Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2007 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Eric Gamalinda. The results include this contest’s second time for a tie for “First Place”, and also the first repeater for “First Place”:

First Place, Co-Winner: “First Winter Passing” by Naya S. Valdellon
First Place, Co-Winner: “O.N.S.” by Marcel L. Milliam
Honorable Mention: “AN EXPLANATION” by R. Torres Pandan

Naya S. Valdellon is this contest’s first poet to receive “First Place” twice, the prior time occurring in 2002 when she tied with Michella Rivera-Gravage in the contest judged by Oliver de la Paz. The 2007 results also feature our first non-English language poet winner. Unfortunately, Eric Gamalinda felt he was only able to assess the Tagalog entries, and so entries in other Filipino languages were not included in the judging.

Judge Eric Gamalinda says about the winning entries:

“First Winter Passing” is a lovely poem about how language connects and disconnects, and how it is nearly impossible for many of us to bridge this solitude except perhaps through poetry and its spectral silences. “O.N.S.” is deceptively old-fashioned like a kundiman, but fused with a naughty, graphic eroticism and a verbal precision that no translation can do justice—by lines 7-9, I was captivated by its masterful lyricism. “An Explanation” is a quiet, elegant little poem that feels like an iceberg: beautiful, mysterious, larger than it seems. I apologize to those who sent poems in other Filipino languages that I couldn’t read; I had to exclude them from the competition, and thus only judged the Tagalog-language poems.

Here are some information about the winning poets:

Naya S. Valdellon is currently finishing her M.A. in English major in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. Her chapbook of poems, The Reluctant Firewalker, was published by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts as part of its UBOD New Authors Series in 2005. Her poetry has received the Hart House Poetry Prize, the Maningning Miclat Award, and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature.

Marcel L. Milliam is Ilonggo by birth but Capiznon by association. He is the founding Chairman of “Yanggaw”, The Capiz Writer’s Circle, and a member of the “Dagyang Pulong” Iloilo Writers Group. He works for GMA TV6 in Iloilo as a talent under the ETV Department. He writes poetry mainly in Hiligaynon, but produces pieces in English and Filipino as well. After receiving fellowships from the 1st Fray Luis De Leon Creative Writing Desk of the University of San Agustin, Iloilo, “2nd Panagsugat” Writers workshop of UP Vis-Min, 12th Iligan National Writers Workshop of the MSU-IIT, and the 7th Iyas National Writers Workshop for his Hiligaynon poems, he has now “crossed-over” into fiction. He has won twice the NCLA-VI “Paktakontxt” of the NCLA-VI, consecutive wins in the UPV SWF Bigkas Binalaybay sponsored by the NCCA from 2003-2007, both in the Pagbigkas at Pagsulat Categories. His works have been published in four issues of SanAg, the official literary Journal of the Fray Luis De Leon Creative Writing Desk of the USA-Iloilo as well as in the 33rd ANI of the CCP and numerous other local and national publications. At present he is a 3rd Year student in the Bachelor of Laws Program (Llb.) of the University of Iloilo College of Law and is actively involved in the works of the Alternative Law Groups Inc. (ALG) and was a paralegal intern of the Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB), Cebu. When he miraculously has free time, he is also involved with the Iloilo theater scene as a stage actor.

R. Torres Pandan has been a law school dean for ten years and a partner in the biggest law firm in Bacolod City, Philippines for 16 years. He has won the Palanca Awards for poetry and his first book of poetry was short-listed for the 2005 National Book Awards. He is also the Research Director of the Philippine Supreme Court’s JURIS project on mediation.

We are pleased to share the winning poems:

First Place, Co-Winner by Naya S. Valdellon:

First Winter Passing

“the tangled language of those who always stuttered as they spoke, caught as
they were on the narrow ridge between two nearly native tongues”
—Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones

1. Daylight Saving Time

Thirteen hours between Toronto and Manila—
soon to be twelve next Sunday, the eleventh of March.

The hands of the clocks in my room ache to be moved—
all three of them, telling time minutes apart.

Dali’s watches wilt in the waning light, in the poster
inches above our heads, hardly original. Tell me,

what’s another hour to lose while we loosen our tongues,
stifle our yawns? A fly grazes the sagging face

above our faces. Ants kiss on top of the stopwatch.
Here and now, the cliffs between us persist.

2.

Tell me about your country.

A constellation of islands
near the world’s waistband.

Tell me what it looks like.

A crouching old woman
with a walking stick
and a hand on her hip.

I don’t mean on a map.

You mean from a plane?
Through window panes? A mirror?
Describing seven thousand selves
in one sentence is impossible.

I’m not asking for it.

No, you’re better at imperatives.

3.

The man I love has faith in words.
They count, he says. He wants to make a name
for a shade of nostalgia
for things that haven’t happened
yet. You’re not original,
I tell him. It’s called longing for a reason.
He plays songs backwards
for fun, leaves too many bookmarks
between too many pages.
He loves me for my mind. One must have
a mind of winter, I say,
not finding refuge in my own words.

4.

Silver white winters that melt into springs—
not my song, not my seasons. In my country,
summer is warming up, doing morning stretches.

Here, his fingers skate on my skin. My blood hisses
as I parse his vocabulary of sighs. He tries hard
to say the word mahal, which means both love

and expensive. His tongue teeters over kita ,
a possessive pronoun roping You to Me, as well
as the interrogative “See?” I want him to stutter

his way into my archipelago. Later, our breaths
interlace in the frosty air. The specters
of our unsaid things look white and willful.

