secret asian man

Poems, poetry, poetics, and poetic rants by the secret asian man.

 

Here's an essay published in Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora (Anvil, 2003):

UN BEAU LIVRE

Here I am in my third week of a residency at the Fundacíon Valparaiso in the sea-side village of Mojacar in Andalusia, Spain and I have this assignment to write down what it is like to be a Filipino writer of the “brown diaspora.” First, let me describe my present surroundings: there are terraces of parched ocher earth with almond and olive trees above and below the residency compound, there is a stoic mountain named Mojacar la Vieja with clumps of prickly pear cactus hanging from its sides, the Mediterranean Sea is on the horizon bringing Phoenician winds, and the sky is pure Federico Garcia Lorca with the curtains fully drawn to let the Andalusian laughter inside. What does Spain have to do with the Filipino writer in the diaspora? For that we must go back to 1521 and Magellan’s first sighting of las Islas de San Lazaro, to Ruy de Villalobos sailing around Mindanao, to Miguel Lopez de Legazpi defeating the Sultan of Manila named Suleiman, and then the arrival of Augustinian, Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit, and Recollect friars. Close to four hundred years of Spanish colonial control has to leave some indelible mark on the Filipino soul and its culture. So I walk out into the terraced garden and stand in the shade of a thousand year old olive tree, I reach up into its branches and take a young olive. This tree was around in September 20, 1519 when Magellan’s flagship La Trinidad sailed from the port of San Lucar de Barrameda to launch his voyage to the orient. I stand here with my ears to its gnarled branches listening to ancient secrets whispered by the wind.

The Filipino diaspora is intrinsically intertwined with the history or Spain and the United States. It was the spice and porcelain laden Spanish galleon ships that first brought Filipino natives to the shores of the American west coast. From the late 1600’s to 1815 Manila galleons sailed to Acapulco and back across the Pacific ocean bringing Filipino crew men who managed to jump ship along the western shores of the American continent and escape the forced labor conditions of the Spanish ships. The fabled “Manila Men” of the settlement of St. Malo in the bayous of Louisiana are said to be descendants of those Filipino seamen. But this is a hidden history, a history of the colonized which the colonial power rarely acknowledges. The second wave of the Filipino diaspora occurred in the mid to late 1800’s when rich mestizo, mestizo-chino, and indio families sent their sons to Spain to be educated in the heart of the madre patria. These men (and a few women) were called the Illustrado generation and many returned to the Philippines with ideals of freedom and self-determination and helped fan the flames of revolution against Spanish colonial rule. I go back to the olive tree and listen to the sounds of the tertulias in Madrid where Marcelo H. del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Graciano Lopez-Jaena, and Pedro Paterno met to discuss Las Chulas of the Gran Via as well as Los Frailes of Manila.

Where do I situate myself in this Filipino diaspora #3, #4, or #5? I grew up in Manila in the seventies and early eighties. I saw the Thrilla in Manila, the Miss Universe Pageant, the Manila International Film Festival, the Ninoy Aquino funeral march, and the People Power Revolution. I guess I can call myself part of the Martial Law Generation who grew up under the Marcos dictatorship. I remember the night in 1972 when the President interrupted the Hawaii Five-O T.V. show on channel Nine and pronounced the decrees signaling Martial Law. My parents were having a dinner party and many of the guests had to stay overnight because a curfew was declared from midnight till dawn. The next few days we began to hear of friends or distant relatives who did not come home that night and a few that never came home at all.

I arrived on the campus of Bennington College, Vermont in the Fall of 1984 with a healthy sense of political reality. The majority of the students came from advantaged families with second homes and three car garages. The few disadvantaged students came from major metropolitan areas like New York and Boston. Nestled in the bucolic green valleys of Vermont is the place where I began my American journey.

The French Symbolist poet StĂ©phane MallarmĂ© once said Le monde est fait pour aboutir a un beau livreÂŽ (‘The world was made to end in a beautiful book.’). In America I began to look at things clearly and pick them off like leaves from a tree and put them in a book. Native Americans called books “talking leaves” and these leaves I picked talked all night in neon diners, drive-in movies, and empty class rooms. I began to write poems. I am making beautiful books.

Posted by: secret.asian.man at 16:34 | link | comments (4) |

Here's an essay that lost its way on to publication:

A GILLIGAN’S ISLAND FOR WRITERS

“A three hour tour, A three hour tour.”

