Singatoons & TexTanaga

Had a fine, brief sojourn of three days in the Lion City the weekend before last. Gave us a chance to get together with friends old and new.

The Philippine Cultural Society of Singapore had organized a launching of the Bencab coffeetable book at the Jasmine Fine Art Gallery on Orchard Road for Saturday, February 8. Co-authors Cid Reyes and yours truly accompanied the artist Bencab and Annie Sarthou on the invitation of the PCS President, Rico Hizon.

By the time we arrived two days before this prime activity, e-mail communication with our Singaporean poet-friends had already committed us to participate in a couple of other literary events.

On Thursday the 6th, The Book Café on Martin Road, off the trendy Mohamed Sultan Road, hosted a SubText reading organized monthly by the young poet Yong Shu Hoong, whom we had met at a literary festival in Hong Kong in May of 2001.

Some forty poetry lovers gathered at the comfort zone of fine dining, good wine, tall shelves of books, literary posters, and a couple of Internet monitors. On a memorable evening in August 2001, we had read in this same venue with our confreres Cirilo Bautista, Jimmy Abad, Ricky de Ungria, RayVi Sunico and the priestess Ophelia Dimalanta, as guests for Singapore Writers Week.

The bond with our Singaporean counterparts was strengthened further by our collaboration in the production of Love Gathers All: The Philippines-Singapore Anthology of Love Poetry, co-published by Ethos Books and Anvil Publishing, Inc., and launched in time for Valentine’s week last year.

And so the lounging couches and armchairs turned familiar that evening, with the strong performance poet Elangovan leading off with his comically caustic verses on certain political concerns, delivered with deadpan passion.

Elangovan is acknowledged as a pioneer of modern poetry and experimental theatre in Tamil in Singapore, and has published three collections of poetry and four collections of plays. A lecturer at the School of Drama, LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts, the provocative and controversial poet-dramatist was awarded the 1997 South-East Asia (SEA) Write Award.

Following him was the 32-year-old poet Koh Jee Leong, a contributor to Love Gathers All. Like Elangovan, he capped his reading with a stint on the hot seat, fielding questions from the audience. This we did, too, after our own valedictory, which included a pitch for the UP Press books we had brought along.

One of Singapore’s most notable women poets, Heng Siok Tian, served as the gracious emcee. The author of two collections and co-editor of the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore visited Manila two years ago, along with Felix Cheong, Aaron Lee and Alvin Pang.

Sponsoring the reading was Writing Plus: The Professional and Creative Writing Centre, a professional entity recently established by our long-time friend Kirpal Singh. The only other Filipino present was fiction author Nadine Sarreal, who’s also a co-editor of the literary e-journal Our Own Voice (www.oovrag.com) which we plugged in this space recently

Our oldest friend among Singapore’s senior poets, Robert Yeo, who was our batchmate at the International Writing Program in Iowa City in 1978, helped man the table where our latest books, Eight Stories and Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woeman, were offered to the audience.

He did a good job, too, possibly urged along by his better half Esther, for as the night wound down we found very few copies left to peddle for the next two nights.

The next evening, Friday the 7th, Felix had a soft launch of his second poetry collection, Broken by the Rain (Firstfruits Publications), at the National Library. A great idea he had too for an other-than-customary reading, tapping the theatrical talents of The Mime Company. Rendered an impressive, four-voice dramatic reading the expats did, shifting from monologues to colloquy while utilizing single lines from separate poems in the book as an effective collage of oratory.

And Felix’s admirable departure from the usual poetry of personal experience, to one that offered distinct personae other than his own —- from stripper to prostitute, serial stalker to wife-beater and the heinous like – was something that beat us to this fresh trail for poetry, where we have only started our own experimentation.