5.

News from Manila           My father had a stroke           Of bad luck
Bad blood           Blood clot causing           Traffic in his brain
I should have called           Long distance           When I dreamt of him
Playing Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise           Last song over Warsaw radio
Before the slaughter           Why do I know this           My father loved
The piano           Loves           My poems           Ways of passing time
My lover brews espresso to keep me going           He had a French girlfriend
Does the taste of her persist           Fall back            I will be patient
Under observation           Hospitals skew hours           My father gets impatient
When his fingers press the wrong keys           Ice plummeting
From the CN Tower           Keeps us indoors           He has no key yet
Miles between us           Arpeggios           Chords like a phone ringing
My mother’s voice           Metallic and rusty           With relief
Wheeled to a private room           Spring forward           This is good
He can’t stand up on his own           Yet           He holds my hand in his sleep

6.

I’m writing him a card, a catalogue
of streets, slushy with the voices
of crazy people. I wonder whose children
they could be, whose lovers.
             Santa squats
along Bloor and Bathurst, unable to return
north to December. Sleigh broke down.
Passersby who throw him coins pay tribute
to their childhoods.
             It’s my birthday,
the man on St. Clair declares, as if it were
a demand, palms turned up like a saint
that’s strolled out of church and misplaced
his halo, lips parted for what could be curses,
what could be kisses.
             A woman outside Future
Bakery screams, The lights don’t change!
The lights— she stops as the green man
glows, the outline of his body telling others
Go.
             A pedestrian pats the back of a man
on a unicycle along Yonge, shoulders dusted
with snow, arms embracing the world,
and pedalling, pedalling by.
             Get well soon.

7.

Write the truest sentence you know.

I have true thoughts every two minutes.
As many as you can in two minutes then.

All languages sound lovely until you hear their words for shit.

Winter makes us all look like impostors.

It’s impossible to get lost in this city of grids and signs.

There are too few original thoughts and too many translations.

Everything I love has an expiration date.

8.

At the bakery, the women behind the counter
converse in Filipino. They are shorter than me,
browner, more at home. When my turn comes,
I smile, Hello. Magkano yung tinapay sa dulo?

One of them looks at me icily, their circle
broken. The other replies in perfect English—
That would be four dollars, plus tax—
A’s overextended, twang taut with defiance.

I hold the bread to my chest, negotiating
the slushy sidewalk. I need an interpreter,
not a translator. When I tell this story
to my lover, he says proudly, Oh, mahal.

*****

FIRST PLACE, CO-WINNER by Marcel L. Milliam:

O.N.S.
(Oras ng Silakbo)

Unan mo’y mga bisig ko
Sa aandap-andap na ilaw
Kinukumutan kita ng yakap
Hingal at kapwa sisinghap-singhap

Salikop ng labi mong bumibigay buhay
Angkin mo’t ayaw mapaghiwalay
Mga anghel kaya’y magalit
Sa mapangahas kong pagpuslit
Sa likurang pintuan ng langit?

Buong lakas kong naisambulat
Sinimot, nilasap mo, ulang kumalat
Pagbuhos ng bugso ng nakaw na saglit
Saan kaya kakanlong, sa bagyong masalimuot

Ngunit haring araw, lulok na sa kanyang trono
Bangon na, bago pa man makahalata ang mundo
Halik ang syang tanging huling gawad
Bago lisanin, unan, kumot, bisig, at nakaw na saglit

*****

HONORABLE MENTION by R. Torres Pandan:

AN EXPLANATION

He counted fifty-nine swans
At Coole Park, and convinced
Himself each was half of a pair.

I don’t believe Yeats erred
When he claimed they flew
Lover by lover. No doubt,

He likewise found the odd male
Skimming the surface of the pond,
Wooing its own mad reflection.

*****
*****

ALL FIRST PLACE WINNERS of the MERITAGE PRESS HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST:

2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

SEVENTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Eric Gamalinda
Deadline: December 31, 2007

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Eric Gamalinda’s publications include Amigo Warfare [Cherry Grove Collections], Zero Gravity [Alice James Books], Lyrics from a Dead Language [Anvil, Manila], poems; My Sad Republic [University of the Philippines Press], Empire of Memory, Confessions of a Volcano [ both Anvil Publishers, Manila], Planet Waves [New Day, Manila], novels; Peripheral Vision [New Day], short stories; Flippin’: Filipinos on America, anthology [Asian American Writers Workshop, co-edited with Luis Francia]. His awards include the Cultural Center of the Philippines Independent Film and Video Awards [2004], the Asian American Literary Award for Zero Gravity [poems, 2000], the New York Foundation for the Arts [fiction, 1998], the Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for My Sad Republic [novel, 1998], the National Book Award, Manila, for Planet Waves [novel, 1990], and a number of Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for fiction, poetry, essay and playwriting in the Philippines. He is working on a new collection of poems to be entitled Relic Light. More information about him and his works are available at his website: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeslrlq/gamalinda/index.html

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Eric Gamalinda, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of December 31, 2007.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Eric Gamalinda to choose one winner. However, Eric may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the February 2008 edition of “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

AMIGO WARFARE by Eric Gamalinda; for more information about the book, go to http://www.cherry-grove.com/gamalinda.html (Patrick Rosal and Eileen Tabios discuss Eric’s amazing book, AMIGO WARFARE, at http://galatearesurrection8.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-books-by-eric-gamalinda_30.html and http://galatearesurrection8.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-books-by-eric-gamalinda.html

