Johnny Luna and his Revolver

A few days ago someone asked me "what [my] new book, Johnny Luna's Revolver", was about. I had to smile at that hipster-sounding rendition...

Here is a link to a little interview/feature which Heather Weddington did for Altdaily.com during the week-long ODU Literary Festival this year; and a link to the University of Notre Dame Press and its catalog listing of Juan Luna's Revolver.

"Why Believe?" / Themed issue at Zine: Sunday Salon

Thanks to Nita Noveno and the staff of Sunday Salon for dedicating part of their themed issue to the victims of typhoons and landslides in the Baguio-Cordillera region in the Philippines.

Please visit the current issue to check out their editorial, various features, stories, and poetry.

Why Glibness Should Not Be the New Sexy

I'm in between errands as usual but I wanted to quickly post (or re-post) this entry which originally appeared on my facebook wall a few hours ago, because I don't want to forget. In any case, it has to do with how on late night tv last night, I saw the new Levis commercial appropriating two Walt Whitman poems ("America" and "O Pioneers").

Though the cinematography might be engaging, I wonder what those images really have to do with the sentiments and ideas in the poem; I thought that here was, once again, a fine example of poetry (or the arts) valued only if it can be manipulated in service of the capitalist machine.

While some argue that I should be cheering that poetry is getting popularized in this manner, and while I agree that it would be wonderful to see more poetry in all aspects of our daily lives-- Whitman on the bus, Emerson tweeting at me from my cellphone, Emma Lazarus in my dim sum fortune cookie-- I'm still bothered by this commercial. Especially since it is sponsored by such an "industry giant" aka an entity that has the big bucks to make a dent-- and yet in the end it's gone with images which at best glibly communicate/translate those ringing idea(l)s in the poem.

Sure, the images of young firebrands jumping and running through green forests and fields, kissing passionately as they seize the moment, streaking down an unidentified riverfront bearing a flaming branch, are rousing and pulse-quickening. But, I don't know-- having so much collective suffering in the news lately (floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, not to mention those good old standbys, poverty, racism, unemployment, war) makes me catch my breath at the... how shall I put it? ... impertinence of the ad as in the final shot our young and brave and daring youth dash off into the horizon, bearing that "Go Forth" banner which barely covers their naked bums.

I've been reading so many stories over the last two weeks, of young people doing good and even heroic things from the ground up, in the face of and despite the apparent obstacles presented by that lethal combination of natural calamities and disasters coupled with bureaucratic roadblocks.

A 21 year old girl sourced 45,000 toothbrushes to donate to flood victims, unpacked and reloaded a bus full of clothing for redistribution, started a soup kitchen, and got other volunteers together, all in one day. We hear of similar feats taken up by the young in the midst of the horrors of our own hurricane Katrina stories, in the midst of distant wars, even in our own neighborhoods. That Levis commercial also does these young people an injustice.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more take up the challenge of a radical progression that is truly forward looking in that it does not think it unfashionable to take and learn from the past. I too love it when new media makes it possible for us to become excited all over again about the classics, about things we thought we'd already read before.

But there has got to be a relevant connection, or they're merely blanks (let's hope they don't actually *hurt* anyone) fired into empty space.

Brother Will, what was that you said about the sound and the fury?

ODU's MFA Creative Writing Program / Writers in Community Featured in Suffolk News Herald

Writers in Community (WinC) is one of the great program features of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University.

Fueled by the initiative, passion, and creative ideas of our students, WinC seeks to bring creative writing opportunities into diverse parts of the local community.

This year, we have another great line-up of WinC program events to watch out for, under the able directorship of Mary Westbrook (third year MFA, fiction concentration).

Here is a sample of what we do-- as featured in a recent issue of the Suffolk News Herald.

AGORA September 2009 issue

Mil gracias to John Kilgore at Eastern Illinois University, for publishing this selection of works in the September 2009 "Visitors Issue" of AGORA

John writes: "The latest issue of AGORA, the English Department’s online journal, is... dedicated to visiting writers who have been guests of EIU during the past year[;] the issue features fiction by celebrated novelist and Eastern alumnus Lee Martin; poetry by Luisa Igloria, Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University, who shares generous selections from her award-winning volume JUAN LUNA'S REVOLVER; winsome prose poems by Lissa McLaughlin, honoring the fifty states; and a touching memoir by our own Daiva Markelis.

09.16.09: Noah Renn on NewVerseNews Today!

Kudos this early morning to our very own Noah Renn, second year MFA student (poetry concentration, of course), whose poem appears in today's edition of NewVerseNews. Noah is a homegrown Norfolk boy who is doing good things with his poetry. Like the other poets in our program, he has begun publishing his work and has had acceptances in journals like North Central Review, Blue Collar Review and others. Noah is doing some teaching for us this year, and is doting father to an adorable one and a half year old named Carmen.

Another of our poets doing good things out there is Eddie Dowe, who has had two poems accepted at Shape of a Box, touted as the first literary journal on YouTube. Eddie is a third year MFA poetry student, and an English and Creative Writing Teacher at Granby High School; he will be helping our Writers in Community Director Mary Westbrook run some workshops this year.

The First Annual NARRATIVE Poetry Contest - Winners and Finalists Announced

Thanks to Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian at NARRATIVE, for the early bird news on the Winners and Finalists in their first annual Narrative Poetry Contest.

The winning and finalist poems will appear in October (soon)!

I'm elated to have three poems selected as one of the Finalists - including "Recycling History," a poem triggered by this news article I chanced across then - about how bandits had supposedly broken into Trotsky's mausoleum in Mexico, stolen his ashes and baked them into cookies which they thereafter sent round to Trotskyites around the world... Later I think it was found to be a hoax, but I don't care, the story was just too fantastic and too irresistible!

I began working on the poem that became "Recycling History" in a cafe in Somerville, MA over crepes and coffee (ha ha, how appropriate is that), when I visited writer-friends Grace Talusan and Kathleen Joaquin Burkhalter in late April en route to the 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival...

Stay tuned for the issue in which the winning and finalist poems will appear!

(Now, if only someone would reel in my new manuscript...)

The Self Portraits Issue is now Live at O&S (Poets & Artists)!

Artist-Publisher-Poet-Editor Didi Menendez announces that the Self-Portraits Issue is now live at Oranges & Sardines (Poets & Artists) -- please check it out and spread the good word! (I also have a poem on page 15.) Feel free to tweet, embed on your blogs, share with your networks...

Craving Touch

Was my pillow too high, too hard, too soft; did I shift my head one night in my sleep to an uncomfortable position; did I catch a too-cold draft from the air vent? Whatever the reason, I woke up one morning around a week ago with a stiff neck, and exquisitely painful muscles in my upper back (especially on the left side). Warming liniments and Salonpas wrappers did not help, and neither did standing five more minutes under the hot shower spray. I could barely turn my head when I was backing the car out of the driveway. The funny thing was, too, that going to bed at night and lying prone on my back seemed to increase the pain. Getting up in the morning has also been excruciating. Pulled muscles? Just "getting old"? Whatever. Sleep is supposed to be restorative and relaxing, right? But I have not had a night of pain-free rest for a whole week, and I suddenly found myself longing for the ministrations of the local hilot from our old neighborhood in Baguio.

Hilots are local herbalists or curanderas (usually, or at least in my experience, they are women) -- they dispense what we now call massage or touch therapy; diagnose and minister to sprains, arthritic ailments, headaches and general body pains; administer herbal concoctions for relief of an assortment of minor ills (or even simply for "aesthetic" purposes - fragrant hair washes, coconut oil balms and lotions); even act as able midwives. And they listen to whatever you might wish to unburden, as they work their fingers through the roots of your hair and run circles on your scalp, on your temples, down your neck and aching back...

Every so often, our favorite hilot would come to do "home service" for anyone in the family (including friends or relatives) who wished to avail of the healing magic of her hands. The event was anticipated with excitement: preparations included making sure there was enough hot coffee, snacks and a hot midday meal for all, especially the hilot. She arrived after breakfast with her flasks of coconut oil and herbal emulsions, her long hair tied up in a businesslike bun. Our favorite hilot, however, had one vice which we (being non-smokers all) had to tolerate -- she liked those thin brown cigarillos, and even if out of deference she tried to smoke only in between "clients", she liked to hold it loosely clamped in one corner of her mouth as she worked. She learned her trade from her mother, who probably learned it from some other woman in the family, and so on up that line.

I first enjoyed the "whole body" hilot as a young mother, after my older daughters were born. Stretch marks are also a specialty with hilots-- they claim that without the liberal and frequent application of coconut oil and massages to the midsection after childbirth, those stretch marks will in all probability become more pronounced as the body matures. As she worked on our backs, our arms, legs, and feet with warm coconut oil, she often interrupted her kneading with little diagnostic comments-- she would say, for instance, here, your muscles are all tied up in knots, or, your muscles are giving off a cold energy, have you been having problems with your kidneys? How she intuited these things I will never know, but after her vigorous pummeling in all the right places, I always felt wonderfully limp and relaxed, and somehow restored to a sense of physical balance. She would go away at around three in the afternoon, after having shared the midday meal with us; and often she would accept only a pittance in terms of a cash payment, but would agree to gifts of food or clothing.

There is no hilot I could consult for treatment of my sore neck and upper back, and so I betook myself to the local mall, where just a few weeks ago I saw, behind the second floor Starbucks and diagonally across from the Lindt chocolate store, a Chinese acupressure/reflexology/massage therapy store had just opened up. I'd tried their two-minute trial massage on the day they opened when fortuitously I was there with a friend while we waited for our daughters to come out of the movies, celebrating another little friend's birthday. And that two-minute massage immediately brought back memories of the hilot touch that I craved.

I went back two days later for a ten-minute massage, which I thought was a little bit of heaven -- and their spare arrangements (no bells and whistles, no flickering mood lights on the walls, no scented terry towels or head wraps thank you) suited me just fine, because it was the massage that, quite literally, hit the spot. While they're not the hilot of my childhood, my muscles knew that these guys knew what they were doing -- no namby-pamby massage, this, but deep tissue work that targetted those pressure points that suddenly released the pain and kinks.

Well then - this afternoon, determined to do something about this five-day neck and upper back pain, I returned to the accupressure place. I was going to do only ten minutes, but towards the end of that session, my masseur said something like, Madam, your muscles are still as hard as planks and that he respectfully recommended at the very least ten minutes more. It wasn't hard for me to be persuaded, because of all the pain I've been feeling of late. So I lay face down once again on the massage table, trying my best to relax every pore of my body while the fingers went to work on those pressure points, one side first, then the other. At the end of the session I was given a little cup of water and encouraged to drink some more in the next few hours. Walking to the bookstore to rejoin my family who were waiting for me at the cafe, the only thing I could think of was wanting to lie down immediately for a nap -- which I did as soon as we returned home -- which is not typical of me, as I'm that type of person who can't keep still and has to look for something "useful" to do all the time...

Here I am then seven hours after said twenty minute deep muscle massage, martini'd and napped and fed, and rejoicing that I.Can.Turn.My.Neck.Right.And.Left.Now.Without.That.Frickin'.Pain!!! Hurrah!

TWO REVIEW - Call for Entries to Poetry Contest

The very nice editors at TWO REVIEW, an Alaska-based literary journal, have asked to help spread the news about their2009 Poetry Contest judged by Iranian-American poet Sholeh Wolpe. The new deadline is 30 September 2009. Go to it, poets!

Joyous as a Zero, Potent with a Sense of Beginnings

Last night, we watched on live streaming video the funeral rites for Philippine president Corazon C. Aquino ... the outpouring of grief and love, the procession through rain and confetti, the millions of people who lined the streets. Our friends in the Philippine media have been talking for weeks and months now, about the growing portents in the air, the signs of upheaval and change, as the people express their searing dissatisfaction with the current regime of Gloria M. Arroyo.

My friend Meg wrote about her Jin Shin Jyutsu reading of the numbers corresponding to Cory's death, in the context of these historically heady times, for the Philippines: "Cory died on 1-8-2009. 1 is the Prime Mover. It connects extreme heights with extreme depths. 8 means Rhythm, Strength and Peace; 1 + 8 = 99 which signifies the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. In every end is the seed of a fresh beginning. 1+8+2+9 = 20. 20 is a 2 (we don't count the 0s) and 2 is the Life Force for all creatures. 2 is Wisdom. When you look at 1 and 8, Cory was exactly all those things during her time on earth. I pray that her death marks a new beginning (9) for all Filipinos. May we finally use our hard-won wisdom (2) gleaned from past mistakes to make the right political, social and spiritual decisions today. Unless we take the actions to apply the life force that was Cory's legacy to everyone, our nation's future doesn't stand a chance."

***

Sharing here excerpted sections from the epic/long poem ~

Songs for the Beginning of the Millennium
by Luisa A. Igloria
(previously published as Maria Luisa Aguilar/Maria Luisa Aguilar Carino)
Manila, De La Salle University Press, 1999.

17
___________________________

In the land of the headhunters the trip north
was made in the dry season when the sea
was quiet along the coast
Before this we had seen them
through our field glasses Where we lay
in the bleached grass the trail
was visible They came to dip
fish baskets in the water
while the children dug for mollusks
I saw one touch the husk of a star-
fish to her cheek trailing a fine
stream of sand It was a gesture
both touching and nostalgic
making one wonder if after all
they were capable of beauty
which reminds me of their bodies
and lips Oil-dark and dwarfish Broad
nostrils deflating with each
breath and the exertions they made

Our experts say they ornament
their bodies with the dyed points
of sharp quills or sticks Others
make wounds with strips of bamboo
rubbing dirt to raise large welts
From a distance these have
the appearance of ridges Reptilian
scales Motifs repeated in rows of two
and three stippled with faint
yellow or blood-crusts Women
tattoo only the arms How is it not
possible to believe what’s written
of them So we follow close a guide
into the villages Days later we wake
with the sound of gongs beating through
damp earth and our bellies This means
either a wedding or a funeral which can take
months A woman’s corpse propped
against the doorway of her house Leaves
burn Clouds pour smoke caught in the skin’s
dark tissue All of which can mean
war a hunting party to retrieve heads
for vengeance such as these strung on the house-
posts beside skulls of carabao and small
animals We fall asleep clutching our rifles
lulled by fog filling crevices of rock
and pine I wake drenched in cold
sweat and moonlight dreaming
my body encased in death blankets
Their borders circled by lizards
from latticed neck to hem

18
___________________________

In the continuity of voids, the desire was to track
a path from the eastern mountains, from the capes
through prairies, through hills and yawning canyons

stretched as a wide swath onward to the farthest
outposts. Green chains of islands, rebellious horizons
now always leagues before the traveling sun

so that there would be no intervening
moment of darkness, only a trail reminiscent
of blood upon the waters. Here is a man

inscribed within a circle within a square,
composing orderly cubits of desire: a geometry
of erected space, rendering the world and its orbits

chosen and transparent-- yellow lines to mark borders,
blue for rivers; red for highways and new railroads.
Place names adhering to parchment. Magnetic,

leaping like obedient fish into the hands of the namer--
He who had been granted another night forestalled
into what was to be a narrative of eternal fatality.


19
___________________________

In the predawn stillness of a city nearly overtaken
by slumber, I hear on the asphalt the sound of hooves,
the circlet of a revolving wheel. It is a sound

swollen with the richness of texture, married to the curved
handrail and peeling paint of its carriage, to the limping horse
whose flanks heave like a bellows, whose head inclines

with such longing in the direction of water. The river--
somewhere, uncoiling its length and giving up its dead
and dying to the moon: the colorless roots, the grey-washed

bodies that continue to bear witness in clear
strokes through the obliteration of their lips
and eyes. Like history, the river accommodates,

parting its waters with the slightest
of ripples-- like a sigh, admitting the large weights
and small inscriptions: all, into its limbic heart.

20
___________________________

In the Bardo thos grol, the death of the body
is not a true event. Flesh dissolves as soil
loosened by moisture, its bruises clearing

like smoke changed into wind, or torrents.
This is not to say that we forget-- think
of those numberless bodies fallen into the clefts

of a field wet with rain and moss, their temples
crossed with bands of red, the sixfold knot
of the vulnerable heart armored in amulets,

unravelling from crimson into imminence.
In that war alone, how many beings crossed
the river of consciousness, forded the passageways

between-- leaping from hinge to hinge, mirage
to mirage, from pain of bayonet thrust or volley
of lead, to clear candle flame and moonlit sky?

From the rude floors of huts, those who can raise
neither hope nor complaint perform the miracle
of daily awakening. A pulley hoists into air

a rectangle of cloth with intersecting
planes of color-- the clear blue and fluorescent
yellow, a white field edged with its triumvirate of stars

and gold corona; the red, a plain soaked in blood
to signify life that has ebbed away, and life
yet to come. How else might we explain the daily

acrobatics of survival? The worker suspended
a hundred feet above the avenue on scaffolds
of threaded bamboo, the child stitching her way

through traffic with an offering of garlands and scent.
An Ibaloi in drab pantaloons blinks at a busy
intersection in the city, stretching out a hand;

he walks, lost warrior, between cars’ rolled-up windows
as if protected by the braided bachelor’s cap and its one
jaunty decoration, a rooster’s feather-- as if the dream

of mountains could sustain him in the searing heat
and these refusals, returning only his beggared
image in the glass. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, he

is still the surer voyager among us.
Having known another time when the earth
could not be held by drawn limits on paper,

his feet trust better the nimbus of dust
raised around his ankles, the anthem
of air delivered in the clear, cold night

under naked stars. Meanwhile, in the glittering
domes of malls or airport terminals, an arsenal
of taut bodies tests visions of the future. Flight

is a moving staircase, a cocoon of glass
lit with reflecting mirrors. Here, it is said,
the edges of continents have already begun to blur,

like bodies merging into a sea of fluids, in-
distinguishable sex, the armament of markets,
politics, intrigue. Walls bounce images and sounds

from every possible direction. Music pulses to crescendo
levels; persistent heartbeats envelope the moving body,
detached flaneur in space-- visceral rhythms, silencing

all speech except desire. The line spirals outward,
escaping limits. Laid out from end to end, the stone
terraces of Banaue would circle half the earth.

