secret asian man

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

 

Here's my essay on Filipino poetry that was published in the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia:

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF PHILIPPINE POETRY


The history of Philippine poetry can be described in four major literary periods: Pre-Colonial (before 1521), Spanish Colonial (1521-1898), American Colonial (1898-1946), and Contemporary (1946-present). A strong indigenous oral tradition is interwoven with the Spanish and American colonial influences of culture and language. Poetry has been written in Tagalog (the national language) and in the 87 different regional dialects, as well as in the Castillian Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega, and the American English of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain.

PRE-COLONIAL

An indigenous oral tradition of bugtong (riddles) and sawikain (proverbs) played a central part of community life in villages and settlements of pre-colonial Philippines. Short four line poems called tanaga evolved from these oral traditions. Each line contained seven or eight syllables and at the heart of the poem was a cryptic metaphor called a talinghaga. Popular folk musical verse was divided into several categories: the diona, talindao and auit (songs sung at home); indolanin and dolayanin (street songs); hila, soliranin and manigpasin (rowing songs); holohorlo and oyayi (cradle songs); ombayi (songs of sadness); omiguing (songs of tenderness); tagumpay (triumphant songs); dopayanin (boat songs); hiliriao (drinking songs); and diona (wedding songs). Through these verses the local history, politics, and culture was passed on from generation to generation. The most skilled poets would memorize epic cycles which took two to four days to recite during all night dramatic performances. Two examples of pre-colonial epics which survive today are Biag ni Lam-ang in Ilocano (a northern Luzon dialect) and Ibalon in Bicol (a southern Luzon dialect).

SPANISH COLONIAL

With arrival of the Spanish colonizers Ferdinand Magellan (1521) and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (1571) came priests and their tradition of European Catholicism. Satanas (Satan) first appeared in Tagalog poetry and the Christian themes of sin, guilt, and retribution became central concerns of the native population. In 1610 Tomas PINPIN, a Filipino poet working for the Dominican printing press in Bataan, (a town outside Manila) wrote a book called Librong Pagaaralan nang manga Tagalog nang Uicang Castila (A Book in Which Tagalogs May Study the Spanish Language). In this book Pinpin inserted six auit (songs) which had alternating Spanish and Tagalog lines. This type of bilingual poetry was written by a group called the Ladino Poets. Metrical romances called awit or korido were also popular with the literary crowds. The most influential Tagalog romance of the period was the politically cryptic Florante at Laura (1838) written by Francisco BALTAZAR, also known as BALAGTAS (1788-1862). The first book of poetry written in Spanish by a Filipino was Pedro PATERNO’s (1858-1911) Sampaguitas y Poesias Varias (1880) which was printed in Spain. Paterno, along with Marcelo H. DEL PILAR (1850-1896), Jose RIZAL (1861-1896), and Isabelo DE LOS REYES (1864-1918) were literary and political figures living in Madrid called Ilustrados (enlightened ones) working to attain political freedoms for the natives back in the Philippines. The first Filipino female poet to attain outside recognition was Leona FLORENTINO (1849-1884) whose poems were exhibited in the Exposition Filipina in 1887 in Madrid and in the 1889 Exposition Internationale in Paris.

AMERICAN COLONIAL

In 1898 the American President William McKinley announced to the public that it was America’s moral duty to take possession of the Philippine Islands because the Filipinos had to be civilized, educated, and Christianized. After American soldiers “pacified” the native population during the Philippine American War (1899-1902), thousands of American teachers were sent throughout the archipelago to teach the Filipinos the English language. In just a few years English became the privileged form of expression for poets, prose writers, and dramatists. The earliest Filipino poems written in English were published in 1905 in Berkeley, CA in The Filipino Students’ Magazine which was edited by Pensionados (Philippine American government scholars). The first book of poetry written in English Azucena (1925) by Marcelo DE GRACIA CONCEPCION (1895-1954) was published in the U.S. by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press. The most influential Filipino poet Jose GARCIA VILLA (1908-1997) lived most of his adult life in New York City. His books are Have Come, Am Here (Viking Press, 1942), Volume Two (New Directions, 1949), Selected Poems and New (McDowell, Obolensky, 1958). Another early immigrant Filipino poet is Carlos BULOSAN (1911-1956) who published political poems in American magazines like The New Yorker, Poetry (edited by Harriet Monroe), and Saturday Evening Post. In Manila in 1940, the Commonwealth Literary Prize in English poetry was given to Rafael ZULUETA DA COSTA’s (1915-1990) Like the Molave and Other Poems. Native themes were well represented by local poets like Fernando Ma. GUERRERO (1873-1929), Lope K. SANTOS (1879-1965), Jose CORAZON DE JESUS (1896-1932), Amado V. HERNANDEZ 1903-1970), Alejandro G. ABADILLA (1904-1969), Angela MANALANG GLORIA (1907-1999), and Trinidad TARROSA SUBIDO (1912-1993).

