evasco’s festschrift on her 70th birthday, should not dampen the joy our hearts are filled with in celebrating her remarkable and passionate life of writing, teaching, sharing, and loving. More than anybody else, Marj will understand the poem’s lamentation on losing a loved one as she journeyed with me when my daughter Maningning passed away in 2000.
I first met Marj when she wrote her Foreword to Maningning’s book of verses, Voice from the Underworld (Anvil, 2000), entitled “‘Root-Searching’ in the Underworld of Poetry,” where she describes the collection as “intimations of the kind of inner territories she (Maningning) has had to traverse in search for roots, the deep connections within the ground of being which underlie the very act of living.”
I would learn more about Marj and her literary association with Maningning when Marj wrote “Elegy for Maningning Miclat,” the Interlude in Beauty for Ashes: Remembering Maningning (Anvil, 2001). The book was launched on Ning’s 1st death anniversary. Marj wrote about meeting Maningning “in words and images” in 1987 when the latter sent her poem Father and I, and a watercolor, Bato at Bulaklak, for the feminist issue of ANI Marj was editing for the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Coordinating Center for Literature.
But it was only in 1990, Marj says, when she would meet Maningning, when she “came to see me in the university armed with a sheaf of poems in English and Filipino and a copy of her first book in Chinese.” She adds, “Maningning wanted to apply for the summer National Writers’ Workshop in Dumaguete City and needed someone who knew her poetry to recommend her. Edith and Edilberto Tiempo gave her a fellowship in the summer of 1991.”
Five years later, Maningning would seek her out again to ask her help with her “dream book,” a trilingual book of poetry in English, Filipino, and Chinese, the three languages she spoke and wrote. Marj wrote about launching the book, Voice from the Underworld: A Book of Verses, which has her Foreword on the girl’s 28th birthday on April 15, 2000. She says: “Maningning’s radiance that day was deepened by her almost imperceptible gesture of gratitude: When I went to where she sat to congratulate her, she took my right arm and slipped around my wrist a bracelet of small lavender beads.”
I, too, would be a beneficiary of Marj’s good heart when she wrote a Preface to my book, Soul Searchers and Dreamers: Artists Profiles, jointly published in 2015 by the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation and Erehwon Center for the Arts. She writes: “Alma’s imperative to remember and to sing in praise of soul searchers and dreamers she has met and nurtured maps her quest for the meaningfulness of life’s darkest shades.”
She adds: “Within this book’s intimations of a circle of grace, and enfolded by a family of kindred beings who shape beauty with light and sound, we share Alma’s faith in life’s relentless exuberance, now embodied in her grandson Maharadya, Banaue’s and Dominic’s firstborn, ‘whose life, still unfolding, can be. Be and be better.’”
In file photo, Maningning Miclat Art Foundation, Inc. trustees Mario (seeated, center) and Alma Miclat (to Mario’s right), Fe Mangahas, Edna Manlapaz with English poetry judges Marjorie Evasco, Gemino Abad and Marne Kilates, Filipino poetry judges Rogelio Mangahas and Michael Coroza
When the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation, Inc. was founded seven months after Maningning’s death, the Maningning Miclat Award was started in 2003, alternating poetry and painting. It was so natural for us to request Marj to be on the board of judges for the English poetry. And she has been a mainstay since then until the recently concluded 2021 Poetry Award, which was held along with the posthumous launching of my husband Mario I. Miclat’s memorial edition of the last books he wrote: poetry, essays, and a novel.
Marj Evasco is kindness and goodness personified, and our family is truly grateful and blessed for knowing her and for the deep friendship we have forged. Indeed, Marcel Proust was right when he said, “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
‘Within this book’s intimations of a circle of grace,’ Marj wrote, ‘and enfolded by a family of kindred beings who shape beauty with light and sound, we share Alma’s faith in life’s relentless exuberance’
On pages 95-96 of Marj Evasco’s It Is Time to Come Home can be found her lamentation on Maningning’s passing:
Benediction
I
I would like to sing you the lullaby
you sang as you plunged through air,
ripping the canvas of colors which veiled
our eyes from seeing your pain. Was it
your hope for wings which flung you
out into the wild cold air of morning,
sung you into knowing that even death
could be beautiful as red Bougainvilleas?
Your sister whispered to me her secret
of seeing you possessed like that, stripping
the canvas, shredding your life-work
into thin strips of light, into the night
of your foreboding, the dark edging you
into possible completion, the total innocence
of your bare feet poised upside down, angel’s
wings invisible to the ones who looked out
in time to hear the snatch of song you sighed
on your lips like a final benediction.
II
The littlest one you had hugged just before
sleep, was now the one who gathered your body,
broken, into her arms. Suddenly wise as a mother
who had just given birth, she knew she could not stay
your leaving for that other shore, separated by this
membrane of luminous air. She could only choose
for you the indigo velvet dress you once liked,
which kept you warm and visible to yourself.
Your sister would not hand your body over
to others who make it their business to put back
flush of red on the lips and cheeks of strangers.
You could never be stranger to her, still and cold
on the morgue’s whetstone. In the noon sun
she remembered the childhood songs you learned
in play in a far-away China, lived in the poems
you wrote for remembering by. She chose red
for your lips, bright as life’s benediction.
III
I am trying to sing you this lullaby
To bless your death, broken at the hip,
Bruised on the left temple, your closed eyes.
(For Maningning, always 28)
Even as the deeply spiritual and mystical Marjorie Evasco’s poetic odyssey is anchored and has found a home, my own Maningning is home.
