Picture
Marcy Dans Lee, my colleague at school, came up with a children's book on Filipino values. She was commissioned by Unionbank to do the book for its CSR project. The children's book came out several years ago, and has been reprinted several times.

Unionbank also came out with a Student's Workbook, distributed to schoolchildren in several schools around the country. In its third edition, the workbook includes a poem entitled "Nina Wonders, Nina Asks," written by Marcy Dans Lee. My translation of the poem, "Nagtataka si Nina, Nagtatanong si Nina," appears in this edition:
NAGTATAKA SI NINA, NAGTATANONG SI NINA
Salin ni Nino Soria de Veyra

Ngayong papasok na sa paaralan
At karunungan ay madaragdagan,
Niyapos ni Nina, hinagkan ni Nina
Ang pinakamamahal niyang ina at ama
Dahil siya ay mangungulila
Sa kanilang tunay na pagkalinga.

Pero si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
Ang pagmamahal ba ay gagawing walang hanggan ng Poon?


Naglalakad si Nina sa may bangketa
Ang bawat hakbang sinasalubong ng basura – 
Papel, babol gam, pambalot ng kendi – 
Kung saan-saan tinapon sa pag-aapura
Ngayon ay nagkalat na sa kalsada
Kahit may mga basurahan para sa tira-tira.

Kaya si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
'Di ba madaling gawin ang basura ay tamang itapon?


Sa himpilan ng jeepney si Nina dumating,
Sa kapal ng usok siya ay napabahin. (Hatsing!)
Nagsisiksikan na mga pasahero, walang puwestong makita,
Hindi ba nila nababasa nakapaskil na mga paunawa?
Pakiwari niya ay nakakatakot at nakakalungkot
Makita ang mga taong sumusungit at sumisimangot.

Kaya si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
Kailangan ba palaging magmadali sa habang panahon?


Pagdating niya sa paaralan, ang bagong kamag-aral nakita,
Tinutukso at sinisindak ng mga manlolokong kaiskuwela.
Nalulumbay ang bata, nawalan ng pag-asa.
Sa wari ni Nina, hindi makatarungan kanyang pagdurusa.
Agad-agad inakay ni Nina ang bata papalayo
Sa kapahamakan at siguradong gulo.

Kaya si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
Sinong walang sala sa ibang tao ay humukom?


Sa pagsusulit sa Matematika sa araw na iyon,
Nagdamdam si Nina sa kanyang paglingon,
Kaliwa't kanan nagkokopyahan,
Mga kaiskuwela ay sinusuway ang kautusan,
Pinagpatuloy ang masamang gawain
Nang ibaling ng guro ang kanyang pansin.

Kaya si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
Itong pandaraya ba ay palalampasin ng Panginoon?


At sa oras ng rises, sa kalembang ng kampana,
Mga bata ay humiyaw, ang galak ipinagkakanta.
Si Nina ay natuwa sa masayang nakita,
Hanay ng mga batang tapat na pumipila,
Ang pinakahuli sa dulo pumupunta,
Matiyagang naghihintay makabili ng miryenda.

Si Nina ay nagtataka, si Nina ay nagtatanong
'Di ba ganitong mga tagpo ang hanap sa bawat panahon?


Tapos na ang laro at wala ng klase,
Kaya si Nina sa bahay tuwirang umuwi,
At ang pinakamamahal niyang ina at ama
Agad niyapos ni Nina, agad hinagkan ni Nina
Dahil buong araw siya ay nangulila
Sa kanilang tunay na pagkalinga.

Kaya si Nina ay umaasa, si Nina ay nagdarasal
Na mapabubuti ang bawat araw sa ating tamang asal.
Picture
 
Child's Play 01/25/2010
 
 
 
Picture
Book cover of An Maupay ha Mga Waray
An Maupay ha mga Waray ug iba pa nga mga Siday
Voltaire Q. Oyzon
NCCA and UPV Tacloban Creative Writing Program
Manila, 2008

The good thing about the Waray is that they do not give up. Or, as Voltaire puts it: "Kun hinuhobsan inin akon dughan / sugad hiton medyahan / dayon ko ini inaalgan / didto kanda Mana Semang / (Mana Semang, ilista la anay)" [When the heart dries up / like this half-gallon jug / quickly I rush to Mana Semang's / to fill it up / (just put it in my bill, Mana Semang)].

This wry sensibility characterizes how the Waray copes with the tough life dealt to most. As long as there is tuba to go with life's vicissitudes the heart will still beat and "mangayat hin away" [spoil for a fight].

Perhaps that is why so many siday or poem in Waray deal with social issues. Tongues loosened by the tart taste of tuba, poets can spew the bitter in dribbles of sweetened lines some may consider as harmless nonsense.

In the poem "Lagung" [Fly], for instance, Voltaire draws a picture of a fly that can only look on and drool at the food it cannot taste because the glass walls of fastfood joints, while providing an enticing gastronomic view, prohibit its entrance to "undesirable creatures."

