Yesterday, I met this old teacher of Asian Music in the faculty department. He kept on teasing me about my responding with “po” to those older than I was.
He said, “Bawal mag po dito. Bastos raw.”
I laughed, “Ugali ko po kasi eh. Pinalaking ganyan ng Nanay at Tatay namin. Yun lang nga po, ako may Gago ka po! ”
He laughed and asked what school I came from.
I smiled, “UP po.”
He said, “I came from UP, too. I was a freshman in 1981…Ay, hindi, 1971 pala. Yun English 1 and 2 namin, grammar and expository writing, yun 3 Literature…”
I had shocked him (and others) when I said that I required my students to write one essay per week. After all, that would be really more work for the teacher and I go over each sentence. I was asked if I still had a life and I laughed, “Oh, I make sure of that!”
He asked, “What do you teach?”
I answered, “Philippine Literature in English po.”
Then I asked, “Inabutan mo na po sir sila
He said, “They came later, I think. Teacher ko si Fernandez…”
And just like that, my smile slipped, unnoticed, because he went on speaking, “…Everyone in UP looks so bland nowadays…Nung panahon namin, naku, fashion show yun mga estudyante…Postura…”
There we were--- your students---34 years apart--- now teachers.
There I was---- freezing my smile so that my face does not show how I felt as I remember you
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Once you asked me to call you and you said, “I can’t find your aesthetic critique on your paper on the novel that you picked.”
I had winced and said, “Oh no! You want me to re-write it, Ma’am? I swear it’s there Ma’am.”
“What did you use?”
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“Existentialist framework Ma’am and synthesis of Caudwell, Hirn, Jung, Vernon Lee and…”
“I have to read it again.”
Then another phone call, “I see it. It’s deeply interwoven into your and the novel’s text that it is applied…”
The novel was “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell.
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You had once laughed, “Ah, you’re the one who touches on the very difficult…adultery in poetry…”
The paper was a comparative aesthetical analysis of the confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
What’s a poem for you, that’s what you asked. It’s the language that my mind apprehends and appreciates by identification therefore makes me feel. And a language that reminds me that I have a heart and so brings grace to my soul.
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Later on you said, “It is not easy understanding things that you shouldn’t like what is really Art and…” Apply what I know and believe in theory and criticism in my own creative works without labeling it so that the reader will explore. To know what I create and see how it would transform in the making so that I would know what next to create. Not easy and that is why most, if not all, had to choose between criticism and creation, you said. I have both in five stories published ever since that December. You got me started on that on July 28 with:
“We are astonished, taken aback, put on guard or even disgusted—and we demand commentaries and explanations. We are reminded in nothing of everyday, human life, but rather of dreams, night-time fears and the dark recesses of the mind that we sense with misgiving… His primordial experience was ‘human---all too human,’ to such a degree that he could not face its meaning but had to conceal it from himself…”
Carl Gustav Jung on the Visionary Mode, “Work of Art”
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Then you had said, “Well, I thought no one could ever achieve a 1.0 in this subject again and here you are…It was never about the grade, wasn’t it? Now tell me why you think life isn’t beautiful and why you had to kill God…”
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You also said, “I know it will be difficult, especially the way things are now, but you have to voice…” Then you smiled, “Nobody really has any idea what’s in your mind.”
In my mind was An Attempt at Philippine Literature in English Aesthetics, a matter of making a Philippine Literature in English decolonized of Western influence possible using Legasto’s Postcolonial Studies as initial framework.
You had asked us to choose then from the poetics of Abad’s Formalism, the Tiempos’ New Criticism, Almario’s own Formalism, Ordoñez’s Emergent Literature, Garcellano’s Marxism, and then the Postcoloniality of Legasto.
I remember now that the first time I learned that term--- decolonization--- was when I was just 18 from Neferti X.M. Tadiar. I’ve been reading and listening to 18-year-old vocabulary for the past four years and not once did I read or hear that term from them.
And I had grumbled then so that you wouldn’t hear, “Does anybody have any idea what a devious dinosaur you are?”
I would walk you back to your room, holding your hand as you walked slowly, the way people past 80 years old would walk. You smelled of rose and books. Your hand was soft and dry, raspy.
