Calls & congrats (Our poetry keeps on rocking!)

For those who might have missed out on the Jan. 1, issue of this newspaper, thus our first column for the year, here’s repeating an important announcement:

Filipino writers have until March 31 to submit an unpublished novel in English or in English translation for the first Man Asian Literary Prize worth $10,000.

Works must be submitted electronically through the prize’s website (www.manasianliteraryprize.org) no later than March 31 in .txt, .doc or .rtf format. Partial submissions of at least 10,000 words will be accepted, but a complete submission must be made within 30 days of the announcement of the Long List of up to 20 candidates on June 1. The short list of five candidates will be announced on Oct. 1, and the winner on Nov. 1.

Authors of short-listed works will be invited to attend the awards ceremony in Hong Kong. The author must be present to be considered for the prize. Publication of the winning work is guaranteed, and the winner will be invited to the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival in March 2008.

The prize is sponsored by Man Group in coordination with the Hong Kong International Literary Festival Ltd. Contest judges are: André Aciman, author and chair of the comparative literature department of City University of New York; Adrienne Clarkson, former governor-general of Canada; and Nicholas Jose, Australian writer and chair of creative writing at the University of Adelaide.

Our old friend Frank Stewart, a poet who teaches literature at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and edits the prestigious Manoa: The Pacific Journal of International Writing, wrote us recently about plans for the journal’s next two volumes.

"We are departing from our recent format of featuring individual countries, and will open our pages to authors from all over the Asia/Pacific/Americas region. These volumes will focus on the general theme of reconciliation. We prefer previously unpublished work where possible, but we are willing to consider reprints of work that has been unavailable or had limited distribution in North America.

"We are defining reconciliation in very broad terms. Clearly much local and global strife comes from partition, segregation, and polarization based on national, religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural enmity. In these forthcoming volumes we want to understand what contemporary international literature can tell us about how ordinary individuals manage (or fail) to live dignified lives in the midst of divisiveness. We are interested in stories of families, couples, children, and in communities large and small, sacred and secular, in peace or war. We do not expect all the stories to have happy endings.

"We prefer fiction and prose (including translations) but are also eager to consider other genres such as poetry, film scripts, and plays. The works will be published in finely produced volumes of Manoa Journal in 2007 and 2008."

Now, since Frank also says that this isn’t an open solicitation, but something I can pass on to writers whom I think can contribute worthy material, anyone wishing to submit something may first get in touch with me before I direct you to Mr. Stewart’s e-mail and postal addresses. You may do so by snail-mailing me c/o the Arts & Culture Section of this paper. Sorry, I don’t want to make any of my e-mail addys — all three private ones — public.

Most of our experienced Filipino writers either already have my regular addy, or can easily ask other writers for it. But it’s not going to come from me, not through this public space, anyway, if only so I avoid getting more correspondence than I can handle. Or, heavens, receiving more letters asking me to claim my 30-million euro prize from somewhere in Ghana or South Africa.

I serve as Philippines editor for the bi-annual literary journal, which is distributed worldwide in print by the University of Hawaii Press. Manoa editor Frank Stewart, whom we invited to Manila for the 2002 Asia-Pacific Poetry confab, adds: "It also goes out as electronic subscriptions to hundreds of institutions and municipalities, each with thousands of potential readers. Please send all work or queries by March 30, 2007 for consideration in the first volume of the series."

Another friend, Fil-Am poet Barbara Jane P. Reyes of San Francisco, shared the following post:

"Calque, a journal of new translations, announces a Call for Submissions: Calque is currently and perpetually seeking work in the following categories: Literary translations of stories, poems, manifestos, essays, diaries, comics, lectures, etc. From any time period, any language, by any author. We offer space for translators to publish the original material alongside their translations, if they wish to do so, and if the media allows. Translations should be accompanied by a translator’s note, 500-1,500 words, detailing relevant information pertaining to the work translated, the author, or the process of translation itself. Interviews with authors, translators, publishers, etc. Critical essays focusing on some aspect of works in translation, translation studies, comparative literature, etc. Book reviews of translations either recently published or forthcoming. Check our website, www.calquejournal.com, for examples of published work. Inquiries regarding the suitability of any given submission may be sent via e-mail to calquezine@gmail.com. All inquiries will be answered. Deadline for consideration for inclusion in Calque Issue 2 is April 15, 2007. Inquiries received after this date will be considered for Issues 3 and 4."