Think of a line of dancers balanced
on this rim, arms held out against an expanse of sky.
In this dream they dance like the Fool in the tarot pack,

perhaps naively courting disaster, but bravely ornamented--
joyous as a zero, potent with a sense of beginnings.
What does it matter that in that old hollow, a century

below this ledge where we are perched--
on the green esplanade, on the floor
of the meadow-- municipal buildings rose,

a street cut through the axis of known north
and south? A center where the public arts
could flourish, parks dividing the natural

elements for pleasure and recreation, fanning out
in pleasing motifs. By then the wilderness
was considered kept at bay. There, a trading post

and bakery; there, a telegraph office. On elevated
land, decorous halls and courtrooms in the shadow
of the Governor’s Mountain. On promontories,

barracks and military outposts. But first
came the work of clearing according to the Plan:
pasturelands consolidated, ownership verified

according to clear measures and titles.
Cowpaths rerouted, villages rezoned and classified,
as hygiene dictated was “only natural”. Above all,

in the visual field, an erasure of all
possible contaminants, their relegation
to the fringes: huts, troughs, unruly

and domesticated animals.
Where the line ends in the middle of the sea,
at the turning of an age, at the crossing

of destinies-- what does a body do with so much
history behind it, with so much and yet so little
space, with the gift of ruins and the lost chests of

hammered wood and precious mother-of-pearl
containing all that one had loved in this
life and wished to take to the next? The heart

knows no other recourse: it opens its face to the wind,
like a wound, like a cup, like a thing that lives
the endurance of the fallen; that rises up, that waits

like the stones on the road which are most
abundant in repose, which seem to alter
nothing in the landscape, but un-

tutored yield their hearts: acknowledging the slow
labor, the utter brutality of light, especially in its
apparent absence--


21
___________________________

-- and so it is that in darkness,
something bleeds besides the heart plunging fully
into its fall. Physics teaches that a falling

body should not feel its weight. Careen into the wind, then,
tilt the balance of the universe. Be brazen. Cry,
Revolution! like the lamp in that final chapter,

the one that should have lit up all Binondo and the world,
had remorse and love, the smaller concerns of familiar life,
not intervened. I am not saying these

are not important-- they are all
we have: the firefly flicker at windowpane, the warmth
of soup and blankets; the birth in the shanty, the lovers sighing

into each other’s hair by the docks. A coin
has no measure for any length of loss or waiting,
nor for the sweetness of water in the shallows,

the pails of shellfish gathered by hand
and opening upon a bed of rice like petals. The moon
rose once over Syquijor and I thought it was the sun

setting in reverse, abundance of gold and saffron yellow--
like witchcraft taking back the edict of night.
If I followed that sun, if I refused the order

to interpret the world as it appears-- if I implode
my body on the space of what is given--
Revolution: tilt of the heart and gut,

complex spill of desire. Do we endure the world,
or do we speed up the motion of the centuries?
Impermanent sphere, platform of being,

this country a few solemn specks whirling
in the indifferent sea. Typhoon country, monsoon
land, hieroglyph of disorder and pestilence.

I want to write a tarot of your brilliance, your chaos,
your pain and possibility. If we could engineer
more moments of rupture, perhaps the clock

would bring us nearer again that portal we approached
in those years heady with oaths and gunpowder,
vermilioned with the blood and daring of heroines,

the amazement of men and women who could love
a reality still unknown, beyond the visible.
The millennium nears. We count the stars;

tenderly we kiss, make violent love, traffic in bodies
and goods. The land gives warnings. It knows
the orbit of the world cannot sustain its course

without a test of passage. It was done before.
It will happen again. Look at our young
preparing for that world. How they take

of man and woman, of beast and saint;
how they smear their mouths with knowledge
of the world and whimper in the islands of sleep

for that reed hammock lost in the mists of the dreaming
sea. We marvel at their armor, ardor as hard as flint in their eyes,
bodies that know too much, voices cobbling song from among the ruins--

alloy melted from this world that will make them
whoever they need to be in their time of reckoning,
lit by surreal fire and pestilential omens, fevered

with dreams, otherwise as fierce as ours. The ocean
of suffering takes our sacrifices, sends
its in-rolling waves to quench our lit

fires-- What is the size of the heart? Only
a handful of earth. How can it keep all the names
and keepsakes of our small and breakable lives?

22
___________________________

Country of ephemera,
multifarious sea of longings.
Starving moment sating itself

to the point of annihilation.
Passionate tunnel leading to the heart
that I seek like a wounded animal tired

of hunting in the dark. Woman with flowers
wound through her hair and wounding
her painted cheeks, wandering the cities

of my youth. Universe of impenetrable
ciphers, body of embraces upon whose bed
we are irrevocably impaled. Centennial of desire,

you raise us to mad running, racing
full tilt through the hills with lit
torches; you string us, helpless, like flowers

before armies and tanks. You tap
on the cynical heart at dawn
with unexpected presents: the pure

blue of a mountain edged with fire;
light as clear as the inside of a prism;
a spoonful of melted ice drenched

in the sweetness of sampaguita,
so even the inside of my mouth becomes
a chapel where I can begin to praise you.

In a town in Samar, the people wait for the return
of a bell taken from their church tower. A man
enacts his private Golgotha each Lenten Friday, seeking

the father who abandoned him in this desert. A woman
has her palms pierced with five-inch nails because
a dream of Christ has entered her body. Breakable

vessels, signatures of terra cotta lined up on the path--
surely, the universe writes a numerology
of justice? At the mouth of the bay, the city

repeats itself and spins its webs of steel
and glass. The sea pleats and unpleats
its eternal syllable. The fish lie in nets,

stunned by explosions. The horizon bears,
each day, the weight of those who impel
their bodies through surrounding space.

What music was it that drew La China
Poblana, Filipina-turned-curandera,
to that galleon that left Manila for New

Mexico? In a hotel bathroom in Chiang
Mai, from a port in Amsterdam; in a hospital
ward in L.A., or a university square

in Tokyo; in a factory yard
in Cainta, a Western
Country Music Palace in Baguio--

one night, they may see a star falling
to earth, and feel something stir in the ashes:
echo of phoenix-feathers, the sound of long-

locked portals grating open, the intense
longing to call aloud to all the unknown
parts of this dormant body extending

across the water-- from the tallow
of these wretched bones and fingers,
to the hollow of these broken

and reassembled ribs of dreams;
the stubborn molecules residing in the thighs
and groin, the bronze-dusted breasts; the length

of arms that have known the unbearable
ache of drought and the exquisite
dilemmas of fulfillment-- the shape of a heel

and the longing in the arch of a calf forever
imprinted in leather, the way a fossil witnesses
to the responsible nature of salt and rock: white

wound of leaf, abandoned carapace of garden
snail, mute halos of lichen encircling
the places where pillows of lahar dust

hide the absolute disintegration of bones,
a kitchen sink, a cistern, a single
guava tree whose green flesh and fruits

become entombed in memory.

***

It is Always Time

"A butterfly poised on a tender orchid--
How sweetly the incense
burns on its wings."

( ~ Matsuo Basho, from The Narrow Road to the Deep North)




Eleven years ago on a rainy Friday evening in mid-June, with the kind of rain that the monsoon season brings to certain countries in Asia: after a spell of truly bad weather, a wake of harmless, if monotonous pelting against a backgrop of petulant gray that lingered for days, even weeks, on end. Like a reminder, in case we'd forgotten, that we have little claim on the larger authorship of things and that there is always a little more to endure. I had been waiting in my obstetrician friend Alicia's clinic for her to finish with work so we could have coffee and maybe an early dinner somewhere nearby. We were getting ready to leave the building when her secretary, just about to call it a day herself, poked her head round the door to say that one of Alicia’s patients had just been admitted, and was now being prepared for the delivery room. Alicia called the nurses’ station without delay, and after listening intently to the report on her patient’s condition, told me, “Do you want to wait? I don’t think this will take very long. This patient is almost there, and she doesn’t have a problematic history.” I had nothing else to do, and so I sat back to read a book while Alicia went off to help her patient bring her third child into the world.

Barely ten minutes later, however, Alicia was back, motioning for me to follow her quickly. “No, no, don’t bring your things yet,” she said, locking the door behind us and leading the way down the corridors. Her eyes twinkled. “Do you want to come in with me?” she asked. “It’s all right, it looks like it’s going to be a normal delivery. Just put on a cap, mask, gown, and clean slippers before coming into the room. You’ll stand off to one side, and observe. Doctor Luisa,” she teased as an afterthought. I hurried to keep up with her, and had no time to formulate a retort about my being medically serviceable only insofar as dispensing aspirin, chicken soup, and band-aids. Alicia had already whisked on her own cap, face mask, and gown; she disappeared into the next room and soon was scrubbed and gloved. I followed with as much alacrity and we stepped into the tiled birth chamber flooded with light. Very deliberately, I kept my hands behind me.

Everyone in the room was focused on the woman lying on the delivery table, her legs in place in the stirrups and her belly draped with sterile cloths. Alicia alluded to my presence in the room; save for the quick acknowledgment of eyes above face masks or nods in my direction, my being there was largely unremarked upon. Alicia moved toward her patient and asked her how she was feeling, as she measured for dilation. The woman took deep breaths that rose and caught; she moaned a little as she crested the peaks of her contractions and fought to go with the pain. The anesthesiologist and the nurses stood at the ready, checking heart rate and blood pressure and the fetal monitors, coaching her on. I must have stood some two meters beyond this circle of activity, but well in view of the birth in progress. The nurses— all were women in that room— washed the perineal area with sterile water. Not long after this, the baby’s head crowned; Alicia gently loosened its shoulders, and a ribbon of blood and fluids spilled over the edge of the table. A cry, then Alicia and the nurses announced the new daughter’s arrival to her mother. I remember thinking, I have been in that place, too. I know how it feels, like running a marathon, climbing a mountain, feeling your body and whole being, participate in an event so focused, so singular and momentous that there does not seem to be any preparation nor language adequate enough for it.

*

The other gift that I received that afternoon was a glimpse of what it’s like to be designated doctor, or midwife, or otherwise official welcomer of that new life. Alicia stood there, the countenance of calm and patience, finishing up other tasks as the baby was cleaned and weighed, clasped to her mother’s breast, then carried to the nursery. Among other things, there was the afterbirth to deliver, the episiotomy to sew. By this time the exhausted mother was drifting off to sleep. Talk in the delivery room became more relaxed, unhurried. Someone said, “I’m glad this rain is finally letting up.” It seemed a few minutes before someone else took up the thread in assent. Despite the prosaic sound of these exchanges, nevertheless there was the palpable sense of the extraordinary that lingered in the room. One might argue it may only have been the fitful light at the window, the clarity of rain on the slick surface of leaves, but I thought it was because a soul had made a crossing into this world and we had recognized it, marveled at its naked cry, witnessed its envelope of flesh and bones fill with breath. Alicia asked for a certain size suture and sewed, sure of her movements.

I remember thinking, What if something goes wrong as it so often can? What must it feel like to hold such trust and responsibility and yet know that such is never one’s own to ordain any which way? How vulnerable the gift, on both sides of the table. Once, when my family and I were vacationing at our friends’ home in the midwest, we glimpsed a deer that had just given birth in the shade; in the space of a quarter of an hour, the new fawn, still damp and spindle-legged, had wobbled to its feet. Flies swarmed overhead, bottle-green and strangely iridescent. The fawn’s mother lay quietly licking the last traces of the afterbirth, performing instinctively this ritual to keep predators away from the smell of blood, the smell of vulnerable life. What I saw, I knew I too would do in equivalence, for my own.

Today my family—or part of my family—resides in a city on the eastern seaboard of the United States. We are surrounded by water, and because we are immigrants we are reminded by the sight of tall ships that constantly come and go in the bay, that our origins are elsewhere. Like other contemporary nomads, our living arrangements depend on a host of complex factors—where we can find work, where we can afford to rent an apartment, whether or not we will be considered suitable tenants, how far away we can live from where we work and where the children go to school so we can carefully time our movements during the day to make sure everyone can be at where he or she needs to be. We have become part of that community of exiles that is sometimes referred to as the “Filipino diaspora”. More than any ability to claim completely free choice (for that implies the easy procurement of passports and visas, which is what I suppose people mean when they declare that they are “citizens of the world”), we have wound up here mostly by dint of circumstance. Often, I wonder at the events that have led me and two of my three daughters from a previous marriage, here; I think of my eldest daughter who yet remains in the Philippines, who has also had to make her own way in the absence of that model they call the traditional family; and of my husband who has had to embrace the reality of a “blended” family when he chose to walk with me. And then I think of the newest member of our family, another daughter, our eight-year-old, born in America; of how we are teaching her the names for some things in another language that she will possibly recognize only as foreign.

How much of any of this was accident, pure chance; how much was preordained so we could claim the comfort of foreknowledge? In my native Ilocano, there is a truth that the elders like to say: “Saan a maymaysa iti aldaw” – meaning, Today is not just today; in other words, there are more than the obvious reasons for why things happen the way they do. In other words, what happens today may only be the conclusion of some other mechanism that was already set in motion, invisible gears locking into place even before the manifestation of an event. In other words, time is an illusion; everything acquires the significance of a particle that throbs with the combined energies of other particles in a larger electrical field of relations and possibilities.

*

Nineteen years ago, on an overcast Monday afternoon in the middle of July, two earthquakes registering 8.8 on the Richter scale struck our home city in the northern part of the Philippines. They came in quick succession, making the earth heave like an animal provoked. The earth’s paroxysms leveled buildings, shattered glass, reduced the work of days, months, years, to powder and rubble. Nails were wrenched out of woodwork, grand pianos swung from one end of a hall to the other; china cabinets splintered into several pieces, but sometimes one came upon a wine glass or dainty teacup, whole and unharmed. Hotels with graceful terraced balconies flattened like paper fans, trapping hundreds of people underneath; the stories tell that in the weeks that followed, it wasn’t so much technology that led rescuers to survivors, as it was a trail of buzzing flies, lured to wounded flesh.

As dazed as any other person in the city that afternoon, I walked into our street and was met by the sight of a gaping firewall in the home my (now ex-) husband and I had just finished constructing with the help of a government housing loan. In my heart I knew we had already lost it, and alongside that beat the corollary question that would return in the years immediately to come: would our marriage, at that time already troubled, survive in the aftermath of all these signs of clear disaster? On the streets, people were pushing and scrambling to get to their loved ones. Women at or near full term had precipitated childbirths on the sidewalks. Women early in their pregnancies had spontaneous abortions. Voices had cried out that surely, it was the end of the world. That night, and for several nights afterwards, we slept on makeshift beds of plyboard in the open air. Those with vehicles packed very young children and grandfathers into them.

Two weeks later my father slipped into a coma, his heart weakened by ischemia and the additional stresses of post-disaster trauma. We took him to the local hospital, where he was laid in an army cot in one of the undamaged wings of the building. Around us, doctors were scheduling patients for the amputation of crushed limbs. Around us, the work of dispensing mercy and comfort went on unabated, even as other presences also moved around, surreptitiously taking bottles of water, blankets from the pallets of those newly dead, for use somewhere else by those still alive. The doctors tried to resuscitate my father one last time, but it was no use. He lay naked on the cot, his skin already darkening to a blue tinge. A faint trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth was his final message, telling me he had gone where I could not follow.

*

When I look back on that time, all I can recall is the feeling of having been brought to a threshold, a limit. We no longer had any savings to speak of, since we had just built a house that was now severely damaged. Soon after my father’s passing, I felt pushed to the front of the line, suddenly looked to by members of my immediate and extended family for direction. In the weeks and months that followed, as we moved into my parents’ home next door and began the arduous work of putting back our lives, I pondered the shape of the future, prayed fervently for some metaphor, some sign. We spoke of our gratitude at having our lives, though we had lost property; we told the children that surely there was a reason for why we had been spared, even if we did not fathom entirely what that reason was. How did we know, they asked. I don’t know, I said. I just know that life persists. Even those who have lost something, someone, find a way to go on, to reconfigure the future upon nothing more than memory and loss.

In a few months, the shorn trees along the avenues revealed new growth, each leaf an almost perfect replica of the others. Water filled the broken man-made lake again, and it reflected the shape of willow branches as it had before. Under fifteen floors of rubble, there were people who lay in darkness with no feeling left in their feet or hands; yet they opened their throats to the trickle of rainwater, believing they would see the sky again.

*

For the record, I am not what some people might call a hopeless optimist. Neither am I a saint. Because of the share of difficulties my family and I have experienced, I always feel like I have to keep at least one nimble and perhaps mercenary step ahead of any eventuality, like I have to constantly hedge my bets, to always prepare for the worst. But the kind of faith that I have in the power of life to continually assert and re-assert itself is not something that comes of naïve oblivion to the vagaries of life. On the contrary it is something that I come to precisely because of, or despite, the uncertainty and capriciousness of daily experience. Despite innumerable moments when it appears the reins have slipped out of our hands (no matter our best efforts at caution and safety), the universe still has the capacity to surprise with unexpected gifts: the organ donated after a fatal accident, that restores health to an ailing child; an afternoon’s work that someone takes a chance to offer a bum, that causes a change in life direction; the misdelivered piece of luggage that allows two people to meet. Even the grieving father who wrote just a few years ago of his inability to understand the senseless nature of his journalist son’s violent, beheading death, wrote a letter to the world about the power of love and memory. Even this, a narrative of apparent purposelessness, houses a seed that might give clearer force to the purpose to work for peace.

Perhaps, because I make my living by teaching poetry, writing, and immigrant literatures— texts that fulfill the university’s requirements to address the diversity and plurality of voices in our midst—I am predisposed to look for coded meanings, for metaphors that will endow experience with greater clarity than it may possess, unadorned and by itself. Perhaps, my belief in purpose and significance is an effect of my being trained to read experience as language, as a kind of text; as the manifestation of a web of relationships that might be made more apparent and cohesive if we but looked more closely at what is already there.

So much seems to surpass us at such a great speed today, and it no longer seems surprising to note the proliferation of so many different acts of writing: alongside traditional forms, narratives and memoirs, more and more people are keeping diaries and journals, electronic blogs—finding ways to marshal the unforgiving onslaught of experience. I think that people who want to write of their experiences are not merely looking for a documentary approach to their lives; perhaps what they seek is not just a way to chronicle unadorned facts, not merely a linear enumeration of events. We want the world of data to walk hand in hand with the world of imagination and possibility, as poetry and fiction do; what we pursue is a glimpse of that purposeful design which we hope will bring us closer to the story behind every story, the deeper transcendence beyond the face of straightforward fact. It is what we search for when we look into the eyes of the very old, or the very young: "From where have we come, to where is it that we go?"

Often in the summertime, across certain regions of the United States, reports come to us of cicadas emerging from their seventeen-year hibernation; it is an event that is closely watched, because it happens so infrequently. When this happens, the woods and parkways fill with the voluble, electric thrum of their searching and their mating. After they mate, in the space of a few short hours, the females lay their eggs in trees, and the eggs hatch in a month or two. Then the nymphs burrow into the ground, to wait another seventeen years for their next emergence. My students joke that they admire this purpose so singular in its purpose: “They wake, they fuck, they die.” Maybe so, but I would add to the short list of these wonderments, how it is that they know, individually and collectively,how and when it is time.

Speaking on eternal forms, Plato had made the distinction between inner and outer worlds; and Augustine wrote, “So must I go beyond memory, … if I am to reach the God who made me different from the beasts that walk on the earth and wiser than the birds that fly in the air.” Even in these worldly and jaded times full of news of war and catastrophe, the quest for transcendence continues. We pursue questions of synthesis and integration in experiences both mundane and sublime. Mostly, it is in the former, because we are such creatures of attachment, of habit, of our very ordinary and yet singular lives. Tuning in to the cicadas’ waking and mating song, what we quicken to perhaps is the sense of life, our own included. When it comes, we are both midwife and naked infant. When it comes, it is both finished and just coming into being, a mystery that keeps the great wheel spinning.

Passages

On 31 July 1990, my father, Gabriel Zafra Aguilar, succumbed to heart failure on a makeshift cot in one of the undamaged wings of the Baguio General Hospital. It was a scant two weeks after the 16 July earthquake (8.8 on the Richter scale) which devastated Baguio and environs. Many of those we knew, and even countless more that we did not know personally, lost not only property but friends and loved ones. There were no utilities for several days, and those of us who lived near the Burnham Park area finally heard by word of mouth that someone had located a water main and exposed a connecting pipe -- and it was there that people were falling in line with buckets for water to lug back to what remained of their homes. There were many stories of heroic and miraculous rescue, stories of a generosity of spirit that transcended the disaster: strangers who still had petrol, giving rides to those who didn't; storekeepers who opened shop, handing out bread and powdered milk and first aid supplies at risk to their own lives (there were powerful aftershocks throughout the two months that followed).