PRAU by Jean Vengua; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/prau.htm

MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/museum.htm

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/kalis.htm

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios3.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.ourownvoice.com/books/2004xpress.shtml

BRIDGEABLE SHORES by Luis Cabalquinto; for more information about the book, go to http://www.artbook.com/1885030347.html

AND SELECTED MERITAGE PRESS POETRY TITLES:
COMPLICATIONS by Garrett Caples; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/complications.htm

THE OBEDIENT DOOR by Sean Tumoana Finney; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/obedientdoor.htm

OPERA: Poems 1981-2002 by Barry Schwabsky; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/opera.htm

100 MORE JOKES FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD by John Yau and Archie Rand; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/100morejokes.htm

FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce the recipient of “The Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize” is

JEAN VENGUA

for her manuscript, PRAU.

Ms. Vengua (Santa Cruz, CA) will receive a U.S.$1,000.00 prize and PRAU will be published by Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com) for a release date in Fall 2007.

We would like to thank the poets who participated in this contest. We read many wonderful poems by other participants. In particular, we would like to acknowledge Finalist/Second Place Winner Edgar B. Maranan (Quezon City) for the lovely lyricism and imagery displayed in his manuscript, STAR MAPS & OTHER POEMS.

Submissions were screened by Eileen R. Tabios to generate Finalists’ manuscripts. To determine the winner, manuscripts were reviewed on an anonymous basis by Beatriz Tabios to ensure that judging was based solely on the merits of the poems themselves. We are pleased to present below some samples from Jean Vengua’s winning manuscript PRAU, and hope you will remember her entire book — as it turns out, her debut poetry book — when it is released later in 2007.

FROM PRAU:

THE PAPER HOUSE

Because back then, I truly did not care. I want to return to the fold. This is the text, these are the tears along the creases of time. If time is that room, and an interior of paper and ink, which some say is “not limited,” then I must have built it all myself, and furnished it with my loneliness. I became beautiful in a manner of speaking, and without adequate protection against intrusions, I framed and latched the windows and thought this is myself. So, if you don’t mind or even if you do mind, I’ll return to the hundred rooms mansion, and put on the ornate cuffs and collars left by my changeling masters and mistresses. I will lock the doors tightly.

I am all yours, O.

******************

NIGHT DIARY

She removes her clothing before going to bed.
Allusions she drops along the way.
What can you find out by picking through the trash.
4 dimes rest on each other like fallen dominoes.
The headache diminishes with an illusion of surcease.
Chartreuse post-its and floppy disks.

Mind your manners.

Say nothing.

Say little.

It’s late.

Tiny adjustments all day long.

In the night the body, the meat diary, remembers certain conversations.

******************

THE PROBLEMS (2)

I barely know what I’m writing; it’s true. Something comes out of “reality.” Some letters; something is missing, and we know it. The sound of that engine is indifferent to humans, like a dog nosing garbage. Aching for some taste of something. Fat and the heat it generates. Beuys understood this. Or the assemblage and movement of parts. What might be fashioned from it? Still the old bird keeps trilling. Mimicking the bird next door. Mimicking, in fact, the door. Something opening and closing on squeaky hinges. Nothing is new, or should be.

******************

TURNCOAT

position the bird in a side pocket or put it to sleep in poetry. step right up to the shining path. a broken column is pinned to the collar bone, pillar to support her head. she paints a portrait, enlarges upon puddles hidden behind creative writing, drips tears onto a palette, rips open her camisa de dormir. there are two fine breasts cleaved up the middle, and crowning the brow a hairy sliver of moon. the bees are joined in marriage behind literature, european. i kiss your hand, madelaine. i eat your cookies. she unstraps her camisa de fuerza. el corazón beats between science and the mystery of moths and myths. there is cooking for my mother’s rosary, juvenile for our apocalypse. choose your color, advance one square, retreat six. cambiarse la camisa is to change categories. in fiction, one must cross two rivers, being careful to avoid the black holes, center stage. fall forever into universe, tell a story, make place.

******************

THE HOKUM FLOWER

this in the moment
being hurried &
little time to say…

this is beef stew
being et while jotting
a number of tasks

to do

this is not listening
to the still deep bubble
of ecstatic hokum flower

flowering in my gut
i promise someday dear
ecstatic lightning rod

& transcendent protein

i will listen i will
write you i will listen

i promise

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2006 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Michelle Bautista. The results:

First Place: “Atonement” by Joel M. Toledo
Second Place: “The foundress” by Ivy Alvarez
Third Place: “Contact” by Joel M. Toledo
Fourth Place: “Psalms on the Evening News” by Marie La Viña

Note that the First Place and Third Place poems are written by the same poet; this results from that the contest was judged anonymously — that is, based solely on the poems themselves. Meritage Press received many lovely poems for this year’s contest, and we also are delighted to recognize the other stellar finalists:

Finalists:
“Poet in Seven Days” by Cristina Querrer
“DEATH BY FREEWAY” by Lilledeshan Bose
”Driving, 1-80 Nebraska” by Kristin Naca
”Honey gatherers” by Ivy Alvarez
“Gray” by Alvin Malpaya
“Another Song about Death” by Alvin Malpaya
“Why I’m Not Afraid of Fire” by Marie La Viña

Judge Michelle Bautista has this to say about the poems:

1. “Atonement” - I really love how, when I read this, I suddenly find myself listening for the sound of crickets even in the middle of the city. And the last pair of stanzas that speak to a shared primal need.

