Category: writing

one for vanilla

My story, “Summer Evening“, is in the Winter Issue of Vanilla. Click and read!

On the fiery front porch, her back to the screen door, Amarilis stretched her bare legs and stared at the parked car. It was parked right across their house, almost in front of their gate. Amarilis was holding a yellow bell she had plucked from the garden in one hand. She played with the flower, twiddled the stem with her fingers. A few minutes later two men approached the car. She didn’t see where they came from. One had stubble on his face. This one took his time opening the door of the car. He was looking over his shoulder. Amarilis knew he was looking at her, at her bare legs. She was wearing a short denim skirt. Amarilis placed the yellow bell lightly against her knee, twiddled the stem with her fingers. She didn’t like the look he was giving her. Read more.

post-KK

Recall that I’ve written a recap of sorts of the Kritika Kultura soft launch. Check out these other links:

1) Adam David tries to articulate/define/pinpoint what the “new” is in Pinoy writing. He mentions the “Pinoy strain of Postmodernism” which could possibly be dubbed the “New New Romanticism”, which sounds just about right to me.

Read:

It could also be the country’s general Romantic Catholic aesthetic rearing its big red head, the Modern Pinoy Writer’s undying deference to the Sublime/Padrino/Matrona, to the Modern Pinoy Writer’s undying worship of Artifice: so, instead of it being a departure in the way the Postmodern is in the West, maybe it’s actually more a mutation of the Romantic Tradition, ie, the Old reregarded with rose- and sapphire-tinted spectacles. So maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is an exhibit of New New Romanticism.

And really, it does make sense. Despite the many experimentations of new Filipino writers in their prose and poetry, we can still smell a whiff of the sublime, the soul, the soaring spirit, and all manners of the awe-inspiring ek-ek we identify with Romanticism in their work.

But maybe the editors will have a deeper exploration of this thesis in their upcoming intro to the anthology.

2) Adam has also uploaded mp3 copies of the KK soft launch. Download them and listen to the roundtable talks and the poetry readings.

scenes from the kritika kultura (soft) launch

I’ve been out of school since I graduated in 2007, and I have never written a serious paper since then. I no longer know how to write/talk about literature the way literary majors do. The way I used to do, perhaps (I was a Journalism major but I took a lot of creative writing electives and enjoyed the discourse). I was able to follow the discussions of editors Mark Anthony Cayanan, Conchitina Cruz, and Adam David, but I felt like an outsider, a gatecrasher (even though I’ll have a poem in the anthology).

But let me try:

The editors mentioned in the roundtable discussion(s) that the “new” in Philippine literature (or at least in the contributions) follows the practices of Western modernism. Modernism is a break from tradition. It is a movement away from Romanticism, with its focus on the “soul” and the “soaring spirit” and all that is awe-inspiring. When I think “modernist literature” I think “fragmentation”, I think “pessimism”, a marked disillusionment. (Understandable, since Modernism came to the fore after the first World War.) I think James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, I think despair and alienation and experimentation with literary rules and accepted forms. Modernist literature champions the “I”, the individual.

It sounds like the “new” in Philippine literature is the same old “same old”, but I am very interested to read this anthology. We mentioned experimentation with form, so look at this poem:

The soft launch featured several readings, but alas, I can be a poor listener if I don’t have the text in front of me (esp. if it’s a long text, as is the case with “The Story of Love” by Alyza Taguilaso, who read a section of her poem in a very soft voice, “Between what we know as finite and the person in your mouth” by Carlos Quijon, Jr., and  “Invisible Islands, or Theses on Philippine Disappearance” by J. Pilapil Jacobo), so I was only able to fully appreciate Petra Magno’s “In all the pleasance of your seriousness”, John Revo Ocampo’s “Problem Solving”, and Anna Oposa’s “Facebook Makes and Breaks Relationships”. I enjoyed Anna’s spirited reading of her piece. Tamang energy lang para sa subject matter.

