Philippine Poetry: Form, Language, and Speech 20th Century PDF

Lesson 3: Poetry from the Archipelago 1 Poetry is probably the most sophisticated of all literary genres. Your Filipino ancestors, through oral tradition, shared epics, proverbs, riddles, and folksongs in poetic form—with a specific formal scheme in which they strictly followed....

Lesson 3: Poetry from the Archipelago 1 Poetry is probably the most sophisticated of all literary genres. Your Filipino ancestors, through oral tradition, shared epics, proverbs, riddles, and folksongs in poetic form—with a specific formal scheme in which they strictly followed. 2 Writer and literary critic, Yet, poetry is still the Gemino Abad has written chosen genre of many local that the journey to creating a writers, for it offers a local poetic identity has been uniqueness that other continually transformed by genres may not achieve: the different colonizers who the opportunity to see the have stayed in the country world anew, with every and the continued fascination single written word. with languages—be it English, Filipino, Visayan, Bikolano, and more. 3 “Philippine Poetry: Its Form, Language, and Speech 4 Poetry in the Philippines is not different from its other counterparts around the world. In the early 1900s, Filipino poetry celebrated romanticism, and several poems about love flourished. Eventually, as the years went on, poetry became more formalist—the emphasis of the poetry is more on the form and the language that the poet used, rather than the theme itself. Then, modern poetry sprouted, and nowadays, writers are more adventurous in their craft. Here are some elements of poetry that local writers use in their poems. 5 Senses and images are used by the writer to describe their impressions of their topic or object of writing. The writer uses carefully chosen and phrased words to create an imagery that the reader can see through his or her senses. The kinds of sense impressions in poetry are categorized mainly in the following: 6 ❑ Visual Imagery – what the writer wants you to see. Example: As she stepped out of the office building, she thought the bright, beaming sunlight would blind her. ❑ Olfactory Imagery – what the writer wants you to smell. Example: She walked into the abandoned home and caught the scent of mothballs. 7 ❑ Gustatory Imagery – what the writer wants you to taste. Example: Sue thought she was biting into an orange slice and was shocked as her mouth exploded with the bitter taste of a lemon. ❑ Tactile Imagery – what the writer wants you to feel. Example: As I tumbled down the hill, the loose rocks raced alongside me, pricking my hands and face like a hundred tiny knives. 8 ❑ Auditory Imagery – what the writer wants you to hear. Example: Silence was broken by the peal of piano keys as Shannon began practicing her concerto. 9 Diction is another important element because Filipino writers are very careful of the way they write and the words they use to form their poems. 10 Rhyme scheme is the way the author arranges words, meters, lines, and stanzas, to create a coherent sound when the poem is read out loud. Structure is the arrangement of words and lines, either together or apart. 11 Word order is either the natural or unnatural arrangement of words in a poem. A poet may use a word grammatically or not—often called as poetic license—and may invent words, too. Speaker is the voice that talks to the readers. Sometimes it refers to itself as “I” or “me” or, sometimes, in the third person (she, he, her, his). You should also note that the speaker is not necessarily the poet. The poet may have a different persona in mind while writing the poem and may have not taken the situations in the poem from his or her life experiences. 12 Senses, Imagery, Diction, and Rhyme scheme are emphasized in the canonical poem, “Gabu”, one of the most widely read local poems in English by Carlos Angeles. 13  Carlos Angeles was born on 25th of May, 1921 in Tacloban, Leyte. He finished his undergraduate degree in the University of the Philippines and his work has been included in poetry anthologies in the United States. His poetry collection, Stun of Jewels, won the Republic Cultural Heritage Award in Literature back in 1964; he also won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Poetry the same year. He is an active member of many Filipino-American press clubs in in the US, where he currently resides. His poem, “Gabu”, is said to be one of the most well-loved Filipino 14 poems written in English.  Gabu by Carlos Angeles 15 The battering restlessness of the sea Insists a tidal fury upon the beach At Gabu, and its pure consistency Havocs the wasteland hard within its reach. Brutal the daylong bashing of its heart Against the seascape where, for miles around, Farther than sight itself, the rock-stones part And drop into the elemental wound. The waste of centuries is grey and dead And neutral where the sea has beached its brine, Where the split salt of its heart lies spread Among the dark habiliments of Time. The vital splendor misses. For here At Gabu where the ageless tide recurs All things forfeited are most loved and dear. It is the sea pursues a habit of shores. 