2. “The foundress” - I love the transition between images and how the writer carries us from one to another, from splinters to paste to glasswings and prisms. The image of the hourglass at the end asking the reader to find the sense of time in the poem.

3. “Contact “- I love the relationship of the zoologist to the sedated wild animal, relating the animals fangs to his grandmother’s hands, a sense of fear, curiosity, excitement to face the wild animal with an intimate connection.

4. “Psalms on the Evening News” - I love the community created in this scene of the isolated insomniacs contemplating God. There is simultaneously attachment and disconnection.

Here are more information about the winning poets:

Joel M. Toledo has an M.A. degree in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, .where he also holds undergraduate degrees in Journalism and Creative Writing. He is a faculty at the Department of English of Miriam College, Quezon City. He was the 2nd prize winner of UK’s 2006 Bridport Prize for his poem, “The Same old Figurative”. In 2005, he won first prize for his poetry collection, “What Little I Know of Luminosity” in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He was also awarded 2nd prize for his poetry entry in the 2004 Palanca Awards. Joel is the recipient of the 2006 National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writers Prize for poetry, a grant for the writing and possible publication of his first book of poetry.

Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Washington, DC: Red Morning Press, 2006) and three chapbooks: ‘what’s wrong’, ‘catalogue: life as tableware’ and ‘Food for Humans’. She is also the editor of A Slice of Cherry Pie, a chapbook anthology of poems inspired by David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Her poetry appears in journals and anthologies worldwide and online.

Marie La Viña was a fellow of the 2004 Dumaguete National Writers’ Workshop and the 2005 UP National Writers’ Workshop. She graduated from the Philippine High School for the Arts in 2004 and spent the next two years figuring out what to do next. She is currently a freshman philosophy student at the Ateneo de Manila University.

We are pleased to share the winning poems:

First Place

Atonement
Joel M. Toledo

Where they are exactly, no one knows.
It is enough that they lie somewhere,
slicing the darkness with their sharp sounds.

Far off, in the cities, people are making do
with light and music and wakefulness.
Here, it is not so different. Only here,

the fireflies are satisfied with their nature,
their flickering envy of stars.
The same is true of the bullfrog,

announcing its presence by the pond,
and of the waiting owl, wide-eyed
and dark-winged and silent in the tree.

But the crickets, weak and ready
for the taking, are the boldest,
frantic with their unlinear music

as if they want to be found, as if
each singular blade of grass contains a single note,
contributes to the grand monotone of the evening.

Troubled and sleepless, I step out to look for them,
flashlight in hand. But outside there is only
the unblemished night, alive with its occasions of light,

harsh sounds, and the unseen crickets, nearby
and far away, mocking the frog, the owl, me.
As if their chorus is both for death and deliverance,

or simply because the night would be too silent
without their sacrifice. Eventually, they would
be discovered. Maybe not tonight, and maybe not

by me. This is the call of both the wild
and the human: our constant search for sources,
answers. Then again, there is the question

of God, our natural need to be heard, forgiven,
as these crickets–-noisy but perhaps
full of prayer, perhaps already redeemed.

*****
Second Place

The foundress
Ivy Alvarez

in these paper cells
some god writes through me
I cannot help myself

the six sides
and the half light
scratches

the dark
all my day
I am chosen

and I gather the wood to me
splinters in my mouth
the hoard I chew

and spit
chew
and spit

my little hands
form a poultice
I paste the walls together

grey paper
I may be writing history
with this copper body

there is beauty in my belly
my plated segments
my geometry

my glass wings
prismatic
there are hooks in my back

I marry
the days’ long drudge
to feed my young

the thin hum
of fear and love
I am the nest

suspended exposed
I birth and give of myself
I cannot count the cells

the small blind lives
break through daily
their thin membranes

deep into the catacombs
I go
there is an hourglass in me

the sky brings its sting
winter’s come
and all my shine dulls

*****
Third Place

Contact
Joel M. Toledo

To be sedated, handled with fingers,
the fear conquered and the animal harmless
like the ordinary orchids in the greenhouse,
its body just another thing to be tampered with.

I think of the young zoologist, his first time
in the field, lab work and books behind him,
hands calloused from too many chemicals.
How his body shudders now, this moment

with the animal of his wildest dreams.
It could be a lion, rhino, some poisonous snake.
It really doesn’t matter. He is caught
in this moment of pure closeness. He holds its paws,

hooves, wings, the pointed and useless fangs,
rough but firm like his grandmother’s hands,
as during that first trip to the zoo one summer,
a long time ago, before he forgot how

the sun exposes everything, alights gently
on the living or the dead, and how everything ends up
being touched, even the fierce ones, even this animal—
for now familiar, for now almost like family.

*****
Fourth Place

“Psalms on the Evening News”
Marie La Viña

So they say,
God will very soon be packing his bags for another universe.
It was on the news last night, and I allowed myself some nostalgia
When the network played a psalm we used to sing in church as kids,
Before I opened a can of beer and joined the consolable.
Like an invisible rain, I heard the world weeping outside my window.
No one slept. And to the grieving, the ghost appeared
In corners of window panes, a quiet light inside an empty glass.
We asked at dawn, “Is the godless air as good
for the lungs?”

