Ang Kwento Ko

Fiction by | April 3, 2011

Nakilala ko si Cobi noong anim na taong gulang pa lang ako. Kaklase ko siya sa kindergarten at siya ang pinakamalapit sa akin. Bata pa lang ako noon, pero may nararamdaman na akong pagtingin sa kanya. Iyon bang pag di siya nakatingin sa akin ay sa kanya ko pinapako ang mga mata ko. Tapos pag nahuli nya ako ay dinidilaan ko siya sabay sabing “pangeeettt!” Tapos tatawa lang siya. Ganoon kami dati at namimiss ko ang mga pagkakataong iyon kapag walang pasok. Kaya naman parang parusa sa akin noon ang bawat araw ng Sabado at Linggo.

Keychain na sapatos. Oo. Isang keychain na sapatos ang iniabot ko sa kanya sa araw ng paglisan niya. Ibabalot ko sana iyon ng papel pero baka di ko na siya maabutan sa paaralan. Matulin ang takbo ko para lang maihabol ko ang regalong ito na bigay pa sa akin ng nanay ko noong umiyak ako sa palengke para mabili lang ang nakabiting keychain na iyon. Ngumiti siya. Dahan-dahan. At isa pang sandali ay niyakap niya ako at bumulong na ang pangeeett daw ng bigay ko at halatang luma na at may kagat pa ng daga. Iyon lang at bumitaw na siya sa pagkakayakap sa akin.

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Cricket

Poetry by | April 3, 2011

It is evening. Outside,
the sound of a cricket
is more audible
than silence.
It is true:
the saddest thing
in this world is lying
down on bed, alone, listening
to its song,
floating in resonance
with the whimper of wind,
leaves and twigs,
as if having
a language of its own
to speak. There,
now, the darkest
night becoming the bluest.
As if its tone,
single like its syllable,
has many words to teach
about loneliness
that is just
as silent and miserable
as caressing a pillow,
lightly, enough to hold
the weight of tears.

—-
Gino Dolorzo just finished his bachelor’s degree at Xavier University Ateneo de Cagayan.

Dark Heart

Poetry by | April 3, 2011

Flowing,crashing endless black tears
Trappped in uncertain sea of thought
Engulfed by desperation that swirls
In the ocean of reality I fought

Monochrome heart is what I see
This heart that beats eternally
Is the heart that mourns in me
And keeps on beating insanely

Unequal share of despair
Burns inside, under my skin
Like a foul smell in the open air
Spreading in my vein worn thin

This body locked up in chains
Will soon love its sweetest pain
Buried deeply within its veins
Bitter compassion all of it to gain.

—
Hannah Jennica Ello is a sophomore ABENG student of MSU-IIT.

Because Krip Yuson Is Just Too Cool To Approach

Nonfiction by | March 27, 2011

When I first heard that Alfred ” Krip” Yuson would be attending the 3rd Taboan Writers Festival, I knew I just had to meet him. Undeniable as this urge may have been, it was also unexplainable and that made it rather awkward. I needed an excuse for going up to him. And then it came: Mr. Cimafranca, our Creative Writing teacher told us that our midterm examination would be to “attach” ourselves to one of the Delegates in the Festival and write about him or her.

I first encountered the Krip Yuson brand when I read a haiku he wrote that appeared in our Literature book. I was in first year college, and though I had been writing earlier than that, that was my first exposure to the Philippine literary scene. The haiku went:

Is Galman the one?
or are there two, maybe three?
each day, brief to grief.

That haiku fascinated me even though I didn’t understand it. When I dug into its background, I couldn’t help reading about the poet as well.

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Kalingkawasan, Katitikan, Katilingban: Ang lamdaman sa akong dagang

Nonfiction by | March 20, 2011

PASIUNA
Sa nagpurol pa ko, gimatuto kos akong mga ginikanan sa pagpangayog katahoran kang bisan kinsa nga akong ikahibalag sa dalan. Busa sugo sa maayong pamatasan, Maayong palis kanatong tanan.

Sa matag tapok-tapok, anaa gayod ang hudyaka. Ug mas lanog ang dahunog sa hudyaka kon mga alagad na sa arte ang magkatapok. Bililhon ang matag gutlo sa kalibotan sa mga alagad sa arte. Panagsa ra ang bakante. Kanunay silang nagpulaw sa pagsulat og balak, sugilanon, nobela. Busa kon sila na ang magkatapok, wa gyoy pugong-pugong. Ug salamat sa komite nga gitahasan niini nga panagtapok sa ilang pagdapit kanako isip delegado ning maong Taboan.

Karong hapona, akong ipaambit kaninyo ang akong kasinatian samtang nagsubay sa dalan sa akong dagang.

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Ang Taboan Writers Festival 2011 at ang manunulat na Higaonon/lumad

Nonfiction by | March 13, 2011

Ang Taboan Writers Festival 2011 ang pangalawang pagkakataon kung saan narinig ang naratibong Higaonon/lumad sa isang uri ng pagtitipong may pambansang malawakang saklaw. Ang pakikibahagi ko sa ganoong uri ng pagtitipon ay bahagi ng panimulang artikulasyon ng Higaonon/lumad, sa larangan ng panitikan, sa naratibong kaakibat ng kanyang pag-iral sa panig na ito ng sansinukob.

Isang magandang pagsalubong ng taon ang pagbibigay-diin sa panitikang lumad sa Taboan 2011 nitong nakaraang Pebrero 10-12. Tinitingnan ko ito bilang isang palatandaan na kahit pa sa gitna ng lahat na di kanais-nais na nangyari at nangyayari sa mga tribung lumad, hindi mababalaho sa ganoong kalagayan ang pakikisangkot ng lumad sa paghuhubog ng pambansang naratibo. Bagaman sa aktuwal na kumperensiya’y iisa lamang yata akong kumatawan sa panitikang lumad.

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Language and Literature: Imagination’s Way

Nonfiction by | March 5, 2011

  1. Any written work is text. “Text” is from Latin texere, textus, “to weave.” So then, to write is to weave language anew, and all we read and unravel is a word-weave, a text-tale.

The text is not so much written in a historical language, like English or Tagalog, as wrought from language. For the writer, the language is not a given. In every instance of writing, language is re-woven, reinvented, because the writer must find his own path through the wilderness of language. Our thoughts and feeling without our words are like brambles – the underbrush of the human psyche, dream and intuition.

To write is to breathe life into language. For the words of any language are single and bereft in the dead sea of the language’s dictionary. No meaningfulness arises from there, from that dead sea, because the meanings of words do not arise from themselves, but from lives lived. The words come to life only when writer or reader light them up with their imagination – then, and only then, are the words brought into interplay in some order by which a thought or feeling, a human experience, is endowed with a definite form. From there – that form made up wholly of elected words, that configuration of a human experience constructed with words – a meaningfulness arises, from reader to reader, from critic to critic, each one drawing imaginatively from his/her experience of the world in his/her own community of a shared ideology.

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Most Things

Poetry by | February 27, 2011

Among other things that fill my day is poetry
But among most things in poetry; it is love
Many speak of emptiness, brokenness, tears and hate
While some dripping with lust; conjuring contours of bodies in friction
And many, long for the distant lover
Some, lovers in the distance
Like a bargain sale of love poems
Pick your choice, match your experience, hurt yourself
So you take a breath, you step back

And all around, it is like Love, littered.

—-
Fritz is a graduate of AdDU with BA in Psychology and minor in Philosophy.