I think that somewhere on my family’s universe, poetry is constellating. My daughter, Panjee, recently helped host a poetry conference. She and her sister Risa appear to share a growing interest in poetry. I, on the other hand, started teaching writing this year. In my workshop called "The Joy of Writing," poetry happens quite spontaneously as a result of the process integral to the course. Never formally trained in poetry I adhere to the standards of the book on which my course is based, which basically says that if it expresses what you feel, sounds and reads wonderfully, and makes the writer/poet happy, it’s poetry enough for us. I confess though that I am thrilled when the piece presents the mundane poetically. The following are examples of what I mean.
Carmencita Abelardo |
I think, talk, eat, breathe plastics
can never imagine my thermoset body
in any other form, shape or size.
I am the result of the favorable balance
of all the mechanical, chemical and
thermal properties of life. My body consists
of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, chlorine, sulphur and fluorine.
I see myself amongst the long molecules
of polyolefins and polymers clustered, branched
or chained. I cannot see my thermoplastic self
in any other place but in the synthetic world
of plastics where I can be all the exciting colors
on the Pantone chart, and more. From the deepest red
to the light, very warm feel of the pearlescent,
gold, and silver hues.
My plastic self has been continuously processed,
softened by heat, hardened from pressure
moulded into God’s desired form.
I have been through the best and worst
subjected to the melting point of 280 degrees Tg*
until my body and soul polymerized and
like processed resin I emerged stronger, tougher,
transparently crystal clear, victoriously durable.
The plastic world is where I cyclically revolved
every second, minute, and hour of every day
for 35 years and there my plastic self
will continue to exist eternally
refusing to be dissipated
by the temporary and the illusory.
My plastic body will ever be
an omnipresent speck in the universe.
I will never melt away, never be swiftly dismissed
or condemned into the oblivion.
My body is plastic – meant to last forever.
• Tg refers to the glass transition stage where the melting point of resin is achieved, given the right combination of heat and pressure.
Menchie Abelardo is an industrial engineer, an authority in plastics. Her poem debunks the notion that engineers cannot write poetry. Boboy Consunji describes himself as a "suit" in qan ad agency, meaning he isn’t in the creative part but rather in the management part of the business. Who would guess that from his poem in response to an assignment called "Beautiful Tyrant"?
Boboy Consunji |
Your penitentiary purple heralds more pain.
A tear is shed as I slice through your rich swirls.
You sting though I don’t really suffer.
I feel like a corpse being wheeled into cremation.
I’m burning, about to break into smithereens,
while deftly chopping you into pieces.
Now I toss.
I sprinkle you with pinches of salt and pepper.
And how you brighten up my salad.
You’re a cool complement to alfalfa, bean, cabbage, carrot.
You refresh a bowl of ruffled produce.
As I bite into you, I smile in sorrow.
O dear onion, yours is a terrible beauty.
"You teach poetry to corporate types?" someone incredulously asked.
But, of course. Tehnically, poetry is demanding. No other form will move you to look for the precise word. It is here that most people realize they need to build their vocabularies. Poetry is disciplined writing even when the form is free. Also poetry communicates so beautifully. If we communicated so carefully and so beautifully with each other within the corporation or at home, life would have so much more quality.
Anyway, poetry seems to be constellating in the sky above us. I think we should smile, embrace it, welcome it back into a world that so badly needs megadoses of poetry.