Water all around us

I’ve long planned to put together a collection of poems on water. Goodfriend Jimmy Abad and I have discussed it a few times, how so many early poems by Filipino poets in English sing of seas, rivers, island living. Not a few we’ve read also take on the quotidian of urban flood. Love of liquid would understandably be characteristic of an archipelagic people.

We thought we’d come up with such an anthology sometime, for Caracoa, the long-dormant poetry journal that used to be put out by the Philippine Literary Arts Council. We’d assemble poems with a common theme: Water. Or if it couldn’t be for a Caracoa issue, the last of which had "heroes" for a theme, way back in our centennial year, why, we could do it as a book for any interested publisher.

Well, another group seems to have beaten us to it, sort of, with What the Water Says: Alon Poems, with an introduction by Marjorie Evasco, published by University of San Agustin. This elegant 130-page anthology gathers the works of the Alon Collective, a DLSU-based group of poets that include Ronald Baytan, Ernesto V. Carandang, Isidoro M. Cruz, Alice M. Sun-Cua, Vicente Garcia Groyon, Sid Gomez Hildawa, Shirley O. Lua and John Iremil E. Teodoro.

Sort of, because not every poem in the collection really dwells on the theme of water, and the title of the collection appears to be more in keeping with the group’s name. But it has quite a number of poems that please the Piscean in me.

Alice M. Sun-Cua takes the reader to "a festival of lights/ by the riverbank" for the popular Thai rite of "Loy Krathong": "…The river throbs with a thousand/ flames on floating crafts that fill the eyes/ with lighted wishes. Water shimmers/ with reflected desires, witness to this sailing/ of krathongs, as the night air whispers/ distances only passion could translate,/ ordaining journeys only flower boats/ could take."

Isidoro M. Cruz follows up with an equally mellifluous entry in "Ports of Grace": "Brackish water washes over bells/ of lilies – a vessel’s come to dock inland,/ fluid metal the color of starfish.// The day is sun-struck: glare warps/ a hundred similar faces gazing at the stretch/ of new earth – faces drenched in light,/ in salt spray of a million waves…."

And Vicente Garcia Groyon, the young fellow from Bacolod whom I have lauded incessantly for his first novel, The Sky Over Dimas, shows that his poetry can be equal to his fiction and literary criticism: "…Peering at the horizon, you tell me/ how your vessel, her sails bellied/ by the considerate wind,/ transcends the gravity/ of iron and wood/ and achieves lightness:/ boat becomes bird/ and the sea just more ground// to overcome.//…Beneath us, winged fish/ who have learned the secret of flight/ fan out, plotting white angles/ that melt back into a blue/ unmoved ocean." (from "Drifting")

And again, Sun-Cua provides a portrait of our city, saliently graphic to metaphoric: "The metropolis has grounded to a halt./ Earth and sea-smells rise: four/ feet of water in the streets,/ their susurration making us feel/ like denizens in the ark voyaging/ through forty days of rain. It is the sailing/ through the deluge that brings us face to face/ with each other, bare and primal/ in our fears: the storm may outlast us." (from "Thirteenth")

In turn does Ronald Baytan proffer ludic magus realism with "Room" (here quoted in full):

Life takes/ Without warning// Like flood heaving/ Under the bed/ Into the living room.// Suddenly, water rises up/ To the waist, and you/ Are a second too late to save/ Journals, bed sheets, shoes,/ Cassette tapes, and the old/ Television set. Even the expired/ Job contract is sailing in slow,/ Oblivious movements// To your arms./ So much humanity lies/ Dead in this room-/ Turned sea. One moment,/ And life is watered down// By waves of grief.// But something survives/ And you hear it calling:/ There, the phone is afloat/ On a tray, its voice muffled/ By rain./ You rush to lift the receiver/ As if it possesses/ Life’s last pulse.// The voice comes/ Clear, as if it weren’t a world/ Away. Water is wailing// At your feet, but a brief/ Exchange of words, and life// Takes you to a warm,/ Familiar shore.

Wonderful.

