Tag Archives: Vince Gotera

Tao Po! Poem 3

Babae/Babaylan
After Rachelle Cruz and Vince Gotera

I am the dark-hued bitch; see how wide my maw, my bloodmoon eyes,
And in daylight, see the tangles and knots of my riverine hair.
I am the bad daughter, the freedom fighter, the shaper of death masks.
I am the snake, I am the crone; I am caretaker of these ancient trees.
I am the winged tik-tik, tik-tik, tik-tik, tik-tik; I am close,
And from under the floorboards, the grunting black pig,
Cool in the dirt, mushrooms between my toes, I wait.
I am the encroaching wilderness, the bowels of these mountains;
I am the opposite of your blessed womb. I am your inverted mirror;
Guard your unborn children, burn me with your seed and salt,
Upend me, bend my body, cleave me beyond function. Blame me.

* * *

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Tao Po! Poem 2

she dark as the dirt
she dirty brown girl
she run in the sun
she rolling down hills
she dig in the mud
she cool underground
she friend of earthworms
she nobody see

she laughing river
she black haired aswang
she darkling engkanto
she daughter of loam
she where she belong
she moonless night song

* * *

Once again I am stretching the parameters of my assignment. I have been writing in persona for a white now, stretching the “I,” which modulates into a “she,” and “we,” and this is because I really don’t believe my personal suburban upbringing is terribly remarkable, the stuff of poetry (or Poetry).

As for this above 14-line poem with a volta at line eight, and with a convenient rhyme at the end couplet (but this isn’t really a sonnet), I envision this piece undergoing remix with lines I’ve already written or have yet to write for my larger Pinay narrative, and sampling with lines I am filching and borrowing from others. I am also interested in maintaining the music of these terse/punchy little lines. I keep thinking of Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool,” how deep and not simple the narrative really is, despite how brief and terse the poem.

And as for the appearance of the aswang, I gotta shout out fellow Fil Am poets Vince Gotera and Rachelle Cruz, and local filmmaker Matthew Abaya for keeping the aswang fresh in my consciousness. It’s a nice stretch for my outcast little dark girl.

Imagined Communities and Real Projects

[Edits below.]

Craig Santos Perez (see, I gotta refer to him by his official author name now) and I are starting to have an interesting conversation over at his blog, regarding this quote from Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities:

“[...] nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrificing love. The cultural products of nationalism–poetry, prose fiction, music, plastic arts–show this love very clearly in thousands of different forms and styles. On the other hand, how truly rare it is to find analogous nationalist products expressing fear and loathing. Even in the case of colonized peoples, who have every reason to feel hatred for their imperialist rulers, it is astonishing how insignificant the element of hatred is in these expressions of national feeling.” (1983)

Here is my response:

A couple of things: isn’t Benedict Anderson big on Filipino (Philippines-based, versus Fil Am) literature? I think he is. If that is the case, then I really don’t know so well the lit of that time in the Philippines, which dealt with Spain or North America, since we are talking about former colonial powers. I do know of anti-Martial Law lit, which I relate to the anti-US/Philippine “special relations,” so if that’s the case, then like you, I wonder what he was not reading.

[Addendum: the existence of anti-Martial Law lit speaks to the critical and even militant tone which writers, authors, and artists took against their own national government. These writers' criticisms, protest literature, political involvement were met with imprisonment, torture and "salvagings" (killings) of the artists by the regime. I think this alone debunks the Anderson quote above.]

[...] I wonder if in Philippine lit, he read any strong Catholicism as pro-colonial love, even though Philippine Catholicism also has ties to revolutionary movements.

Maybe he was chastising post-colonial writers for not being anti-colonial enough, which is to say, anti-colonial by his definition/standards. That’s problematic.

Re: “master narrative” which it seems to me he is forwarding even though I really think his agenda (given what little I know about him) was not to forward it – I’ll go with Flavor Flav on this – yo, don’t believe the hype!

*

At least one reader of this blog I know is a former student of Anderson’s, so maybe s/he can provide some elucidation (backchanneling is cool; no need to leave a public comment) on the above quote, which I do understand has been plucked out of context.

*

In the meantime, rather than imagining community, I am attempting to outline (triangulate?) a number of the projects and concerns of our national Filipino American literary community over at the PAWA blog, where I have just posted links to the following:

(1) Fordham Observer interview with Sarah Gambito. Great stuff here on her writing process, including how it’s differed between her first book Matadora, and her forthcoming second book, Delivered.

(2) Joel Tan’s very newly released and much awaited second book Type O Negative (Red Hen Press).

(3) Bob Holman blogging over at On the Griot Trail, re: the death of languages, and how technology can aid in the continued existence of languages and oral traditions. Love this guy. Love his ebullience, that he jumps head first into projects.

(4) Vince Gotera on poetic craft and technique. Also some great and chunky reading on meter, rhythm, and rhyme.

So these are not specific to Filipino American literature, but do concern Filipino American literary movement, projects, and work.

Plans: Writers' Workshops and Reading Series

Unofficially, some things in the works.

