Summer meet-ups.

All photos by Alyza Taguilaso

I should be editing two stories for my last class of the semester, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spend time with four friends who happen to write awesome poetry and fiction. The awesome Shane Carreon finished her MA in CW in record time and was in Manila to submit all requirements that would enable her to march at UP Diliman's upcoming graduation rites--including and especially her poetry collection, Travel Book. It's a beautiful collection, accompanied by an equally beautiful account of her poetics (and so well-researched too).  I also met up with fabulous poet/artist Alyza Taguilaso who is studying medicine while writing scary-beautiful poems. Glenn L. Diaz and I read her work and were so happy to see that, despite all her med school-related stress, she is obviously blooming, as far as the writing's concerned. As well as in other things. Hahaha. Glenn, who writes brilliant fiction and poetry, didn't come with his stories and poems, but told us about some little things he'd been working on, which might seem ordinary to him, but seemed interesting and compelling to the rest of us. And at one point, we had a wonderful discussion about erasures, adaptations, and other such things with gifted poet/artist Arbeen Acuna. The 8-year-old sat through it all, and actually shared with the last three of us left at the end of the day, that she had completed a story that she could show "her teachers". Glenn L. Diaz and Alyza Taguilaso graciously offered to "workshop" the piece, and while she demurred this time around, was very curious about the process. Altogether a good day.

Books in bed

In the Forest of Forgetting, by Theodora Goss

Books for breakfast

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

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Of the trilogy, I like Catching Fire best, though the ending, of course (Catching Fire being the middle book) is bitin.

Books for breakfast

The menu this morning

Home Body Memory: Filipina Artists in the Visual Arts, 19th Century to the Present, by Flaudette May V. Datuin

Experiencing the Elsewhere: Reading the Transgressions in the Poetry of Conchitina Cruz, by Petra Magno

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I'm taking notes!

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Later:

[one love affair], by Jenny Boully

elsewhere held and lingered, by Conchitina Cruz

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Or, more likely:

Feast and Famine, by Rosario C. Lucero

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Dear Tin, please edit your last two stories first. And respond to work-related emails. Thank you. 


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Next up:
Dangerous Liaisons: Sexing the Nation in Novels by Philippine Women, by Ruth Jordana Pison


*excited*

Books, instead of a story for B.

Today's Menu

Home Body Memory: Filipina Artists in the Visual Arts, 19th Century to the Present, by Flaudette May V. Datuin

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Because of this book, I just might take up Philippine Studies after the MA.

Marking time

...by putting it down, here, that today (yesterday, already, maybe) I attended my last class of the semester. If all goes well (I have four stories to revise within the next 2 weeks), I'd have completed 12 units out of 24 units of course work, and will be able to move to proposing and working on the thesis (6 units) by second semester, 2012.

At the end of the semester, I am still sure of this: Going back to school was one of the best decisions I've made in life, so far.

Books in Bed

In the Forest of Forgetting, by Theodora Goss

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This book is <3.

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Had our last poetry class (with Dr. Jimmy Abad)  this semester. I enjoyed this class so very much. I had thoroughly crazy, supportive classmates. Quite a shock to realize that, unlike law school, there is a chance we may not even see each other again next semester (we're all on different tracks; the program is flexible).

Books in bed

Menu

After, by Jane Hirshfield

Accountability report

Many thanks to the editors of the Philippines Graphic for publishing "Josephine's Last Farewell". The March 12 issue, where the poem appears, is available at National Bookstore and 7-11. Thank you, Angelo Ancheta, Shane Carreon, and Jordan Carnice for letting me know about the good news.

"The Last Tango," a story by Kate Aton-Osias, as well as Angelo Ancheta's review of Huseng Batute's "Buhay Maynila Book 2", also grace the issue. 

Finally, for those following the trial of impeached Philippine Chief Justice Renato C. Corona: Joel Pablo Salud's Editor's Note and "The Scarlet Letter" are brief but important reflections on what's happened before the defense began its presentation of evidence.

Notes for a future po-et[h]ics

Here are notes from an early morning conversation with someone about the continuing reflection on poetics (Apparently, the process of reflection is not yet complete, notwithstanding the paper I submitted last Wednesday):

1. Reading list: life.after.theory (Derrida, Moi); Escobar; Spivak; Foucault; Habermas; Butler; Kristeva; B. Anderson; Authentic, not Exotic; J. Neil Garcia dissertation; maybe: all those fiction theses/poetics essays by Chinese-Filipino students)

2. If poetry: Identity/Performance (as Filipino, as other); Why Ms. Bracken

3. If fiction: Reading people/text,  narratives (of power); Form/style of story texts; Freedom/agency vis-a-vis text; inherent goodness of thinking subject [?]; writing in two modes--slipstream/realist; what it means to write in a particular 'style'

4. Cognition as binary and the possibility of/conditions for imagination; imagination as an act of faith/hope?

5. Self/textual awareness in Philippine society (or lack thereof); the contribution of literature; aesth/et[h]ics

He said I was funny. And that I was a "self-nerd". :( I think what he meant was, masalimuot ang aking pag-iisip. As neeneroodles puts it: Oh well, papel. It is what it is.

I'm thinking seriously about the final project, because I intend to finish everything by 2013. And if I want to make my life manageable, a huge chunk of the thinking and writing ought to be accomplished this (the first) summer.

If anyone would like to suggest further readings, given the concerns listed above, you're more than welcome to do so. :) And I will reward you with hugs and cupcake. :D

Books for breakfast

Yesterday

[one love affair] by Jenny Boully

Today

Post-colonialism and Filipino Poetics, by J. Neil Garcia