Poet on a roll

Several weeks back, we had trumpeted serial triumphs notched by Filipino poets on the international stage. It all started late last year with Marc Gaba — now back teaching at UP Diliman after a couple of years at University of Iowa’s Writing Workshop — winning the ninth Boston Review poetry contest.

Another Quezon City-based poet, Joel Toledo, who’s been on quite a roll, then copped first and third prizes in the 2006 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry contest. And New York-based Fil-Am poet Patrick Rosal, who visited with us last October, had a poem selected as one of the "Best of the Net 2006"!

Then our friend and adopted kumare Luisa A. Igloria, formerly of Baguio City and now a resident of Norfolk, Virginia, had a poem winning the 2007James Hearst Poetry Prize, worth a thousand dollars and publication in the National American Review’s "National Poetry Month" March-April 2007 issue.

In late January, Larisa Saguisag of UP Diliman, who’s taking graduate studies in NY, won The New School’s 2006 Writing for Children Chapbook Series competition for her poem titled "Children of Two Seasons" — which will now gain publication as a chapbook for a Spring 2007 release.

Capping all of these prideful achievements was Fil-Am poet Jon Pineda, whose second poetry collection won the Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press (Western Michigan University), worth $2,000 and assuring publication by March 2008.

The latest poetry contest winner among Fil-Ams was Jean Vengua, who received the Filamore Tabios Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize worth $1,000 for her manuscript titled "Prau" — which is now due for publication by Meritage Press by Fall 2007.

You think it ends there? The continuing good news doesn’t — where it concerns excellent Filipino poetry in English.

Last week, we received more glad tidings, again from Luisa A. Igloria, who has won yet another highly competitive poetry contest in the US.

Our friend Reme Grefalda, editor of the e-journ Our Own Voice, quickly followed up with a congratulatory, rah-rah report which she asked everyone to "disseminate to Philippine papers," since it was "Pride Time!":

"On March 7, 2007, the National Writers Union announced Luisa Igloria as the winner of their 2006 NWU Poetry Contest. In selecting Igloria’s poem ‘Descent,’ poet Adrienne Rich judged it "outstanding as a work of language and visualization of history." The NWU has a $1,000 prize and offers publication of the winning poem in Poetry Flash.

"In yet another contest in January 2007, Igloria’s poem ‘Venom’ was selected by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review. ‘Venom’ was chosen from 1,914 entries.

"In 2006, Igloria was the winner of the Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry for her poem ‘Kierkegaard’s Fable.’ She also won the 2006 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize (Crab Orchard Review; the four winning poems appeared in the Fall-Winter 2006 issue). In the same year, Igloria was also selected as the 2006 Resident Poet of Our Own Voice, a quarterly literary online journal."

Indeed, it’s Pride Time. And indeed, our mareng Luisa continues to rock; she’s on a roll! Here’s more info on her literary achievements, per Reme:

"Luisa Igloria (formerly published as Ma. Luisa A. Cariño)... "(has been) inducted into the Palanca Hall of Fame... She has proven her mettle through the years by being one of the most prolific writers in the Philippines as poet, fictionist and essayist. Igloria now makes her home in Norfolk, Virginia with her husband Ruben and two daughters. She is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University. As a Fulbright scholar, she received her PhD from the University of Illinois in Chicago.

"Trill and Mordent, her current poetry collection, was a runner-up for the 2004 Editions Poetry Prize (Word Tech Editions, 2005); the book received the 2005 Calatagan Award from the Philippine American Writers and Artists association in San Francisco, and in 2006 was nominated for the ninth annual Virginia Literary Awards. Other published works include Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora. Her poetry has appeared in various literary anthologies."

I recall first meeting Luisa for breakfast at Baguio’s Star Cafe way way back, maybe in the early 1980s. I think it was about a few poems of hers selected for Caracoa: The Poetry Journal of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC).

She seemed very intent, a bit cagey, as if evaluating if her long-haired ka-rendezvous would be someone like the painter Darnay Demetillo, a common friend, whose daily Star Cafe breakfast consisted of Ginebra San Miguel and cigarettes. When I asked for lechon rice, it seemed to relax her.

