Hail Clovis!
September 8, 2003 | 12:00am
Of course the bad sad news had to come via text, from his own cell phone. At first I thought Clovis was telling me that it was his "Papa" who had passed away. I was ready to text back words of sympathy when I was shocked to learn, scrolling down, that the message had been sent by his oldest son Argosy.
Terrible.
Clovis Nazareno, poet of Bohol, had left us.
Rang up the number only to realize that my godson Argosy couldn’t speak Tagalog, or was too distraught to speak at all, so that he passed on the gadget to an aunt.
Yes, our dear friend Clovis had passed away, around 6 p.m. that day, Thursday the 4th of September, or only a couple of hours before the message was sent to ask me to pass the word on to common friends. It turned out he had a bad case of ulcers. He bled grievously. It was followed by heart failure. He would have turned only 43 on the first of October..
Once again, there were many friends to be a bad-news bear to, via cell phone. Juaniyo Arcellana had to be first to know, even if he was occupied with closing some pages of this paper that night. Only last May he had brought his family to visit the Nazarenos in Moto Sur, Loon. Recalling their days in UP Diliman in the early ’80s, they had enjoyed drinks, stories and laughter together.
Marj Evasco, who was due to visit her hometown in Bohol that Sunday (yesterday), was next to express her shock. Her last professorial lecture at De La Salle was titled "Articulations of the Sacred in Three Boholano Poets." Clovis was among them. She related how his last text message to her was a request for a copy of the paper. She had assured him it was on its way to Moto Sur.
Many other poet-friends had to know: Sawi Aquino in Dumaguete, Jun Dumdum in Cebu, Carlos Cortes in Mactan, Ric de Ungria in Davao, Butch Dalisay who was on a one-night gig in Tacloban, and who quickly texted back that he had just spoken of Clovis to the company he was beer-ing with that very evening...
Of course if I included the younger poet Wendell Capili in the serial texting, I’d be assured that all of our country’s poets and writers would receive a forward, and that the first stark message would get back to me in no time. As it did, from Vim Nadera. Why, Wendell even beat me to Susan Lara’s phone. And perhaps Vim beat me to Marne Kilates’s.
Pete Lacaba would text back on how shocked he was, too, how his own Papa came from Loon, and how his cousins were "mga kababata’t kabarkada ni Clovis." Three years ago Pete and bro Billy had visited the old hometown with Gardy Labad, and Clovis had joined in on the "impromptu family reunion of the Lacabas and Monreals."
Several other friends dear to Clovis, and who would grieve as much over his passing, I couldn’t reach directly or instantly. Incommunicado was Boy Yuchengco, who had spent time with the Nazareno family on his Bohol jaunts a decade ago. He’d have to learn about it from Su Llamado, who might be able to pass it on.
Perhaps the last one among us who saw Clovis, just weeks ago when he did some research in Cebu, and managed to hop over to Bohol -— or did he? —- was Luis Francia, and he had flown back to New York the morning after the Palanca-night despedida for him. He’d have to hear of it by e-mail. So would Jimmy Abad, out for a term, teaching poetry in Singapore. And Felix Fojas, soon to be a groom again, in San Diego, CA. And Fidelito Cortes in Seattle, or is he back in San Fran? And Eric Gamalinda in NY. Come to think of it, Clovis was Our Man in Bohol among the confreres of PLAC, or the Philippine Literary Arts Council.
Then there was Bimboy, or Victor Jose Peñaranda, the fellow who had been closest to Clovis among kindred poets, on account of his frequent NGO-work-related trips down South, over many years till last, when he moved over to Bhutan on an 18-month contract. It would be difficult to tell dear Bimboy, in more ways than one. The last time I responded to his e-mailed jpg files, of photos of his family a-visiting with him last summer, he hadn’t written back. But his kids must be back by now from the Bhutan sojourn, I thought.
Thankfully, I managed to traced his oldest daughter, again a godchild of mine. The grief was instantaneous for Saira. Collecting herself, she said she’d ring up her folks in Bhutan. Minutes later she got back to me. Her Mom Jo had to take the tragic news alone. Bimboy was on a visit to India.