I'm reproducing this poem I wrote in remembrance of my father, and now also in remembrance of the former Philippine president (the first woman to lead the nation in that capacity) Corazon C. Aquino, who succumbed to colon cancer on 31 July 2009.

May their hearts be lighter than the papery vessels which carried them through this life and touched ours so unforgettably.




"Letter for All Soul's Day"
(in memoriam, Gabriel Zafra Aguilar)
~ from Encanto by Luisa A. Igloria (previously published as
Maria Luisa Aguilar Carino); Anvil, 1994


A smell like rain
descends upon the flowerbeds
to make the grass
distinct, more pointed.
I wake from a dream
of earth pelting my face,
the memory of you
released, with a tug.

Here, by the lake
throwing off blue
scales of water,
the leaves detach themselves
from out-thrust branches
slowly, the difficult
sap still heavy
in their veins.

Your eyes were the last
kindness, unfaltering
even as your face stiffened
into a shape beyond
finality, your body
yielding its old wounds,
giving up all
indentations of flesh
to view.

I want to imagine
you floating away
on unshadowable water,
away from the bowls of food
and garlands of flowers, away
from the rising sea of smoke
and candlewax--

your heart now
lighter than its papery
vessel, its last
bloody filament
on the white pillow
the only thread to tell me
where you have gone.

***

Got new glasses today ... my first pair of transitionals!

Hubby also got a new pair (we both haven't had eye check-ups in about a gazillion years and got scolded by the eye doctor). His are titanium (!) frames.

Mine are lightweight and, I must say, look better than I thought they would.

"A Country is Not Just a Site on a Map" / Luis Francia

Reposting, with his permission, my tocayo Luis Francia's Inquirer.Net column, The Artist Abroad, for 27 July 2009:


A Country Is Not Just a Site on a Map
by Luis H. Francia
INQUIRER.net First Posted 18:08:00 07/27/2009
Filed Under: Justice & Rights, political killings,
Foreign affairs & international relations, Obama Articles

NEW YORK— This past May 19th three members of a medical-relief mission were forced into a dark blue van by a group of armed men in the village of Kapanildan, town of La Paz, Tarlac. The lone female abductee was a 31-year-old American citizen of Filipino parentage by the name of Melissa Roxas. Her two companions were Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Jandoc, Filipino citizens. Roxas was the first to be released, almost surely because she was an American national, on May 25th, at 6:30 a.m., when she was dropped off near a relative’s home, and provided with a mobile phone through which one of her interrogators called her shortly after. She was warned not to contact Karapatan, the human-rights organization that keeps track of such incidents. Carabeo was released at a later date, and given a similar warning. Jandoc is said to have reappeared but, as of this writing, has yet to contact human-rights organizations.

Roxas, a poet from Los Angeles, describes being tortured while in custody of men she has every reason to believe were military operatives (and whom she says she can identify). Handcuffed. Blindfolded. Head wrapped in a doubled-up plastic bag, nearly asphyxiating her. Beaten on the face and body. Head banged repeatedly on the wall. All the while, her torturers accused her of being a Commie and member of the New People’s Army. Her repeated requests for legal counsel were denied. From what she heard and the distance the van traveled, Roxas as well as other sources firmly believe she and her two other companions were held at nearby Fort Magsaysay.

After spending time with her family in LA to recover from her trauma, Roxas returned to Manila July 19th, accompanied by a delegation of Methodist pastors, to testify in court for a petition of the Writ of Amparo and Habeus Data, with regard to “my abduction and torture by the Philippine military.” Understandably fearful, Roxas is under the protection of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights and its chairperson Leila De Lima. Roxas says in an e-mail that “I am not doing this for myself. The Philippine government must be held accountable for what they did to me and thousands of other victims of human rights violations.”

Asked how she now felt about the situation in the Philippines, Roxas replied: “It gave me a view of the human-rights situation … that I would never have expected to have or wanted to happen to me.” She said the ordeal “made me understand first-hand how the victims felt and what they experienced because now I am a survivor myself.” She acknowledged “a great responsibility to tell my story. The other victims were silenced and never got to tell about their experience or seek justice for what happened. I live, I can tell my story not only to seek justice for myself but all victims of human rights violations in the Philippines.”

This abduction is only one of more than 203 known abductions that have taken place since January 2001, according to Karapatan records. The nonprofit organization has also documented human-rights violations that include 1,017 extrajudicial executions (“salvagings” in the parlance of the martial-law era), 201 involuntary disappearances, and 1,036 cases of torture. Undoubtedly there are more instances of human-rights violations that go unreported due to fear and intimidation.

Right now, the most powerful state agency in the Philippines is the military, the poisonous legacy of the Marcos regime, and it acts with impunity, an impunity in which President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been complicit. By participating in the Bush-initiated Global War on Terror began in the aftermath of 9/11, she has pushed forward an agenda that treats democratic processes with contempt and silences dissent, whether such dissent is democratic and peaceful or whether it comes from the barrel of a gun. It is a mindset that views all dissent a threat to the stability of the state not in the abstract but the state as she would rule it. Thus, she turns a blind eye to the military’s excesses in order to ensure its loyalty, a tenuous one, as demonstrated by two failed coup attempts, in 2003 and 2006. This is the only possible interpretation of why the Arroyo government stands by while scores of citizens it is sworn to protect—journalists, pastors,
trade union leaders, human-rights advocates, student activists, etc.—are abducted, tortured, assassinated in their own homes, and otherwise disappeared.

It is why GMA has in the past praised the notorious former general Jovito Palparan, who has been linked—by the 2006 fact-finding, government-appointed Melo Commission and the Supreme Court of the Philippines, among other bodies—to numerous instances of human-rights violations in the different regions where he was the top military commander. And where is Palparan now? Not in any criminal court where one expects he should face the many charges against him, but in Congress as a party-list representative!

A 2007 report to the UN General Assembly by Special Rapporteur Phillip Alston, based on a fact-finding visit to the Philippines, points to two underlying causes for unchecked murders: the indiscriminate labeling of left-wing groups as “front organizations” for “armed groups whose aim is to destroy democracy,” and a government “counter-insurgency strategy” that encourages “the extrajudicial killings of activists and other ‘enemies’ in certain circumstances.” In his 2009 follow-up report, Alston emphasized the Arroyo government’s continuing failure to stem the tide of human-rights violations. Those killed include, as of the end of 2008, at least 62 journalists because of reasons directly related to their work. The Committee to Protect Journalists not surprisingly ranks the Philippines as one of the most dangerous places for its profession.

In July of 2007, the Philippine Congress passed the Human Security Act (HSA)—a virtual copy of the US Homeland Security Act—that broadens the government’s arrest-and-detention powers, and seriously undermines civil liberties. With its vague definition of what constitutes “terrorism,” HSA essentially criminalizes political dissent. Burning an effigy, a humdrum act of protest in a democracy, or standing on the street in small groups of more than four could thus be seen as potentially terroristic and land people in jail. During the so-called 1986 People Power revolution—a restoration of the ancien regime, in my view—a politicized and corrupted military was both problem and solution. That ambivalence is at the heart of the conundrum: How does one ride a tiger without being eaten by it? When the army withdrew its support of Estrada in early 2001, people applauded, and while it seemed the right thing to do at the time, such applause sent yet
another signal to the army that it had the power to replace an elected government.

A major source of funding for the AFP has been, as it has almost always been, US military aid. It currently stands at $32 million, with $2 million restricted, that is to say, to be released only when the conditions regarding the resolution of human-rights abuses are met. These funds remain restricted. This year, the US Senate proposes $33 million in military aid while the House of Representatives proposes $30 million. Various human-rights groups such as the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Bayan-USA, and the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns have lobbied for this funding to be cut, by at least half, and that restrictive language be maintained. These groups also suggest including another condition proposed by the office of Senator Patrick Leahy: that military aid to the Philippines should be cut off while requiring the Philippine government to comply strictly with human-rights laws and a full investigation be conducted into
the case of Melissa Roxas.

President Arroyo is scheduled to meet President Obama at the end of this month in Washington. For all of Obama’s talk of change, the agenda doesn’t include any discussion of the abysmal state of human-rights in the country. Their tête à tête cannot and should not be business as usual. Desirable or not, the United States does have leverage over the government of the Philippines. And while the US needs to protect its own interests, those interests would best be served if paradoxically enough the rights of Filipinos are given their due. And that means seeing the Philippines as a country of living, breathing individuals with rights and dreams of their own, rather than just a site on a map where ships, guns, and grunts can be stationed.

copyright L. H. Francia 2009

Remembering Bobby Swain

In June, I wrote a blog post titled "A Bird In The Mail," celebrating what I thought would be the beginning of a new friendship and correspondence with Bobby Swain, a poet-sculptor living in Onancock, VA.

We'd exchanged only two letters since then. And I did not know that already, he was (as his wife put it) "in decline"... Bobby suffered a severe back injury when he was only twenty years old and in college, and has been in a wheelchair since then; and, thirteen years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Nevertheless, he never went into any of these in great detail, and instead wrote about how he got into the carving/sculpting of the bird figures he has become famous for, and about his lifetime love affair with poetry (what he called his "unfinished business").

In mid-June I received another letter and two poems from Bobby, which he'd generously shared, along with a casual invitation that perhaps sometime this summer, I might want to come down for a look-see in Onancock to take in the world that served as his inspiration.

But on Sunday evening I opened my Gmail account and found an email message from Bobby's wife Terry, with the devastating news that Bobby had died on July 14, the very day that a letter and book package I had sent him arrived at his home in the mail. He never even got to read it.

His wife Terry wrote, "...He died on Tuesday, the 14th, after a severe two-month decline ended by several sad and hilarious days. I have just gotten to the book package and note that you sent on that very day. Mr. Barks [I sent him a copy of Coleman Barks' Gourd Seed] and Bobby would have liked one another.

"Significantly perhaps, the book opened to a set of pages with poems about the death of a friend. It was timely for Bobby, yet leaves a great void for many of us. He had felt quite honored that you took the time to communicate with him and he valued your opinion ...

"...Bobby was cremated with a coconut cream pie, his favorite. There will be a memorial service on Friday, July 31, 3:00 pm, in the gazebo park in Onancock, near our house. Pie and soup will be available at our house afterwards. Come if you can."

I'm heartbroken that I never got to know more about this evidently gentle soul who refused to let life's blows get in the way of his spirit journey. I was struck by his wife's description of what he'd chosen to be cremated with - again it seems to so appropriately capture the elan vital that he had.

Bobby, I wish I had had more time to get to know you better. But for now, here's to you and your buoyant example. There could not be a sweeter way to go.




What kind of a poet asks to be cremated

with his favorite coconut cream pie?




I never really met the man, only received

two letters and a book; images of birds



he’d sculpted out of wood or bronze,

their necks twisted in the shape



of the eternal question mark. I don’t offer

any of this as explanation, he’d written,



of the ailments that now, I find belatedly,

have caught up with him. I wouldn’t know



what to think; but in his poems there was

often the sound of a boat on water,


rain and thunder at the edge

of a windowpane (reason enough to linger


in bed with the woman he loved), sunlight

glinting off the edge of a chain. Sometimes,



the candor of tears or obstinate habit;

but always some small, domestic



pleasure— a cup of coffee in a poem.

And so, after all, why not pie?


* In memoriam, Bobby Swain




Luisa A. Igloria
20 July 2009
11:06 pm

From the Mouths of Babes

Found, while trying to disgorge "stuff" packed in a panicked hurry when we moved, from boxes in the one remaining room that we hope to turn into a guest room/library/study: one little notebook, into which I'd jotted little nuggets that came out of youngest hija's mouth when she was three years old. (There were only a few pages used up - as usual, my intentions to archive for posterity were good, but my reality check meter wasn't really screwed on properly.)

A sampling:

(March 2004)
- "There's so much to love!"
- "Mama is a teacher. What does Papa do? Papa sits." (Bwahahaha)
- "Paul (friend Paul Reed) is my favorite kid."

(April 2004)
- (eating Chinese takeout dinner - shrimp, beef, and broccoli): "This is my favorite thing right now."
- "My favorite word is dictionary."
- (addressing one of her older sisters) "Calm down, you're hurting our feelings." :P
- (waking up from a nap) "My bones are still asleep!"
- (older sister asks little sister): "Are you happy?" (little girl answers): "Not exactly."

(July 2004)
- "Are you grownups just going to sit and talk all night again?"
- (to friend Paul): "Do you want to get married?"

(August 2004)
- "If you eat food it helps to push down the poo-poo."
- (on renting vs. owning -- little girl asks parents): "Is this our home?"
(parents respond): "Yes, but we don't own it."
(little girl, applying logic): "But why? all our stuff is in it!"

The light in summer; and announcing the RHINO Founders' Prize

Just got back tonight from a leisurely walk to the downtown area (shockingly close -- a mere three/four blocks away!), where hubby R & I looked in on the offerings on restaurant row and decided to duck into the cool interior of a new Japanese restaurant, where we had the calamari appetizer with cold sparkling sake, followed by the "Crazy Dragon" roll for me (spicy tuna inside, smoked eel on top; resting on a giant platter on which the sushi chef had hand-drawn a fire-breathing dragon in plum sauce) and the sushi box with orange slices and shrimp dumplings on the side for R. It's great not to have to drive everywhere for a change!

This morning, after running some errands, we also happily found black plums (plum noir?) on sale for a dollar a pound, just begging to be taken home. I have such plans for them -- a plum tart with creme fraiche, perhaps! Then in the afternoon, youngest daughter G helped me put in some hybrid tomato plants in a huge wooden planter on the deck, never mind that it may be almost too late in the season, because it is never too late to go with her infectious enthusiasm over green things. So much so that, on the way back from the resto, I decided to adopt a little jade plant at the corner store, to put on the hutch in our breakfast nook.

After the agony and stress of packing and moving three weeks ago, now there remains more or less only one more room to unpack, though undoubtedly there will be sundry things underfoot that will demand attention through the coming months.

But it's wonderful to wake up in our new apartment filled with light, see the birds that visit the deck, and the surprise of pink and yellow roses opening in the tiny yard in back; wonderful to have space now to slowly begin welcoming the company of friends over food and drink; wonderful to have just a little more room to cultivate the necessary spaces for dwelling in, reading and writing in, and for refreshment ...

*

Our poet-friend Angela N. Torres, who now helps out at Rhino literary magazine, asked me to help publicize a new prize they are offering -- Angela hopes that the many fine poets out there with unique and diverse voices will submit work for consideration.

Here is the info:

RHINO: THE POETRY FORUM FOUNDERS' PRIZE (A Poetry Contest Open to All Poets With A Distinctive Voice)

One winning poem will receive $300 and publication in the next issue. Two runners up will receive $50. The poems selected will be posted on our web site.

Send up to 5 unpublished poems (no more than 5 pages total).

GUIDELINES:

Submissions must include a cover letter listing your name, address, email address and/or telephone number as well as titles of the poems. No identifying information should appear on the poems. Manuscripts will not be returned. Include a SASE for notification of results.

Enclose a $10 entry fee (make checks payable to RHINO).

Label your contest submission: “Founders’ Contest.” Submissions must bepostmarked between June 1 -September 1. No electronic submissions please.

All contest submissions will also be considered for regular publication in the 2010 edition of RHINO. Mail submission to:

RHINO, The Poetry Forum

P.O. Box 591

Evanston, IL 60204

Winners and runners up will be announced on the Rhino web site.

Note to self: Romesh Gunesekera's new novel

When I come up for air after all this, making note to self, to source and read The Match, new book by British novelist (Sri Lankan-born, and former part-time Baguio boy and Brent School student) Romesh Gunesekera (thanks Mark W for sharing). I admired his first novel Reef very much, and also his book of stories Monkfish Moon. Love the bit in the new book review about "the frailties of communication."

Will Break for Rapturous Poetry

Inveterate procrastinator that I am, this whole week in the midst of the grim frenzy of trying to pack and move ten years' worth of possessions from this apartment to a new one which we will begin occupying in a scant two days, I have stopped (which is OFTEN) to pick up a book I haven't rifled through in a few years... Two days ago, a little red hard-cover edition tumbled off a wobbly pile of books I was trying to fit into a banker's box. My cue to sit down, wipe the sweat off my forehead, and take another break. There's no more couch in the living room, so I hastily clear space from the computer chair which is doing double duty as light hand truck (natch, because it has wheels). The red book is Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture (Picador, 2005); Carol Ann Duffy has also just recently been named poet laureate of the UK.

This book was, if memory serves me right, one of the titles I'd put on a course reading list some years ago, in Women's Literature. It is difficult enough to write a good poem. But to write a good love poem? A task that even the most seasoned poet is likely to approach with much trepidation.

Here's one poem from Duffy's Rapture that leaves one breathless with both the passion she packs into it, as well as the intelligence and care of its crafting. Now, how can I possibly face the rest of the domestically arranged day?!?

"Hour"
Carol Ann Duffy
(from Rapture)

Love's time's beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.

***

My favorite image/line of all in this poem is that one about "backhanding the night."
Ka-Pow! Reads like a sexier version of Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" ...

Remembering My Father

His name is the one after which our youngest daughter's first name has been taken, the one named after the archangel Gabriel, with fiery gold-tipped wings and drawn sword, whose image graced not only the prayer cards we used to get in Catholic elementary school but also, if you can believe it, the labels of one of the most popular rum drinks in the market. In his own heyday, my father, who was named after the archangel, had run around with a tight group of friends who liked to smoke, have a good time, and get rolling-in-the-street drunk till all hours in the morning. But he quit alcohol and cigarettes cold turkey when I was in first grade, after he was hospitalized and his doctor told him that he wouldn't have very long to live if he kept up his bad habits.

From that time on he watched what he ate very carefully (took the skin off his chicken cuts long before it became the healthy choice), did not touch a single hard drink again, and caved in only to his sweet tooth (he was partial to apple pie and banana bread). He was always fastidious about his appearance, taking pains to mix and match the shirts he owned with the suits he had tailored to his specifications at Lambino's on Session Road, so that he never looked (at least to me) like he wore the same outfit twice. He had one closet, and one only (the inside of the door papered with my drawings from school) -- on the left side of the alcove that he and my mother used as an altar and catch-all for bills, receipts, tuition statements, stray cuff links and buttons, hair combs, bottles of Old Spice aftershave that he was partial to (a mingling of the sacred and profane). On the other side, meanwhile, she had three closets full to bursting with her dresses and suits, those she sewed herself as well as those she deigned good enough to purchase; plus a smaller recessed cabinet where she kept over a dozen shoes and matching handbags, which I liked to take out and amuse myself with.

The nail was missing from his left pinky finger; in its place was a tiny pucker, a star-shaped indentation barely noticeable. I am told I liked to suck on it as a toddler. I also remember being told that the nail had been torn out during the Japanese occupation, and that vaguely there are stories about him and/or other male relatives in the family having been forced into the infamous "Death March" to Japanese internment camps.

He became a judge in the fourth branch of the city court sometime before I entered high school, and because I had taken typing classes during the summers he would let me help prepare his decisions. We didn't have our own typewriter at home, so on Friday afternoons after work he would have one of his clerks follow him home with one of the machines from the office, which would be returned before office hours the following Monday. I would stay up with him as he went over drafts, until he was satisfied and I could begin typing up the scripts, following the quaint legal formats in use. This is the way I first became familiar with the language of the law, with the intricacies of directed argument, with the many ways in which "Whereas" might be invoked.