Sometimes Pilar or Atong held your hand instead. Pilar who had degree in Law but chose literature for the sake of her soul. That class where Celeste Coscolluela (whose singing voice I loved as Celeste-Flores-Experience in 1999) had said Bakit pa kasi MA at di MFA ang Creative Writing dito? Parusa mga theory and criticism classes eh! And I had smiled instead of scoffed at that kind of sensibility, refusing to antagonize her and fuel my past conflict with her organization that she perhaps remembered.
And I know, I know, my classmates and I had laughed at once-child-actor-Atong and his novel of choice “The Little Prince”. He was also almost an idiot in Art Theory and Criticism but you had nurtured his very young exploration into his literary aesthetics with---
LOCK! DAMN IT! LOCK IT AWAY!
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I exhaled and held the smile and was able to function again: excusing myself from that conversation to leave, proctoring exams, checking tests and papers, tabulating numbers via calculator because I’m still an idiot in Excel, re-focusing perceptions of some students in consultations, and trying not to snap and be turned off from teaching because of lies-for-reasons.
Last night, I asked Joey again, “Was Carl offended?” anxious that my friend might have taken my comments on his story personally. I had told Carljoe Javier, Dude, use me. That’s what I’m here for and anong silbi ko as your friend?
Joey reassured, “No, beh,”
I smiled, thinking about what he told Joey: No wonder you have to work hard on it, your editor’s a killer.
Joey’s happy that I’m back to writing here, kisses my forehead every time he sees me writing something for here and hugs me, “Glad you’re back.”
Then last night (during the despedida for Douglas to Urban-Huts-In-Barbados to Graduate-MA-From-Quebec and DON’T-HAVE-THEREFORE-MAKE TIME TO GO BACK TO WRITING HIS STORIES while maybe Urban-Planning-The-Philippines-Then-Asia), I was asked by Joel Toledo about my poetics in relation to my criticism of texts.
I had flinched inside JESUS FUCKING CHRIST UNLOCKED AGAIN LOCKING LOCKING LOCKING LOCKING GODDAMNIT I CAN’T JUST CRY HERE AND NOW LOCK IT!
I had blurted out, “What’s your IQ? I mean, do you know?”
He laughed, “What does that have to do with it?”
There was no slight intended and taken, thankfully. Like you said, it’s the mind. I always have to know whom I’m talking to so that I could adjust my language, so that referencing would be understood and I won’t use my multi-disciplinary pidgin jargon. To be understood by using the same language game of the person I’m talking to. To exercise my patience so that I can explain these concisely, especially to all those who would say Yeah, yeah, now I get it…When it is just the beginning of what should be understood about consciously operating in the paradigms of four or so dimensions.
I had thought of finally letting out more of the mega-text of that.
We had congratulated Joel Toledo on being invited to an anthology to be published by National University of Singapore. Another Filipino recognized, our literature put out there in critical discourse and will be read and used to teach. Again, not an easy achievement and not to be treated as a thing of shrugs.
I had said last night, “Danton Remoto corrected me. I really thought he wrote that. Nicky Pichay pala. Damn association in anthologies. I apologized naman. ”
Joel Toledo replied, “That happens naman talaga pag sa anthologies…Okay yun ginawa mo na nagsorry ka.”
Then I laughed, “Oh di ba?! Nabasa ni Danton Remoto blog ko! Kalowka!”
I had said last night, “Sometimes I’m tempted to enroll in a writing class again under Chingbee.”
“Why Chingbee (Cruz)?”
I had laughed, “Look at her poetry’s evolution! And I’m a very difficult student to teach. Tigas ang ulo eh. Buwang pa. She and Wendell (na may TV commercial na) were effective in making me learn kasi because they let me run with whatever I wanted to do with my poetry and di nanghahawa eh. And I didn’t learn anything being made to write a goddamn sonnet, sestina, and some other shit in my first poetry class with Mooney… (Yun kay Aureus ang okay, kasi balita ko di ka magusulat muna, magbababsa ka lang talaga.) And why do you think I was never a student of Abad, Dalisay and
But I do not discount their insights, never one to disregard anything.