The ways of a floating tribe are such that the ebb and rise of tides in our lives are communicated somehow, even if sometimes these take the form of messages in a bottle. But any cessation of life travels quickly round the planet, and finds everyone home, in that ocean of anguish over the sinking recognition that we have been made poorer. Man overboard: Yet another loss.
Clovis Nazareno was a special seaman in the Good Ship Poetry. He was one of our province-based poets who made good while staying where he was. And while his direct relations with all of us remained infrequent, his voice stood out as one of charm and persistence. Quaint and devoted were his lyricism of verse and friendship, as well his romantic, rebellious, bohemian spirit.
Anyone who went to Bohol could either expect to have Clovis appearing at his hotel door, or himself make it a point to conduct the recommended pilgrimage to Loon, the small town an hour northwest of Tagbilaran, where he was sure to be feted to dusk-to-dawn carousing.
"Bay" Clovis was a fellow at the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete, where his first poems on what became his signature character of Simeon Lugo caught everyone’s attention. Simeon Lugo, an Everyman-type of rugged individualist, mythic fugitive and renegade, kept reappearing in his poems even as Clovis enrolled at UP Diliman. Settling back in his hometown, he kept up with his correspondence with various writer-friends in Manila, and religiously sent fresh poems for publication in national magazines, such that he became a suki of every single literary editor in town. Many of his poems appeared in the poetry journal Caracoa, run by PLAC with awesome regularity throughout the ’80s, until he was invited to join the group formally after he won national prizes such as the Palanca award.
In 1986 my wife-to-be and I rode pillion on Clovis’ lightweight Suzuki, all the way from Bohol Beach Club to Carmen over a couple of hours away to check out the Chocolate Hills, and back. I know I’ve written about this before, but what the heck, here’s a repeat from this chronicler.
Darkness overtook us as we wound back through the zigzag road enveloped by a thick forest, through which a gibbous moon played peek-a-boo. Clovis and I were swigging from a Tanduay lapad that I kept passing up front, the better to protect the intrepid cyclist from the mighty rush of wind. As we rounded a bend his headlight picked up a furtive group on the roadside ahead, and Clovis passed on the word that there were "Nice People Around." He saluted the group as we drove past, and exclaimed in the moonlit blur, "Mabuhay si Lenin!"
On the lovely beaches of my favorite island in this country, Clovis taught me how to gather sea urchins and pry their shells open for the wondrous roe, or what we know as the Nihonggo uni, tuyom in Boholano. Heavenly, gulped down right by the sea.
He’d get bad-drunk sometimes, and I thought I was one of the very few who could tell him off, as a kuya, until one night at a wild party at Blue Ridge B I had to appreciate how Agnes Arellano sat him down by the swimming pool and gave him a gentle talking-to after he tried to pick a fight with Anton Juan.
He wrote a regular column for an island paper, and gained the antipathy of certain politicians, one of whom sued him for libel. We would get regular requests from Clovis, asking for assistance in some way. Sometimes we managed to pass it forward and pass it back. Sometimes we shrugged our shoulders and could only report back to him: "Sorry, Bay."
If memory serves me right, he’d been a two-time kagawad or councilor, and was planning to run for vice-mayor in 2004. Could I serve notice to someone like FVR, or Rene de Villa, whom we’d helped with press releases in the ’90s? Only recently he asked if I could get some sponsor for a fireworks display for the town fiesta. Unfortunately, at that time Wilson Lee Flores was gallivanting in Guam or Shanghai with some taipan.
Early this year he asked for help in collecting his poetry fees from magazines in Manila. He eventually got them, too. I thought however that sometimes he just wanted me to middle-man for him, as a token of a special friendship. He had always said I was a godfather to his first son Argosy, so that even if I hadn’t been present at the christening, it was a belated offer I couldn’t refuse.
Last month I received a handwritten poem to pass on to a magazine that ran a rich literary contest. The previous year a poem of his had placed among the finalists. It came with a note that said: "Dear Bay, Pati bond paper hindi na ako makabili! Nakakahiya, pare! Paki-forward and endorse itong poem… Baka sakaling manalo. Thanks."
