See the world, with words

Be a writer and see the world!

That should be the simple injunction, one that seems to have become even more true today — with our Pinoy pen pushers (hah hah, hooray for alliteration!) making their presence felt all over the world.

Well, maybe not as much yet as our seamen and domestic helpers, but it’s been fair representation enough, and growing by the year.

It used to be that a Filipino writer could only look forward to going the immigration route to be able to expand her or his horizon, or waiting to be awarded a grant to spend writing and socializing time in the good old USA.

That custom started with our pensionados of yore, early in the last century, with eventual worthies such as Franz Arcellana (named a National Artist for Literature many decades later) enjoying the perks of virtual travel grants more than academic. So did other outstanding homegrown writers such as Bienvenido N. Santos, NVM Gonzalez, Edilberto K. Tiempo and Edith L. Tiempo (also declared an N.A. for Literature), and Wilfrido “Ding” Nolledo, among others.

Among the AFS or American Field Service scholars in the late 1960s was the now legendary Emmanuel A.F. Lacaba. By that time, too, the International Writing Program established by poet Paul Engle in Iowa City began to ensure Pinoy participation on a yearly basis, with Nolledo, Cirilo F. Bautista and Erwin E. Castillo among the early fellowship grantees.

Many others have followed as US State department fellows in the IWP, which meant a four-month yearend stay in a hospitable heartland city with a strong academic program in creative writing and the presence of distinguished American poets and writers as well as other international visitors.  

Of course many of our writers involved in the academe have also benefited from graduate scholarships. Some have stayed on in the US, joining the green-card holders and the so-called “1.5 Generation” of young immigrants who became creative writers, as well as those actually born there but trace their roots to Inangbayan — to form the very strong Fil-Am writing community.

By the 1980s, writing grants involving other foreign countries also became instrumental in enhancing a literary worldview among our writers. The British Council led the way in overseeing Pinoy participation in such programs as the Cambridge Seminar on Contemporary British Literature. The British Council Manila also used to extend support to Filipino poets and writers invited for several weeks’ stay at the International Writers Retreat in Hawthornden Castle in Scotland.

The chain of Pinoy presence in that castle has resulted in at least a couple of remarkable literary anthologies: Luna Caledonia edited by poet Ricardo M. de Ungria, and a short fiction collection, Latitude: Writing from the Philippines and Scotland, co-edited by Amado “Sarge” Lacuesta. Both were Hawthornden fellows.

In the 1990s and early in this millennium, I had the privilege of attending several international writers’ festivals in Australia: twice in Sydney and once each in Melbourne and Brisbane, apart from a productive stay at the Varuna Writers Centre in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. One time, remote Finland also beckoned, for the International Writers Reunion in Mukkula, where I first met the British novelist Timothy Mo, who has since made Cebu his second home. 

Then there was the much-prized invitation to Bellagio, courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation, for four lovely weeks at the Villa Serbelloni overlooking Lake Como. Many other Pinoy writers have enjoyed that memorable setting, while some have also been beneficiaries of other writing bursaries in Italy. Our fellow STAR columnists Butch Dalisay and Ed Maranan have both spent a lovely time at an artist-in-residence colony in Perugia, courtesy of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

Our Fil-Am colleagues have also enjoyed bursaries in Spain and other artists-writers’ colonies in Italy and Greece, while I know of at least a couple of our poets who have participated in the Struga Poetry readings in Macedonia. A few years back, our literary pillar Dr. Gémino H. Abad was awarded the Premio Feronia of Italy for his poetry, which has of course been translated into Italian (and read in that language, after he recited them in the original at the awards ceremony).

In recent years, our poets have also made inroads to Latin America, with Dr. Marjorie Evasco, Alice Sun-Cua, Jimmy Abad, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta and I having participated in separate years in the International Poetry Festival in Medellin, Colombia, while three of us have also done yet another poetry fest in Granada, Nicaragua, with Jimmy set to participate there in February next year.