“And what of Adam (David)?”
I had smiled, “Necessary and all that is young, brash, and beautiful. Knows where he wants to go, too. I’m in for the ride. Maganda diyan he’s influencing Chingbee to be more playful on the page and she’s guiding him to maturity. ” He has become the embodiment of the movement opposite of (and to) the old.
And we, your grandchildren, the old’s children, are in the middle--- defending ourselves and our choices from both the younger and the old.
“And Angelo (Suarez)?”
I had laughed again, “When he can show clarity and when he decides where he’s going with his multimedia poetics. Until then, I’m just gonna watch the ride.” What seemed to be in the beginning one of the hopes of the oldies has been rebelling.
Later on I told Joel Toledo, “Manoy, alangan naman bigyan mo kami ni Joey ng writing exercises di ba? Di naman puedeng ganun, para magkaibigan lang tayo.”
There has to be certain boundaries in everything, you said. And I told you about my hesitancy in being taught the craft of writing again. You said that I should know when I should stop writing academic, when I should just write Real in its most intrinsic meaning.
I am especially vigilant in guarding Joey from influences (even mine). He writes the way he writes his stories because he operates free from the viruses implanted in Creative Writing Programs and the politics of Philippine Poetics and is becoming more conscious of what is language and Filipino in his writing. I once told Joey, “Writing is just one of my tools. I’m fighting for something bigger. You can be critical but stick to writing. Don’t go into literary criticism because it would mess up your writing, ok? Don’t think about that. Not your job.”
Before we all said good-bye last night, I had giggled, joked, “Ano kaya kung tirahin ko yun Filipino poetry sa Palanca?
Last night, I had also finally talked to Marguerite De Leon and showed her two of the term papers of my students on one her stories. I had simply said, “I have something for you. There are others… Here, reader-feedback.” They liked her story in Philippine Speculative Fiction III and I wanted her to know that: the readers’ thoughts on a writer’s creative work, purest validation. She responded with, “Really? Cool!”
You and I had talked about that and the formation of new categories.
And really, if Dean Alfar did not initiate the annual Speculative Fiction anthology for the past four years, what then would be the state of Philippine Short Fiction in English. If Sarge Lacuesta didn’t become the Literary Editor of Philippine Free Press, I would have really consigned that literary mag as rag given the majority of the choices of Paolo Manalo. And if Ken Yu didn’t have the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories or Story Philippines coming out BIG or having the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Award--what then?
We were already in stasis. Even before I left UP in 2003, people were saying that the short story was dead because nobody was reading it. And that was mostly because the language we’ve been using for our stories was academic, meant to be read mostly by the academic.
And now among all the stories in PSF3, these were the dominant picks of the students: Sky Gypsies by TJ Dimacali, Peekli by Andrew Drilon, The Hand by Marianne Villanueva, Facester by Dominique Cimafranca, and the number one Urban Legends (though most of them thought that it was ended abruptly and left hanging) by Charles Tan.
One student said of Urban Legends, “…The first thing I noticed in this particular short story is the way the author narrated the events. For me it was kind of ‘unprofessional’. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading a lot of classic short stories wherein the words used are mostly unfamiliar to me. There was really not much to ask of with regards to the meaning of the words used in the story. It was just like reading a text message…”
There, comparative analysis. Besides that, what caught their interest in their choices were:
TITLE
FIRST LINE/PARAGRAPH OF THE STORY
SOMETHING IN THE STORY THAT WOULD POP OUT i.e. Interesting or Identifies with them
READABILITY OF THE LANGUAGE
Amazing: analyze the emerging trend and implications in (educated upper middle class bracket and projected brackets of) reading ages16-20 from that.
And some of the students picked Lady Boy and dared to do a critique therefore opening their let’s-get-rid-of-gays-because-they’re-abomination-perception to issues in gender and articulation despite the general sentiment expressed (and that that had amused me) by those who chose not to. Like “personally consider it being suicide writing an essay about a story written by the one who’s checking it”. Or “…but because I’m not trying to suck up to anyone, and if there’s one thing I learned in PHILIEN class, it’s that literary taste has nothing to do with another one’s opinion…”
I look at their term papers and compare those with their diagnostic essays: I am proud of what my students have achieved for themselves in their articulation of thoughts, values and critical thinking. They have read the short fiction of Benitez, Arguilla, Arcellana, Alfon, Joaquin,
They were supposed to read all twenty stories there, but they can only read and understand so much. All that for students who don’t like reading, lazy in writing, erroneous in grammar, and unaware that there is Philippine Literature in English. They will likely read whatever else is left in those two books they bought or photocopied to the publishers’ death.
