Category: Nonfiction

Transforming Imagery in Three Poems by Young Davao Writers

Nonfiction by | December 2, 2012

The transforming image is one of the most captivating things about poetry. When a poem transforms one thing into another right before the reader’s eyes, it becomes magical. Such a feat of ingenuity demonstrates the creative genius of the poet-magician.

This poetic element has been central to the poetics of many Filipino poets. It has been argued by many Philippine literary critics that the earliest form of poetry in the Philippines is the riddle, which represents things in fresh, often startlingly unexpected ways to tease the curiosity of the reader or listener. The “teasing of curiosity” lives on today to be the main appeal we get in reading poetry.

The successful execution of transforming imagery involves comparison between two things, and by properly connecting the dynamism of one thing to that of the other. The transforming image may be central to the poem, or may simply be a supporting element in its overall effect. The image may result in fantastic, often semantically deviant language, or it may arise in intended ambiguity.

Today, particularly in Davao, the transforming image is championed by local men of letters such as Don Pagusara and Macario Tiu, and many young writers, picking up from their poetics, also demonstrate this in their poetry.

A look at three particular poems by young Davao poets would reveal a harvest rich in imagination and transforming images.

Continue reading Transforming Imagery in Three Poems by Young Davao Writers

Fragments from/on living a writing life

Nonfiction by | November 4, 2012

Lina Sagaral Reyes was the keynote speaker and special guest panelist to the recently concluded Davao Writers Workshop 2012 held at Lispher Inn last October 15 to 19. The address below was her lecture at the opening of the workshop.

Being with you, a youthful crop of writers grown on the rich soil of Mindanao cultures, I also come home to the Writers Workshop, as a bond of people claiming and reclaiming the right to write.

I come home to the community ritual of writers: for the fellows, a rite of passage; for the panelists, the rite of relaying wisdom (as well as folly?) to the next generation.

It has been a long journey home. This is my first ever workshop in 19 years. The last workshop I attended was held in UP-Baguio in May 1993. On my way home to the island of Bohol via Manila, I hitched a ride on the fellows’ bus to Manila. My seatmate on that transitional ride home was Ricky de Ungria.

But I did not have an inkling that in eight months, I would find myself in the shores of Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte.

Nineteen years later, as early as February this year, it is the same Ricky de Ungria, now like me also a migrant worker on Mindanao, who would ask me to come and join this workshop.

Continue reading Fragments from/on living a writing life

Notes from the Heartland of Pakibato

Nonfiction by | September 23, 2012

20120923-210647.jpgFebruary 2004

Kibalatong is a sitio of Barangay Panialum, Paquibato District. It is a community of Ata Manobo. To get there from Malabog, you have to ride a motorbike for 30 minutes, and then, as there is no road anymore, you have to walk, in my case, for one hour to reach Kibalatong.

There is no electricity in Kibalatong, and while on a visit there in February of 2004, a boy with an empty Tanduay bottle went house to house to ask for kerosene which is commonly called gas. When he came to our hut we learned that the gas he was collecting was for the use of the teachers.
The people who shared some drops of kerosene showed their simple way of supporting the teachers and the school that was built for the indigenous children of the area. I was awestruck that from their own poverty, they were willing to share the little they had for their teachers.

The bottle got half filled and the boy gave us the collected gas which provided us light even more than enough for the night.

Continue reading Notes from the Heartland of Pakibato

Paths

Nonfiction by | June 17, 2012

Paths have a wonderful allure to me; inherent to all things mysterious and unexplored. I always wonder what lies beyond the bend, or where a path would lead.

As a child, I often went with my friends on bike rides that took us to the next barrio, choosing the meandering paths that went past rice fields and coconut groves. I still have the tiny scars on my feet and knees reminding me of the time my brakes failed and I improvised by placing my feet against the front wheel. It took a good while before I got around to fixing the brakes and it did not happen until I had to do it with my ass against the rear tires (unintentionally). I got new brakes after that; and the exploring continued.

I miss the paths of my childhood. The dirt roads, now paved, once took us to the mango trees from where we once thieved. Our slippers rested on the footpaths along the irrigation dikes where we floated the toy boats we had built from scraps. These are long gone now.

Why such memory? I do not grieve for my past; I miss parts of them. Any passage requires the leaving behind of something. And while I do have a few regrets, I must move on.

