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Penguin Cafe, Lian. Jamine tea, tasting Of soft crumbly earth
The way it should be for the farmers Who only remember rain,
In a clay cup From some river Already dead.
Everything is a matter of space:
Your small hands close over the entire room As you keep that incandescent lamp to yourself Because it was your lamp after all, and not mine. I am here because of you.
Precious tea cup, Taste of Earth, And flowers
Bitter on my tongue.
NERISA DEL CARMEN GUEVARA was a medicine student once at the University of Santo Tomas. She gradu-
ated with a B.S. Biology degree in the same Univeristy in 1993. She was Thomasian Poet of the Year once, with a record-breaking grand slam of first, second and third places in the USTETIKA in 1995. She was an Amelia Lapena Awardee for Poetry once in 1996 and then in 1997, a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awardee for Poetry in English once in 1999. She was an apprentice pangalay dancer of the Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa Alun-alun Dance Circle. She has performed with Grace Nono, Joey Ayala, Cynthia Alexander and Pinikpikan. She has produced her first book and CD of songs called Reaching Destination, Poems and the Search for Home. It was the only album to receive a Special Citation for Best Secular Album in the 27th Catholic Mass Media Awards.
Ang biga usa ka pulang tabanog Sa madag-umong kahaponon
Hinam paminawon ang adunay pahugong Hagdyung sa kilum-kilom
Moti-urok, mopasundayag kini sa hapak sa hangin Mangidhat sa gihidlaw nga kagabhion
Apan sa pagtagaktak sa mga segundo, sa pagpakli, Sa pagsidlak ug pagpahipi sa mga bitoon
Ang maung tabanog ikaw-it na lang unya Sa lansang, sa luyo sa gipadlock natong pultahan
Dunay mga adlaw nga, pwera buyag, lahi ang tabanog. Paksit. Modasdas kini sa kusog nga hapak sa hangin. Paksit. Kay kung ikaw ang matungnan
Niining matang sa kuwang-kuwang nga tabanug Inig human ug tugpo, magtuyok-tuyok
Maglirung-lirong. Magtuyok-tuyok sa tumuy sa tugot Ug kung imo nang ihinay-hinay ug pulipot ang tangsi Lisod na kini panaugon. Pastilan.
Apan kung imo kining anaron, pwede na nimong Igaid sa haligi, biyaan ug ikaligo na lang sa kamig Sa paglabay sa sayung kabuntagun.
Biga
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Between blogging and teaching, RV ESCATRON lives in his backpack and chases his Muse whenever possible.
The foolhardy pursuit has brought him to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Hongkong and Macau on a shoestring. He was awarded ‘fellowships’ in poetry at Faigao, UP-Tacloban and Iligan National Writers’ Workshop. His travel photos and stories have been published in Mabuhay Magazine and Sunstar Cebu. He holds temporary residence in Valencia, at the foot of Cuernos de Negros.
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
T
he essay has always been a kind of outsider. When it records personal impressions, reminiscences, or reflections in a light, whimsical, humorous tone, it is grudgingly accepted as a kind of stepsister. When it deals with serious subjects in a sober, analytical, formal tone, it is declared to be philosophy, history; sociology or political science, and banished altogether.True, the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and the Manila Critics Circle National Book Awards now include the essay as an official category; and courses in the writing of the essay are part of the Creative Writing curriculum in the University of the Philippines. But one proof that it is still not regarded as equal in importance to poetry, fiction or the drama is that the national creative writing workshops—held in Baguio, the Visayas and Davao (by the University of the Philippines), in Dumaguete (by the Creative Writing Foundation), and in Iligan (by Mindanao State University)—are not open to essay writers.1 Another proof is its neglect by literary critics.2
The idea seems to be that the essay is easy to write. After all, politicians, priests, and pedants of every stripe produce countless lectures, speeches, sermons, papers, theses and dissertations which could all be called “formal essays.” And practically everyone who thinks he or she can write—from the newspaper columnist, pounding out his weekly 400 words, to the college freshman struggling through his English composition assignments—produces what is referred to variously as the “informal” or “personal” or “familiar” essay.
Because of this notion—that anyone can write an essay—many in fact do. The result is material of such voluminous quantity and such uneven quality that it only reinforces the prejudice against the essay as a literary form.
Writers who are mainly essayists contribute to this confusion by being apologetic about their writing. Carmen Guerero Nakpil, for instance, commenting on her often being called “an expert in the field- of the essay,” wrote:
I am afraid that distinction was earned only by my having been such a bad short story writer. My short stories were so bad that my friends would say, Of course they’re bad. They’re not short stories, they’re essays. When one is not much good as a fish, one becomes a frog.
In desperation, I put together some stuff that had appeared in newspapers and magazines under my by-line into a kind of nonbook called Woman Enough and called it a collection of essays. But somebody has now written that a few of the pieces in that item are not essays but short stories. (Nakpil 1973:4)
Moreover, there is no clear definition of what an essay is. To quote Nakpil once again:
Essays, then, are what no other form of writing seems willing to be. A bad short story, a letter that lets one off from an undesirable engagement or money debt, fiction that can never be published as fiction because it has too much truth in it, a libelous tract, propaganda material, an extended joke, a parody or satire, a private quarrel or a public flirtation any and all of these can be called an essay and the subject of prose writing. (P. 5)
In fact, it is as difficult to write a good essay as it is to write a good short story or poem or 1-act play. And despite the tendency of “creative writers” to be snobbish toward the essay, some gifted fictionists, poets and playwrights