From solitude to solidarity
June 27, 2005 | 12:00am
Even though the Pride March in the Philippines has been moved to December to avoid rain on our parade, some people still celebrate June as Pride Month. This month, there will be white parties, a Queer Mass – and now, the arrival of two gay books by young writers.
Galing Cine Café is a compilation of Nestor de Guzman’s poems in Filipino, published by Lambana Press. The title alludes to the gay bar that first set up quarters on Roces Avenue and has since moved to E. Rodriguez.
In colloquial language, de Guzman captures perfectly the sense of adventure – and the eventual sense of loss – that usually happens in one-night stands. "Maganda ako kagabi,/ ginusto ng tatlong natipuhan./ Disinuwebe ang isa./ Ang una, nag-alok ng higit pa./ Pero mag-isa ring umuwi./ At lalong ginutom./ Bago sumakay ng jeep/ sa tapat ng Act sa Cubao./ Nakihilera ako sa kariton/ ng magdamagang lugawan,/ sinaid ang dalawang mangkok/ na may ginunting na laman, puso/ utak at taba ng baka./ Sa katabing ihawan/ nakatatlong tuhog/ ng nag-uuling na bituka’t isaw./ Nakailang salok/ ng makulay na samalamig."
De Guzman has a degree in English studies from UP Diliman and has joined Ricky Lee’s scriptwriting workshop. Such training is evident in this poem. The one-night stand is compared with sharpness and wit to the eating of street food. Both are consumed with such wild hunger.
Such desolation could be broken by communion with another person, knowing him deeper than skin. W.H. Auden seems right, after all, when he said: "We must love each other – or we die." The personas in the poems of De Guzman are fragmented; they live in the black heart of the city.
In the bittersweet poem called "Agahan," he writes: "Kanina, nang una kitang/ makita, naghahanap ako/ ng kalinga sa madilim na/ sulok./ Ngayon, hinatinggabi sa/ kabilang linya/ ng iyong telepono,/ pakiramdam ay buo./ Pero ayoko,/ ayoko munang mangako./ Mayamaya, sa agahang/ muli nating pagtatagpo,/ baka malaparan sa noo,/ malamyaan sa upo,/ maasiwa sa tawa,/ malakihan sa subo./ Kahit anong pilit, di ko/ maalala ang itsura mo."
The poet also skewers the tabloid media that features only the seamier side of gay life in "Sa Kapisan." On the other hand, the kotong cops get a well-deserved satire in "Bagansiya." The cover design and the photographs are not of sculpted men with mestizo features. The men are fat, common, somewhat ordinary, as if to show that gayness is an everyday thing. It also goes against the grain of cute and straight-acting gay men who only cruise other men with similar qualities. The book’s bonus is a series of 10 Filipino versions of foreign poems. The most moving are by C.V. Cavafy who – like Nestor de Guzman – celebrates the frisson of desire in the common and the every day with ease and eloquence.
Pink Men in Love and Other Stories by Gerardo Z. Torres (UST Press) also covers similar terrain. Torres has a doctorate in literature and once chaired the literature department at De La Salle University. He uses the epistolary mode – the mode of letter writing – and appropriates it to show how contemporary gay men communicate.
Rightly so, the first story is "Coming Out," which was first published in Ladlad, the anthology I edited with Neil Garcia. It’s about gay men in the city, but they are urbane and cosmopolitan. Listen to the P.S.: "I met someone in a bar in Adriatico last Saturday. His name is Dennis. He is a bank executive. He’s mestizo (your type) and very articulate. He loves Barbra Streisand (10 points for him), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Pat Conroy, Isabel Allende, John Williams, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Enya, k.d. lang, Sting, Jim Chappell, Margaret Atwood and Luciano Pavarotti. Who says there are no more Renaissance men around? I’m seeing him again this weekend. Send me good vibes."
Wow, this must really be fiction! If I meet a loaded banker who knows those names, I’ll never leave him.
"Pink Men in Love" enters the world of cyberspace. The Filipino Alex meets the American Jon on the Internet. It must be me, but I wonder why the two only exchanged photos after three months? Granted that both are extra-careful, but don’t you want to put a face to the words on your computer screen? It’s a smart story, though, letting the reader fill in the gaps between the e-mail letters sent by the two men.
The spaces for the reader to fill become wider in "Letting Go." It’s told through the text messages sent by Josh and Russell to each other. Again, we are like voyeurs led to look into the short, secret messages of the two gay men. Light-hearted and witty, the story covers familiar territory – how do you tell a friend that you have fallen for him? Against your will, you’ve fallen truly, madly, deeply? Very thorny.
The Internet chat is the site for "Ganymede," the last story. The chatters are Buhawi and Priscilla – a Filipino and an Australian (remember Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?) Separated by the oceans of space and time, the two send warm words that pulse and travel in the dark void of cyberspace.
Thus, through letters and texting, e-mail and Internet chatting, or bodies touching in a bar, our two writers show that the lives of gay men move from solitude to solidarity.
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