I think of life as a journey; a path whose length I do not know. I look back and remember sections that had been shady and cool, some were rocky and miserable, some best left forgotten. I see parts of the path that still resound with the joyful echoes of family and friends and some that were achingly silent. I remain convinced life would mostly an uphill climb and that going downhill is both a long way off and a rarity. I look forward and all I see is a bend — I cannot see what lies ahead.

Still, I walk on in wonderment, without trepidation and always with the knowledge both joyful and sobering that this path must somehow end. And when it ends, I must come home. Wherever this road will take me, I am content, for I know that the paths exist because Someone had already trodden ahead of me.

—
Jesse Jay L. Baula was born in Davao City on November 18, 1975 and earned his MD from Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City. He is a resident physician in Digos City.

An Open Letter to Ms. Long Lean Limbs

Nonfiction by | April 29, 2012

Dear Ms. Long Lean Limbs,

Right off the bat, I would like to say that I have this unwavering need to decline your friend request on this social network site that we both subscribe to. For one thing, I have no idea who you are. At the same time, I doubt it very much that you know anything about me at all.

The truth is: before I saw your friend request in my message box, I was living a boring virtual and real life existence. I was actually pretending that the articles I was writing about would somehow change world views and rewrite history, despite the fact that my client had limited my online literary expertise to: how to cure athlete’s foot, and how to avoid smelly armpits, and how to eliminate other yeast-friendly environments on the human body.

Continue reading An Open Letter to Ms. Long Lean Limbs

Davao Belongs to Us All

Nonfiction by | April 15, 2012

A city is like a coin. It has two faces: one shows the head; the other, the tail. The head is what the tourists like. It’s number one in their itinerary. The tail they hardly visit. Or if they happen to visit it at all, perhaps it’s by accident. Maybe they got lost. Maybe it’s a necessary passage, an unavoidable route that they have to take, to get to their actual destination. Either way, it’s out of the plan. Tourists, foreigners, and Filipinos alike, hardly visit a city to see both faces, unless he happens to be a UN Special Rapporteur mandated to gaze at both head and tail.

Davao City is no different. It has two faces. One is beautiful; the other, ugly. One is serene; the other, noisy. One is hospitable; the other, hostile.

Continue reading Davao Belongs to Us All

Wedding Disaster Made in Heaven

Nonfiction by | April 8, 2012

Wedding disasters make the best stories. When perfection is usually the goal, glitches in whatever form make up the bride’s worst nightmares. It all started when we wanted to hold our wedding in Camiguin, an idyllic island province off northern Mindanao. To get there from our hometown of Davao City, one may opt for the 50-minute plane ride or the 10-hour road trip to the port of Cagayan de Oro City from which one takes a 2-hour ferry ride to get to the island. Neither Jun nor I are from Camiguin. Ours is a tumultuous relationship replete with adventure, clashing wills, travels, betrayal, and passion. Thus, when we finally decided to take the plunge into matrimony, this island born of fire beckoned to us because it somehow represented who we are and what we have been through. Camiguin is home to several volcanoes and has remained resilient in the face of destructive eruptions. Jun and I have been to Camiguin once and we were promptly enchanted by its rugged beauty that called to our sense of adventure and love of nature. Plus, such a far-flung venue ensured that only the truly important people in our lives would make the effort to celebrate our sacramental union.

Continue reading Wedding Disaster Made in Heaven

A Mother/Daughter Journey: Connecting Girls at a Time of Risk

Nonfiction by | March 11, 2012

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Month in UP Mindanao is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures.” It is quite an honor for me to have been given this opportunity to deliver the keynote address. Yet, like Adrienne Rich, “I did not choose this subject; it had long ago chosen me” (15). This task has brought me face to face with my own disconnected, alienated girlhood, and forced me to think about how I shaped my futuredespite the betrayal of my mother.

Even though I lived with my mother in our ancestral house in Pasay City until I was 27, I have no fond memories of her. There were no bedtime stories, no lullabies. She was not a source of nurturing or comfort or validation, the way we are socialized to believe mothers should be. She had always been a career woman because my father had left her even before I was born. I always believed that she was simply too busy trying to be a father that she forgot the whole “motherhood” thing. And yet I know now that it was more than that. For how can motherhood be reduced to an algebraic equation? Rich notes that “motherhood is earned, first through an intense physical and psychic rite of passage—pregnancy and childbirth—then through learning to nurture, which does not come by instinct” (12). I remember feeling sorry for myself every time my grandfather told me the story of the first time I ran away from home.

Continue reading A Mother/Daughter Journey: Connecting Girls at a Time of Risk