Book Launch Photos
Events by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca | May 29, 2013
Month: May 2013
Fortune-Telling (1): Love
Poetry by Melona Mascarinas | May 27, 2013
1
Love, I dreamed of you last night.
We were swimming among crumpled sheets,
drunk with the moonlight.
Drown me deeper, I said in between gasps
but suddenly you were quiet. Ebbing away,
you rested your head between my breasts to sleep.
I woke up to find that your head was just
sunlight on my bare chest, breaking in
from the window. I was borrowing warmth
to fill in for the things I lost to you.
Even the mirror from across the bed,
repeats the fact of my loss,
the fact of my wondering:
why do you leave with the night?
No Dowry, No Cry
Nonfiction by Pearlsha Abubakar | May 27, 2013
When we first met, R didn’t believe for a second that I was a Muslim; I had this skimpy dress on that merely flattened out whatever curves remained in my ectomorphic body. I didn’t have a veil on and spoke without any accent. My peculiar name was the single, albeit tenuous thread to my glorious heritage, frequently inspiring automatic cross references to Abu Sayyaf, Camp Abubakar, and Abubakar Janjalani (we are not related, by the way). For a while, this knowledge immobilized him from taking any drastic and immediate action. But skimpy dresses proved to be too difficult to resist, and almost in no time, R was sitting on my parents’ living room sofa, asking for my hand in marriage, sweat beads rolling down his gently-sloped nose.
“You have to excuse my daughter for her strange behavior,” my father glowered at me. “She grew up here in Manila.”
And my father regaled R with stories about how he’s unlike any Muslim father you’ll ever meet, having studied both the Bible and the Koran, having many Catholic friends, having lived in Manila for so long, and having a decadent urbanite like me for a daughter. He said, back in Sulu, a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim was downright unthinkable. “Our weddings are huge; some last for days. And there are dowries to be made.”
Continue reading No Dowry, No Cry
Ateneo de Davao Writers Workshop 2013
Events by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca | May 22, 2013
The Ateneo de Davao Writers Workshop will be held at Room C301, Ateneo de Davao University from 27-31 May 2013.
Distinguished writers such as Macario Tiu, Don Pagusara and Jhoanna Cruz are the panelists. They will also share their expertise during the craft lectures. Dominique Cimafranca, Rhodora Ranalan and Hazel Hamile, Creative Writing and Literature teachers of the university, will sit as guest panelists.
The fellows for this year’s AdDU Summer Writer’s Workshop are the following:
POETRY
Sarah Samodal
Jhecel May Lovitos
Lionell Marañan
Louie Angelo Lim Ang
Frank Lloyd dela Cruz
FICTION
Jose Martin Castrillo
Tiffany Motilla
Isabel Francesca Sambrano
Abdul Jabbar Marohom
Kristine Soria
NONFICTION
Loreto Estor
Rachelle Corrine Estrellada
June Nicole Olayres
Kristina Clavero
Sean Año
The keynote speaker for this year is a renowned Filipino poet and Professor Merlie M. Alunan from the University of Visayas in Tacloban City, who will also launch a book during the workshop at the Ateneo de Davao University.
The workshop welcomes a number of observers who wish to learn the craft of writing.
The Right Choice
Fiction by Diandra-Ditma A. Macarambon | May 20, 2013
I opened my eyes as I heard the distant crowing of the earliest roosters. It was still dark. I wasn’t sure if I had actually slept, but I got out of bed and stretched. My feet, seeming to have a mind of their own, carried me to the window which I opened to a gust of wind. I breathed in the scent of peace and quiet. It felt like Ramadhan, the peace and quiet. I continued looking into the dark, seeing nothing. I shivered in the cold. I could feel it coming from within my own body. I stood waiting for any sign of the first activities of the day, but it was too early. I decided to go out to the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee before the house stirred. I sipped on my coffee, realizing for the first time, after many years of coffee-drinking, how bad coffee tasted.
I went out to the familiar living room that had been witness to many unforgettable moments. My first big accident, when, running around with my little sister, I hit my head on the sharp corner of the marble-topped table. I’d never seen my parents as anxious and worried as they were at that time. My brothers were in complete shock and my sister in tears as they saw all that blood oozing from my cracked-open head. I felt everyone wanting to trade places with me as each knew how this would upset and anger my father. I was eight years old and I was my father’s favorite.
We were also seated in the same area when we, as one family, talked about and planned my eldest brother’s wedding. And my second brother’s. It was also in this place that my sister and I comforted each other as the news of our father’s untimely death came to shatter the strong wall that we all were leaning on all those years. Before that, we thought we were invincible. We thought we were untouchable. Yes, death has such a cruel way of making one realize that no one is really safe. My father was sure he would live until the age of ninety-eight. He would have done everything by then, he told me. He wanted to make a difference. But he died thirty-five years earlier. And this living room ceased to be a living room.
Book Launch of "Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw"
Events by Dominique Gerald Cimafranca | May 14, 2013
Ateneo de Davao University will host the book launch for Visayan poet Merlie Alunan’s latest collection of poetry, “Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw ug uban pang mga balak”, on May 29 (Wednesday) at its Jacinto Campus.
Alunan, a highly-respected writer in Philippine literary circles, is a professor at the UP College-Tacloban as well as an associate of the UP Institute of Creative Writing. She has received numerous awards for her writing including multiple Palanca Awards, the National Book Award, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, and the Thornton Award, among many others.
“Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw” is Alunan’s fourth book of poetry, and the first written in her mother tongue. The poems in this collection were originally conceived and written in Cebuano, then translated by Alunan herself into English. A few poems have also been translated into Waray. The book is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press.
The launch of “Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw” starts 3:00PM at the F-705 Finster Building of Ateneo de Davao. Davao writers Dr. Macario D. Tiu of the Philippine Women’s College and Nino Soria de Veyra of UP Mindanao will present their reviews of the book. Alunan will be on hand for book signing after the event.
“Pagdakop sa Bulalakaw” retails for P450, but will be available at special discounted price of P400 during the launch.
Friday Night At Famous
Poetry by Chris David Lao | May 13, 2013
The elderly waitress placed before me
a bowl of steaming Gou Maki.
She must’ve thought I would order it
after all those years eating with my Angkong
at Davao Famous Restaurant.
Tonight I took the table facing the entrance.
It has been years since I last ate here but
the noodle soup still tasted the same.
Perfect for tonight’s cold October weather.
Does their cook never die?
Angkong used to bring me here on Fridays
or whenever he had time.
We used to own a small junk shop in Matina.
All day, he would stay there to watch over
or negotiate with clients selling scraps.
Conscious of his hairstyle,
he wouldn’t go out without fixing his hair—
he’d comb his hair forward
and flip it up backwards, creating a pouf
like James Dean’s.
He was a jolly man. Once,
he showed me how to slurp a noodle soup.
I watched him hold his bowl of Maki
with both hands, ready to slurp.
His face fitted nicely in the bowl.
Then he started coughing and coughing hard
his false teeth came off his mouth
and fell into his bowl.
I laughed. But I was quick to pinch my legs.
Lola used to do that to me when I misbehaved.
Hurriedly I brought him a glass of water
to make him feel better.
The same way he woke me up
that night I dreamt of him inside a casket
slowly lowered down the pit.
With my fingers, I combed my hair
styled like James Dean’s in memory of Angkong.
Old enough to pay for it now
I lift this bowl of Maki to my mouth.
Hot soup steam rising, fogging up my glasses.
I slurped it the Angkong way!
_______
Chris David F. Lao recently graduated Magna cum Laude from the BA English Creative Writing program of UP Mindanao.