People shouted his name in the streets, and there was no reply.
They fell to their knees. And there was silence.

Brothers, sisters,
your loneliness is dense as the atmosphere, warm as the ultraviolet.
Tell me, insomniacs, the teary-eyed among us: What does God know?
Has he ever worshipped anything?

Dear Filipino Poets:
You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

SIXTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsors: Meritage Press
Judge: Michelle Bautista
Deadline: December 31, 2006

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Gura Michelle Bautista is a 4th degree black belt in the Kamatuuran school of Kali under the direction of Tuhan Joseph T. Oliva Arriola. She teaches Kali in Oakland, CA. She recently released her inaugural book Kali’s Blade, a collection of poetry and prose. She is a SF Bay Area poet and performer, having worked with Kearney Street Workshop, Bindlestiff Studios, Asian American Theater Company, KulArts, and Teatro Ng Tanan. She has been published in Going Home To A Landscape, Babaylan, maganda magazine, Eros Pinoy, Asian Pacific American Journal, TMP Irregular and MiPoesias Magazine.

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Michelle Bautista, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of December 31, 2006.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked MIchelle Bautista to choose one winner. However, Michelle may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the February 2007 edition of “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE winner also will receive copies of:

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista (Meritage Press, 2006)

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

DREDGING FOR ATLANTIS by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://dredgingforatlantis.blogspot.com

THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOL. I by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://secretpunctuations.blogspot.com/

THE ANCHORED ANGEL: SELECTED WRITINGS BY JOSE GARCIA VILLA; for more information about the book, go to http://www.kaya.com/aa.html

AND SELECTED MERITAGE PRESS POETRY TITLES:
DERIVE by Bruna Mori; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/derive.htm

THE OBEDIENT DOOR by Sean Tumoana Finney; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/obedientdoor.htm

OPERA: Poems 1981-2002 by Barry Schwabsky; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/opera.htm

Other finalist-winners besides the First Place winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

[PLEASE FORWARD]

Meritage Press is pleased to announce

A Call For Manuscript Submissions by Filipino Poets

for

“The Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize”

DEADLINE: November 30, 2006

POETRY MANUSCRIPTS: Poets may submit as many manuscripts as they wish. Each manuscript should be about 75-150 pages long. Each manuscript should come with two cover pages: (i) a cover page with Title, Author’s Name, E-mail Address, Snailmail Address and Phone; and (ii) a second cover page with just the Title. (Manuscripts will not be returned so don’t send your only copy(ies).) Manuscripts should be sent to:

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Road
St. Helena, CA 94574
U.S.A.

PRIZE: The winning manuscript will garner U.S.$1,000.00 for its author and be published by Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com).

SUBMISSION FEE: None because Meritage Press prizes all poets.

ELIGIBILITY: Poets of full or partial Filipino descent, living anywhere around the world. All such poets are encouraged to send your best work. Whether you’re an “emerging” vs “established” poet is irrelevant as judging will be based only on the merits of the submitted manuscripts.

JUDGING PROCESS: From the submissions, a group of Finalist manuscripts will be chosen by Eileen Tabios. From the Finalists, the winning manuscript will be chosen by Beatriz Tabios. Judging for the winner will be done anonymously.

ABOUT THE JUDGES:
FOR FINALISTS: Eileen Tabios is a poet and the publisher of the multidisciplinary literary and arts press, Meritage Press (St. Helena and San Francisco, CA). More information about her are available at http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm, http://chattydance.blogspot.com, http://chatelaine-poet.blogspot.com, http://secretpunctuations.blogspot.com, and http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios1.htm

FOR FINAL WINNER: Beatriz Tabios received her B.A. with English as her major from the Silliman University in Dumaguete, Philippines. She developed her love for poetry as a sixth-grader reading Homer, William Shakespeare, John Keats, Alexander Pope, William Wordworth and Samuel Coleridge while trying to survive World War II. She would further develop her appreciation for poetry as a college student instructed by poet Edith Tiempo, the first woman to receive the title of National Artist for Literature in the Philippines. The late Dr. Edilberto Tiempo, then the head of the English Department, encouraged Mrs. Tabios to continue her study of English and American literature. With Edilberto Tiempo’s encouragement, Mrs. Tabios wrote her Master of Arts thesis which was the first investigation, regarding Filipino literature, of “(The Use of) Local Color in Short Stories in English.” Later, she taught English literature at Dagupan College (now University of Pangasinan) and University of Baguio, before becoming a teacher at Brent School, a boarding school initially built for children from U.S.-American military, missionary and gold-mining families stationed in the Far East.

THE FILAMORE TABIOS, SR. MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE:
From Mrs. Beatriz Tabios: “My late husband, Filamore Tabios, Sr., and I were absolutely delighted when our daughter Eileen started to write short stories and poems. In memory of my dearly beloved husband and her dearly beloved father, we would like to encourage Filipino poets by sponsoring this Memorial Poetry Prize.”

BOOK PRIZES:
Finalists also will receive a set of books including these selected Meritage Press titles:

The First Hay(na)ku Anthology, coedited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; information at http://meritagepress.com/haynaku.htm

Not Even Dogs, the first single-author hay(na)ku poem collection, by Ernesto Priego; information at http://meritagepress.com/notevendogs.htm

PINOY POETICS: A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL & CRITICAL ESSAYS ON FILIPINO AND FILIPINO-AMERICAN POETICS, edited by Nick Carbo; information at http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

*****

ADDITIONAL QUERIES may be directed by email to Meritagepress@aol.com

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, NO. 2: A SUBMISSIONS CALL

Following the enthusiastic response to THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, copublishers Meritage Press and xPress(ed) are pleased to announce a Submissions Call for THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, NO. 2, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young.

