“Reading offers a way for people to slow down, turn inward and gain knowledge about themselves and the world.”—cnn.com, “Why reading is a form of therapy”
“Ideally, keep fewer than 30 books.”—Marie Kondo
“NOOOOO!”—Voracious reader
The past few weeks I’ve been glued to the news, with each unfolding of the Duterte saga offering glimpses into the soul of the man and this benighted nation. It is almost like a Dostoevsky read (Crime and Punishment), or a Woody Allen movie in its laughable and absurd moments.
Meanwhile, the half-read books on my bedside table continued to pile up. They’re mostly poetry collections, meaning they’re slim and handy, the perfect bed companion so even if I eventually snooze and the book lands on my nose, it isn’t too painful, unlike if it were an iPad and what you’re reading is a PDF-formatted novel.
Aldrin Pentero, right, with artist and writer friends in Baguio
Moonlight: Mga Tula by Aldrin Pentero compiles his reaction to the extra-judicial killings (EJK) that marred the Duterte regime and the proliferation of fake news. The poet highlights how the then President used figures of speech, especially un-nice and unflattering hyperbole.
The book is divided into four sections: the EJKs or Panitokhang; fake news or misinformation, Plague News; hyperbole, Hype; and a listing of the EJK victims, Paglilista. The author, a Talaang Ginto and Makata ng Taon winner of the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino, undertook emotionally draining research on the lives of the EJK victims that had him weeping hard.
Several times the head of the poets’ organization LIRA, short for Linangan ng Imahen, Retorika at Anyo, Pentero shows by his listing of the first names of the thousands of victims that you or I could have been one of them, because in most cases, the deaths were a case of mistaken identity.
He compiled more than 50 poems; they could’ve reached 70 had he included his objection to the burial of another dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
I could not help but be deeply moved by the poem Danica Mae, one of the youngest EJK victims at age five. The poem in full:
At bigla nang nabuo ang pamilya mo ngayon.
Kaya lamang ay walang may gusto ng okasyon.
Ang tatay na lumisan, bigla-biglang nagbalik.
Nadama mo pa kaya ang kaniyang paghalik?
Marami ang kamerang sa iyo’y nakatutok.
Sakto at naka-make up at maayos ang buhok.
Marami ang dumayo upang ika’y makita.
Hindi ba’t pangarap mong paglaki’y mag-artista?
Ang bilang ng bisita ay lampas isang daan.
Mayroon pang parada, may badya man ng ulan.
Buhat-buhat ka nilang lumakad sa baha.
Mayroong lumuluha. Mayroong natulala.
Pagdaan sa simbahan ang lahat ay nagdasal.
Hiling para sa iyo’y mapayapang paghimlay.
Maging ang katarunga’y kanilang hinihingi,
Naunawaan mo ba ang sinabi ng pari?
Sana ay natuwa ka sa maraming nangyari.
Sa patutunguhan mo’y mas masayang parati.
Lalaya ka sa sakit at lalayo sa gulo.
Hindi dapat sa iyo ang madilim na mundo.
Engaged in IT work, Pentero admitted poetry remains a hobby, an unprofitable one. He said in Filipino, “Walang yumayaman sa tula (Nobody gets rich in poetry).”
Moonlight is available at Lazada and the Librong LIRA Facebook page.
***
Therese B. Rodriguez (Photo by Martin Romero)
Therese B. Rodriguez, a longtime US immigrant, debuts as an author with a compilation of 50 poems called Parañaque to New York City, published independently by Buensalido Public Relations Agency. I say hurrah to the publisher for daring to underwrite poetry, which is not exactly found on the national bestseller list.
Veteran journalist Sheila S. Coronel of Columbia University in New York introduces the book by saying Rodriguez has “peeled the many layers of her adopted country and grappled with the questions of identity across America’s ethnic, religious and gender divides.”
The author is not only a Filipino raised as a strictly abiding Catholic, she also remains a political and LBTQ activist who presents herself as a lesbian. These descriptions inform her poems.
I identified with her reflection on her religious upbringing in Tracing the Past, quoted in part here:
What have you become
Early upbringing
The constraints of God’s laws
Fear of dark place where souls burned
Purgatory with unknown term limit
A long wait to Judgment Day
To a self-indulgent soul…
In Trump Card, she warned of what a Donald Trump presidency would be like for the US:
Warned of the deathly danger of a Trump re-election
Some classmates
Unmoved
Virtuously apolitical
Some
Dead set on following the cult of Trump
Like the caged birds
Have succumbed to poisonous gas
I looked up what “to trump” means
“to concoct especially with intent to deceive: fabricate, invent.”
…
Behold the idol
Fell to his own vicious sword of lies
Mis-leadership
…
If we give the false god a trump card
We gamble with our lives.
‘I looked up what “to trump” means/ “to concoct especially with intent to deceive: fabricate, invent.'”
A few copies of Rodriguez’s book are still available at the Buensalido PR Agency office, Suite 701, Seventh Floor, Greenbelt Mansion, 106 Perea Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City, tel. no. 8817-4471.
***
Marne Kilates (Photo by Vincent R. Pozon)
The dual-language 30 Tagay Kay Marne: Mga Salin ng Tula ni Marne Kilates, edited by National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, gathers the English poetry of the fairly recently deceased Kilates. Kudos to the translators who have expanded his poetry’s readership by rendering them in Filipino: Almario himself, Abdon Balde Jr., Precious Leaño-Baluyut, Joey Baquiran, Mikael de Lara Co, Kristian Sendon Cordero, Michael M. Coroza, Jim Libiran, Eilene Narvaez, and V.D.T. Nierva. There is a striking cover painted by Alfredo Esquillo.
Kilates was among the foremost Filipino poets in English and an expert translator. His list of books includes Children of the Snarl & Other Poems, Mostly in Monsoon Weather: Poems New and Revisited, Time’s Enchantment & Other Reflections.
My favorite is his Morning Poem, here in full:
Sometimes, in a moment
of weakness,
Or gall, I catch myself
praying, God,
let me buy time
to be a poet,
though I spend
most of the free
nights he’s given me
mooning.
Now all I have
are measly minutes
before a deadline
at eleven.
Deadlines cost dear.
I haggle with all
my savings, I scrounge
for memory’s
loose change.
Surely, something as short and pithy a poem as this still has the force to make this reader see how poets spend their hours—most times, to paraphrase Shakespeare, getting and spending (even drinking oneself to a stupor) and laying waste one’s powers.
For inquiries regarding copies of the book, contact Aklat Bulawan, Filipinas Institute of Translation, AB5-402 Hardin ng Rosas, UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City, mobile no. (0925) 710-2481.