All that and more for a subject that spans just 54 hours and lasts for the rest of their lives.
Last night, I finally asked Marguerite, “Do you consider yourself a good writer?” She said, “No.” Just as I thought she would.
I kept on joking, “Gusto ko magturo sa TIP Cubao!”
She and Doug said, “Parang Dangerous Minds ba?”
I laughed, “Yeah, para feel ko kamukha ko si Michelle Pfeiffer!”
Also, Sasha Martinez and I talked and she was telling me about how none of her classmates wanted to say anything about her texts during workshop and she wants criticism.
I said, “Ah, no longer your peers. You should take your texts outside then. Have your beta-readers go at them. How many do you have? Who? Kasali ba diyan Mommy mo? Each should have a purpose. And you know, you can always pass your stories on to me. Hehehe.” I did berate her for not telling us if and when she’s published (so that we can buy and maybe encourage or nag people to buy copies) and heckled her to try not to traumatize children with her children’s-stories-not-for-children.
Then I showed Ba my two new drawings in my Moleskine. He studied them. Then he said, “Paint!”
I replied, “Publish!”
And the whole time I was thinking about the next term’s syllabus and which poems from the beginning and so on of Philippine Literature in English can perhaps be removed to make way for published poems from this generation’s writers if I would still continue to teach.
I’m criticized for including the young and criticized for including the dead and the old in what I teach. I would always say, “I can’t take them out. We’re talking about literary history here. And students need to see where and what we were when and where and what we are now. Then we can see where we have to go.”
I’m especially criticized for criticizing the dead-old-middle-young and caring about these things that most people think should be forsaken with their “What for?” and “Why care?” and “Why bother? Things won’t change anyway. Let’s just make our own system/standards.”
I’m criticized for my non-conformity to academic politics and teaching approaches, too. I just laugh, “Fuck politics. My sole concern is the students. I’m old enough to be an anal grandmother and young enough to be fucking cool. I will use whatever to make them learn because 54 hours is all I have with them every time no matter where. And I sure as hell know that I’m being effective given the results that only I, the students and the future will know.”
Like you said, it will always be difficult to make anyone understand the beginning of that dream I had discovered with you years ago. These things can never be simplified to be simply understood by people, you said, and this is just the beginning…
It’s been three years and I feel that it’s still just the beginning and I get tired. You were the only who knew about where I wanted to go. Sometimes I do feel that I was lost ever since that December. But you always said that I never was.
I haven’t gone back to MA. How can I when
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I don’t know if I still want to. I mean, who will I trust to guide me and therefore support me there? Whenever Magpie or Egg would say “Go abroad for your MA kaya”, I would always reply with “I’m studying Philippine Literature in English, hello?”
I’m thinking of going to
I have always found it preposterous that we all seem to be generally impressed with (post) graduate studies degrees from abroad. My siblings and I laugh about instant tenure or promotions or positions of people with those but don’t know how to teach or what to do with what they know. For people like us, it is a matter of knowing what else we need to know and whom we discern or trust enough are very good therefore allowed to teach us especially now that we are all older and can really choose.
I’ve had this habit since I was an undergrad: I would ask around first about who will be teaching the subject. Or if I had no choice, I would take the subject, study the course and the professor, and then drop it. I did that with Essay 2 under Reyes and she did ask why I was dropping. I said I found her teaching style too brusque. She laughed and signed the form. I just read the readings from that class and took notes on Style, Form and New Journalism. Then I stuck it out with her in Research because she said Most of you will drop or either get a grade of 3 or line of 1. In my concept essay, she said, your language is convoluted. I laughed and told her I was a hung over when I wrote it.