CONTEMPORARY

The declaration of formal independence from America on 4 July1946 brought a sense of a new beginning to the people and poets of the Philippines. A generation of poets who studied in the famed Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the University of Iowa in the 1950s— Bienvenido N. SANTOS (1911-1996), Ricaredo DEMETILLO (1920-1998), Dominador I. ILIO (1913-), and Edith TIEMPO (1919-)—came back to the Philippines with the literary ideals of the American New Criticism. The 1970s and 1980s proved to be a politically aware era for Filipino poets who were writing under the censorship of the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos (1965-1986). As a reaction to the 1983 assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr., a leading anti-Marcos politician, several poets formed a literary organization called PLAC (Philippine Literary Arts Council) to protest the abuses of the government. One of its leading founders was Alfred A. YUSON (1945-) whose neo-realist books of poems are Dream of Knives (1986) and Trading in Mermaids (1993). Current trends in Philippine poetry are best exemplified by the pyrotechnic imagination of Eileen R. TABIOS (1960-) whose book of poetry Beyond Life Sentences (1998) won the National Book award given by the Manila Book Critics Circle. Her poems incorporate the American precision of Marianne Moore, the experimental joie de vivre of Paul Valery, and the imagistic intensity of Pablo Neruda.

Nick CarbĂł

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABAD, H. Gemino. (1999) A Habit of Shores: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, 60’s to the 90’s. Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press.
ABAD, H Gemino, and Edna Z. Manlapaz, eds (1989). Man of Earth: An Anthology of Filipino Poetry and Verse from English 1905 to the Mid-50’s. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
CARBĂ“, Nick, and Eileen Tabios, eds. (2000) Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
CARBĂ“, Nick. (1996) Returning a Borrowed Tongue: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino American Poetry. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press.

Posted by: secret.asian.man at 17:07 | link | comments (6) |

Here's an important essay that's to be included in a forthcoming anthology called Dark Horses: Contemporary Poets on Forgotten Poems. I wanted to focus on a poem by the excellent Filipino poet Rafael Zulueta da Costa who won the Commonwealth Literary Prize way back in the early 40's in the Philippines. "Zulu," as he was known to his friends, was a companion of my father, Alfonso at De LaSalle college in Manila during the 30's. When I was growing up in Makati in the 70's, I really didn't know Zulu as a poet but, as an old buddy of my dad who came over to our house to drink scotch whiskey and talk of "the good old days of Manila." When it came time to be educated, I was sent to attend the first grade at San Lorenzo School in San Lorenzo Village in Makati. This was the pre-elementary school and kindergarden that Mr. Zulueta had founded in the 1970's. Besides being the owner of the school, he was also its Principal so, one day when I was called into his office, I thought I was in trouble. I remember he said something about paying more attention in class and help make my father proud of me because I came from "a good family." Zulu is dead now but I remember him more as a family friend than as the important Filipino poet that he was and still is to as few of us.


GODS WALKING ON BROWN LEGS: Remembering “Like the Molave.”

by Nick Carbo


Rafael Zulueta y da Costa’s (1915-1990) long poem “Like the Molave” is one of the most important touch stones in the history of Philippine poetry in English. The book Like the Molave & Collected Poems was the top prize winner in poetry in the 1940 Commonwealth Literary Contest. When one considers the history of America’s colonial domination (since 1898) of the Philippine archipelago, its imposition of American culture and language, and repression of native cultural expression, this set of literary prizes was the beginning of the official recognition of local writers. When the American forces sent by President McKinley arrived on the shores of Manila Bay in 1898, few Americans back home knew where the Philippine islands were on a map. Cartoon images of Filipino “savages” (portraying the locals as “Negroes” with big lips and bones adorning their heads) filled the American newspapers of the day. Rudyard Kipling had written his famous poem “White Man’s Burden” to extoll the Americans to earn their place in the sun by accepting the charge of these “brown pickaninnies” and by civilizing them.