Reading the poem now (see box), I realize that Clovis was himself a chronicler of a "fate-mate" foretold.
Hail Clovis!
Terrible.
Clovis Nazareno, poet of Bohol, had left us.
Rang up the number only to realize that my godson Argosy couldn’t speak Tagalog, or was too distraught to speak at all, so that he passed on the gadget to an aunt.
Yes, our dear friend Clovis had passed away, around 6 p.m. that day, Thursday the 4th of September, or only a couple of hours before the message was sent to ask me to pass the word on to common friends. It turned out he had a bad case of ulcers. He bled grievously. It was followed by heart failure. He would have turned only 43 on the first of October..
Once again, there were many friends to be a bad-news bear to, via cell phone. Juaniyo Arcellana had to be first to know, even if he was occupied with closing some pages of this paper that night. Only last May he had brought his family to visit the Nazarenos in Moto Sur, Loon. Recalling their days in UP Diliman in the early ’80s, they had enjoyed drinks, stories and laughter together.
Marj Evasco, who was due to visit her hometown in Bohol that Sunday (yesterday), was next to express her shock. Her last professorial lecture at De La Salle was titled "Articulations of the Sacred in Three Boholano Poets." Clovis was among them. She related how his last text message to her was a request for a copy of the paper. She had assured him it was on its way to Moto Sur.
Many other poet-friends had to know: Sawi Aquino in Dumaguete, Jun Dumdum in Cebu, Carlos Cortes in Mactan, Ric de Ungria in Davao, Butch Dalisay who was on a one-night gig in Tacloban, and who quickly texted back that he had just spoken of Clovis to the company he was beer-ing with that very evening...
Of course if I included the younger poet Wendell Capili in the serial texting, I’d be assured that all of our country’s poets and writers would receive a forward, and that the first stark message would get back to me in no time. As it did, from Vim Nadera. Why, Wendell even beat me to Susan Lara’s phone. And perhaps Vim beat me to Marne Kilates’s.
Pete Lacaba would text back on how shocked he was, too, how his own Papa came from Loon, and how his cousins were "mga kababata’t kabarkada ni Clovis." Three years ago Pete and bro Billy had visited the old hometown with Gardy Labad, and Clovis had joined in on the "impromptu family reunion of the Lacabas and Monreals."
Several other friends dear to Clovis, and who would grieve as much over his passing, I couldn’t reach directly or instantly. Incommunicado was Boy Yuchengco, who had spent time with the Nazareno family on his Bohol jaunts a decade ago. He’d have to learn about it from Su Llamado, who might be able to pass it on.
Perhaps the last one among us who saw Clovis, just weeks ago when he did some research in Cebu, and managed to hop over to Bohol -— or did he? —- was Luis Francia, and he had flown back to New York the morning after the Palanca-night despedida for him. He’d have to hear of it by e-mail. So would Jimmy Abad, out for a term, teaching poetry in Singapore. And Felix Fojas, soon to be a groom again, in San Diego, CA. And Fidelito Cortes in Seattle, or is he back in San Fran? And Eric Gamalinda in NY. Come to think of it, Clovis was Our Man in Bohol among the confreres of PLAC, or the Philippine Literary Arts Council.
Then there was Bimboy, or Victor Jose Peñaranda, the fellow who had been closest to Clovis among kindred poets, on account of his frequent NGO-work-related trips down South, over many years till last, when he moved over to Bhutan on an 18-month contract. It would be difficult to tell dear Bimboy, in more ways than one. The last time I responded to his e-mailed jpg files, of photos of his family a-visiting with him last summer, he hadn’t written back. But his kids must be back by now from the Bhutan sojourn, I thought.
Thankfully, I managed to traced his oldest daughter, again a godchild of mine. The grief was instantaneous for Saira. Collecting herself, she said she’d ring up her folks in Bhutan. Minutes later she got back to me. Her Mom Jo had to take the tragic news alone. Bimboy was on a visit to India.