You remember Ma’am May? I dropped her the first time, too. She had asked why and I said that I didn’t have enough time for all the tasks in the class and I didn’t want a mediocre grade. She had told me when I was her student the second time, “If you really think about it, you don’t need an MA to teach.” But we have to constantly study. She didn’t give me a 1.0 because she said that I will know when I have earned that grade in teaching. Another amazing subject: Approaches To A College English Program. Last time I saw Sir Emil, he told me that she was ill and in the hospital. One by one, all of you are
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I used to tease Sir Emil, “Sir naman, pag di maayos yun grade na ibigay mo sa ‘kin, isusumbong kita sa nanay mo!” Ma’am May was also the one who told me in one of our conversations, “Someday, you will realize that happiness and peace are one.” She and I agree that poetry has always been meant to be read out loud. I had told Sir Emil to give her my regards and I feel as if it wasn’t enough for all she had given me. She had given me these in teaching: accuracy, fluency, effectivity, elevation. A synthesis of Traditional, Second Language, and Communicative approaches and Literature all in one every time I facilitate a class and all to develop speaking, listening, reading, writing, comprehension and critical thinking.
So I just say to some (whom I’m not sure understands), “But look at the subversion and naturalization of the English language in South African literature. That’s what I’m after.” Who am I sure of has done that level of language and articulation in Philippine Poetry in English? Marjorie Evasco, here and there Jose Neil Garcia and then there’s El Pinoy Matador Cris Lacaba. English that is Filipino, expresses decolonized Filipino, and articulates this language through/with native/recovered/alternative practices: this is the struggle. That is the standard. I have yet to read everything, of course, and at this rate I’m going to die poor and blind.
I don’t know if I want to continue with an MA in Literary Theory and Criticism or go for an MA in Creative Writing. You and I talked about how my brain works sideways. I don’t know if I can, and if I’m really willing to pay the price of isolation from being a critic of the young-middle-old. Yes Ma’am, too much mindless dislike from all these bandwagons, too. And it still rankles, the whole audacity of being tacitly required to comply with standards for the sake of legitimacy that I think are mostly in the way.
I’ve been thinking about all these things ever since that December. Every time I passed by your room until March, I felt my heart
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I still don’t know how and what words would express what was and still is in my heart.
I did try to continue until June 2006: the department had thrust me into a doctorate course in Literary Theory and Criticism. It was concentrated on Cultural Studies. Well, I had already read the class’s readings when I was in undergrad except for Constantino’s treatise on Filipino Consciousness and those UNESCO Postcolonial notes. I still even wrote the assigned report to me about subculture using punk as example. But when I walked out that day (ate pasta, drank coke and smoked in Chateau Verde), I didn’t come back. I wanted to own my time, and you and all the yous among everything else paralyze me and push me to find out how to feel alive again.
Writing this, I realized that I refused to acknowledge how I felt and I remembered that someone said at that time that I had the saddest eyes and that person wanted to make me smile and be happy. Saddest---
Up until this May and when I came back for my diploma: I was surprised into laughing when I saw that I was still listed as Dr. Legasto’s advisee and they haven’t kicked me out. I visited Ate Julie and she said after I hugged her, “Long time! Balik ka na? Sulat ka lang sa Dean for re-admission. Give your reason why you went AWOL. May time ka pa bago magsimula sem.”
I teased her, “Si Sir Almario pa, di ba? Naku, baka maalala niya pa na tinakbuhan ko siya sa Filipino nun!
I also visited Kuya Pabs and he personally facilitated my claiming of my diploma. He said, “Ngayon mo pa lang kukunin? Five years na ah! Kumusta na si May?” And he said to some there, “Eto tapos yun kapatid nito sa Art Studies ang may pinakamakapal na file nun! Yun original course nito European Languages, four years dun tapos inalisan, pumunta sa Creative Writing. Sa file dami ng literature subjects. Di mo tinapos yun linguistics mo ata. Eh tapos ang alam ng mga tao nasa Philosophy ‘to. Mga delinquente kayo pero magagaling. Kayo talagang magkapatid oh!”
I laughed, “Salamat! Grumaduate naman na ah! Eh produkto ng parents and niyo eh!”