Submissions Deadline: September 31, 2006.

Send submissions (cutnpasted in body of e-mail) to MeritagePress@aol.com . Be reasonable in the volume of your submissions. Also, please submit just once (rather than sending staggered submissions). Note that we are open to visual poetry (vizpo), but apologize that we must limit it to black-and-white reproductions. If you have any commentary about the form itself, please also feel free to share that as well as we’d like to incorporate other poets’ thoughts about the form within the book.

The hay(na)ku is a tercet where the first line consists of one word, the second line of two words, and the third line of three words. We are also interested in your variations of this form, such as the sequence, black-and-white vizpo hay(na)ku, the reverse hay(na)ku and any other such variations as the poet may propose. Hay(na)ku in non-English languages are also acceptable, as long as they are submitted with English translations.

For examples of hay(na)ku, please check out (1) the links cited by the Hay(na)ku Blog; (2) the Hay(na)ku Poetic Form page; and (3) THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY itself (distributed through SPD well as Amazon.com).

Submissions can be previously published. Participants will receive contributors’ copies. Expected release date will be in Spring 2007.

BIOS OF EDITORS:
Jean Vengua is a writer and editor. She lives in Santa Cruz California. Her poetry has been published in various print and online journals and anthologies, including Otoliths, Proliferation, We (print and audio CD), Babaylan, Returning a Borrowed Tongue, Moria, Sidereality, Interlope, X-Stream and Fugacity. As Jean N. V. Gier, her introduction “Variations on a Circle in Blue,” appears in Eileen Tabios’s book of short stories, Behind the Blue Canvas; other essays appear in Jouvert ( N.C.S.U.), Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Cultural Criticism (U.C. Berkeley), and Geopolitics of the Visual: Essays on Philippine Film Cultures (University of Ateneo Press). “Flux & Abilidad: Notes on a Filipino American Poetics,” is featured in PinoyPoetics, edited by Nick Carbo. She maintains the blog “Okir” at http://okir.blogspot.com.

Mark Young has been publishing poetry for almost fifty years. His most recent books are from Series Magritte (Moria), Betabet (BlazeVOX) & episodes (xPress(ed)). He lives in Australia on the Tropic of Capricorn from where he edits the online journal Otoliths & maintains his weblogs, currently gamma ways & mark young’s Series Magritte. He also has an author’s page at the New Zealand electronic poetry centre.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: MeritagePress@aol.com

Meritage Press is delighted to congratulate the following winners for the 2005 “Babaylan Speaks” Poetry Contest, judged by Jean Vengua:

FIRST PLACE:
“Spaces” by Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
“A House” by Mikael de Lara Co
“Save as Draft” by Joel M. Toledo
“APO BAKIT” by Amalia B. Bueno

SPECIAL MENTIONS:
“way /way/” by Marlon Unas Esguerra
“charmed” by Yvonne Hortillo

Below are the Winning Entries, Jean Vengua’s Judge’s Commentary, and the Poets’ Bios:

THE WINNING POEMS:

First Place:

“Spaces”
by Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf

1.

In this room I was born. And I knew I was in the wrong place: the world. I knew pain was to come. I knew it by the persistence of the blade that cut me out. I knew it as every baby born to the world knows it: I came here to die.

2.

Somewhere a beautiful woman in a story I do not understand is crying. If I strain hard enough I will hear a song in the background. She is holding a letter. She is in love with Peter. I am in love with her.

3.

Stand on the floor where it’s marked X. I am standing by your side where it’s marked Y. We are a shoulder’s length apart. I’m so close you can almost smell the perfume. If I step ten paces away from you, there could be a garden between us, or a table and some chairs. If I step another 20 paces there could be a house between us. If I continue to walk away from you in this way, tramping through walls and hovering above water, in 80,150,320 steps I will bump into you. I can never get away from you, and will you remember me? Distance brings us closer. There is no distance.

4.

In 1961 I was in Berlin. It was a dusty Sunday in August. In the radio news was out that Ulbricht had convinced Khrushchev to build a wall around West Berlin. I remember it precisely: By midnight East German troops had sealed off the zonal boundary with barbed wire. The streets along which the barrier ran had been torn up. I lived in that street. It was the day after my birthday. I remember the dust covering the sky. I remember being scared. Father had not returned from the other side. The Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse had orders to shoot anyone who would attempt to defect. Father had not returned.

5.

Happiness is simple.
Sadness forks into many roads.

6.

Before the time of Christ, Aristotle believed that the earth was the center of the universe because he needed a stationary reference point against which to measure all other motions: a rock falling, a star reeling through the sky, his heart beating against his chest like a club. He needed to believe in certainty, in absolute space. Without it, the world would not be known absolutely. Without it, the world cannot be known.

Twenty centuries later Hendrik Lorentz needed to believe that every single molecule in the universe must move through a stationary material called the aether, as every human being in his various turnings must move through God. Scientists looked everywhere for proof of this aether. And everywhere they found nothing.

7.