Like the fly and, by extension, street urchins who peer through the glass and "tutok / simhot / ... ha Jollibee, Dunkin' / di ngani Cindy's [popular fastfood joints in Tacloban] / ... hamot / laway" [stare / sniff / ... at Jollibee, Dunkin' / or Cindy's / ... smell / drool] at scrumptious meals patrons eat but which they can only look at or beg for until the service crew shoos them away.

It is Voltaire's deft use of such images and situations that such harmless nonsense can contain scathing truths. In his "Kan Toytoy Pag-asoy han Agsob nga Karantahay ha Ira Balay" [Toytoy Tells About the Singing at Home], Voltaire shows how aesthetics and social commentary can go together in a poem about domestic violence.

The poem describes how when the drunken father arrives home "naglulubay-lubay, / nagkikinanta han Inday, Inday [a popular Waray folk song] / diretso ini hiya ha kusina / manngungukab, / babagtingan an kardero, / mapakarakatak han mga plato" [swaying / singing Inday, Inday / heads straight for the kitchen / rummaging, / clanking pots, / jangling plates].

The wife's pacifying and soft alto, "baga'n kanan aghoy taghoy" [like a forest spirit's whistle], soon sings second voice to the husband's gruff complaints. Then, "... may malagubo, / bati han bug-os nga baryo, / hi nanay - napalsito" [a thud, / and the whole barrio hears / my mother singing in falsetto].

But it is not only Voltaire's skillful presentation technique that shines through in the poem. The aural play of onomatopoeic Waray words, the use of rhyme, and the counterpointing of the husband's bass and the wife's alto/falsetto complement the poem's descriptive narration and the delayed ironic twist in the ending.

Merlie Alunan, who writes the book's "Introduction," is right indeed about Voltaire being at home in the Waray language: "He [understands] its nuances. Its tones and accents [echo] in his inner ear. He [is] at home with its rhythms. He can deal with its intricacies with the delicacy and finesse required by the poetic process" (9).

And several poems in the collection reflects Voltaire's love for the Waray tongue. Rather than take a more strident but definitely less effective tone, Voltaire displays the same subtlety and humor in the use of language and images when he tackles the language theme.

In "Nagbalyo-balyo Ako hin Nanay" [Changing Mothers], Voltaire effectively uses snippets of a Waray popular song to counterpoint the cultural effects of a colonial and/or linguistic hegemony. And parodying the Tagalog patriot, Marcelo H. del Pilar, who parodied "The Hail Mary" in "Ang Aba Guinoong Baria" [The Hail Money] to protest the greed of Spanish friars, Voltaire throws a gibe at the imperialism of the so-called national language in "Paghimaya" [Glory Be].

But even as Voltaire pays tribute to a heritage that is seemingly on the verge of extinction, his use of Waray is a testimony that the local tongue continues to flourish even as it confronts the onslaught of technological progress and the consequent homogenization of culture.

In "Para han mga Pulong ha Waray nga Pinamatay" [For the Murdered Words in Waray], he turns quasi-scientific as he likens seemingly lost words in Waray to the dew that covers the earth every morning. But he also turns wistful and hopeful as he writes: "Ano an angay ta basolan? / Ano an angay ikabido? / Ha kalibotan, waray butang, / waray butang nga naaanaw" [What's there to regret then? / What's to feel bad about? / In this world, nothing, / nothing's gone forever].

Voltaire's collection - with poems tackling themes from the domestic and particular to the more universal in their very particularity - is, to use a perhaps rather outdated New Critical term, well-wrought indeed. In his use of linguistic and literary elements - folkloric allusions or appropriations of earlier literary forms and/or themes - coupled with a truly homegrown humor, Voltaire Q. Oyzon is an original talent worthy to be the heir to the Leyte-Samar literary tradition.

Usa pa ka tagay [One more round].

(Note: Voltaire sent me a copy of his then newly-minted book and asked if I could do a review which he could send off to newspapers and magazines. It wasn't a chore doing the review since I had already written a short evaluation of the manuscript for the NCCA.)
 
Poster poems 12/27/2009
 
Picture
Bringing the Dolls, by Merlie Alunan
I saw this photo of a framed poster poem that brought back memories of my Dumaguete days. Back then, I was a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program of Silliman University. One of my teachers was Merlie Alunan, who wrote the poem "Bringing the Dolls." She also involved us in one of her projects for the provincial tourism office -- transforming poetry into posters.

The framed poster above now hangs in Merlie's daughter's restaurant, Ayo, in Tacloban City. That was also one of my happy memories -- dining at Merlie's house, and enjoying the company of her children. You can just imagine how great the food was as four out of Merlie's five children now own and run their individual restaurants.
 
 
Here's my first collection of poems culled from the pieces submitted for my Creative Writing master's thesis at Silliman University, Dumaguete City.


The collection takes its title from the first poem, which sort of sets the theme for all the poems. I had to take out some of the other poems included in my thesis since they did not seem to thematically fit the present collection.

This set of poems were written from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and all of them were published -- in one version or another -- in Philippine popular magazines or literary journals and in one international online anthology.

So much for introductions. I'll leave you to read the collection ...