IT IS ALMOST CONVENTIONAL WISDOM frequently mentioned among certain circles that nobody writes poetry anymore or, in the case of writers who feel that they are not getting their due, that nobody reads poetry anymore. If one were to take them at their word, it is as if there existed a time when people spoke in iambic pentameter and went around with a book of poetry in one hand and a lily in the other. One can only imagine lizards waxing nostalgic over the Jurassic. Each and every one of us is entitled to our good old days, of course, whether they actually happened or not. Some of us consider it as something past or continuing from the past. The lucky ones are in the throes of it.
And there are enough lucky ones to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. They write for the Other, their very own Ideal Reader, who may be out there somewhere or, quite possibly, in half-discovered countries within themselves. E.M. Forster made it sound so easy: "Only connect," he said, yet for nearly all but the most established writers, the problem of publication is the Eternal How. And yet, it does not have to be so where there is a will, as has been proven time and again by independent souls ever since the invention of the mimeograph machine. (At the legendary Sarabia Optical in UP Diliman, there are boxes and boxes of indie comics and books of the "palimbagang seroks" variety.) Recently, it was proven again by the writers of UP Quill who launched the fourteenth of the Sitting Amok series.
From the very first, the Sitting Amok series has contained some of the finest literature--in words and pictures--this side of the Palanca awards. Some writings are more ephemeral than others but, reading this collection, one gets a definite sense that many of the works will continue to be read years from now. Needless to say, there are no trendy writers here, nobody with pretensions to hipness. For the most part, as some of them would be the first to admit albeit wryly, they are massively depressed. Whether or not the angstfulness shows, the works stand on their own, as they should.
Among the most striking works are those of Michael Balili. With his allusive and elusive poetry he captures the quiet desperation and longing of in-between times, like a lover in a waiting-room with, perhaps, no exit. From "Rooting":
On my way to the market, a wind created a fragment
of itself over dust, dry leaves, plastic candy wrappers, etc, this little wind.
I was walking and then I stopped, I didn't know what else
in me stopped
as these materials
appeared as hairlines then rearranged in permutated motion
then gradated into charcoal crosshatches then
reappeared again, crest and trough of candy wrappers,
dust outlining the gestures, direction of,
dry leaves the referential image and then otherwise,
each synthesizing each to each
and just like that the objects still on air
swiftly fell linearly.
I kept the delay like a promise although I promised
not to ever.
His two other poems in the collection, "The School of Aging Description" and "L'Esprit d'Escalier" tap a similar vein. Balili's poems are often painful to read--he himself sees the act of writing as a kind of flaying--but there are flashes of self-aware humor ("there was so much to do mythically together") that see the reader through.
Another remarkable poet is Ade whose consistent tone is that of unabashed defiance. The "I" in her poems is the woman bloody but unbowed, who will give the coup de grâce in the duel of love: Oo hindi kita kayang hawakan, hindi kita kayang basagin. / Dahil kahit kailan hindi ka naman naging buo sa akin. On the same theme yet with a poignant twist is "633-012299," Ana Marika Francisco's story in pictures. In this piece, boy-robot meets girl-robot and, for a change, they do not get together for the purpose of overthrowing humanity. In fact, they do not get together at all. The spare art and dialogue convey just the right atmosphere: the cold stillness of a world where a heart is something one tapes onto a metal chest.
Weaving strands from parallel universes is something Carlo Pacolor Garcia does best in his cinematic short stories. His is a style that, for all its seeming informality, claims the right to expect a more participative reader. In "Dalawang Bersyon ng Dagat" and "Kasinungalingan," past, present, and future coexist, and it is only through their collisions that revelations are made possible. For the reader, this approach gives the illusion--as in film--that we are going through the events simultaneously with the narrator. Fortunately, his narrators while bordering on the strange are always genial and we are courteously warned, as in "Kasinungalingan", not to take their reliability for granted: Hindi ko kayo pipiliting maniwala sa 'king ikukwento. What ensues is a ride that dangerously skirts the postmodern put-on but deftly avoids it.
It is never easy to write about writing. There are so many considerations of text and context, words and the world, that one may be tempted to give up the attempt. And yet, how can one not respond to lines such as Bintangan ba naman akong lumilipad! / Kung pinakawalan ako ng grabedad, anong dahilan ko / para manatili rito? from Princess Marasigan's "Monologo ng Orasan." In the film Il Postino, the postman tells the poet that "the poem belongs to whoever needs it." The twenty-six writers whose work may be found within the pages of this elegantly designed book know this and this is why they bother.
On the night of the launch at the Conspiracy Café, the authors arrived, some of them irritable and others groggy from lack of sleep. After months spent weaving words, they had spent the past nights sewing, literally sewing the book together. In the age of mechanical reproduction, Sitting Amok XIV is possibly the closest thing to a handmade book one can get. It is as if the writers were saying that they are willing to give not just their words (as if it were not a great enough gift already) but their deeds as well. Conventional wisdom tells us to put our money where our mouth is. Struggling artists may well laugh at this piece of sage advice. The truth of the matter is that the non-commodifiable has never had an easy time of it. And what could be more non-commodifiable than a poem, whatever its form? Art, in all its manifestations old and new, is a constant claiming and re-claiming, a defending of space--no matter how small--in the grand scheme of things and the writers of UP Quill have proven that they are perfectly capable of doing so. (Sofia Guillermo)