I have sometimes been accused of being a bore. I beg to differ: people laugh at my jokes, and I’m handsome. I would like now to talk more about myself: I don’t like going to airports and hospitals. They make me uneasy. In both cases, somebody is always going to leave. I was born in 1983, and have never been to Berlin. But I have a memory of being in Berlin in 1961. I have a memory of something that never happened.

I would like to elaborate on myself, but you will understand if I talk instead about the sky in Berlin in 1961: it was covered with dust. There were no birds. There was no sky.

8.

Memory is brutal because precise.

9.

She said: give me more space. I said: don’t you love me anymore? She said: give me more space. I said: why? Did I do something wrong? Is there something wrong? Is there someone else? When did you stop loving me? In what precise moment? In what room? What city?

I held her tight as one who’s about to lose his own life holds on. Then she said: give me more space. I said: no.

10.

I have only one purpose: to live intensely.

11.

I wish I never met you
and I wish you never left.

You taste like a river in June.

12.

I’m going to say something important. Look at my face. Ignore my eyes. Just listen to me. But listen only to the timbre of my voice, not to what I am saying. They are different. They are two different rooms. The first is an exhibition of despair, the second only an explanation.

The first is all you have to listen to. So listen carefully because I cannot repeat myself:

“Everything/ one suspects to be true/ is true.”

13.

In 1879 a boy is born in Germany. At age five he’d throw a chair at his violin teacher and chase him out. In time he would develop the capacity to withdraw instantaneously from a crowd into loneliness. At twenty-six he would publish his theory of relativity in Annalen der Physik. He looks crazy, but he is certain: there is no aether, no absolute space.

14.

Sometimes they thought it was the words.
What they wanted to say could not be said.

They fixed the TV, vacuumed the rug,
dusted the furniture, looked out the window.

Sometimes she would purposefully lose hold of
a plate and it would smash to the floor.

Then they would have something to say,
only to begin to say it then stop.

15.

Look at this box. It is empty except for a diary, a book, and this picture in my hand. Now look at this picture. It weighs nothing and occupies almost zero space. I can slip it in anywhere and it will fit: inside the diary, under the box, through a crack on the wall. If I tear it several times, it will occupy a different volume, many and various. It mutates, you see. If I burn it, it will smoke into the air. It will take up a whole expanse.

16.

How many more times
are you going to let the world
hurt you?

17.

My father is an incorrigible storyteller. He would tell the same stories in different ways. I wouldn’t know which ones to believe. So I believed all of them. “There is no story that is not true,” said Uchendu.

Father would point at the TV. He would repeat lines, rehearse the beginnings and ends, explicate with his hands the elaborate twists and turns of every road.

He said: “I am dying.”

I said: “But aren’t all of us dying.”

18.

And I thought the world
was about this leaving,
not about anybody’s leaving
but about this leaving.
The next day it was the same.

19.

A beautiful woman walks into a room. The room is dark. There are no windows. There is one light bulb but any time now it will go off. I pretend not to notice and look away, my heart beating against my chest like a club. If I strain hard enough I will hear a song in the background. What other forms of happiness are there than this?

20.

In 1989 the Berlin wall falls down.

21.

I believe in love only when it rains.

22.

To appreciate the value of land, one need only look into a painting: so much beauty. Buying land means buying the layers of beauty directly above it. It means buying the sky above it. And the birds above it, the clouds, the gods.

In truth you are buying a corner of the universe. You are saying: this is my room. You are saying: I live here. Here I exist.

23.

Your sadness is immaterial. You did
not come into the world to be happy.

~

You came to suffer/survive.

24.

How many words have you spoken in your life?
How many did you mean?
How many did you understand?

25.

Somebody picks up a phone. He dials a number. His voice travels a thousand miles into another country. On the other end somebody picks up and hears the voice. Who is this?– This is me. The phone is hung up. The voice travels back a thousand miles.

Elsewhere somebody picks up a phone and before he could dial forgets the number.

26.

Sometimes wars are waged because there are too many people in too few rooms.

27.

Memory is incomplete–lost.
The world is incomplete–vanishing.

Nothing more happens. You open your eyes and it’s over.

Memory is brutal.
Memory is precise.

28.

In the next room people I do not know are talking with hushed voices. Their secret slips out the window like a cat. It is raining, and I press my ear to the wall. I imagine that one of them is smoking a cigarette. I imagine that one of them is covering his mouth in surprise.

29.

When my aunt died the doctors said the fat clogged her arteries. Every week she visited the hospital, and every week the vein on her wrist had to be ripped out so a catheter could be stuck into her body to suck out her blood. You could see the plasma pass through a filter and then back to the body. If you put your ear to her wrist you would hear her heart.

Before my uncle died the heart attacks were so excruciating he said he’d prefer to just die. They transported him to the hospital, and on the way to the emergency room his heart gave. Mother said my uncle ate too much pork and drank too much beer. She wonders if he’s going to be happy in heaven.

30.

In some house in some province in some country in some novel there is a story of a man a father a child a lover who dies because of too much sadness.

31.

Nobody thought that what was wrong was the love.

32.

She said: give me more space.

*****************

Honorable Mentions:

A House
by Mikael de Lara Co

We begin with a house.
The spaces we inhabit
or used to inhabit. The silences.

The way we listen to something
that’s no longer there. Or the way we see:
at dusk: a lonesome shadow

dwindles into some other jaggedness.
Does it matter? Exactly a day later
it would dwindle back unto itself.