He taught me the value of the dictionary and liked to teach me new words, especially those that were more than three syllables long. He coached me for spelling and declamation contests, and one of his favorite times to review lists was at the end of the day and through the partially open bathroom door, as he took his leisurely time "on the throne" doing his business. I remember one school year when the oratorical piece I was assigned was Jesus' speech at the end of his forty days in the wilderness, turning away the devil trying to tempt him with visions of power; I don't remember the exact passages now, only that at the very end was an emphatic "Begone, Satan!" which, as I uttered it, coincided with the also emphatic flushing of the toilet and my father's satisfied harrumph.

It will be nineteen years this July that he will have passed away, but I still miss him. The immediate pain of his passing, during the weeks following the 1990 earthquake in Baguio, may no longer be as fresh, but it is still there. I am saddened by the fact that he couldn't see his granddaughters grow up into the young women that they are now, saddened by the fact that he couldn't be around to meet his new, youngest granddaughter and the man I married, who is also giving himself everyday to this calling, with everything he has, to live up to the name of "father."

He was a firmly principled man who never took bribes though I remember many mornings during his long years of public service when we would be visited by someone or other who had some proposal or other with a "cut" in it for my father... He was a small man of medium build, only five feet tall, and he could not physically throw anyone out of the house even if he possibly tried; but he made up for it with the fierceness of his words and the determination of his stance. I regret I will never be a rich man in these kinds of dispensations, he once sighed to the family at dinnertime. One rainy afternoon toward the end of his life, propping his edema-swollen feet on a stool up for me so I could help coax socks up around his ankles, out of nowhere he said with an uncharacteristic rush of emotion (as he was mostly a formal and restrained man), "I'm sorry I'm not able to leave you more..." I didn't know how to respond, just patted his feet and said it was okay.

He has left me a legacy whose value is beyond computing. I have long since realized that my reserved and formal father, born in 1913 (practically a different century) and twenty years my mother's senior, had a poet's heart, a romantic's sensibility, along with a fiercely inquiring nature. One story that I've heard in the family-- that I first heard from my mother! -- is that he first met her when she was putting herself through school and tending the cash register at a restaurant in San Fernando, La Union; that he and his friends were so drunk at their table, but he wanted her to come over to take their orders; that she adamantly refused, because that wasn't part of her job; and that he staggered over to where she was behind the counter, threatening to break every single wine glass and brandy snifter at the bar if she would not come and sit with him. I'd heard this story so many times from my mother during my childhood but its flavor is so incredulous, the stuff more of fiction than of fact. Is this story true, I asked my first cousin Sonny (on my father's side) when I finally had the opportunity to visit them in Lansing, MI last fall. Sonny laughed delightedly and said, Yes, yes, that is exactly your father!

Before we buried him, the elders instructed us to put in his coffin a folded blanket, a pair of his favorite shoes (for the cold, for the journey); a wallet with some paper bills and coins; a candle and some matches. A rosary whose chain was deliberately broken, was tucked in his folded hands.

As we do on special occasions, on Father's Day we will set aside a ritual plate of food for him and for the spirits of departed family, recognizing that our world is tethered to theirs by memories made too of material threads.

I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman...

...is the title of poet Jude Nutter's most recent book, published by the University of Notre Dame press (2009).

Once in a very rare while you come across a voice in a book that will not let you go. This is one such book for me. This is the book that I have been toting around for the last two months since I found it at our local bookstore, the one that I have been reading and rereading in increments in the car in between ferrying family to and from various assignations, in doctor's waiting rooms, while waiting for my daughter to emerge from piano lessons, and a little each night before I go to bed.

Amazing and lucid don't seem quite adequate as words to describe the poems I find here, although they are certainly that, and more. At the same time, they are uncannily prescient and judiciously of our time.

The blurbs to the book describe the poet's impetus thus:

"In 'The Return of the Heroes', Walt Whitman refers to the casualties of the American Civil War: "the dead to me mar not. . . . / they fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass. . . .” In her new poetry collection, Jude Nutter challenges Whitman’s statement by exploring her own responses to war and conflict and, in a voice by turns rueful, dolorous, and imagistic, reveals why she cannot agree.

Nutter, who was born in England and grew up in Germany, has a visceral sense of history as a constant, violent companion. Drawing on a range of locales and historical moments—among them Rwanda, Sarajevo, Nagasaki, and both world wars—she replays the confrontation of personal history colliding with history as a social, political, and cultural force. In many of the poems, this confrontation is understood through the shift from childhood innocence and magical thinking to adult awareness and guilt."

I admire these tempered but incredibly generous poems because they're not afraid to unveil the poet's vulnerable heart and eye; because they know that war and violence are never pretty, never uncomplicated, and most certainly must not ever merely decorate our poems and our art because that comes with too high a cost.

Reading Jude Nutter's book made me revisit Whitman's "The Return of the Heroes" as well; and when I read lines in Walt's poem like --

"With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks and your muskets;/ How elate I stood and watch'd you, where starting off you march'd ... / O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your fever,/ O my land's maim'd darlings, .../ "

-- something lurches in the bottom of my gut because there is something mortally wrong with this picturesque effacement of those "maim'd darlings" going off to war, never mind that they have been raised to that honorific platform of "heroes." All I can think of, in contrast, is how my young grad student Noah's wife will be deployed to Iraq in a scant three weeks, and be separated from him and their one year old daughter for an indefinite period of time...

What Jude Nutter provides in contrast is a gaze that is unsentimental and wholly faithful in its focus on the human details of every scene where life-- even in its derangement, despoiling, or taking away-- calls to be witnessed.

In the book's opening poem, "Lamb", she realizes as she looks down on a hill that a lamb is frantically looking for its mother: "...its tail/ like a whisk, its mad rattle unanswered, bolting/ from ewe to ewe and each ewe, in turn, lowering her head,/ hooking it under the belly, lifting and pitching it away. Not mine. / Not mine. Not mine. .../" The lamb does not know that its mother is "...newly dead", "...her head against the fence/ ... the wire, exact as a grass blade, pressed/ against her open eye."

Despite her remoteness from this scene, Nutter persists in holding up the view: "Even from a distance, suffering/ is suffering. ... There must have been sunlight but it was shadows/ I noticed, small hauntings in the hills as the clouds slid past./"

In "Raven", as she meditates on the Pieta (the image of a grieving Mary holding the body of her dead son Jesus on her lap), Nutter recalls the time she once lifted the already decomposing body of a raven by the wings, "Ants busy already// on the dark avenues of its feathers. In order/ that it would not be taken and lost in the world/ forever. ..."

Later, in unswervingly precise language which also beautifully reworks that familiar conceit in literature, she describes how she "...washed/ away the final argument and song of the flesh until// all was bone, white as the teeth of beauty queens; ..." so that even "the Lord's long body// is, at last, unequivocal; how everything that's mortal/ about him is wholly obvious now, now/ that he's finally a man, dead, in his mother's arms."

Such poetry is not always easy to read. But I am grateful for its searing qualities, for its ability to bring me up again and again, face to face with the world as it is.

Rocio Davis' BEGIN HERE

Stephen Hong Sohn has just written a wonderful review of the brilliant Rocio G. Davis' Begin Here: Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood (University of Hawaii Press, 2007). Check it out!

The Caravan Is Underway

It's summer, public school's out, the kids are home and underfoot, and ... it's moving season.

Actually since a month back, moving trucks have been showing up with more frequency on our street and in the general neighborhood and beyond.

We've spied people taking things in and out of apartment buildings. Even seen signs of (despite the housing crisis) a few home sales. Take the two houses immediately to our right. The one right next to us (three floors, with swimming pool in back that you can look directly down upon from my daughters' bedroom window) has the new owners almost completely moved in, it seems. And the one beside it is still having renovation work done on it, judging from the equipment parked on the front porch. The house obliquely across from our apartment building, however (the white mansion-sized one with the two lions on mini pedestals in the front), still sports its "For Sale" sign (it's been on the market for the last three years - and going for over a million, we hear). Not to give you the impression that we're in a similar tax bracket as our good neighbors ... in fact, in some way we feel very much like the oddballs (not doctors, not realtors, not lawyers, not executives... You do what? teach creative writing for a living???)

But. We've joined the caravan of summer movers as well. An opportunity opened up a month back that proved too good to turn down, even if on the face of it, it might have seemed at first to be a dubious idea. Hence, in scarcely a week's time we'll be moving into a furnished apartment (the first time we're doing such a thing), which now necessitates that we seriously pare down and part with majority of our worldly possessions.

Thank goodness for grad students who need a couch, or a tv stand, or a computer desk, and a washer and dryer... They've come to our aid and even given us many pairs of hands to heft and convey the things we're parting with, and the one thing that we have a surplus of and cannot bear to give up: books. Boxes and boxes and endless boxes of books. We have more books than anything else in the world. More than clothes. More than shoes. More than little appliances. More than silverware. More than stocks and bonds (huh? what are those?). You could say that it's an occupational hazard. But even the littlest member of the family has five or six boxes of books all to her own.

So anyway we have begun the trek in earnest, every day since last Monday taking carload after carload of stuff. (The first thing I brought into the new apartment though, following the custom in my family as a way of invoking auspicious beginnings, was a small bag of salt, sugar, and rice, and a flask of oil.) As I said, we've been lucky to have helping hands for many of these little trips so far. Today most of the living room and dining room was emptied out, and now we're only waiting for the big move day till we return our beds and the armchair we've been using, to our neighbors who generously loaned them to us a few years ago. But we're taking the great little coffeetable we lucked upon for a song at the local thrift shop, and the credenza and hutch we actually paid some good money for from a "real" furniture shop six years ago.

My orchids are now sitting in a corner of the back deck of the new place. The pair of bonsai trees sharing the same boxy pot, is now esconced on a table in the new living room. There's an inviting shady nook beyond the deck with a wrought iron table and two chairs, and I have my eye on it; it will be my writing retreat, my poet's nook, this summer.

Our friend M has helped us put on and smooth new sheets on the mattresses. Our youngest daughter has her large African basket full of her favorite stuffed animals, already parked at the foot of the bed in her new room. And her older sister has ironed the bedskirt she'll throw on her bed during our next trip there tomorrow.

This will be our fourth move in the ten years we've lived in this town. Such a nomadic experience, carrying the not here, not there, sensation of living in other people's houses despite the superficial acts of taking possession and making things one's "own." I don't recall moving so much, when I lived in the Philippines. We moved once, from our first "Blue Eagles" apartment on Katipunan in Quezon City, to Baguio when I was two-and-a-half and my father had gotten a post as City Sheriff in Baguio. We found a temporary place in Baguio in a neighborhood called "Jungletown," where we stayed for just a few months before moving into the house we came to call home all these years, even now -- at 6 City Camp Alley. 6 City Camp Alley had a low, broad porch flanked on one side by bougainvillea bushes that crept up the wall and papered it with luxurious magenta in the summers, when we would come out to sit, barefoot, on chairs to read the newspaper, do the crossword, read the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" section, the horoscope, or komiks borrowed from someone, while eating watermelon slices and spitting the seeds out into the garden.

The rusty green garden gate seemed as an anchor to that world which felt so solid because it was so familiar. It didn't seem like one had to work so hard then to lay claim to a piece of sod.

Perhaps living in and out of boxes and suitcases has done something to that homing pigeon making marks in the gravel, lifting its foot from time to time to test the changing weight of the missive which is bound to it.

Spotlight on Baguio City and Daniel Burnham at the Newberry Library

Here is one time, for real, I wish I could ask Scotty to beam me over; specifically, to the Newberry Library on 60 W. Walton Street in Chicago, where an exhibit focused on Daniel Burnham in the Philippines is ongoing from June 1-July 15, 2009.

If any of you over in the Windy City can attend the Curators' Talk and Gallery Walk on Saturday, 11:00 am June 27, 2009 (Speakers: James Akerman and Diane Dillon), please please please share any copies of the talk, brochures, or info with this Baguio girl!

A Bird in The Mail

This post is a thank you note, because today would have been an otherwise nondescript Tuesday, except that it brought a gift tern in the mail. Yes, a tern, a seabird of the family Sternidae; but not the actual plumed variety with distinct long tail, narrow wings and black head markings-- rather, a book of poems titled Turn, Turn, Tern by the Onancock, VA-based bird-sculptor/artist Robert (Bobby) Swain. Bobby had attended the annual Poetry Society of Virginia Poetry Festival in Williamsburg last month, where I'd read from Juan Luna's Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press) and new work. Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Virginia's Poet Laureate from 2006-08, mentioned she'd wanted to introduce him afterward, but as it is during such festive events there are always so many hands to shake and alas too little time. In the letter accompanying the book, and through the poems in Turn, Turn, Tern, I learned just a little more about Bobby (besides the fact that he has created sculptured birds since 1985, many of which have been sold in galleries as well as carried in stores such as Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor; and that he was even invited to carve an ornament for the White House Christmas tree in 2002). I learned that despite suffering a back injury in college, at the prime of his youth; and being diagnosed with Parkinson's thirteen years ago, he has been writing poetry for the last forty years. Though he describes his book as his own "unfinished business" meant mostly for a mix of friends and acquaintances, the best of his writing bears earmarks of steadfast attention, as in this poem from 2005:

"sitting here with a morning coffee
film of ice on the creek
first on the marsh
nothing
just observing
just waiting"

or in these lines, from "The Mallow" (2006):

"We dug them up beside the ditchbank
Dirty, musky, half empty beer cans
Who knows what else
And they lived but only for a year
Then this morning
There was one
Just one
A tiny little thing
It's been years since we dug them up
But now we are leaving
Going where there are no mallows
Not even tiny little ones..."

*

Thank you, Bobby.

The Twitter Poets Issue of OCHO is Now Live!

Hey everybody, come check out the new issue of OCHO (#24) featuring Poets on Twitter, edited by Collin Kelley and Didi Menendez! My poem "Heart-Finger Mudra" is in it.

Besides thanking the editors, I must also thank my amiga Meg Locsin for her marvelous audacity and always impeccable sense of timing.

Image source:

http://tinyurl.com/pq3mfp

And the Oscar Goes to...

Or rather, the Kreativ Blogger Award...

Thanks to Mnemosyne Writes who has just included The Lizard Meanders in her list of blogs which she deems worthy of receiving the Kreativ Blogger Award!

Following the rules, apparently now I must list 7 things I love, and pick 7 other blogs that I believe should receive the same honor.


Here's my list of 7 things I love (ok, I cheated a little; they're in combos) --

Poetry & coffee
Lizards in art and silver jewelry
Tango and Cello Works
Sushi and spicy food
Cooking at home
Wood floors, windows & sunlight
Soft yarn and a soft rainy day

and 7 blogs I love to read --

Megatonlove
Eric Gamalinda
Kanlaon (Marianne Villanueva)
Brookside Baby (Babeth Lolarga)
True Love, 6 Kids, 1 Old House (Kathleen Joaquin Burkhalter)
Dissinea Writes (Jennifer Patricia A. Carino)
Robert Peake

Chirpy News: Poets Who Tweet

Thanks to Collin Kelley at Modern Confessional, who's done an important update to Mashable.com's list of "100 Writers Who Are Active on Twitter" (who'd they leave out? the POETS!)

Not only has Collin brought our attention to Poets Who Tweet, but also-- along with Didi Menendez of MiPoesias-- come up with the brilliant idea of co-editing a special issue of OCHO featuring poets in the Poets on Twitter post.

The deadline is May 22, and you can find the submission guidelines here!!! Fly to it, birdies!

"Circle of Cranes"

Thank you and mil besos to RATTLE literary magazine for posting my poem "Circle of Cranes"
yesterday on their archives.


Image source:
zoomcity.wordpress.com/2007/09/

Update, Update!

Rhina Espaillat & Luisa Igloria

Newburyport Literary Festival, 24-25 April 2009

Whew, it's been sooooo hectic, what with reading and grading portfolios, the end of the spring semester/schoolyear, attending last Saturday's commencement exercises at ODU (we graduated 6 MFA writers, Yay! ~ including Christian Anton Gerard, now poised to enter the Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee; Andrea Nolan; Matilda Cox; Paula McMahon; April Phillips; and Graham Currin); managing at least the physical transition of Creative Writing Program files from Sheri Reynolds' office to mine (yes, I have officially assumed the position of MFA Program Director); and starting, yes, starting to teach for Summer Session 1! -- I realize I haven't even had time to blog about my fun visit to Boston and Newburyport from 23-26 April!


The Newburyport Literary Festival is why I was out New England way, but also I made a stop at Tufts University to visit talented fiction writer Grace Talusan's Asian American Experience class~ they adopted my Juan Luna's Revolver as one of their course texts this spring (so thrilling! thank you, Grace!) My friend Kathleen Joaquin Burkhalter (who like me calls Baguio home) and her hubby Bud Bell, along with three of their six wonderfully talented kids, picked me up at the airport and as soon as we extablished ourselves in their van's middle row of course Kathleen and I began our chismis-fest, which continued over lunch at Ana's Taqueria, and went on as we made our way to Tufts campus and the Asian American house where Grace was meeting her class. Some of Grace's students brought yummy rice cakes that tasted like green tea, and Grace brought two whole boxes of KickAss Cupcakes (the name says it all, doesn't it?) to sweeten the deal... We of course needed no prompting, and I had the good luck to taste the delectable Mojito cupcake (more lime than rum-flavored though, but with an artful scroll of lime-flavored cream topped by a fresh mint leaf). I read a little bit from JLR and then we had a nice thoughtful conversation with Grace's students, who asked such smart questions... So fun, capped off by picture taking (the kids even held up their copies of JLR for the photo, I noticed belatedly when I was uploading files from my camera)...

After the class, Grace, Kathleen, Bud and the kids and I went out for some yummy Sichuan food (I had the double-cooked spicy pork belly with green onions and rice). Grace and her partner Alonso Nichols were tres gracious hosts at their Tufts flat, and the following morning before leaving for work Alonso casually mentioned that he was toasting some ube bread and would I like to try some. But of course I wanted to-- despite knowing that Grace and I had agreed to go do a morning of writing at one of the little cafes in Davis Square, over a late breakfast. I am so glad Grace suggested that - for as soon as we settled into our chairs in the light-filled Mr. Crepe in Somerville, it was like someone had pressed the "release" button and I got into that writing groove faster than you could say coffee and crepe with fruit and brie!

Then it was off at noontime to Harvard Square where first we visited the Grolier Poetry Bookshop, oldest poetry-only bookstore in the country (General Manager Daniel Wuenschel was minding the store in a dapper mint green suit, pink shirt, and polka-dotted bow tie). One more short stop at the manga and anime store Tokyo Kid run by Andrew Cocuaco, and we were on our way to Newburyport. We got there in enough time to shower and preen at the very pretty Essex Street Inn, and walk down the cobbled streets to the Firehouse Gallery where the Newburyport Literary Festival opening event was held, featuring a conversation between the NEA's John Peede, and muy simpatica novelist, poet and philanthropist Julia Alvarez; followed by the Authors' Dinner afterwards, where we got to mix and mingle and meet and converse with Julia and a host of other stimulating and talented people.

L-R: Grace Talusan; Luisa Igloria; Julia Alvarez

Authors' Night Dinner, 24 April 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival

And of course, it was such a pleasure and honor to read the following morning at the poetry events led off by the incomparable Rhina Espaillat, who is clearly a beloved and inspiring presence in her community there. It was also great to visit again with my old friend, poet Jose Edmundo Ocampo Reyes (who introduced my event, and who was also featured along with local poets in the Breakfast with the Poets panel earlier in the morning).