I didn’t pass by your room, couldn’t, wouldn’t
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Nobody really knows why I said fuck-it-without-leave to my graduate studies.
Once more I felt like that word that means “a thing out of place”. Where will I have to go with this, to make that dream real, Ma’am? What those who love this country really dream of and tried so hard to make real. Who can I really talk to and will understand this language? When you
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I was once asked by Ba about my criticism because he said he was intrigued by it and wanted to understand. I tried to explain but it’s a language that he doesn’t know and instinctively rejects because once more creative is inculcated to reject and be divorced from critical. And sometimes, I do think when I encounter people like him--- what’s the point? At least he tried to understand. I can’t make anyone understand this language that takes years and years to learn and cannot be simplified so that it would be understood in one sitting over alcoholic beverages, over my supposed break. I am trying though.
I had once laughed while with Martin Villanueva when we touched on that Big Bayaw issue. I had said that it was a matter of demanding from me to bow to standards younger in perceptions and don’t even know anything substantial yet. Bow to that? And for a personal issue of those involved which they made to look as critical issue when I was and am operating on critical discourse? So, if they were made to feel stupid, I believe that’s the beginning of the path to wisdom right there. And I was even accused then, “How do you remember everything?! May recorder ka ba?!” Again, all a matter of memory and discipline that is very essential in Creative Nonfiction language.
Do people even really understand what the word “remember” or the infinitive “to remember” means? How about when it’s an imperative? Or when it’s in a perfect tense? Or a gerund?
The personal attacks to me make me shake my head but that’s a price no one’s really willing to pay. That’s why we have this culture of silence and whispers. Then I had said to Martin, “When you can all talk in my level of language, then maybe then you can all begin to get what I’m saying and we can all finally talk.”
It’s necessary to know the language of critical discourse: one significant aspect of our being Filipino has always been rooted in orality and one of the tasks of those who write is to translate that orality into literacy. I’ve been listening to readings of texts and most of the time what I hear is just too self-absorbed and limited in their syntax therefore limited if not unconscious in their semantics and almost sound off the same figurative. Still, there are some that gives me hope and I keep on coming back for hope.
Sometimes, I do think my mind---when it comes to these things--- has self-fractured. One part for criticism and another part for creation. I remember Gerry Los Baños exclaiming during my pre-enlistment advising in 2002, “Wow, a 1 in Literary Theory and Criticism II and you’re a CW major?!” Then he shook his head, marveling. It is something that is not just done, they said.
I had stopped writing by then and thought that I couldn’t write anymore. I remember talking to Ahmed about it and asking, “What do I do to get back to my writing? I’m about to do my fucking thesis.” He said, “Go back to your Existentialism.” It took me a while to mediate that fracture and all the other compartments that is my mind. I still am doing so because of things that I continue to learn.
Aoux has always said that I will never be understood so I should just go on and keep on doing what I have to do. I don’t expect to be liked: it is necessary to express (with honesty, candor and even tactless frankness) to people about texts and things. So that we move and continue to move. Aoux has stopped with his PhD in Philippine Studies: we have the same reason. He says he’s never going back but he will continue and finish his dissertation on his own.
I continue to study.
I have locked it all away.
I continue to write.
I rarely speak and write of my poetics.
If I do, it will be with memories of you
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In all this, I have felt so alone ever since that December.
You once asked me why I stopped writing poetry, I didn’t answer, and you said that it will return for me. Last year, someone came and she became my friend. I’m too old to be mothered but she became a Mother returning me to the womb of poetry. She understands my language, this language that I live, and she makes me trust the love that she gives.
Sometimes, I wish I can run to her every time I’m bothered but we know I’m not like that and we have our own lives. Still, I am comforted. I feel less alone especially when I need guidance. She is here.
But you
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you asked before that December, “Do you know what people like you are called?”
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At 26 years old then, I had mumbled like a child, unwilling to say it, Catalysts.
You nodded, You know what happens to those. And later on, in my dreams that December, then January of 2006 and now and then, you said why life was indeed beautiful, only I couldn’t remember what you said when I wake up.
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I remember now
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You said Look at you
LOCK IT!
And in my dream, I began crying, shaking my head
GODDAMNITLOCK!
unlocked