I sat beside fellow contributor Tin Lao! Good thing I saw someone I knew, or I would have felt incredibly out-of-place hehe. I also met her daughter Sinta, who also had purple frames for her glasses.

It was nice to say hi to Mark, Adam, Chingbee (who never seems to age – can poetry make you wrinkle-free? lol) and Christian (who’s going to be in the antho as well, congrats!). Too bad I had to leave early.

One of the contributors (Arlene? Arlyn?) came up to me after the event and said she liked one of my poems, which of course made me blush happy. (Arlene, Arlyn, if you’re reading this – thank you.)

‘sand, crushed shells, chicken feathers’ on world sf

Late posting! The World SF News Blog has reprinted my story, “Sand, Crushed Shells, Chicken Feathers” for its Tuesday Fiction section. This story originally appeared in Philippines Free Press.

Come read!

The World SF blog is manned by Lavie Tidhar and Charles Tan.

one for kritika kultura

Okay one of the editors just confirmed it with me so:

I’m going to have a poem in the Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing. Thank you to editors Chingbee, Adam, and Mark for the comments and edits.

There’s going to be a soft launch on Friday! Come to the event and let’s say hi (awkwardly) to each other!

From Adam David, on Facebook:

 

SOFT LAUNCH OF THE KRITIKA KULTURA ANTHOLOGY OF NEW PHILIPPINE WRITING IN ENGLISH

A Satellite Activity for Taboan 2011: The 3rd Philippine International Writers Festival

Natividad Galang Fajardo Conference Room

Dela Costa Hall, Ateneo de Manila University

11 February 2011, 4:30-6:30 PM

PROGRAM

WELCOME REMARKS

Dr. Marianne Rachel Perfecto, Chair, Department of English

READINGS BY SELECTED AUTHORS

“The Story of Love” by Alyza Taguilaso

“Between what we know as finite and the person in your mouth” by Carlos Quijon, Jr.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUE EDITORS

Ivery de Pano, Managing Editor, Kritika Kultura

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION, PART 1

Mark Anthony Cayanan

Conchitina Cruz

Adam David

READINGS BY SELECTED AUTHORS

“In all the pleasance of your seriousness” by Petra Magno

“Invisible Islands, or Theses on Philippine Disappearance” by J. Pilapil Jacobo

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION, PART 2

READINGS BY SELECTED AUTHORS

“Problem Solving” by John Revo Ocampo

“Facebook Makes and Breaks Relationships” by Anna Oposa

Q & A

Isabela Cuerva

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

kritika kultura soft launch

Hopefully I’ll be able to attend. :)

From Facebook, and Chingbee Cruz’s blog:

Kritika Kultura and the National Committee on Literary Arts – National Commission for Culture and the Arts cordially invite you to the soft launch of the Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing. This event will take place on February 11, 2011, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, at the Natividad Galang Fajardo (NGF) Conference Room, dela Costa Hall, Ateneo de Manila University.

The program for the soft launch will include a roundtable discussion on new writing, featuring the issue editors Mark Anthony Cayanan, Conchitina Cruz, and Adam David. Topics pertinent to the anthology—such as the selection process, the trends that have emerged from the contributions, and the tradition from which the “new” seems to be drawn—will be tackled. The discussion will be followed by a reading of works from five of the authors in the anthology: J. Pilapil Jacobo, Anna Oposa, Petra Magno, Carlos Quijon, Jr., and Alyza May Taguilaso.

This anthology is the first exclusively literary issue of Kritika Kultura, the international online journal of language, literary and cultural studies published by the Ateneo de Manila University and indexed by Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI), MLA, Scopus, EBSCO, and DOAJ. The soft launch is the satellite activity of Ateneo de Manila University for Taboan: The 3rd Philippine International Writers Festival.

intersections

Says the Expanded Horizons team:

Dear Readers,

Our Issue 27 is up for your reading pleasure. Four stories, by four women authors! Space travel! Mermaids! Gateways between universes! Hindu mythology!

An all-female issue, awesome! You can click here to read my short story, “Intersections”. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to share, if you are so inclined.