I told her that I’d been checking up on her poetry, in my capacity as occasional Caracoa editor — and that I found it most promising, indeed. Well, you know how incorrigible macho bohemians would try to put a much younger lady at ease (or on guard) with not-so-subtle patronizing remarks.

She saw through that, of course, and has since proven it with her laudable kind of feminism as manifested in the remarkable literature she’s produced in many fronts: as poet, essayist, children’s story writer, as well as a dedicated mother to daughter after daughter.

We eventually invited her to join PLAC, which she did, even participating in our "Chromatext I" and "Chromatext II" literary-cum-visual art exhibits at Pinaglabanan Galleries. She joined us in readings, and yearly we saw her at Palanca Night, gaining bead after bead of bling-blings on her way to the Hall of Fame.

Then she left for abroad, and we continued to correspond, by snail mail. If I’m not mistaken, it was a daughter or two left here who received the Hall of Fame plaque in her absence. I know I took pictures of the girls and sent them to Luisa.

Last we got together, it was in Chicago for the AWP (American Writers & Publishers) confab of 2002. She was part of the strong contingent of Fil-Am or US-based poets that held forums and reading sessions. On a fringe event, Luisa and I (and Rodney Garcia) read together at the Rhythms bar that featured percussion instruments from all over the world. She appreciated the Chocnut tablets I handed her, and returned the favor with her usual care package of books and CDs.

I’ve always known that Luisa would go very far in her determination to carve out a niche for her poetic voice, and in so doing lead the Pinoy-expat charge in the mighty USA. Bearing this out are all the awards and grants she’s received yearly since she got there, as well as the frequent inclusion of her poems in quality journals. There’s no stopping my ‘mareng Luisa, whom I once told jocosely of my faith in her because she was obviously such a "go-getter."

Last week I hailed her: Brava! She wrote back: "Needless to say, I am deeply honored to have had my poem selected by no less than Adrienne Rich. The poem is part of my new manuscript which I am shopping around, titled ‘Juan Luna’s Revolver.’"

She said I could quote only a part of it here, as Poetry Flash had the "first dibs." When she intimated that she, likely with Ruben, had been celebrating with mojitos and tequila, I mock-sulked that she didn’t seem to be offering any. Came the invite to spend drinking time with them in Virginia, but only if I took along some tapuey.

Well, here’s to you again, my Cordilleran friend — a single malt toast instead (Bowmore, Surf edition, from fabled in the Scotland we’ve known separately). And here are excerpts from Luisa’s long poem, "Descent," that the redoubtable Adrienne Rich found engrossing. The poem proper is preceded by the following epigraph:

"In 1904, more than 1,100 indigenous Filipinos were transported to St. Louis, Missouri, to serve as live exhibits at the World’s Fair and Exposition."

Now here’s the first section:

"Far from the province of/ beginnings, I can acknowledge my face// has finally begun to resemble the canvas it feared/ most. But I remember how it was to feel my way// down mountain trails, drink from hair-lined throats of plants, sleep/ crouched among the fiddlehead fern. Three days, five,// then the canopy lightened. I walked past clearings where crops/ had taken hold: sweet potato and beans trained to the stake,// runners and tendrils curling toward commerce in the markets. Even before/ I saw the first few shingled houses, unhappy dogs// tethered to their posts smelled my approach. Faces gawked/ as I walked past. To them I was a stranger,// dark and not to be trusted; my woven skirt a red-striped/ carnival tent that might open to what they// could not imagine — though I’d spent my whole life until then,/ no farther away than where they might glance// at the sun lowering itself at the horizon, between notched/ limestones; a few moments of convulsive light, mother-// of-pearl sheen, ripple of cream, stroke that primes the canvas/ before darkness closes around the world like a bead.//

And after the persona is "imported" to St. Louis, the poem ends in this lovely wise:

"I learned to wear shoes on my feet. Garments covered my breasts and arms,/ and these I took off only when, eventually, I posed for him —// my dark breasts artfully concealed under an arrangement of necklaces,/ agate and carnelian. I came to understand their talk, their gestures// and nuances. I was cook and laundress, subject, apprentice, their/ surrogate. They praised me like a daughter.// In the sun, I whitened clothes. I ripened/ beside the honeysuckle, tending my time."