After those calls for submission, now the congrats.

Two weeks ago, Larisa Saguisag was selected as the winner of the 2006 Writing for Children Chapbook Series competition for her poem titled "Children of Two Seasons." The chapbook will be released in late March or early April 2007.

The annual writing competition is organized by the Writing Program of The New School, a 75-year-old university in Greenwich Village, New York known for its commitment to creative writing.

Larisa or Lara, of St. Scholastica GS Class 1987 and HS Class 1991, was a fellow in the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete and a faculty member of the UP Diliman Department of English and Comparative Literature. Having recently graduated from The New School with an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and an MFA in Arts and Literature, she is now applying for a Ph.D. program.

The sole judge for the contest was Peter Abrahams, who has authored 17 novels, including Lights Out, which was nominated for an Edgar best novel award. A Cape Cod resident, he also writes the best-selling Echo Falls series for younger readers.

According to the contest organizers, Mr. Abrahams was very impressed with Lara’s entry. Indeed he is, judging from the evaluation he’s rendered, and which will serve as the foreword for the chapbook:

"Larisa Saguisag has a gift for writing poetry that I think children will love. She’s deft with animals — frogs, tadpoles, water buffalo — and never falls into any anthropomorphic traps. She’s funny. She has a fine eye for detail — ‘a tiny black outburst’ of escaping tadpoles, a fly landing on a bald head at an endless church service. She can be deeply moving, as in ‘Grandma’s Dreams’ where dreams of the old are passed down to the sleeping young. Her technique is strong, her rhythmic sense, timing, syntax and imagery all polished. And finally the voice, the authentic voice of the bright, curious, reasonably happy child: the very best thing Ms. Saguisag does is to not let her well-chosen words get in the way of that voice."

Unarguably of genetic provenance, that voice was trained early by Benedictine sisters, before being honed in Dumaguete, Diliman and New York. And that eye for detail surely has something to do with Lara’s other talent, which is in photography.

Kudos to Lara, and congrats as well to her proud parents, Dulce and Rene Saguisag (our fellow Bedan).

Yet another Fil-Am poet, Jon Pineda, whose first book Birthmark (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004) was reviewed in this space, just received word that his second collection of poetry has won this year’s Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press (Western Michigan University). 

The prize awards $2,000 to the winning "established poet" and publication of his manuscript, in this case sometime in March 2008. We can hardly wait to read Jon’s new work, as we had marked him out as a fine poet of superb delicacy and subtlety.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and raised in Tidewater, Virginia, Jon Pineda attended James Madison University and the MFA program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has gained a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. He teaches in the English Department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he lives with his wife, Amy.

Here’s a poem of his, titled "Matamis," that I love to share with my own poetry students at the Ateneo:

"One summer in Pensacola,/ I held an orange this way,_/ flesh hiding beneath/ the texture of the rind,_/ then slipped my thumbs/ into its core & folded it/ open, like a book.//

"When I held out the halves./ the juice seemed to trace the veins in my arms/ as it dripped down to my elbows/ & darkened spots of sand./ _We were sitting on the beach then,/ the sun, spheres of light within each piece./ _I remember thinking, in Tagalog,/ _the word matamis is sweet in English,/ though I did not say it for fear/ _of mispronouncing the language.//

"Instead, I finished the fruit & offered_/ nothing except my silence, & my father,/ who pried apart another piece, breaking/ the globe in two, offered me half./ Meaning everything."

In an interview with poet-novelist Bino Realuyo, Jon was asked how he writes a poem. His reply: "I write and, if I’m lucky, there is something in the writing that refuses to stay trapped in the language. That’s the poem emerging."