By 1940, the Filipinos had been educated by the Americans for more than four decades and a new generation of English-speaking writers were about to come to the fore. Only 16 years earlier in 1924, did the first anthology of Filipino-English verse appear. The editor of Filipino Poetry, Rodolfo Dato, wrote in his introduction an apologia for the existence of the book and he quoted the America educator and linguist Frank C. Laubach on the literary ability of the Filipinos:

“They [the Filipinos] knew nothing of the English language prior to the American occupation. Their attempts at composing prose and poetry in English have been so full of grammatical errors and mis-use of words, that Americans have not been in any mood to look for dreams to which the Filipinos have been struggling to give utterance.”

By 1940 the dreams of Filipino poets writing in English were reaching a maturity which the Americans could no longer ignore. “Like the Molave” begins with the invocation of the Filipino national hero Jose Rizal who was executed by the Spanish colonial government in 1896: “Not yet, Rizal, not yet. Sleep not in peace.” Da Costa calls to Rizal’s spirit and implores him to rise from the ashes of history to attend to the current struggle against a new colonial master:

“Our shoulders are not strong; our sinews are Grown flaccid with dependence, smug with ease Under another’s wing. Rest not in peace; Not yet, Rizal, not yet . . .”

One of the reasons the judges cited as the deciding factor for the top prize was the book's political content. In the introduction to “Like the Molave” the Filipino critic Salvador P. Lopez says: “Here is poetry that is as large in its social sympathies as the sweep of its resonant lines is large; poetry that is exultant because it exalts the common man. Rarely has the Social Muse been courted in language of surer accent and more irresistible persuasion . . . .” These social sympathies that won Zulueta da Costa wide literary acclaim in certain literary circles also got him into trouble with many American officials who interpreted some of the lines in “Like the Molave” as blatantly anti-American. Lines like:

“. . . We know the story, the black looks, the scowls, the placards in the restaurants saying: Neither Dogs nor Filipinos allowed; the warning at the fair: Beware of Filipino pickpockets; the loneliness, the woman denied”

and

“The emigrant thinks: surely if we welcome the big white brother blasting the gold out of our hills, surely, the little brown brother will not be begrudged the picking of lettuce leaves from his fields” cost the winning poet his teaching job at the De LaSalle College. When he presented his resumé at newspaper offices and private businesses in Manila, no one would give him a job.

The story of “Like the Molave” in Philippine cultural history took an upbeat turn during the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s when the poem was made required reading in every high school classroom from the islands of Luzon to Mindanao. The poet, however, did not publish another book of poems during the rest of his life because of the deep glorious wounds received when he dared to stand up against the American imperialist gale.

Posted by: secret.asian.man at 22:45 | link | comments (2) |

Nick Carbo will be featured in an interview on National Public Radio's show Morning Edition in "Intersections" on February 16th. Air times, 6:50am and 8:50am.

"Intersections," is a new series about artists and their inspirations. The goal of the series is to learn more about the important film-makers, musicians and writers of our time by hearing them talk about their own artistic sources of inspiration.

Among the many accomplished artists are composer John Adams, writer Jamaica Kincaid, actor Dustin Hoffman, writer/illustrator Art Spiegelman, singer Rickie Lee Jones, and poet Nick Carbo. The series will run every Monday on NPR's Morning Edition during the first six months of 2004.

Also look out for Nick's new book of poems ANDALUSIAN DAWN (Cherry Grove Collections, forthcoming May 2004). Advanced praise:

The spirits of Lorca, the gypsies who inspired him, and the great poets of al-Andalus preside over Nick CarbĂł's Andalusian Dawn. These poems are filled with a voluble silence in which we hear the "cricket-sound dark" and see "millions of fireflies/ burning in rows and rows between us." CarbĂł's poems, like his predecessors' are conflagrations made of music and image.
--Michael Collier, editor of The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology

Posted by: secret.asian.man at 07:37 | link | comments (4) |