Many other poems in this high-level collection are not betoken, beholden, to liquid. They are just as good and solid as the water-themed contributions, however. I particularly like Sid Gomez-Hildawa’s consistent, just-so hard-edged romancing, as with "Heartbreak Motel":

"She wanted the chapel-comfort of dim/ lights, the hide-and-seek solace of blind/ windows, the beauty pageant experience/ of a sound-proof booth.// He wanted to smoke in an air-conditioned room.// She wanted to see her shy reflection/ in the mirrored ceiling as if it were her astral/ body hovering free from entanglements of clothing/ and gravity.// He wanted to lie on a circular bed.// She wanted a warm bath, a unhurried dip/ in a bubbly pool of disappointments rising warm/ into a whirl, surfacing as a sea of candle lanterns/ afloat on a starless night.// He wanted to get wet and wild.// She waned to reveal herself like Maria Makiling/ finally descending from her mountain of cloud, bearing/ fragrant gifts of ripe mangoes and lemon grass for a long-/ lost lover.// He wanted to f**k."

Excellent. Confirms my belief that this fellow, who has been associated more with architecture and the visual arts, has long had a breakthrough in poetry, and certainly deserves credit for his crossover triumph.

So many poems in this collection should prove memorable for being so technically adroit and brimming with substance. John Iremil E. Teodoro’s poems in Filipino strike a nerve. "…Sabi nga ng makatang si Cirilo F. Bautista,/ ‘Mahika blangka./ Maynila, ay napakagandang Maynila –/ Kung makikita mo sa ilalim ng baha!’/ Kaya pala may musika sa agos/ Ng tubig at patak ng ulan/ At sa lagaslas ng tubig na sinasagasaan/ Ng mga bus, dyip, taxi, at traysikad.//…May peynting at eskultura/ Ang mga basurang lumulutang/ Sa kulay-kalawang na tubig-baha." (from "Habang Naglalakad sa Baha")

And Nonon V. Carandang’s single entry, "sa higaan," arrests attention with its long strides in extended cadence: "…sa higaan na ’sing tahimik ng karagatan ko sinisid/ ang katuturan ng katahimikan ng iyong pag-idlip/ na likas sa pasipiko ang lagamlam ng dibdib//…."

Dr. Evasco writes in her intro: "The reader’s enjoyment of the poems and her insightful engagement with the creative spirit of each writer will… provide the best proof of how the Alon Collective has intuitively and intelligent learned by heart the just measures of the art."

Well, just between us girls, the proof is here indeed, and I truly enjoyed this collection. As dear Marj concludes: "Here they are now, swimming with words and inviting all to hearken to the revelations of water."

While we’re on an Evasco roll, here’s the opportunity to hail yet another DLSU effort that’s as significant, if not as devilish, as a Mac-Mac Cardona teardrop of a semi-hook, or Joseph Yeo’s hangtime acrobatics.

Ideya: Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 5 No. 2, March 2004, the first this year of the bi-annual academic publication edited by Dr. Evasco, with Groyon as managing editor and Hedwig de Leon as editorial assistant (she wowed us with her short fiction last May in Dumaguete), is another valuable keepsake. For it’s devoted exclusively to the papers presented in Manila in August 2002 by 12 international poets who represented as many countries at the groundbreaking conference on indigenous and contemporary poetry in the Asia-Pacific region. This was held under the auspices of the Creative Writing Foundation Inc., through a generous fund from The Japan Foundation.

The poet-conferees were Anthony Tan of the Philippines, Sitor Situmorang of Indonesia, Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf of Malaysia, Kirpal Singh of Singapore, Montri Umavijani of Thailand, Nguyen Bao Chan of Vietnam, Ko Un of South Korea, Kazuko Shiraishi of Japan, Ou Zhide of China, Lynda Chanwai-Earle of New Zealand, Harry Aveling of Australia and Frank Stewart of the United States. Three other papers from guest conferees, National Artists Edith L. Tiempo and Virgilio Almario, as well as Antoon Postma of Mindoro, are included in the journal. Then there’s a Creative Folio with poems by some of the poets involved

Copies of this journal as well as the anthology reviewed above should be available at – hail, hail – De La Salle University, most likely at the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center.

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Erratum: Last column we said that the deadline for the Doreen Fernandez Food Writing Contest was extended to Nov. 10. Oops. Sorry. Make that Sept. 10.