I’m seated in a comfortable office chair typing away at my PowerBook computer on an expansive writer’s desk set against the far wall of Barnard, a writer/composer studio at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Behind me is a Steinway grand piano which served a few famous composers in their movements and variations. To the right is an enclosed fire place to supplement the electric heat of the cabin. Next to the fire place is a wall with wooden plaques fondly called “tomb stones” where the names of former residents are inscribed. Among the recent are Pulitzer Prize Winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos and “wonder boy” novelist Michael Chabon. Over the top of my computer screen is a large window that looks over a screened-in porch where I sit in the mornings sipping fresh-brewed Sumatran coffee or Ceylon tea. The views of Pine and Birch trees, Cardinal and Blue Jay birds, and scurrying chipmunks help provide the serene atmosphere for the visitation of the muses.

What does one do at an artist/writers’ colony like MacDowell in southern New Hampshire or Yaddo in upstate New York? The composers Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein were fond of taking long walks in the many trails in the woods of MacDowell. The abstract expressionist painter Milton Avery liked swimming in the nearby lakes. The Harlem Renaissance novelist James Baldwin enjoyed a round of billiards or “cowboy pool” after the sumptuous dinners prepared by the chefs of MacDowell.

Everything I have described so far entails a form of leisure. But what of the work? The radical idea that an artist/writer could do nothing at all but look at butterflies in a field the whole day or lock one’s self up in a cabin for 48 hours to produce a novella is what guides most colonies. The gift of uninterrupted time to be alone with one’s muse(s), to play a Violent Femmes CD as loud as you want as you apply paint to a giant canvas, or to be naked and smoking a Cuban cigarillo while composing an aria is sometimes a life-saving gift to many artists who lead hectic lives in the “normal” world. One is protected from the violence of a fax, the misdemeanor of a telephone call, or the felony of a television set. The privacy and solitude of the artist is so guarded that I am reminded of the story of the turn-of-the-century poet Edwin Arlington Robinson meeting a young lady along the MacDowell trails and her asking him if he would know where to find the much revered poet Edwin Arlington Robinson. He said he did not know the poet personally but would show the avid fan where she might get a glimpse of him and quickly led her to a gate at the edge of the property where she waited all afternoon for the famous poet to walk by.

A typical day at MacDowell for me begins with the sound of the breakfast bell tolling at 7:30 AM and I stagger out of bed to make my way to Colony Hall where I have my daily two eggs scrambled, a toasted bagel, fresh orange juice, and mug of Colombian coffee. I look over the morning papers just to see if war has been declared or a natural disaster has wiped out a corner of the globe. The days can run into each other when a writer is exploring the inner worlds of the imagination and the external world with its ticks and tocks easily disappears. After breakfast ends at 8:30 AM, I walk over to my studio through the winding dirt roads. From 9-12 AM I sit at this computer and write. Between 12 and 1 PM someone will deliver to my doorstep a basket filled with lunch. Today I got a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato, a sumptuous serving of beef and barley soup, a thermos of more coffee, a baggie of carrots and sugar snap peas, and two coconut chocolate chip macaroons. After lunch the urge to take a nap overcomes me and I have the luxury to concede and I plop onto the studio bed. The colonies encourage dreaming by providing artists the proper accommodations. Sometimes I feel adventurous and not set my alarm clock and let myself wake up naturally. More often than not I wake up with the next passage for a story I’m working on or find the solution for the next stanza in a poem, so I rush over to my computer and pour out the harvest of my dream fields. Some days I look up and realize that it is almost 6 PM and that is when the colonists have to go back to Colony Hall to return their lunch baskets. Dinner is served at 6:30 PM sharp and all the colonists converge in the main dinning room for wonderful dishes and stimulating conversations. After dinner a few run back to their studios to continue working and others just mill around colony hall engaging in a set of ping pong or a game of pool.

Who can apply to these writers’ colonies? Anybody with proven talent can apply. Acceptance is solely based on the work one sends to the admissions committee which is composed of several respected authorities in the field.

The deer are now making their way across the forest patch in front of my studio. That means the dinner bell will soon ring and I must leave you, my dear reader, and walk back to Colony Hall to return my basket.

Posted by: secret.asian.man at 08:18 | link | comments (8) |