And then of course there’s our own Asia-Pacific region. UMPIL or Writers Union of the Philippines used to send contingents of poets in Filipino and English to China, and in turn host Chinese poets. Philippine PEN contingents have gone to Taipei for literary activities.

I’ve done the Chikyu Poetry Fest in Tokyo twice, in the late 1990s. Almost a decade ago, the Pinoy group invited to a Singapore lit fest was a strong one that included the now late lamented Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta. That visit resulted in the landmark Love Gathers All anthology featuring poets from both countries.

Singapore has been a perennial host for many Filipino writers, as has been Hong Kong. Sometime in the ’90s, too, good buddy Ricky de Ungria and I were asked to join a poetry reading fest in Kuala Lumpur. The renowned Ubud Readers and Writers Festival in Bali, Indonesia has also continued to host a healthy turnover of Pinoy poets and writers.

Bangkok sees at least one Filipino being lauded each year as a SeaWrite Awardee. For 2012, it was Sir Charles Ong — well-deserved and long-expected, too, given his eminent age as a pre-eminent author.

He came back only several days ago. While in Bangkok, he had occasion to get together with several of his “usual-suspects” group from UP Diliman who happened to be attending the “Reaching the World” Summit organized by the Asia-Pacific Writers & Translators Association (AP Writers) co-founded and currently led by Jane Camens of Australia.

Our participants were STAR columnists Isagani R. Cruz and Butch Dalisay, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo or “Jing,” Isabela Banzon, Lily Rose Tope, Jhoanna Cruz or “Joy” from UP in Mindanao, and Dinah Roma of De La Salle University.

I would have wanted to join in, but had to tell Jane by e-mail that current work inhibited that prospect. Shucks. Otherwise I would surely have been treated to a fabulous spa experience by Charlson at the Mandarin Oriental. And also reunited with writer-friends in our region, among them Nury Vittachi, Martin Alexander and Xu Xi of Hong Kong, Harry Aveling who’s based in Australia, and the venerable Edwin Thumboo of Singapore.

Over a hundred writers and translators came for the Bangkok conference. Congratulations are in order for the indefatigable efforts of our friend Jane Camens.

Early this month, new territory was explored by our poet-friends, with Marj Evasco, Ricky de Ungria, Victor Jose Peñaranda or “Bimboy” and Beatriz Alvarez-Tardio of DLSU attending the Northern Kingdoms Poetry Journeys, which started in Siem Reap, where they read their poems amid the fabled ruins of Angkor Wat and other temples. The second leg of the Journeys readings was to be conducted in Chiang Mai, Thailand, but our Pinoy contingent signed up only for the Siam reap leg, where they joined up with Loven Ramos who had facilitated their participation.

Judging from their photo albums, our friends had a great good time in Siam Reap. Their peak experience was conducting intimate readings among the lingas and yoni at Bantay Shrei, also called the Women’s Temple or the Red Temple even if the exquisite carvings are on what look more like pink walls.

While in Siam Reap, they also had the opportunity to meet up with our common friends Virgil Calaguian and Peter Oxley, who run the boutique Cockatoo Nature Resort. I’ve only been eavesdropping in their e-conversation, but methinks Virgil and Peter will soon host another round of poetry readings by Pinoys in that neck of the woods. And this time I intend to be part of it.

It must be mentioned that mi amiga Marj has been on quite a roll, having also represented us at the Poetry Parnassus event as part of London’s Cultural Olympiad last summer, complementing the 2012 Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, there were also many worlds that turned up to be explored, by virtue of words, at the 3rd Philippine International Literary Festival, a.k.a. “Read Lit District,” this year’s theme — once again ably organized by the National Book Development Board with its executive director Andrea Pasion-Flores.

The lit fest ran for three days last week at the Filipinas Heritage Library and Ayala Museum, with foreign authors and editors Chris Abani, Tom Tomlinson, Juliet Grames, Ken Spillman and David McKirdy joining our writing community for panel discussions, readings and much fun.

Worlds do open up with words. Either we bring them here, or we go out there.