As if the lovely Festival, gorgeous weather, warm reception and friendly folk, and a whole leisurely afternoon to stroll in and out of quaint little artisan shops were not enough (brought back candy rocks, and, just could not resist some soft handspun yarn the color of brilliant irises; and a pair of the smoothest, lightest, birch knitting needles) -- what else should serendipitously happen but the plain good fortune to be taken to Logan Airport by a literary livery driver who talked about books and reading all the way there -- she happened to have just started in a low-residency program so she could write her mystery stories when not serving as middle school counselor in Salem and reading at least one book a day... Well, maybe it's not so surprising given that the Mayor of Newburyport was first a Librarian before he began his career as a local government official.

At Logan, one more surprise encounter was waiting. No sooner had I eased into a chair at my gate, when out of the corner of my eye I spied a tall Filipino guy having a bagel and a banana; that's not what piqued my interest, though -- it was the canvas bag full of canvases at his feet, and the way his face very much resembled this guy my friend the poet Bino Realuyo was blogging about last fall or winter, because he wanted to alert more people to this wonderful painter's public art project called Smile Boston. I blinked and looked again, and then just made up my mind, strode over and asked him pretty much without preamble if he was the painter Bren Bataclan. It was! We made short work of introductions, and I found out he was en route to Alaska where he had been invited to do presentations and workshops in several public schools. Before we boarded, he'd pressed one of his paintings (from the new series "Everything Will Be All Right") into my hands, and included me in his collection of recordings (part of the documentation he's doing on these projects, with a nifty little camcorder that could fit into a shirt pocket).

In the picture here, back home in Norfolk, youngest daughter G was thrilled at this pasalubong that I brought back from Boston, and I must admit that I was quite the fan girl too...

Pondering Form and Other (In)tangibles

My spring graduate poetry and nonfiction workshop students will be doing brief presentations on their third hybrid projects tonight, and I'm looking forward to the class!

And so because of that, and because last night I was seized by this spasm that made me - pronto, not a moment too soon! - tear off the plastic sheets we taped across all our windows from late fall and over the whole winter (to try and keep as much warmth in our poorly insulated apartment -- with not much success, judging from our ghastly heating bills), I want to post this poem by Ann Lauterbach here.

The poem is "Hum" and it's from the Blue Flower Arts site. It captures in its measured couplets and deceptively simple end-stopped lines, the progression as well as recursiveness of things. And, despite their terrible banality, such days can be generous and forgiving: "Tomorrow was yesterday."

H U M
(Ann Lauterbach)


The days are beautiful.
The days are beautiful.

I know what days are.
The other is weather.

I know what weather is.
The days are beautiful.

Things are incidental.
Someone is weeping.

I weep for the incidental.
The days are beautiful.

Where is tomorrow?
Everyone will weep.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
The days are beautiful.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
Today is weather.

The sound of the weather
Is everyone weeping.

Everyone is incidental.
Everyone weeps.

The tears of today
Will put out tomorrow.

The rain is ashes.
The days are beautiful.

The rain falls down.
The sound is falling.

The sky is a cloud.
The days are beautiful.

The sky is dust.
The weather is yesterday.

The weather is yesterday.
The sound is weeping.

What is this dust?
The weather is nothing.

The days are beautiful.
The towers are yesterday.

The towers are incidental.
What are these ashes?

Here is the hat
That does not travel

Here is the robe
That smells of the night

Here are the words
Retired to their books

Here are the stones
Loosed from their settings

Here is the bridge
Over the water

Here is the place
Where the sun came up

Here is a season
Dry in the fireplace.

Here are the ashes.
The days are beautiful.

***

BTW, because it's still National Poetry Month, the ODU Bookstore in the University Village is giving away a free beret ("to complete your poetry wardrobe") with the purchase of two select poetry titles.

Reading at the 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival -- Come on Out! 24-25 April 2009

Vicki Hendrickson and Jennifer Entwistle (Director and Co-Director, respectively) of the 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival, are excitedly getting ready for the program events which are scheduled from 24-25 April in Newburyport, MA.

The NLF theme this year is Reading for a Lifetime, and so among those being honored are children's author David McPhail and Dottie LaFrance, Newburyport's head librarian for the past 30 years.

I'm also super excited that for the opening festivities at 6:00 on Friday night, Julia Alvarez will be in conversation with Jon Peede from the National Endowment of the Arts at the Firehouse Center in Market Square.

This event will be followed by Dinner with the Authors at 7:30 pm at the Nicholson Hall, 7 Harris Street in Newburyport.

It will be wonderful to see the ever gracious Rhina P. Espaillat again, Dominican-born and bilingual writer who has published poetry, essays and short stories in both English and her native Spanish, as well as translations. I first met Rhina at a reading which I did for the Powow River Poets at the Newburyport Art Association Gallery in 2006. Rhina has been the recipient of the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, the Richard Wilbur Award, The Nemerov Prize, the Oberon First Prize, and several awards from the Poetry Society of America, the New England Poetry Club, the Robert Frost Foundation and the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Culture and Education. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Formalist, Measure, Poetry, Review: Literature & Arts of the Americas, and The Hudson Review, as well as in some fifty anthologies and many websites. The most recent of her eleven collections are Playing at Stillness and Her Place in These Designs.

Rhina and my good friend, poet Jose Edmundo Ocampo Reyes, will be part of the 8:30 am Saturday 25 April event "Coffee with the Poets".

If you are in the area, please come out to enjoy the 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival events; and I do hope that you'll come to my reading which is billed as

• "Intimacy Deserves a Closer Look: Poetry by Luisa Igloria"
• 11:30 am, Saturday, 25 April 2009; Congregational Church, 14 Titcomb Street (almost all NLF events will be held at this venue)

The festival closes on Saturday night with a tribute to David McPhail at 6:30 at the Firehouse Center and is followed by a party for the authors and volunteers at the home of Andre Dubus.

Salamat

This evening when we got home, a package was waiting on the doorstep - a little Easter surprise from Baguio amiga and one of my earliest UP Baguio students Myrielle Z. Thoughtful Myrielle, who now lives and plays in NY, sent a copy of Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies along with a little silver pendant on a chain, and some herbal face moisturizer... The compleat care package: a little lovin' for the soul and the body!

How apropos then to encounter anew W.S. Merwin's poem I've loved and known from some time ago, as a kind of frontispiece to Anne Lamott's book -- here it is:

"Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are sayin gthank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

(~ W. S. Merwin)


... and paraphrasing our good friend Joanna E. ~ we keep rowing, in solitude even if together on the same vessel, pulling the oars back with all our weight as we go, imagining that for those small moments when we take them out of the water they are- we are- almost lifted.

Salamat, we Filipinos say. Or if you are from the North, as I am, you say Agyamanac. Agyamanac unay. Dios ti agngina.

Spring Rain, Skies the Color of the Bottom of an Aluminum Rice Cooker

Yesterday, youngest hija (who is on spring break all this week) was invited to spend a few evenings with our friends M & R and their daughter N, in a beach house in North Carolina. We thought it would just be an overnight jaunt, but M reassured us that it would really, really be so much better if N had company. So we packed her pink backpack with jammies, t-shirts, socks, jeans and capris; she took two of her favorite Webkinz animals, and I sent them off with a hot chicken dish. Last night after I got home from teaching my graduate poetry workshop, and this morning when we got up to get ready for work, the apartment was noticeably bereft of the little girl's non-stop patter and whirlwind energy.

In my office I have successfully cleaned out three whole filing cabinet drawers (throwing out ten-year old memos and more in the process, yay!) in preparation for an anticipated transfer of files I'll be inheriting from the MFA Creative Writing Program office in a month or so. It feels so nice and airy in here all of a sudden! And best of all, I have a wee spot of writing time to myself before litle hija comes home.

The glimmery grey sky today (the color of the bottom of an aluminum rice cooker), and the thin rain that has come and gone, come and gone since last night, made me think of the April 8 "Poetry Month Pick" (it's National Poetry Month in case y'all forgot) -- John Witte's selection of this gem of a poem called "Two Sewing" by Hazel Hall (1886-1924).

I'm copying the poem here:

Two Sewing
by Hazel Hall


The wind is sewing with needles of rain.
With shining needles of rain
It stitches into the thin
Cloth of earth. In,
In, in, in.
Oh, the wind has often sewed with me.
One, two, three.
Spring must have fine things
To wear like other springs.
Of silken green the grass must be
Embroidered. One and two and three.
Then every crocus must be made
So subtly as to seem afraid
Of lifting colour from the ground;
And after crocuses the round
Heads of tulips, and all the fair
Intricate garb that Spring will wear.
The wind must sew with needles of rain,
With shining needles of rain,
Stitching into the thin
Cloth of earth, in,
In, in, in,
For all the springs of futurity.
One, two, three.

*

Here are John Witte's comments on his "Poet's Pick" above:

"Beginning with the materials at hand – her limited mobility, her isolation and loneliness, her gifts with needlework and words, and her exquisite grief – Hazel Hall fashioned in the short span of her career a poetry of remarkable originality and durability.

"Born in St. Paul on February 7, 1886, Hall moved with her family to the bustling young city of Portland, Oregon as a small girl. She was an exuberant and unusually sensitive and imaginative child. But at the age of twelve, following a bout of scarlet fever, she was confined to a wheelchair, and, like Emily Dickenson on the opposite end of the continent, would live out her life in an upper room of her family’s house. To help support her mother and two sisters, Hall took in sewing, and gainfully occupied herself embroidering the sumptuous fabrics of bridal gowns, baby dresses, altar cloths, lingerie, and Bishop’s cuffs that would figure so lushly in her poems.

"In “Two Sewing,” from 1921, as in so many of her poems, Hall escapes her confinement into the fertile refuge of language and imagination. As both seamstress and poet, she enjoyed the fortuitous coincidence of two activities that ingeniously referred to and informed one another, the interplay of stitch and song.

"After seventy years out of print, Hazel Hall’s poems have been rediscovered and her Collected Poems republished in 2000 by Oregon State University Press."

Congratulations to the 2008-09 ODU College Poetry Prize Winners!!!

In 1955, The Academy of American Poets established its University and College Poetry Prize program at ten schools. The Academy now sponsors over 200 annual prizes for poetry at colleges and universities nationwide, and has awarded more than $350,000 to nearly 10,000 student poets since the program's inception. Many of America's most esteemed poets won their first recognition through an Academy College Prize, including Diane Ackerman, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Alice Fulton, Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, Allen Grossman, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Brad Leithauser, J. D. McClatchy, Heather McHugh, Gregory Orr, Robert Pinsky, Sylvia Plath, Mark Rudman, Mary Jo Salter, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, George Starbuck, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright.

Three years ago, through the efforts of then Virginia Poet Laureate Carolyn Kreiter Foronda, the Poetry Society of Virginia decided to endow an Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize for Old Dominion University.

The results of The Poetry Society of Virginia-Old Dominion University-Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize Competition 2008-09 are out -- and I want to say big Congratulations!!! to all of this year's poetry prize winners in the undergraduate and graduate categories:

Undergraduate Category

First Prize Winner: "Attention. Deficit. Bird," / William Meade Stith
First runner-up: "The Pictures On Your Walls" / Emily Bonner
Second runner-up (Tie): "Contemplating Nyx" / Ryan Glass and "The Morning After" / Sarah Pringle

Graduate Category

First Prize Winner: "Definitive" / Christian Anton Gerard
First runner-up: "Wood-turner" / Andrea J. Nolan
Second runner-up (Three-way tie):
“Prahera” / Andrea J. Nolan
“Frontiersmen” / Christian Anton Gerard
"Departure of a neighbor" / Zsuzsanna Basca Palmer

This year, we are so very fortunate to have had poet Rick Hilles as our contest judge. Rick was born in Canton, Ohio and educated at Kent State, Columbia, and Stanford. His first poetry collection, Brother Salvage, won the 2005 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and was named the 2006 Poetry Book of the Year by ForeWord Magazine. In 2008, Rick received one of the prestigious Whiting Writers Awards. He was the 2002-03 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar and has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, the Ruth and Jay C. Halls Fellow at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and the recipient of the Larry Levis Editors’ Prize from The Missouri Review. His work has appeared in Harper’s, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, Salmagundi, Field and Witness. He teaches in the MFA Program at Vanderbilt University.

Rick sent these very generous comments about his experience judging the entries in this year's ODU College Poetry Prize competition, along with more specific notes on his picks for the top prize in each category; I'd like to share these with you, since I am so proud of the wonderful writers in our program here.


Rick wrote: "One sign of a healthy creative writing program is when the work coming from it exhibits a wide range of styles and approaches to the art we love. Thus, I was thrilled to find such inspired and inspiring evidence of divergent sensibilities, of genuine individual voices,among this year’s submissions to the Academy of American Poets Prize. When work is this rich, and vibrant, and varied, as its benefactors,everyone wins.

"The somewhat capricious nature of contests, of course, is that they also have specific winners. In the end, the poems that I chose were simply those whose pleasures and surprises—whose meanings and mysteries—stayed with me most, rewarding (even as they challenged) my various attentions."

And here are Rick's comments on


1) Undergraduate First Prize Winner: “Attention. Deficit. Bird,” by William Meade Stith (Meade graduated from Salem High School in Virginia Beach in 1992. He then enlisted in the Navy and served aboard Submarines. After the Navy he graduated cum laude from Tidewater Community College in 2003 with an Associate degree in Science. He is currently working towards a Bachelors of Arts in English/Creative Writing at Old Dominion University. Meade is happily married with two wonderful boys.) ~

"One thing that’s flourished in recent years, and promises to remain a “growth industry” even in the currently worsening economic climate, is trenchant social satire. (But why should the comedians have all the fun?) Frankly, I’m bone-weary ofseeing irony deployed at best as mere cleverness and, worse, as a way for poets to distance themselves, even unconsciously, from genuine feeling; fortunately “Attention. Deficit. Bird,” does something different: In taut, well-crafted language (chiseled with abundant attention to detail) this poet offers a penetrating—and seriously funny!—look, worthy of Swift’s “Modest Proposal,” at our overly- (and, perhaps, at times necessarily-) medicated time."

2) Graduate First Prize Winner: “Definitive” by Christian Anton Gerard (Christian is the recipient of two work/study scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and the Rosine Offen Memorial Award from Free Lunch. Some of his recent poems appear or are forthcoming in journals such as Orion, Poetry East, Harpur Palate, Faultline, Phoebe, Waccamaw, and Potomac Review. In May, 2009, he will receive his MFA from Old Dominion University.) ~

"Numinous moments, like glimpses of a yeti, are rare if not entirely debatable. (And yet how quickly even the mere thought of such a sighting can stir the imagination!) This winning poem’s title,the OED reminds us, means “authoritative,” “pertaining to a definite statement” but also “something that settles or determines a boundary or a limit” and (perhaps most importantly for this poem) “having a definite position but not occupying space.” What kept drawing me back to this poem, and past the other extremely accomplished finalists in this mix, in part, is not only this poem’s more compelling subject—something more central to the irresolvable mysteries of our lives—but how the poem (and thus its poet) enacted this central mystery in a language commensurate to the elusiveness of such mysteries: One thinks of Robert Frost’s “For Once, Then, Something,” yet returns and lingers more happily in this newer “backyard” where, even if one never learns “what happened in that house, everything(including the reader)/is changed.” "

And here is a little info on our other College Poetry Prize Winners this year:

Emily Bonner (Undergraduate Category, First Runner-up) was born in Ipswich, England and came to the US in late 1987. She grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia and attended Hickory High School. She will receive her BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing in May 2009 from ODU. Emily has been accepted into the ODU MFA creative writing program to study poetry. She has recently received Honorable Mention for a student film selected for the Dr. Stephen E. Konikoff/Old Dominion University/Norfolk film and video Festival Awards.

Ryan Glass (Undergraduate Category, Second Runner-up; tie) and Sarah Pringle (Undergraduate Category, Second Runner-up; tie) are both undergraduate creative writing students at Old Dominion University; Ryan was the first prize winner in the undergraduate category the first year that the College Poetry Prize was offered here. Both Ryan and Sarah have been strong contributors in my undergraduate creative writing workshops.

Andrea J. Nolan (Graduate Category, First Runner-up) has published two books of non-fiction (Sea Kayaking Virginia and Sea Kayaking Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, both with W.W. Norton) and ran a sea kayaking company for 7 years before coming to ODU. She is interested in working in/with community based writing programs, and she also writes poetry. Her essay "Edges" appeared in the Potomac Review (fall 2008). Andrea is graduating from the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University this spring, where she is currently director of the Writers in Community program. Andrea is working on a collection of connected short stories.

Last but not least, Zsuzsanna Basca Palmer (Graduate Category, Second Runner-up, tied with Andrea J. Nolan and Christian Gerard) is a distance student currently in our Ph.D. Professional Writing Program.

Can a Cracked Hardboiled Egg Become Un-Cracked?

No, no, this is not a meth story... This evening after dinner, I was helping my youngest daughter dye and decorate some hardboiled eggs for Easter. I'd boiled a half dozen, and left them to cool in the pot. When we went to get them, one had a thin little crack around its midsection and so I put it in a ramekin and refrigerated it; then we went to work on the five. After she had gone to bed, I opened the fridge an hour later to deposit the pink, blue, and green eggs she decorated with swirls, leaves and hearts, and noticed that the egg I'd set aside earlier sported a clean and unblemished surface, with hardly any trace of the crack... Did I have any pre-dinner drinks? (No.) Are my eyes playing tricks on me? (Hmm?) Was the Easter Bunny here? (Double hmm.)

In the dream I am desperately trying to make connections. I am at an aunt's apartment and her two grown children say they can take me only as far as x, but I'll be on my own and will have to find out how to get to y once I find out what travel means are available there. I agree, since there is nothing else that can be done about it.

They wake me before dawn and we take the elevator to the lobby. I'm carrying two boxes in each hand; they're large, but they don't feel very heavy. In the garden, walking through dark green boxwood hedges tipped with silver, I stop and say, we have to go back upstairs. I forgot to use the bathroom. Please, I need to use the bathroom.

We return and find my aunt asleep on a sofa in the upstairs lobby. She is confused and thinks she has been in her bedroom all along. We return indoors and they let me use the bathroom. When I come out one of the children says, Well, I guess I can take you as far as y anyway; you don't have to go all the way on your own.

Thank You, EIU!

Before I hit the road again, I just want to give lavish thanks to John Martone, Mike Watts, Daiva Markelis, Dagni Bredesen (and Bruce Guernsey, for helping to pave the way!), Miho Nonaka, Robin Murray, Letitia Moffitt, John Kilgore, the rest of the English Department faculty, and all the wonderful people at Eastern Illinois University who hosted my fabulous reading last night at the beautiful new Doudna Fine and Performing Arts Center; special thanks to Daiva and Marty for opening their home for the warm reception afterwards!

(In the picture above - posing for a pre-reading photo with Daiva Markelis at the Doudna Fine Arts Center Hall)

Thank you too, to the wonderful students who came, asked smart questions, and even burned the midnight oil to get this press release into the Daily Eastern News this bright and early morning :)

A Little Tour of Amish Country + The Jelly Doughnut Man

This morning, my gentle host from the English Department at Eastern Illinois University, poet John Martone, picked me up to take me on a little tour of Amish Country in the nearby towns of Arthur and Arcola (which calls itself the broom corn capital of the world).