Hear him out: "I peddle flesh, like I once sold/ cars. Makes no difference/ to me, one thing or the other.// The talent is in sniffing out/ need from want, being there/ when the pendulum swings, to catch/ chips falling/ as the center of gravity shifts.// Anything else makes reason/ out of hypocrisy./ Name the right price/ and even the Son of God/ is yours for the night.// So peel that price tag/ off your high horse:/ tell me what it’s worth." (from "If the Price Fits")

It was grand reunion time after Felix’s successful soft launch, with former Ambassador to Manila Jacky Foo joining us for dinner and drinks at the Esplanade, where the spanking new landmarks likened to a pair of durians, but constituting the elegant cultural center, were fringed by a variety of performance offerings. Aaron and Alvin kept the night lively, with the latter gifting us an advance copy of his new poetry collection, Rain City. Alvin’s still working on the cover, which he wants to be a waterproof jacket, complete with hood as with a rain parka.

Then came the launching that had primarily brought us over. Over a hundred guests, predominantly Filipino, filled the Jasmine Gallery at The Paragon Mall, which displayed recent Bencab paintings along with an ongoing exhibit by Filipino painter Marcel Antonio.

Bencab’s and Antonio’s paintings have become a best-selling staple in this gallery, as worked out by BBC anchor Rico Hizon in collaboration with the gallery owner.

Present were some of our Tiger Beer-drinking buddies in Lion City, including Juaniyo Arcellana’s best buddy Ludwig Ilio who brought his young son along. Topnotch editorial cartoonist Dengcoy Miel, formerly of The Philippine Star (and who recently revived his uncanny political cartoons in this paper), handed us an advance copy of his virgin collection, Singatoons. The uniquely shaped book should see an overflow launch soon, for Dengcoy’s depth of wit is much admired well beyond the pages of The Straits Times.

Sixty of the hundred copies of Bencab (Mantes Publishing) transported for the Singapore launch were quickly snapped up, with the rest reserved for the Society’s members who couldn’t make it that afternoon. A successful follow-up it was to the Manila launch held last November at the Meralco lobby, as organized by Bencab’s close friends and devoted collectors, Manolo and Marites Lopez.

Back in Manila, we were pleased to be informed by our colleagues in UMPIL, or Writers Union of the Philippines, that the TexTanaga contest launched recently has been an overwhelming success, with over a thousand text entries swamping a couple of dedicated cellphone lines in the first week alone.

Jointly sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Filipinas Institute of Translation, Inc., UMPIL and the UP Institute of Creative Writing, the texting contest scheduled for the whole month of February enjoins poet-texters to send in a tanaga, a traditional Filipino verse form consisting of four rhyming lines of seven syllables each.

But natch, the theme for the contest is love sweet love, as conceived by Lover Boy and premier performance poet-healer Vim Carmelo Nadera, Jr. Entries should be texted to 0919-317-5708 or 0916-730-2695. A contestant can submit only one entry per week. Landline consultation may be conducted with Salvador Biglaen at 922-1830.

Weekly winners will receive P5,000 for first prize and P2,000 each for three consolation prizes. These "Text Makata ng Linggo" winners automatically advance to the monthly semi-finals, for which they’ll have to compose a new love tanaga. The "Text Makata ng Buwan" eventually receives P10,000. The judges are three associates of the UP-IWC, led by Director Virgilio S. Almario.

So competitive were the first week’s entries, presumably from all over the country, that the judges decided to split the first prize between Mark John Abeleda and Danilo dela Cruz. The consolation prizes were divided among Reginald Parfan, Angelica Viloria, Noi Cruz, Eunice Biasbas, John Torralba and Sheena Opulencia.

Here’s Abeleda’s winning entry: "Nang ako’y nag-aabang/ ng tala’t bulalakaw/ bigla kang napadaan/ At ako’y tinamaan."

And here’s De la Cruz’s entry titled "Tanod": "Ay! Masaganang payaw/ ang katawan mo, mahal,/ at bul-ol akong bantay/ sa mapintog mong palay."

We of UMPIL are hoping that a leading cell phone company can see fit to provide future prizes for a deserved continuation of this unique contest. Of course the concept has been copyrighted by UMPIL, so that any perpetuation, say, for the ten more months of the year that can be devoted to different themes, would have to be coordinated with us thinking, loving and texting poets.