16 GABU Reflect Upon: 1. What do you do when you feel restless within? 2. If you were the “sea” in the poem, why do you keep pursuing the shore? 17 Thank You! 18 Big concept: Filipino poetry, although greatly influenced by the previous colonizers of the country, stands on its own when it comes to its unique elements. There is a certain voice that Filipino poetry offers—one which a fellow Filipino can relate to, especially when it is applied in real life situations. 19 “Close Reading of Filipino Poetry 20 The concept of organic unity was established by the New Criticism school of thought. It says that all the interdependent parts of a literary selection must add up to create one whole. In literature, all the parts and aspects of a literary selection must contribute to one whole so crucially that if one part or aspect went missing, the literary selection cannot be complete or may not have the same meaning anymore. To understand the organic unity of a poem, you must use the process of close reading. Close reading is a way to analyze the poem by carefully reading and rereading a text until its interpretation has founded. 21 When you close reading a Filipino poetry, what must to look out for? 22 You may try to find the context of the poem—when it was written, the setting in which it was written, the reason why it was written—for better understanding of the idea. Look also at its interdependent elements, as was discussed previously, to find visual clues to its meaning through its rhyming scheme, overall structure, word order, persona, etc. 23 Try to close read the poem by Marjorie Evasco entitled “Is it the Kingfisher?” 24 Marjorie Evasco was born in Bohol on the 21st of September 1953. She writes bilingually in English and Cebuano-Visayan, and is considered as one of the country’s earliest feminist poets. She has received numerous awards for her poetry, and in 2010, she received the prestigious South East Asian Write Award (SEA Write). 25  Is it the Kingfisher? by Marjorie Evasco 26 This is how I desire God on this island With you today: basic and blue As the sea that softens our feet with salt And brings the living wave to our mouths Playing with sounds of a primary language. “God is blue,” sang the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez, drunk with desiring, his hair, eyebrows, eyelashes turned blue as the kingfisher’s wings. It is this bird that greets us as we come Round the eastern bend of this island; Tells us the hairbreadth boundary between us Is transient in the air, permeable to the blue 27 Of tropic skies and mountain gentian. Where we sit on this rock covered with seaweeds, I suddenly feel the blueness embrace us, This rock, this island, this changed air, The distance between us and the Self We have longed to be. A bolt of burning blue Lights in my brain, gives the answer We’ve pursued this whole day: Seawaves sing it, the kingfisher flies in it, This island is rooted in it. Desiring God is transparent blue – the color Which makes our souls visible. 28 The poem analyzes the relationships one has with the Supreme Being, in a tropical island where everything seems clear through nature. 29 Another poem that is made for poetry is Cirilo Bautista’s “Oh How to Find Silence in the World” 30 Cirilo Bautista was born in 1941 and is a well-known poet, fictionist, critic, and nonfiction writer. After receiving a writing fellowship at the International Writing Program in the University of Iowa, he received an honorary degree and was the only Filipino to be honored there. Recently, he was awarded as a National Artist for Literature by the Philippine government. 31  Oh How To Find Silence in the World by Cirilo Bautista 32 Being spotted in the color of skin, why I take care in San Francisco, waiting for the bus to Iowa. They say racial prejudice is strong, Negros and not whites kawawa, and because of this they will revolt. I shiver and shiver from fear and hunger because I just landed from Tokyo. A Negro came into the station— naka-African hairdo; he holds a small whip: it’s scary to look, so I did not look at him. Kumakalansing the metal on the strings of his shoes and he shouts, “Peace, brothers!” Smiled showing white teeth. Looked at me— maybe he laughed at what he saw— 33 a tiny dayuhan, dark and from some lupalog. Upside down my insides went in fright and pulled a cigarette so the redness of my face wouldn’t show. I nahalata that the Whites there too were quiet so quiet, unable to speak in front of that Negro. Only when he left returned the normalcy in the station—others read again, neighbors gossiped again, laughter, the janitor sweeped again. After a while that Negro passed again two white Americanas on each arm, blonde, their beauty with no equal. The janitor stopped sweeping. I thought, “So this is racial prejudice.” 34 Thank you! 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