Our first stop (after coffee and a danish/biscotti at one of the Starbucks coffee shops near EIU) was the Illinois Amish Interpretive Center and Museum where we traded stories about teaching and writing poetry, family life, and making handmade books while looking at the displays of beautiful hand-wrought Amish furniture, quilts, toys (I had no idea that the Raggedy Ann and Andy Doll creator was from these parts; or that the popular Sock Monkey toy is Amish); there was a "low-flying" Amish buggy (complete with its soapstone footwarmer) from the 1890s, treadle-operated sewing machines, a clothesline display strung with Amish clothing (no zippers, only straight pins, and later buttons were ok, so that's why the men's trousers have a buttoned-over flap crossing from the crotch to the right side of the waistband); and old books and bibles brought over from Switzerland.

After our Museum tour John took me to an Amish farm/food store housed in a small warehouse-sized building. There were buggies parked in the lot, and one particularly skittish horse that couldn't keep still. Inside were rows of very neatly arranged merchandise - natural herbal remedies (tea tree oil and such) and sweet little handmade bars of goat-milk and oatmeal soap (I bought four of them) toward the front, right next to signs saying "bales of hay for sale, inquire"; Amish cookbooks, rolling pins, pancake flour, lentil and bean soup packets, and in the back freezers, free-range organically raised chicken, and more... There were only about four regular-size light bulbs close to the ceiling (these ran on propane energy, not electricity) but it was bright as daylight inside (even despite the overcast day and the light snow showers falling), because of these rows of genius solar panels cut out of the ceiling and covered with reflectorized glass.

We returned to EIU to pick up John's colleague, bilingual writer Miho Nonaka, and the three of us went to a nearby Thai restaurant where John and I both had the eggplant-basil dish, and Miho regaled us with the story of her anime poem about Anpan-Man, this Japanese superhero character with the head and face of a jelly doughnut.


Apparently when he sees someone suffering, especially from hunger, he flies down and offers the child or poor person his head; and apparently it's nothing to worry about if they eat him up and he, uh, literally loses his face, because he can always fly back home to his dad who is a baker, and get a new jelly doughnut head as good as new... :)

I can't wait to read Miho's poem, and I promised her I'd read my own anime poem at tonight's program. (In the picture at left, Miho holds up her picture book of Anpan-Man, which she brought to the reception.)

>>> Pictures above: Left, the artfully folded roll of toilet paper in my Bed and Breakfast Suite;

and Right, NOT Miho's Jelly-Doughnut-Faced superhero, but one of rows and rows of (potentially, slightly creepy) Victorian dolls printed on the wallpaper, also in my Bed and Breakfast Suite. <<<

The Best Pan De Sal in Baguio

I am once again, dear readers, on the road - this time in Charleston, IL where I am spending the night in a cozy little Bed and Breakfast run by Dave and Annette Reichart called "Queen Anne's" -- where I am surrounded by very Laura Ashley-like surroundings (embroidered quilts and pillow shams, lace doilies, and at last count at least 4 Tiffany lamps scattered throughout my room and the outside hallway). I'll be reading from my new book Juan Luna's Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009) tomorrow night at Eastern Illinois University.

But between now and the last time I came to noodle on my blog, I found a post - a query, really - on where one could get the best pan de sal in Baguio.

Pan de sal (bread of salt, literally) is of course arguably the prime beloved incarnation of bread amongst Filipinos, or at least the most ubiquitous. You can go to the most nondescript corner sari-sari store at the end of your street and at 5 in the morning come away with a brown paper bag filled with the piping hot bread rolls.

The late and beloved fiction writer NVM Gonzalez immortalized pan de sal in his short story "Bread of Salt," which he read when he came to the University of Illinois in '93 or '94 while I was doing my Ph.D. work in Chicago. Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions Mail Order Books came to the reading to sell NVM's books and other Filipiniana, and so she will probably be able to corroborate my recollection of how NVM gleefully told the enraptured audience who found his story akin to James Joyce's "Araby" for its epiphany, that he thought it was better than James Joyce's "because there is a grandmother in [my] story!"

But going back to the question of the best pan de sal and where one might get it in Baguio nowadays... I'm curious too. I'm pretty sure that all self-respecting bakeries make it and sell it (or should!), although now I am wondering about this fancy pastry shop along upper Session Road (I can't remember what it was called anymore) where my family and I used to go for Napoleons, Cream Puffs, Cinnamon Buns, and slices of torte or layer cake... I don't think they sold pan de sal.

We always got our pan de sal from the sari-sari store at the upper end of our street, where City Camp Alley met the intersection at Legarda and Kisad. If there were no more to be had there, one could walk a couple more blocks a third of the way down City Camp Proper to the other sari-sari store (which we could see from our kitchen window). And then, there came Rose's pan de sal - it could be had from another sari-sari store a little further away (you had to walk past the jeepney stop / "waiting shed" at the corner fronting Palma Street, down toward Otek Street). Rose's had somehow acquired the reputation of being the best pan de sal around, and when we tried it we all said, yes, it's so much crustier on the outside but just the right kind of soft chewiness inside, and the best part was it was bigger in size than all the other pan de sals we'd known and tried. But times changed and as the buying power of the peso diminished, we also saw the phenomenon of the shrinking pan de sal. What size does it come in nowadays?

We liked our pan de sal plain or buttered (Magnolia or Anchor butter, or Star margarine, all of that meant "buttered"); or with a smear of Cheez Whiz or Reno potted meat. I liked it with sardines in tomato sauce, or made it up as "pizza pan de sal" with whatever leftover meat in the fridge drizzled with tomato sauce and a bit of cheese and then warmed up in a frying pan in the days before the microwave oven. My kids loved it with condensed milk, or as sugar-butter-bread (butter then a sprinkle of raw sugar on top). One of my Filipina roommates in graduate school said that her grandmother sent them off to school with pan de sal sandwiches for lunch, filled with whatever leftovers there were in the fridge, whether that meant leftover beef or leftover mung beans. "At least it was pan de sal," she would sigh.

Whoever said "the greatest thing since white bread" meaning to use the latter as a benchmark, must not have heard of the versatile and filling pan de sal. Construction workers and grandmothers alike dunk it in hot coffee and no one, but no one, thinks this prissy. For many, it's the only thing to be had for breakfast. But it also appears at so many other times during the course of a Filipino day (of eating and snacking) that I wonder why I haven't yet seen some cafe or eatery built around the theme of pan de sal... It would seem to make sense.

Here, we get our pan de sal when we go to the Asian grocery store in Virginia Beach, which is perhaps once a month. It's not piping hot because we don't get it fresh from the oven at first light. They come 12 to a plastic bag, done up at the top with a twist-tie, and labeled "Laguna Bakery" (there is even a picture of a baby on it - the proprietors' grandchild, perhaps?). They're good, they have the chewy pan de sal-like consistency inside, and they're huge -- about two thirds the size of my palm -- but somehow they're too uniform in appearance, in a way that the pan de sal from my childhood never was (the dough rolled and cut by hand, size gauged by eye so that hands getting to the brown paper bag late would wind up with the smallest pieces, sorry).
So can someone tell me where the best pan de sal in Baguio can be had these days? and better yet, can you ship some to me?

JUAN LUNA'S REVOLVER at EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY on MONDAY, APRIL 6

Here's an invitation to all of you good folks out there in the Charleston, IL area - I'll be taking JUAN LUNA'S REVOLVER to a reading at Eastern Illinois University on Monday, 6 April 2009 -- the event begins at 7:00 pm at the Doudna Fine Arts Center, and is part of EIU's New and Emerging Artists Series.

For details/information/directions please contact John Martone at the English Department, Eastern Illinois University (217) 581-6982 or email jpmartone "at" eiu "dot" edu. The event is free and open to the public

Little Sunday Teach-in

Tracie Liguid, Veronica Salcedo, Di Paniza, Diana Twombly. Four young FilAm women from the Hampton Roads area who have been meeting on Sunday afternoons for several weeks now to do a course in Filipino American Memoir because of their hunger to write their own stories. The class was led by Tracie, who is a journalist and an erstwhile student in one of the summer courses I have taught on Asian American Literature. Veronica has been a teacher in the VA Beach high school system for the last seven years (way to go!); her partner Di is an officer in the police force. Diana has been with the navy and has recently gotten married. They had their final meeting this afternoon in Tracie's light-drenched apartment in West Ghent, and graciously invited me to come share libations (mimosas, mojitos), poetry, and food but of course (chips and addictive cheese dip, adobo, arroz caldo) -- not necessarily in that order.

We talked about a lot of things, shared stories. They asked me many questions - many of these, about my experiences and perceptions of growing up in the Philippines and comparing perspectives between "here" and "there". I looked at each of them in turn and while it's true that they could all be at a certain age that they could probably be my daughters - young, independent, making their way through life and their professions - I felt that I was really more among friends.

What was I doing when I was their age? Married, already a mom at least twice over, and working full time, that's what. But who knows in which direction the wheel is always already turning? I told them about the 1990 earthquake in Baguio and the crossroads place it came to represent to me; of losing a home we'd just completed construction work on and had barely moved into; of the death of my father a scant two weeks after (on a pallet in the Baguio General Hospital, while aftershocks continued to rend the ground); and of the news that came about my receipt of a Fulbright fellowship to do graduate work in the US. All of these, packed into the same year that seemed so much like a violently colored pennant fluttering on my life-line.

From the back bedroom I shared with my young family in my parents' home before we'd risked building our own (short-lived, soon lost) home, I'd stare at the ceilings during the long, trying months of the monsoon and rainy season, noting the soft constellations of mold that branched and bloomed until someone thought to climb up a ladder months later, and wipe them away with a rag. The street below was always alive with clanging noise: jeepneys, trucks, drunks careening into garbage cans in the wee hours of the morning; taho vendors, itinerant repairmen ('per payong, 'per payong -- meaning, "repair payong/repair umbrellas"), children chanting on their way to and from school.

That world was the world which first formed both my sense of pragmatics and poetics; that tried to teach me the hard lessons of endurance as well as the ability to turn with gratitude toward any window that opened to sudden light, when it came.

Notre Dame Visit / 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize Series Reading

A shout out to all the good folks at the University of Notre Dame's MFA Creative Writing Program and the University of Notre Dame Press, who were my gracious hosts during my recent visit there.

Last night I flew in from an almost harrowing day of (1) fog-caused flight delay, (2) the consequential missed connection, (3) the interminable waiting time till the next connection, (4) the four, yes, four, gate changes while waiting for the last leg of my trip, and (5) as if for comic relief, the announcement made by the helpful airline person behind counter fifteen minutes before boarding (4), that our aircraft's toilet was "inoperable" and that we had better rush to the loo quickly before takeoff! So yes, it was that kind of a day-- bloody travel snafus take all the fun out of trips!

It was with a scant 40 minutes to spare that I finally arrived at the Notre Dame campus, but thanks to my super friendly and super efficient welcoming committee Stephanie Smith and Jessica Martinez, I had enough time to splash water on my face and deposit my bags at the Morris Inn before going downstairs to the lobby to join my old friend and cohort in UIC's Ph.D. Creative Writing program (we were there at the same time in '92-'96), poet Orlando Menes. Orlando is an associate professor in the UND MFA Creative Writing program; from catching up with him, I'm happy to hear that he is doing fine work and receiving acknowledgment for it (congratulations on your recent NEA award, Orlando!) Walking to the reading venue a few buildings away and admiring the architecture, we met up with yet another familiar face from our UIC days -- UND's current MFA Creative Program head, Steve Tomasula.

At the impressive Eck Visitors' Center (deep blue cathedral ceilings studded with fleur-de-lis), I read for an hour from a selection of poems including from my most recent book, Juan Luna's Revolver, which was conferred the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize and published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Afterwards, we all enjoyed trays of bite-sized egg rolls and yummy coconut shrimp, fruit, and pastries outside in the lobby area where we chatted and I signed some books, and had the pleasure of meeting Notre Dame Review editors John Matthias and William O'Rourke.

Maraming Salamat to Sami Schalk, Iris Law, Jessica Martinez, Stephanie White, Orlando Menes, Joyelle McSweeney, Cornelius Eady, Steve Tomasula, Barbara Hanrahan; and especially to the tireless Coleen Hoover, who took care of so many little details that made the visit wonderful.

with (l-r) Stephanie White, Sami Schalk, Iris Law

Procedural

Last Monday, I knew I was in good hands when the first of two attending nurses on the floor of the outpatient unit I was in, approached me to introduce herself and I noticed she had on black scrubs with cute pink piping all around, and a rhinestone-decorated Hello Kitty logo about the size of a handspan on the bottom right corner of her tunic. No ugly floral-printed pattern like on kitchen curtains or oilcloth. I'm Jen, she said. Even better omen, I thought (she has the same name as my eldest daughter), letting my Pinay sensibility - superstitious, or at least tending to animism, at the core - take over. Jen brought me bed socks with nubby rubber-pellet-sprinkled non-skid soles.

Cindy, her colleague working the floor that morning, was equally warm and friendly. They made me feel good, like I was coming in for a spa treatment rather than for The Procedure: We want to know your secret, they said. They saw my age on the chart, and chatting me up found out that the eldest of my four daughters is 28. I bantered, Keep it coming, I'll take whatever I can at my age and run with it all the way to the bank. They got me comfy, rolling up a blanket to wedge against the small of my back because I had to lie in a certain position on my right side for two solid hours after The Procedure.

In the other room, where The Procedure was actually carried out, the doctor's assistant was cheerfully efficient and respectfully asked if two interns or residents could observe (I was at a teaching facility). The ultrasound technician was the only woman in the room-- a petite blonde with shoulder-length hair that flipped stylishly up at the ends. I remember wondering where she had gotten her haircut. Someone came to give me a tiny little shot of morphine in my IV. Just a little bit, he said. You'll feel really good. And I did. After a few minutes the world felt a little softer in the center, though I was still focused and aware. I locked my fingers together and bent the middle fingers inward, so that I could wrap my other fingers around them; my friend Meg had emailed the previous night to say, In Jin Shin Jyutsu you'd hold your middle fingers through The Procedure; it'll help. Can't hurt, I thought.

The ultrasound technician made a few passes with her warmed gel-slicked wand. They looked at the screen over her shoulder. She took a marker to my skin, felt once or twice again to make sure, looked at the screen again; then remarked that I seemed to have very narrow spaces between my ribs. It made me think of how, through the years, all my dentists have said that I have a very small mouth. I wondered if that could be thought of as a kind of complaint. Here's the numbing medicine, said the doctor's assistant, administering by syringe in two (was it three?) places under my right ribcage. It stung. They always say This won't hurt at all, you won't even feel it, it'll only be a little nip. Don't you believe it.

In a few minutes we'll do the real thing, he said. Two passes, easy; one needle going through the hollow needle incised into the skin. The thing is, once they actually got going, the talk shifted to football. Not so much at the outset, it started with someone bringing up the NFL players (one died, several had gone missing) at sea when their boat capsized, but it did move to football in the end. I wasn't really following the conversation. I don't like needles very much, so I did my best to keep my face averted. I looked at the blank monitor on the edge of the wall, at the diamond-patterned wallpaper. However I did feel the two slight tugs at an organ inside me; I remember that my foot arched a little on first impact. Then someone swabbed and put a regular little piece of Band-Aid on the spot, they took the little cut-out window drape away and it was over and I was lying on my side. No driving tomorrow, they said. No yoga yet, not for a few days.

Back in the outpatient unit Jen brought me a Dixie cup of water with a straw. My husband R sat and held it and I drank at intervals. Cindy checked my vitals every 15 minutes. They noted with satisfaction that my BP was steadily coming down (I had been very nervous when I came in; after all this is the first time I've ever had such a Procedure in all my life).

Cindy came with a small bag of potato chips and R fed them to me one chip at a time, in between sips of water. I checked my cell phone to see if I could get a clear signal but nada to the internet, though I could text our daughters to say it was done, I was in recovery. I read text messages ending with xo, or Cheers, or Thinking of you! from some friends who knew about it. Two other patients were in the curtained units on either side. The one on my left, an older gentleman, had had his Procedure done much earlier and was only waiting for the order to be discharged. His wife and daughter were waiting with him. The nurses said when it was time, Bye now, don't do too much today! and he said something cheerful right back, like I'll be happy just to go home and sit in my recliner in front of the TV. To the right of me, the Grandma in the unit sounded like she was in a lot of pain. Her voice was hollow, drawn out, gravelly at the edges. Family members were trying to be cheerful, even trying to make jokes; I heard Cindy go in to help her with a bedpan. Someone said, OK we'll be back in a little bit, maybe we'll go out and have some of your favorite shrimp for lunch. You be a good girl now.

The first two hours passed. The next two I could lie prone. Jen said she would let me go early since I was doing really fine. Oh that would be great, we said. Per protocol she had to wheel me to the front of the hospital in a chair; R had brought the car around. I got up with no difficulty, though the morphine had made me a bit woozy. Hungry? asked R, knowing I had fasted since midnight and it was now three in the afternoon. He took me to a bakery cafe in our neighborhood where I looked at the chalkboard and saw there was spicy crab chowder. I ordered a cup of that, and half a meatloaf sandwich, but when the food came I only wanted to lie down and sleep. Let's go home, I said. We had the food wrapped up.

It was a snow day that Monday, not more than two inches on the ground, just enough to dust the roofs and shrubs and walks. Thin little random flakes fell through the air, melting soon after they hit the windshield. A small wave of nausea caught me before we could walk up the front steps. Must be the morphine, I said. And the extra double dose of painkiller Cindy gave me just to make sure. On an empty stomach at that. Indoors, I crawled into my blue sweatshirt and jammies and got under the quilt. I slept and when I woke it was evening, our littlest girl was home, and there was a Creole chicken-rice dish from our friend Marion, along with little white cartons of Chinese takeout R had gone for. I was suddenly ravenous, even if it was for only dinky stir-fried eggplant in cornstarch-padded sauce.

How do you feel, they asked. A little bruised on one side. A little tired. A whole lot grateful. Aware of precarious time, of the cold, clear air with notes of sesame oil and garlic. Aware of breathing in and out.

Re-connecting

Green, according to my old-and-happily-rediscovered-friend Meg, is the color associated with the liver, which is also associated with spring and new growth, when the sluggish sap wakens to a summons in the air so that you get that sudden inexplicable desire to scour baseboards, count your shoes, reposition your furniture, or take inventory of closets, piling things that you've never worn or only worn once or twice into a bag for goodwill donations, or arrive at the unimpeachable clarity of knowing you have had it with broth, bread, or potatoes and must bite into something light, beautiful, golden yellow, pillowy and soft -- like this plump little mango mochi on right. Or like the melting bechamel layers of a nutmeg-infused Greek macaroni dish that wonderful Joanna E. made and - surprise - dropped by to give us this evening (thus securing for me a few more grateful hours to write, instead of taking a scullery break for dinner preps).

Meg is one of many old friends, former classmates, and students from Baguio that the internet has brought back into my life. We took some courses together (Philosophy, Literature), bitched about our Spanish or Chemistry teachers, hung around the upper and lower canteen. By some weird fluke I cannot exactly explain, I finished a semester or two early and started teaching; I think she may have been in one of the early classes I taught as a fledgling academic trying to figure it out. Well, let me be more precise and say I certainly felt the "fledgling" part but did not know that the rest of what followed would be my path.

Back then, I was also busy trying as fast as I could to get to what I foolishly, naively believed was the "real life" waiting for me after college (what the heck was I thinking?). And so, scarcely a month after my college graduation, I got hitched to a man nine years older than I -- he was unemployed, newly recovering from an intense and tempestuous involvement with drugs, alcohol, and the communist party - in no particular order - and was trying to re-discover himself through leathercraft, folk singing, and various attractions to transcendental meditation/new-age type groups, even as he fondly returned from time to time to a precious memory of him tearing up his high school diploma in protest at a Catholic boys' school in the city, and walking out of the auditorium as shocked clergy, faculty and parents (including his own) knew that his inevitable black-listing was to follow. I had done the white wedding thing at the age of 18, given birth to my first daughter at 19, and begun teaching literature and writing classes at around the same time (yeah, yeah, I was practically a child bride).

