sitting in darkness: my favorite things

I'm glad Eileen got a chance to watch me do Kali for once, since she is usually the muse...er...music. As with most of these impromptu collaborations, I asked folks the day before, and only heard Jean read her piece a few minutes before the event. And as usual there's a thin aisle between the seats and the stage, and lucky me, I brought a sword.

So for a bit of "poetics" on the kali movement, I listen to Jean read her poem, her rhythm, her cadence, where she pauses, which words she emphasizes. Sitting there, I imagined the unraveling of the malong cloth that covered the sword that would slowly hid my frame. I liked how Jean spoke each word as each syllable stood on its own and thought about doing the kali movement just as slow to the point where each movement hung in the air. Slow movements are a part of the most advance techniques in the style. It's easy to move fast and just let the momentum carry you, but when it's slow you feel every shift of weight of balance, how easily it can all fall apart.

Later, tried playing a pair of agongs (Philippine gongs) for Eileen's piece. That collaboration was a bit rough, since I'm still a bit of a beginner on the gongs and I couldn't tell how the sound balanced in the room. But that's part of working with the moment.

Memorable moments, overheard quotes, and favorite things:

-Efren Padilla, Professor of Sociology at Hayward State, will have his textbook on urban development out on Christmas. But he seemed more enthusiastic about the Hilagaynon balimbay/poetry that he has been exploring, as he puts it, "He's working on his soul." I loved listening to him read the poems in Hilagaynon. Interesting too that he remembers hearing poetry at funeral wakes.

(Hilagaynon is one of the many different languages spoken in the Philippines. I hate calling them dialects, because dialects implies that everyone still understands what everyone else is saying. It's spoken in the southern region. I met a young man, my brother's age, who had grown up going to school in that language region and who came home to his parents with a "school fine" because he had spoken Hilagaynon instead of the school appropriate Cebuano or Tagalog during recess. His parents, a pair of political and cultural activists, told him to continue to speak whatever language he wanted to during recess and that they will pay any and all fines.)

-Good to see Mr. Joel Tan in the Bay, though I know he's an L-A boy, glad to have him back, wearing shorts and a large red shirt, he had a boyish look to him, as if we should run off to the playground and play on the swings. Happy to hear some of his new work coming out in a forthcoming book and over the years watching his transition from "stage to page" as he puts it. And oh yes, the mango and lolas quote. But, he did admit that he wrote his share of mango poems.

-I love how Catie integrates music into "E Pluribus Karaoke" because she nearly got the crowd chiming in on a sing-a-long with "What the world needs now, is love sweet love..." and oh yes, her first book, "Cultural Evidence" is in 2nd printing. Her next book will make for a very good excuse to go karaoke.

-Warms the heart to see how poetry uncovers the hidden inner artist, especially Leny's students who thought they were just science and business majors taking a required course to graduate only to find out that they didn't hate poetry after all.

-Liked Tony Robles' reply to how he eats dog, he opens his mouth and chews. Now, Tony is a true Pinoy, because when I asked a friend in the Philippines who owns a dog, how Filipinos eat dog when they own one, he answered, "we don't eat our own dogs, we eat someone else's dog." As Tony said, "Dogs are man's best friend, but no one said they were my best friend. And what about people who are cat lovers?" There's a philosophical question to ponder, what about the cat lovers?

-You could still hear a bit of Appalachia twang in Mike Manniquiz's reading of his poem about a place called "Big Ugly." Favorite line from his poem about Santa Monica, "I mouthed the words I love you against the shush of the waves"

-Speaking of long distance travellers, there was also Christine Naca from Nebraska. Loved the intimate tension in politeness in her poem, "Witness" about when a pair of Jehovas' Witnesses come knocking on the door and her relationship with her JW cousins. And yes, Jing Jing would be up there on my list of favorite names as well.

-Lots of magical words spoken, about ghosts and illusion and about seeing beyond the boundaries of things, because as was repeatedly said, poetry is everything and everything is poetry.

-Even though there were maybe twenty folks including all the readers there, and it seemed like everyone was outside dealing with the frantic shopping daze of the holidays, the sparsely lit room felt like sitting in front of a fireplace, this real feel good coziness of seeing good folks and listening to fine words and thinking I'd rather be in here than in the madness out there. A time to take pause and reflect on not only Pinoy Poetics but about the state of Filipino lit today and tomorrow.