The ways of a floating tribe are such that the ebb and rise of tides in our lives are communicated somehow, even if sometimes these take the form of messages in a bottle. But any cessation of life travels quickly round the planet, and finds everyone home, in that ocean of anguish over the sinking recognition that we have been made poorer. Man overboard: Yet another loss.
Clovis Nazareno was a special seaman in the Good Ship Poetry. He was one of our province-based poets who made good while staying where he was. And while his direct relations with all of us remained infrequent, his voice stood out as one of charm and persistence. Quaint and devoted were his lyricism of verse and friendship, as well his romantic, rebellious, bohemian spirit.
Anyone who went to Bohol could either expect to have Clovis appearing at his hotel door, or himself make it a point to conduct the recommended pilgrimage to Loon, the small town an hour northwest of Tagbilaran, where he was sure to be feted to dusk-to-dawn carousing.
"Bay" Clovis was a fellow at the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete, where his first poems on what became his signature character of Simeon Lugo caught everyone’s attention. Simeon Lugo, an Everyman-type of rugged individualist, mythic fugitive and renegade, kept reappearing in his poems even as Clovis enrolled at UP Diliman. Settling back in his hometown, he kept up with his correspondence with various writer-friends in Manila, and religiously sent fresh poems for publication in national magazines, such that he became a suki of every single literary editor in town. Many of his poems appeared in the poetry journal Caracoa, run by PLAC with awesome regularity throughout the ’80s, until he was invited to join the group formally after he won national prizes such as the Palanca award.
In 1986 my wife-to-be and I rode pillion on Clovis’ lightweight Suzuki, all the way from Bohol Beach Club to Carmen over a couple of hours away to check out the Chocolate Hills, and back. I know I’ve written about this before, but what the heck, here’s a repeat from this chronicler.
Darkness overtook us as we wound back through the zigzag road enveloped by a thick forest, through which a gibbous moon played peek-a-boo. Clovis and I were swigging from a Tanduay lapad that I kept passing up front, the better to protect the intrepid cyclist from the mighty rush of wind. As we rounded a bend his headlight picked up a furtive group on the roadside ahead, and Clovis passed on the word that there were "Nice People Around." He saluted the group as we drove past, and exclaimed in the moonlit blur, "Mabuhay si Lenin!"
On the lovely beaches of my favorite island in this country, Clovis taught me how to gather sea urchins and pry their shells open for the wondrous roe, or what we know as the Nihonggo uni, tuyom in Boholano. Heavenly, gulped down right by the sea.
He’d get bad-drunk sometimes, and I thought I was one of the very few who could tell him off, as a kuya, until one night at a wild party at Blue Ridge B I had to appreciate how Agnes Arellano sat him down by the swimming pool and gave him a gentle talking-to after he tried to pick a fight with Anton Juan.
He wrote a regular column for an island paper, and gained the antipathy of certain politicians, one of whom sued him for libel. We would get regular requests from Clovis, asking for assistance in some way. Sometimes we managed to pass it forward and pass it back. Sometimes we shrugged our shoulders and could only report back to him: "Sorry, Bay."
If memory serves me right, he’d been a two-time kagawad or councilor, and was planning to run for vice-mayor in 2004. Could I serve notice to someone like FVR, or Rene de Villa, whom we’d helped with press releases in the ’90s? Only recently he asked if I could get some sponsor for a fireworks display for the town fiesta. Unfortunately, at that time Wilson Lee Flores was gallivanting in Guam or Shanghai with some taipan.
Early this year he asked for help in collecting his poetry fees from magazines in Manila. He eventually got them, too. I thought however that sometimes he just wanted me to middle-man for him, as a token of a special friendship. He had always said I was a godfather to his first son Argosy, so that even if I hadn’t been present at the christening, it was a belated offer I couldn’t refuse.
Last month I received a handwritten poem to pass on to a magazine that ran a rich literary contest. The previous year a poem of his had placed among the finalists. It came with a note that said: "Dear Bay, Pati bond paper hindi na ako makabili! Nakakahiya, pare! Paki-forward and endorse itong poem… Baka sakaling manalo. Thanks."
Reading the poem now (see box), I realize that Clovis was himself a chronicler of a "fate-mate" foretold.
Hail Clovis!
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