So, while I did not really hang out a lot with Meg then, I do remember that she stood out in so many ways: her striking but unstrident beauty, her polish and confidence, her intelligence coupled with an ability to swear a blue streak, outdrink the boys in the old Hangar market, and eat anything that wasn't nailed to the ground, with gusto. In other words, when I glimpsed her in animated discussion with our professors and cohorts on campus, or walking up Session Road from the old Baguio market in jeans, turtleneck, black beret and clogs, de riguer school paraphernalia nowhere in sight but with a plastic bag carelessly slung over one arm, and breathlessly exclaiming over her beautiful plunder of carrots "thick as your wrist" that she was planning to make into the most beautiful cream of carrot soup that night, I was slightly envious of the kind of freedom she represented to me then... For I think I was at that time of my life, like a certain type of character the novelist Anne Enright describes in The Gathering as someone for whom "every choice is fatal, ... every choice is an error, as soon as it is made." Well, perhaps not quite as dramatic as that. But.

In any case, we've renewed our friendship and I am so excited by the things it turns out we have in common. Her laugh is the same as I remember it - spontaneous, deep, irreverent, frequent. I'm elated she has started her own blog. I'm also quite intrigued by her gradual, friendly introduction to me recently, of the concept and practice of Jin Shin Jyutsu, which I think is starting to appeal to my poets' nature because of its encouragement of intuition and attentiveness to organic relationships in the body and in one's environment.

Only attend, as one famous poet has put it. In a way, I'm reminded of how I sometimes tell students who come into our writing workshops (as I also must remind myself every now and then) that the tools we need to write poetry, to write our stories down, are things that we already intrinsically know.

Two Upcoming Readings - March 15 at The MUSE; March 18 at the University of Notre Dame, Sandeen Prize Reading

If you are free at 3 pm this Sunday, 15 March, do come by for Merienda (snacks) and Readings hosted by Tracie Liguid for The MUSE in Ghent (816-A Orapax St., Norfolk VA 23507)-- I will be reading some poetry, along with Jon Pineda; and spoken word artists Kristina Tendilla, Alexander Cena, and Marco Mercado.

***

And if you're in the South Bend, IN area, do come to the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize Series Poetry Reading, which I'm doing for the good folks at the University of Notre Dame and the UND Press-- 7:30 pm Wednesday, 18 March, at the Eck Visitors' Center Auditorium on the UND Campus.

Current

In this dream, which recurs now and again, the first thing I'm aware of is the sound of water next to my ear.

Then I become aware of the sky above, bordered by trees. They look tropical-- palm, acacia, fire trees? No buildings, no pine, no mountains, no outcroppings of rock. Just trees towering overhead, and far away I imagine the sound of birds.

I'm prone on my back on some kind of raft, but my clothes don't feel waterlogged or heavy.

It's not cold, it seems like early morning. Yellow light in the center of relative silence. The sun's not quite overhead yet.

Just the sound of purling water beneath my ears and pillowing my head. Turning my head right or left, I see the river bank; I smell damp protrusions of root, growing things.

It seems I am adrift, that I have come some distance; but I can't be sure. What precedes, what follows after? No one else is here as the water bears me along. I can't get up. This current is taking me to some destination I can't yet see.

Eternally Searching for Relevance

Thank you to Allen Gaborro for his book review of Juan Luna's Revolver, which appears in the March 6-12, 2009 issue of Philippine News.

Juan Luna's Revolver
(2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry, University of Notre Dame Press; 98 pages)

In Luisa Igloria’s book of poetry "Juan Luna’s Revolver," the author adopts the theme of the historical Filipino expatriate and his or her experience with the world outside of their Philippine homeland. The Filipino expatriates’ collective experience was one that will be forever linked to the dual phenomena of Spanish and American colonialism. This parting with the world that these expatriates were so intimate with gave rise to an exilic sensibility, a sensibility that would form much of the material of Igloria’s poetry.

The award-winning Igloria, who is herself one of those diasporic figures that her verses speak of and speak to, attempts to reconcile Filipino expatriates with a genuine sense of their cultural and national identity. She does so both in a colonial and postcolonial context. Even as she combines a poetic impression of Filipinos’ geographical and psychological displacement with the effects of foreign colonialism, Igloria composes verses that are as much about all human beings as they are about Filipinos. While forming this poetic nexus of sensitivity and commiseration with her fellow human beings, Igloria conducts a re-examination of several narratives ranging from sentimentality to aesthetics to historical recollection, and to a contemplation of the human condition as it deals with the difficult realities of the modern world.

An important impetus in “Juan Luna’s Revolver” is Philippine history as it is rendered through Igloria’s poetic consciousness. In the book’s title poem, she conjures up the ghost of Juan Luna, the famous Filipino painter of the Philippine revolutionary period. Luna was not just renowned for his artistic prowess. He was also notorious for using a revolver no less, to kill his mother-in-law and his wife, the latter for alleged adultery.

The memory of the double murder resounds in the pages of “Juan Luna’s Revolver.” Igloria confers a power on the representation of Juan Luna’s “crime of passion” that traverses time, place, and milieu. She draws a similitude between Luna’s turn-of-the-century spousal homicide and one that transpired in Illinois in 1993. The similitude lies in the fact that in the 1993 incident, a Hispanic individual also going by the name Juan Luna gunned down several people in a restaurant. You can call it an incredible historical coincidence or an example of poetic intertextuality.

On the surface of this poem, we can make out the historical conjunction of kinships between two former colonial subjects. Beneath the same surface layer however, we see something else altogether. That is Igloria’s treatment of history as a congeries of people, events, and episodes. As part of that treatment, she gives special prominence in her book to not only Juan Luna, but to José Rizal as well. Igloria also shines the spotlight on the 1904 St. Louis World Fair where Filipinos were rendered by American presenters as alien, uncivilized and benighted.

If there is an Achilles’ heel, and a minor one at that, in “Juan Luna’s Revolver” it is in the poem “Doctrina Christiana.” This profound and poignant poem is titled after the first book to ever be published in the Philippines. The problem is that the poem is not suggestive of an association with one of the more historically noteworthy aspects of that book. That aspect is the pre-colonial “baybayin” script. The revival of the baybayin script was a rejoinder to those who disregarded the significance of the pre-modern history of the Philippines. The “Doctrina Christiana” is material proof that Filipinos possessed an indigenous system of writing well-before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16^th century.

In addition to its historical dimension, the theme of the Filipino global and historical diaspora acts as the other major presence in “Juan Luna’s Revolver.” Igloria’s poetry in this respect transports both reader and subject to a few destinations where Filipinos throughout history have alighted in. It is in this spirit that she raises the profile of Filipinos’ historical struggle with migration and dislocation. What is forged out of that struggle is a dynamic and multifaceted Filipino identity.

The poems in “Juan Luna’s Revolver” are captivating, incisive, and at times, deceivingly pointed. But this is for the best. When you read Igloria’s verses, you feel that your existence is imbued with some rich and resonant meaning once again. This is especially true for her fellow Filipinos who are eternally it seems, searching for a higher relevance in what is a forbidding life landscape. ~ Allen Gaborro

Ice Cream and the 1904 World's Fair

It was such a beautiful warm day today (unbelievable 79-degree temperatures); even better, today was the first day of spring break at ODU and I've resolved to use this time to work on my.own.writing.for.a.change. For a little while, I will pretend not to notice the laundry and the colonies of dust bunnies under my furniture and on every bookshelf, and I will park my butt somewhere that isn't home (domestic distractions galore) and that isn't my office (filled with reminders of what our English department colleague Ed Jacobs describes wryly as "the eternal joys of administration"). Today after dropping off our second grader at school, I carted my laptop to one of the coffeshops in the neighborhood and actually managed to work on a couple of revisions and one submission in two hours and a half. I took a break toward noon to take older daughter to work and to finish up some conference travel paperwork. But right after that I still had a precious two hours left to spare before picking up small fry at public school again... so I made my way to Borjo's, the coffeeshop that we like to frequent most at the University Village here, to write and revise some more.

And so, it was with the sense of a good five-six hours well spent on my writerly intentions, that I said okay when second grade daughter said please please please when her friend Naomei and her mom Marion asked if we'd like to join them for ice cream and maybe a sandwich at Doumar's Drive-In not far away.

I've written about Doumar's before, in a poetics essay that accompanies a poem published in the anthology Pinoy Poetics: A Collection of Aubiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino-American Poetics edited by Nick Carbo (Meritage Press, 2004); but I remembered that all these years we've lived in Hampton Roads, I've never had a chance to go back and actually take photos of the ice cream cone machine at Doumar's that shares an unlikely bookmark with a (still, to this day) little known event in the colonial history of the Philippines, which is also, by the way, a part of American history-- the 1904 World's Fair and Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri.

Here are a few paragraphs from my essay in Pinoy Poetics, "Considering [A Poem's] History: Sources and Point of View in 'The Incredible Tale of the Ice Cream Cone Dog'":

"The drive-in, Doumar's is named after the family that has owned and operated it.... Most Norfolk visitor guidebooks describe it affectionately as an establishment that preserves the look and 'feel' of a bygone era; more importantly, they celebrate the fact that it was Doumar who invented the first ice cream cone, after observing to a sherbet vendor at the 1904 World's Fair and Exposition in Missouri that he might perhaps do better business if he could find a way to make the dessert more portable to customers. Doumar, a Lebanese immigrant, himself hit on a solution-- taking a folded waffle and thereby creating the very first 'All-American' ice cream cone. Later settling in Virginia, he perfected the recipe we are familiar with, for making waffle cones thinner and crisper.

"What I found most interesting was how the story of Doumar and his ice cream cone was set in the same locale that formed the backdrop for the presentation of some eleven hundred native or tribal Filipinos (from North and South-- Igorots, Aetas, Mangyans, Muslims as well as Christianized Filipinos from the Tagalog regions) -- in a pageant meant to display the idea of progress from savagery to civilization, and exhibit the might of the American Empire at the turn of the last century. The Fair had several pavilions dedicated to exhibits of new technology: the latest kitchen gadgets, lawnmowers, farm machinery, motor cars. Alongside these were exhibits of live subjects, including Native American Indians, Eskimos, and native Filipinos. These native Filipinos had been transported purposely to recreate whole villages on the Fair grounds, and for the duration of the Fair (about six or seven months) perform their dailiy routines and 'exotic' practices like cultural dances, hunts, and the infamous 'dog feast' to the delight of titillated fair-goers. Though there were some who expressed concern that these native Filipinos, unaccustomed as they were to the north American climate, might fall ill and thus should be given some clothing to keep them warmer, most thought that since they had paid for their Fair tickets they were entitled to the privilege of seeing these 'live exhibits' in their 'natural condition' -- in loincloths, bare-breasted, in their raw and unassimilated habit...."

The essay (which ponders the relationships of point of view to subject matter, narrative and other intent), is too long-- but I'll share the poem which preceded its writing for the Pinoy Poetics anthology; and a few pictures snapped this afternoon, when we were with two little girls who were a bit incredulous about some of that history; but it's all real, it's all real. It really happened.

(Image source, Igorot Village souvenir photograph: University of Delaware Library)

~ "We do not need or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable. Rather, we need and desire souvenirs of events that are reportable, events whose materiality has escaped us, events that thereby exist only through the existence of narrative." (Susan Stewart, in On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection)

"The Incredible Tale of the Ice Cream Cone Dog"
Luisa A. Igloria

from Pinoy Poetics, ed. Nick Carbo (Meritage Press, 2004)

Doumar's sits a few streets north
of where we live-- a drive-in ice
cream and sandwich shop painted

rusty orange and white, the roofed
parking area held up by narrow posts
that tilt slightly at an angle

so the whole place has the look of an old
hangar. You pull up in a space, turn the car
lights on, roll your windows down, and wait;

then a white-capped, red-shirted server comes
with plain, tri-folded menus. Impatient gulls hover
as she taps a yellow plastic tray into place on the driver's

side and takes orders: pulled barbeque
pork in buns, milkshakes in tall fountain
glasses, fries and coke or root beer floats--

but the biggest draw here,
according to Norfolk guidebooks,
is the ice-cream: home-made

by an immigrant to this country, in All-American
flavors like chocolate, strawberry, and butter pecan, to eat
not in cups but in cones-- the cones that made Doumar's

first and famous in the Missouri World's Fair
& Exposition. Picture St. Louis in 1904--
summertime, at the fairgrounds along the muddy

skirts of Des Peres Creek and Forest Park, where
thousands of curious folk came daily to view the pageant
of progress from savagery to civilization. Live

displays of tribes collected and transported from out-
posts in the empire's new colonies out east, ranged
beside the latest inventions-- motorcars and lawnmowers,

ladies' fashions, kitchen gadgets. People came in search
of wonders they'd never seen before; in the shimmering
heat they moved from one encyclopedic world to another,

courting and cataloguing encounters with the authentic
in each one-- I'm reminded of the way Forrest Gump
intones as he's wheeled back from 'Nam on a hospital

gurney, "the one good thing about getting shot in the butt-
tocks was the ice cream: I could never get enough ice
cream!" Except that in St. Louis, it wasn't the nice

white boys and girls who had their pants down,
or some version thereof-- it was the cliff
dwellers from an Indian pueblo,

Eskimos in an ice floe village, a wedding
party astride camels in streets resembling
the old quarters of Cairo and "Mysterious

Asia"; a row of Negrito archers or Bontoc
warriors from the Philippines, pounding
on brass gongs. What an opportunity

Doumar must have seen, those miles
and miles of walkways crowded with hot,
thirsty spectators. Think of the refreshment

booths so far away, near the gates and ticket
counters, where you had to stand and eat
ices and sherbets spooned into cups

and bowls. Think of the Fair's Board of Lady
Managers growing delicate and faint at the sight of all
those near-naked bodies, dusky brown and wrapped

in the merest strips of loin cloth, the women's
breasts jugging up and down as they swished
through the steps of a harvest dance--

especially, think of all those rumors of how the natives
sneaked off the fairgrounds at night to capture stray
dogs for the next day's meal. One (unverified) report says

that the city kennels resorted to delivering three
hundred pounds of dog meat a day to satisfy
the Igorots' hankering for stew; as well as the appetites

of those who, titillated, insisted this meal be added to
the repertoire of native performances. It's enough to raise
your body heat: the way the salivary glands go into overdrive,

teeth set on edge with relish, confronted with the smells of charred
flesh roasting on spits, fat dripping through the grill; the lusty
slap-slap-slap of wieners and burgers slipped between white

circles of bread. The thing to do was find
a way to carry the cooling sweet in hand and tuck
it into a receptacle that was itself completely

consumable-- a waffle folded into a cone! And thus
the enterprising Doumar's creation was born. At the drive-
in shop, the machine for folding cones is still

on display; pushed into a corner, a little
clumsy-looking if unremarkable with its coating
of dust. But after I have swallowed

the last of my cone and licked the traces of ice
cream carefully off my fingers, I remember the Fair
just as if truly, I too, had been there.

* * *

Neruda, you brujo...

lend to me this talisman and incantation:

Ode to the Liver

Modest, organized
friend, underground
worker, let me give you
the wings of my song, the thrust
of the air
the soaring of my ode;
it is born
of your invisible machinery,
it flies from your tireless
confined mill,
delicate powerful entrail,
ever alive and dark.
While the heart resounds and attracts
the music of the mandolin,
there, inside,
you filter and apportion,
you separate and divide,
you multiply and lubricate,
you raise and gather
the threads and the grams of life.
From you, I hope for justice;
I love life: Do not betray me!
Work on!
Do not arrest my song.

~ Pablo Neruda

Home, Again

It's raining all over Hampton Roads and the weather reports predict the possibility of snow (snow? really?) tonight. I don't believe it, but I suppose it can always happen. I'm not holding my breath. But all day the cold and damp has put me in a Baguio frame of mind again, the kind that brings up equal parts nostalgia and restless longing for what, ultimately, I can never really put a finger on.

Somewhere online, today I read that the immigrant's or traveler's longing for home is a thing of the past because, avowedly, it is no longer true that you can't go home again-- why, you can simply visit your village on the internet, zoom in on the street of your childhood on Google earth.

We'd moved from Makati (in the time that it was still part of the province of Rizal, and not a city in Metro Manila) where I was born, shortly after my second birthday; my father had gotten a post as city sheriff in Baguio, and we supposedly boarded a bus to take us to our new home there. I can't remember much about the journey, or how our possessions traveled-- with us? on a separate delivery van? were there even delivery vans back then? or did they get piled up on a flatbed truck?

I can't remember how my parents secured our first apartment in Baguio either -- although today, staring out the window at the rain and feeling cold despite my knitted socks, it came back to me with surprising clarity (for I haven't thought about this in at least twenty years) that the old name of our first neighborhood in Baguio was Jungletown.

Jungletown-- the very name conjures a wildness in the natural and human landscape. Was it leafy and overgrown with pine back then? But I don't remember anything about the street where we lived there, nor about the house itself (whose tenants were we?), or the neighbors. I do remember some of the furniture vaguely -- round wicker PapaSan chairs, brown walls, and the fact that my first formal photograph was taken there. I have a faded copy with an inscription in the back, but I can't make out all of it anymore. Was it my birthday? I'm wearing a polka-dotted dress. Thin bangs are plaster-combed over my too-wide brow. I'm clutching a little spray of flowers, and I am emphatically not smiling. I know I was terrified of the photographer and his flashbulb that sizzled and popped. I cried whenever pictures were taken.

A few months after we lived in Jungletown, my father found the house that would eventually be home to us all the rest of my childhood and thereafter - a split-level bungalow on City Camp Alley, at first part of a row of government-owned housing that eventually became part of some kind of lease-to-own program. At the beginning, No. 6 was cramped and tiny. Three small rooms, an even tinier kitchen/dining room, one bathroom. An apron-sized porch with three low steps I liked to jump from. We were told it was one of the summer homes of former President Manuel L. Quezon. My mother tells the story of how, when we first moved into No. 6, the walls were dank and grimy and needed many days of scrubbing, but that an oil portrait of Quezon hung on one of them. Where did it go? I don't know and I have no memory of the painting itself. I only have this fragment of story, and many other fragments of times beyond this one.

*

But I keep longing for home, writing about or around it, imagining it. Is this perhaps because even more this year perhaps, I know my longing is not just for that childhood home, but for the one I want to make here, now, in this place where I've decided it's perhaps time to stake more permanent claim? I've never really had my own home.

I tried, once. Once, I had tried to build a house that I could call my own. But barely six months after we'd followed the old customs-- thrown a handful of coins with our most fervent hopes, spattered drops of oil and blood from the neck of a chicken ritually slit over the freshly laid foundation-- those two earthquakes that rocked Baguio to the core one afternoon in July nineteen years ago, took our just-new-not-even-completely-finished home down too. I want one desperately now, before my lifetime is over, before my youngest child's childhood is over; so that my older girls, so that all of us, can have something to come home to, for real (not rented).

A Must-See: "Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing"

If you're in the greater Chicago area, you have two more days to catch CIRCA-PINTIG's production of novelist-playwright Noel Alumit's one-act play "Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing" at the Edison Park United Methodist Church (1640 N. Oliphant, Chicago, IL).

This powerful one-act plays at 8 pm on Saturday 28 February and one final time at 2 pm on Sunday, 1 March 2009 and you must, must, must go and see it.