I’m glad to have been working more hands on with Edwin Lozada and PAWA, Inc. for the last few months. We are starting up a Filipino writers and authors reading series, which I had thought would be quarterly, but it’s looking like the readings will take place a little more frequently that quarterly. All good. The first will be December 6 at SFPL, and the readers are as follows: Luisa Igloria, Joi Barrios, Karen Llagas, and myself. Karen and I are a couple of the new events organizers with PAWA, so I am glad that Edwin has suggested she and I participate in the kick off event. As well, as this reading is in celebration of her newly released Juan Luna’s Revolver, Luisa will be holding a writing workshop earlier that day. Details on all of the above for 12/06/08 will be posted on the PAWA blog as they are finalized.

So this reading series then, I am really looking forward to being one of the curators and sharing hosting duties. I think we have in the works some great and interesting pairings of established and emerging writers, some with recently released or forthcoming publications.

We have also started talking about the possibility of my conducting some writers’ workshops, as opposed to writing workshops. I’ve just proposed manuscript reading, revising, and editing intensive sessions, as well as publishing (more like, “get published”) workshops. I refer back to Brian Komei Dempster’s day session via KSW (which I attended/particpated in so many years ago) and the fact that properly submitting work to publications is actually not a common skill set.

Here is Vince Gotera, our fearless FLIPS co-leader and poetry editor of the North American Review, podcasting on The Writing Show; one of the things he discusses is what he looks for, what offputs him, what interests him in the submissions he receives. Very common sense stuff, I think. Those of us who’ve been doing this for forever, I tend to think we turn out submissions like machines. I still use Brian’s cover letter format, even in email submissions. Plug stuff in and away it goes. But I also know that when you are starting out, this isn’t common sense stuff, for example, to actually read a publication’s submissions guidelines, and what to include in a cover letter, or that you should include a cover letter in the first place. As Vince says in his podcast, “My mother always told me it was polite to write a letter,” or something like.

But this also reminds me that there are established writers still don’t know how to act right. Which editor was it that said that some writers just don’t know how to say thank you once you’ve accepted their pieces for publication. Not like you have to send a freaking fruit basket, but how about a quick email thank you letter.

That said, costs and venues still need to be worked out, and then I am hoping to start these PAWA workshops early next year. Maybe at some point I will consider writing workshops, actual generative writing workshops.

In the meantime, I am leaving for the Philippines with my mother on November 22. I return on December 5. I read for PAWA on December 6. So I am a little overwhelmed that I am leaving next week, but I am really very glad to have found an arts org that I can actually participate in key ways in determining its direction and programming, that I can assert my vision and have that be not only encouraged, but requested.  As well, I am looking forward to once again being community arts org oriented. Much more to come.

Filipino Literary Community

Responding to Kristin Naca‘s recent great news, Eileen Tabios asks: So, like, haven’t you all noticed how more and more of these contests are being won by Filipino poets?

Yep, I’ve certainly noticed and experienced this.

Many of these Filipino poets and writers are folks who’ve kept in contact with one another or who have met one another via our FLIPS listserv, which was started by Vince Gotera and Nick Carbó back in 1997. We’ve been featured in many of the same journals and anthologies, we’ve included one another in our various publication projects, we’ve organized literary readings for and including one another in various parts of the country,  we’ve crashed on one another’s couches, shared meals and drinks, we’ve commiserated about writing programs (in fact, I know a few of us consulted the listserv as we were thinking of applying to our respective writing programs) and manuscript woes, we’ve read one another’s manuscripts. We’ve grappled and argued (and we continue to argue) over politics, language, aesthetics, and approaches to publication, we teach one another’s works, review one another’s books, promote one another’s works in various other ways, and we’ve shared our good news with one another. Others’ individual successes have motivated and encouraged (and even emboldened) us to find our own.

Keeping in contact via blogworld is an extension of what began on FLIPS.

For us, this is beyond any simple nationalism or feelgoodism (certainly, it isn’t always pleasant, and it’s never unanimous), and this is what I mean by community. It’s practical and it’s necessary in order to constantly be challenged and to thus work effectively within the poetic industrial complex.

For a list of Filipino American authored books (many of whom are FLIPS listservers), see here.

Thoughts and Additions: Flip Lit and continuing brain dump

Disjunctive.

(1) Most recent additions to the Flip Lit page are as follows (not in order):

  • Pineda, Jon. The Translator’s Diary. Kalamazoo, MI: New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008.
  • Barot, Rick. Want. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2008.
  • Lozada, Edwin A., ed. Field of Mirrors. SF: PAWA, Inc., 2008.
  • Vengua, Jean. Prau. Saint Helena, CA: Meritage Press, 2007.
  • Gotera, Vince. Fighting Kite. San Antonio, TX: Pecan Grove Press, 2007.

I didn’t know Vince Gotera had a new book out until out of curiosity, wondering what he was up to, as I wonder what a lot of Filipino American poets are up to in publishing, I google searched him.

So it’s great knowing that authors who are Filipino American are continuing to publish, beyond first books. And it’s also great knowing that we occupy different, and diverse places in the publishing world/industry. This continuing growing presence partly assuages my yesterday’s feeling of being an American poetry industry misfit.

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