Good friend and PINTIG founder and executive director Angela A. Mascarenas took me to see the play on Thursday, 12 February when I was in Chicago for the 2009 AWP Conference-- and it was there that we also ran into fellow writers Grace Talusan and Joanne Diaz. I loved the synchronicity of the meeting, because up until this point, Grace and I had not met in person yet although we'd e-chatted for at least a couple of years now as fellow members of the FLIPS cybercommunity, and more recently to prepare for the AWP panel we were both on this year and which Grace so kindly moderated.

Needless to say, the pleasure of the outing was really multiplied by several discoveries: One, that the prolific Noel Alumit, someone I've only known as a novelist thus far, also writes plays! Two, that CIRCA-PINTIG, in its call for one-act submissions every fall as they plan for their year-long production programs, had chosen Noel's one-act play over every other submission because of its power and urgency (what else can I say); Three, that some of the people I first came to know and befriend fifteen + years ago (during my grad school days in Chicago) as a volunteer for PINTIG too, have stepped up so beautifully to their current leadership roles (and how!): Ginger Leopoldo, who plays the female lead role of Lori LaQuesta, Louie Sison (who directed the play and made such articulate choices in adapting Noel Alumit's vision with its local audiences in mind), Levi Aliposa (who designed and choreographed the play's tribal movement sequences), Daisy Castro (costume designer), and Mia Lahoz (props designer), to name but a few.

"Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing," despite its stripped-down cast of three characters (intense performances by Joe Yau who plays Jay LaQuesta, Ginger Leopoldo who plays Lori LaQuesta, and Keith Glab who plays Matthew), engages viewers from first to last with its incisive portrayal of the struggles of families in ethnic communities as they come to terms with the myriad but intersecting issues of gender, tradition, generation, and change.

Its broken fourth-wall treatment (where members of the audience are immediately involved and brought into the play, and even served food and drink by the actors), the use of familiar community settings and activities (social dances), and the invocation of intimate rituals of family and spiritual renewal, make this a very tight, well-thought out production-- something that increases our appreciation for the performances of the three principal actors, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of carrying us through transitions, passages of exposition and interrogation (which might otherwise in a play of different length and treatment have been delegated to other characters or elements).

The critical use of repetition and echo in dialogue-- especially with the characters Jay and Lori LaQuesta-- provide one important means for establishing a guide to this family's less overt narrative of grief, mourning, and reconciliation; oftentimes, Mr. or Mrs. LaQuesta will say a line that is immediately picked up and reiterated by the other character, but inflected in a different emotional or tonal key. Through their singular and braided narration of what happened to their son, and what happened in turn to them as parents and as individuals, we see more clearly mirrored back to us, the simplest human gestures and desires and their capacity both to nurture and deny what we need most.

This CIRCA-PINTIG production of "Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing" gives special thanks to sponsors and supporters BEHIV (Better Existence with HIV), The Edison Park United Methodist Church, Filipino Dance Lovers Club, Pastor Jerry M. Miller, The Illinois Arts Council, The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Crossroad Funds, Nuveen Investments, RJ & Nenette LaGrosa, Karl Kimpo, Larry Leopoldo, and Je Nepomuceno.

"Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing" was originally produced by TNT (Teatro ng Tanan) in San Francisco in 1997.

Good Things from the ODU MFA Creative Writing Program

Congratulations to mi amiga and former student/recent ODU poetry grad Natalie Diaz, who has a poem featured in the recent issue of NARRATIVE; to my poetry student Christian Anton Gerard who has just successfully defended his MFA thesis and continues to rack up publishing credits right and left-- Christian's work will soon be published by the prestigious literary journal Poetry East.

Big kudos as well to the lovely and generous Paula McMahon, for winning First Prize in the Dogwood literary awards for her short story-- You make us all so proud of you!

Meantime, our esteemed colleague and friend Michael Blumenthal, Darden Endowed Chair holder at ODU, will have his poem "What I Believe" featured on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac this Saturday, 28 February (but you can read it now, here).

The Humor Issue - now live on poemeleon!

Cati Porter, editor of poemeleon, writes to announce that the long-awaited Humor Issue is now live--

Featured are poems, reviews, and essays by:

Malaika King Albrecht, Sherman Alexie, Renee Ashley, Diego Baez, Lavina Blossom, Deborah Bogen, Jason Bredle, Patrick Carrington, Alex Cigale, Barbara Crooker, Carol Dorf, R.S. Dunn, Tim Earley, Kate Fetherston, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Richard Garcia, David Graham, Alex Grant, Matthew Henrickson, Paul Hostovsky, Luisa Igloria, Roy Jacobstein, Julie Kane, Janet Kirchheimer, Judy Kronenfeld, Robert Krut, Haley Lasche, Wayne Lee, Paul Lieber, Sarah Maclay, Holaday Mason, Ann E. Michael, Jessy Randall, Moira Richards, Penelope Scambly Schott, Marian Kaplun Shapiro, Martha Silano, J.D. Smith, Mari Stanley, Jon Stone, Marilyn L. Taylor, Charles Harper Webb, & Katherine Williams.

Enjoy the read!

Girls Write Now come to ODU / Friends of Women's Studies Annual Dinner, Tuesday, 24 February 2009

L-R: Two of the GWN team- Susanna Horng and Samantha White- with Luisa Igloria

The Women's Studies Department at Old Dominion University, under the direction of Jennifer Fish, and in partnership with its community support group Friends of Women's Studies, held its Annual Dinner, on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 at the Ted Constant Convocation (Multipurpose Room), Hampton Boulevard (main ODU campus, Norfolk).

This year at the Women's Studies Annual Dinner, featured guests were Maya Nussbaum, Executive Director and co-Founder of the organization Girls Write Now (which she launched in her last year as a creative writing graduate); Michele Thomas, a fourth year Girls Write Now Mentor and the assistant managing editor at the French Culinary Institute; Samantha White, a fourth year mentee at Girls Write Now and a senior at The Urban Assembly School for Music and Arts in Brooklyn, NY; and Susanna Horng, a member of the Advisory Board for Girls Write Now, who also teaches writing and cultural studies in the Liberal Studies program at New York University.




Watch the Girls Write Now promotional video here
and read a NY Times article about the organization here





The 4 representatives of Girls Write Now led a 2-hour writing workshop on Monday 23 February from 3:00-5:00 at the Webb Center, ODU Norfolk campus. Here, they focused their attention on supporting those of us who deal directly with mentoring and teaching the writing process.

At the 23 Feb workshop, the Girls Write Now mentors demonstrated techniques by sharing the foundations of their teaching on memoir. The Women's Studies Department at ODU hopes to use this as a model for developing local service-learning projects that link ODU students with girls’ writing projects in the Hampton Roads community.


***

The Women's Studies Department also welcomes additional contribution opportunities from you-- your contributions will go to the support of the Women's Studies Department, the Anita Clair Fellman Service Learning Scholarship, the Carolyn Rhodes Undergraduate Scholarship, and the Nancy Topping Bazin Graduate Scholarship.

***

At the annual dinner on 24 February Tuesday, Maya Nussbaum gave a talk; the audience also heard from ODU's MFA Creative Writing Program -- Sheri Reynolds, Luisa Igloria, and representatives from ODU's Writers in Community program.

AWP Week in Chicago

When I blew into town early Monday morning this week, I expected to have to don my leggings and long johns, mittens and ear muffs... but Monday and Tuesday were wonderful and balmy by Chicago standards (high 50s, actually hitting 60s in the early afternoon) and lots of sunshine, so I quickly decided that I would take my long walks and do my museum visits on those days.

As I like to do whenever I'm in Chicago, I went to both the Art Institute (no entrance fees for the whole month of February, y'alls!) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, where I was most entranced by the works of South African artist William Kentridge, and contemporary American artist Kara Walker. I spent a good long while looking at Kentridge's "Drawings for Projection", which is a "major component of the [MCA]exhibition [and the] artist’s best-known film series..., which began in 1989. Originating as charcoal drawings, these animated films are created through a unique process of erasure and re-drawing. Reflecting the artist’s desire to make sense of the turbulent and violent times which characterised the later period of Apartheid, the works address the significant historical events in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Through the imaginary saga of a Johannesburg industrialist, Soho Eckstein, and his alter ego - the naked, sensual artist, lover and dreamer, Felix Teitlebaum - Kentridge portrays the realities of daily life alongside the broader moral and ethical issues faced by the developing nation of South Africa and communities the world over. The ninth and newest installment, "Tide Table," returns to the central characters of Soho and Felix, who are now living in the post-apartheid world."

Watch William Kentridge's video here:
William Kentridge, "History of the Main Complaint" (1996)

And I was just riveted by Kara Walker's exhibit "My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love" -- stark, more than life-size silhouette cut-outs on the walls, borrowing from 18th century techniques of papercutting to address "notions of racial supremacy and historical accuracy." Her drawings, shadow puppets, video animations, and silhouettes vividly critique the nature of narrative and representation in both history and art.





From museum accolades: "Drawing her inspiration from sources as varied as the antebellum South, testimonial slave narratives, historical novels, and minstrel shows, Walker has invented a repertoire of powerful narratives in which she conflates fact and fiction to uncover the living roots of racial and gender bias. The intricacy of her imagination and her diligent command of art history have caused her silhouettes to cast shadows on conventional thinking about race representation in the context of discrimination, exclusion, sexual desire, and love. 'It’s interesting that as soon as you start telling the story of racism, you start reliving the story,' Walker says. 'You keep creating a monster that swallows you. But as long as there’s a Darfur, as long as there are people saying ‘Hey, you don’t belong here’ to others, it only seems realistic to continue investigating the terrain of racism.' "

***

Monday night, I read at Molly Malone's Irish Pub in Forest Park, where poet Nina Corwin and poet-jazz saxophonist Al DeGenova have co-hosted one of the longest-running open mics and reading series in this area. Met a lot of wonderful people there, including an astrologer (Ray Grasse), a Franciscan friar-poet, and an Englishman who'd apparently spent a hallucinatory time way down south in Zamboanga some time ago. On Tuesday I had a great reunion lunch with my good friend from PINTIG days in Chicago, Riza Belen, over hot soup, tofu, and fried smelts; we just can't get enough of Chinatown, so we ran across the street to have tea and a mango crepe before she headed back to Albany Park to pick up her kids from school.

Wednesday, amid rainrainrain and gusts of wind, AWP conference participants began arriving in earnest... including the contingent from ODU's MFA program. I met up with Andrea, Joanna, Paula and Valli at the Columbia College gallery around the corner, shortly after they got in at Midway. They couldn't get into their hotel room until after noon, so I took them to Greektown for an early lunch -- gyros, grilled octopus, dolmades, chicken florentine, greek salad, and my favorite taramasalata on warm crusty bread. Andrea tried a glass of retsina. After, we headed back to the Hilton to get our conference materials and badges; checked out their hotel room with them (not a room with a view alas) then went downstairs for coffee, pots de creme in three flavors (ginger, chocolate, and vanilla), apple tart, and huge brownie sundaes for Andrea and Valli. Dana joined us later after coming in from a fruitful visit to Ragdale, to check out internship possibilities. While we ate and marked events to attend with helpful highlighters provided in the conference kit, the murmur in the lobby area grew more noticeable. The AWP bookfair had not been set up yet at that point but I could imagine how it will look when it opens at 8 am... Monster bookfair, spread out across four exhibit halls. Within fifteen minutes of being in the lobby area, Paula had already met three writer friends.

Later Wednesday evening, had a wonderful reunion with one of my very very bestest Chicago amigas, Ging Mascarenas, founder, mover and shaker of PINTIG/CIRCA, and Eric... We shared tall glasses of pearl tapioca tea and scallops, seaweed salad and korean bbq at Joy Yee, after which I rode with them on an errand to a car dealership out in Schaumberg just for the sheer pleasure of catching up on chika (stories).

And Thursday afternoon: what can I say except that (can I say it?) my first panel ("Lyric Selves and Global Imperatives,"addressing the issues that writers struggle with in the attempt to give voice to the experience of the Other), with powerhouse writers Honoree Fanone Jeffers, Andrew Kaufman, Vivian Teter and Christine Casson, rocked!!! Thank you to all of the wonderful folks who packed our session full to the rafters. I am so impressed at how well our presentations dovetailed with each other, and with the serious attentiveness of those who came to listen and converse.


***

One more panel to present on Saturday ("Archipelagoes of Dust, Habitations of Language"), with such an impressive lineup of Filipina writers -- I am so honored that I will be reading with Marianne Villanueva, Angela Narciso Torres, Grace Talusan, and Karen Llagas (we miss you, Bonnie!). 9 am at the Lake Huron Room, 8th Floor of the Chicago Hilton on S. Michigan Avenue, y'all! Come out and support us.

L-R: Brian Ascalon Roley (author of American Son); Lani Montreal; Luisa Igloria

February: Readings & Events in Chicago

Just got in from spending an entire luvly afternoon in committee mode, on Superbowl Sunday yet -- as luck would have it too, today the sun shone as it hasn't in weeks, and the weather was almost balmy. But we were doing phone interviews with some candidates for one of the positions we're seeking to fill in the English department at Old Dominion University, and of course duty comes before pleasure, dear ones.

But all is much better now after dinner... the little one's tucked in bed, the hubby has made a fresh pot of coffee, and we are about to enjoy the baked pears with walnuts and cheese made by our wonderful friend Marion.

*

For all of you out there in the Chicago area -- I hope to see you at some or all of these events:


On Monday evening, 9 February, I'll be reading at Molly Malone's Irish Pub in Lake Forest.

I'm told that the readings and open mics hosted at Molly's are the longest running and most highly respected in the area. The program will be hosted by Nina Corwin (who is guest editing the spring 2009 issue of 5thwednesday Journal), and Al DeGenova (poet, publisher, and blues saxophonist).

Molly Malone's Irish Pub
9 February 2009, Monday
8:30 pm poetry reading,
featuring Luisa A. Igloria

7652 Madison Street
Forest Park, IL
(708) 366 8073
$5 suggested, $3 if you can't

Program:
7:00 pm - Open Mic signup begins
7:30 pm - Open Mic
8:45 pm - Featured Reader
9:15 pm - Open Mic may continue

Poetry/Fiction at Molly's is the second Monday of every month.

***

A few days later, come down to the Chicago Hilton downtown in the city on South Michigan Avenue, venue for the 2009 AWP Conference - where there will be (as usual) more than enough panels in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and pedagogy; more than enough opportunities to wander dazed and aimless through the glut of book tables at the book fair; more than enough opportunities to load up on pins, flyers, bookmarks, giveaway poetry cds and poetry broadsides; more than enough opportunities to rub elbows, shake hands with, seek photo ops and autographs from, and listen to readings and be bedazzled by a host of writing luminaries...

This year I have the great luck to be with these wonderful writers at two panel presentations --

3:00-4:15 pm Thursday, 12 February
Lake Huron Room, Chicago Hilton, S. Michigan Ave.
"Lyric Selves and Global Imperatives"
Honoree Fanone Jeffers, Marjorie Agosin,
Andrew Kaufman, Vivian Teter,
Christine Casson, Luisa A. Igloria

9:00-10:15 am Saturday, 14 February
Lake Huron Room, Chicago Hilton, S. Michigan Ave.
"Archipelagoes of Dust, Habitations of Language:
Reiterating Landscape, History and Origin"
Grace Talusan, Angela N. Torres, Marianne Villanueva,
Karen Llagas, Reine Marie Bonnie Melvin, Luisa A. Igloria

NOT A MUSE Anthology: to launch at March 8 Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival; Plus: Check out Storyhighway

Hurray! Just got the marvelous news from editors Viki Holmes and Kate Rogers that the anthology NOT A MUSE is out from Haven Books, and is scheduled for a March 8, 2009 Book Launch event to coincide with both International Women's Day and with the opening of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival.

From the Not a Muse flyer-invitation:

Over 100 poets from 24 countries make this anthology a wide-reaching tome on women’s inner lives at the start of the 21st century. We invite you to join us! Our book launch will take place on the evening of March 8, 2009, the opening night of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival.... The theme for the launch is ‘Poetry to Seduce Our Senses’. It takes place at the Fringe Club theatre with a multi-sensory poetry reading, accompanied by live jazz music inspired by the individual poems, as well as a visual display of art to enhance the special mood of the evening.

The 100 Poets in the anthology include:

Erica Jong * Margaret Atwood * Lorna Crozier * Shirley Lim * Elizabeth Harvor * Sharon Olds * Luisa A. Igloria * Michelle Cahill * Nitoo Das * Dr. Rati Saxena * Sridala Swami * Agnes Lam * Tammy Ho * Prasana Kumari * Eileen Tabios * Pascale Petit * and more...

ORDERS may be placed online at www.havenbooksonline.com/shop

* * *

On a related note, Vicky F alerts us to the recent debut of the online writers' resource Storyhighway -- where you can join a growing community of writers, post your work, collaborate on classroom activities, participate in writing competitions, and read work by established and emerging writers. Check it out!

Poet Elizabeth Alexander to read at Obama's Inauguration

In Power & Possibility: Essays, Reviews and Interviews (University of Michigan Press, 2007), Elizabeth Alexander quotes Toni Asante Lightfoot as saying, "As poets we don't know what seeds we plant and how they will grow. We also forget that even the seed that doesn't grow nourishes the soil for other life..."

The book is a tough, searing read; in it, Elizabeth Alexander writes unflinchingly about the embattled spaces that marginalized individuals in this culture have had to show up to every day in order to register their insistence that theirs was/is a reality that must be acknowledged, through acts of community, memory, and remembering-- Catch phrases familiar enough, but I admire her honest appraisal of how truly daunting these tasks are (and yet how important it is that we undertake them). For instance, she says:

"...I forget things I think I should remember, such as my entire freshman year in college, when I was profoundly overwhelmed by my first time away from home in an environment that was hostile and nurturing, tedious and thrilling, at the same time. I find that as I gather my thoughts to think about 'how I became a feminist in academia,' I am 'forgetting' many of the stories that might best tell the tale. I think this is because so many of those stories involve the trauma of feeling erased or insignificant in an academic environment, that even the most nurturing of teachers have not been able to make me fully feel that I belong in this kingdom where the life of the mind is guarded. I will never be able to explain to many of my white colleagues the depth of those feelings, nor do I want to.

"Numb and no-place is sometimes a tempting reprieve from the hyper-embodied state I am usually in now as a black woman in an overwhelmingly white and male campus, the University of Chicago. It is as though being no-place and having no history could provide a haven from a visibility that feels like all I am, in my classroom, in faculty meeting, and in any number of other campus venues. I don't long for invisibility but rather for the prerogative of going about my business without leaving neon footprints, without having to live so loudly in the categories of 'BLACK' and 'FEMALE.' This hyper-embodied state is made all the more ironic by the fact that my school, with its fistful of black faculty and students, like so many other elite institutions, is in the middle of miles and miles of black people, the South Side of Chicago. The challenge is to find ways to remember without being sucked back into the power deficit that comes with unknowing....

"But remembrance is potent; once its force has been unleashed and the status quo named fetid and stagnant, the rememberer is implicitly charged to move forward in that bright light that says, responsibility is yours now. Move. That, I think, is also why I can't remember: I don't like remembering all the things I wish I'd said or done differently. I am haunted by my failures to be superwoman who takes on all sexist and racist comers, who sniffs out injustice in its clever guises, who has the power to make bad things stop...."

***

This is the writer who has been chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to read poetry at his inauguration this coming Tuesday.