But this is not a poem about return,
the cycles the wind goes through,
or water, how it circles

the peripheries of each leavetaking,
how it’s the same everywhere.
How it’s always there. This is a poem

about a house: a fence, wood peeking
from underneath sallow paint; a chime
musicless in its rusty solitude.

This poem is about a house
and it is dark and it is raining
and no one is home.

Someone must have been here.
Someone’s always been somewhere. See:
the pith of an orange sits hardened,

orphaned on the kitchen counter. Imagine
the juice drying on a tongue.
Whose tongue? Maybe yours. Anyone’s.

Imagine the seeds, spit out, heavy
with the ghost of what’s not yet
anywhere. Imagine being there

when they become
something.

**********************

Save as Draft
by Joel M. Toledo

Or write as poem. The whole point is often
what we miss out on. To revise is to reconsider
the experience of, say, a leaf — never mind
that it is not green anymore. Or, pardon the sudden
evening. The transition was nice enough;
the explosive colors of dusk. And, didn’t you feel
so much sadness? I cannot explain it any better
than how I could when the outlines were still there:
trees and some wonderful new shapes.
Since then, things have changed. A pale hand
moves in the darkness. And someone is calling out,
come to bed, come to bed. And it is just you.
The evening insists on evening. It is that simple.
It is late enough as it is.

********************

APO BAKIT
by Amalia B. Bueno

She makes her own cigars, smoothing out
the dry leaves like leather, rolling the sweet,
pungent smell into a not-too-tight spiral
and knotting its thickness with black thread.

I watch her tie and snip the ends clean
then tuck the stash into the wooden drawer
of the ancient Singer sewing machine,
hiding treasures to share with visitors.

Apo Bakit smells like the homemade coconut oil
she awakens from its white solid sleep, melting
into clear liquid slathered on her palms, massaged
into her hair falling on shoulders down to hips.

Oiled and coiled round and round in a gray bun,
her hair obeys the tortoise shell comb’s flat teeth,
its arch, made elaborate with small gold flowers,
reigns in the trademark Filipino grandma hairdo.

Her white camisole, laced eyelet at the straps,
shows off sleek, brown shoulders. The straight skirt
of hand-woven linen, traditional thin stripes
and even thinner green-yellow-black lines,

a methodical pattern running the length
of the multi-purpose sarong wrapped twice
around her hips just so, edges folded inside
along the waist sealing in a compact bundle.

In the narrow halls of Apo Bakit’s home
she walks, hunched over and soundless,
her black velvet house slippers,
gem-splashed embroidery shiny with beads

slinking up on us with mean, squinting eyes
like a snake ready to pounce, turning her head
from side to side, never missing a single detail
of proof that we were up to no good.

She takes her whiskey straight, swigging Seagrams
from a small bottle kept handy, tucked in the top
drawer of a metal bureau dresser, along with
Tiger Balm and White Flower ointment.

Dr. Ramos asks if she’s been taking the pills
he prescribes for gout. He also tells her she smokes
too much, drinks too much, and to please stop
eating tomatoes, patani, dinuguan and shellfish.

She hisses at the doctor, asking what kind of Filipina
can live without tomatoes, beans and blood, then spits
out a stream of phrases about being too old to change
her habits now, her cussing worse than a stevedore.

It was at my house when I first saw her pluck
out a good-sized bisukul, a freshwater black snail
floating in a soup of tomatoes and onions.
She held the snail between thumb and pointer,

tapped its back end with a spoon quickly, just once,
crushing the shell at its most fragile point
then sucked out the meat from the front with such gusto
I felt sorry for the snail, all of its body gone so suddenly.

Apo Bakit outlives her only son, my father,
resentful that he left without a final word,
not another glance, no last chance to say anything
that would change her miserable life without him.

She wears black for 365 days, becoming harder
and more bitter, striking out and recoiling
at loved ones. She outlives her husband
and decides not to leave her house for one year.

She outlives her friends, then her neighbors
and relatives one by one. I remember her sadness,
her open palm, with skinny fingers pressed against her forehead.
No more visitors to smoke her hand-rolled cigars with.

I watch from inside the screen door,
her profile puffing the familiar cigars,
cheeks sucking in air, the fiery end
of the tabako pointing toward the street,

her quiet exhale at the folks passing by,
nodding to them in solemn recognition at dusk.
She spits now and then into the metal wastebasket
lined with shredded newspaper by her feet.

Her slow breathing, her face shadowed
in the twilight beneath the bittersweet
cigar smoke curling and twisting above,
disappearing with the memories of loved ones

bending and sliding like the wisps
of her long past, unwinding away from her,
the white smoke trailing slow, up
to the rafters of the darkened porch.

**********************

Special Mentions:

way /way/
by Marlon Unas Esguerra

●
1.
Pertaining
to
the
way
Digna
died,
how
she
at
twenty
-
three
months
in
every
way
resembles
me
at
32.
How
papa
had
come
such
a
long
way
from
the
mosque
-
in
-
the
-
Agusan
-
patty
to
the
International
Brotherhood
of
Teamsters.
How
mama,
in
a
much
smaller
way,
had
resigned
every
last
bit
of
herself
to
stay
with
him.
We,
as
the
remaining
siblings,
will
always
read
way
too
much
into
those
roach
-
infested
fist
fights
on
Hoyne
Street.
Such
was
the
way
of
the
year
of
the
rat,
the
year
Digna
was
born
to,
always
teetering
on
the
back
porch
railing.
When
it
finally
gave
way,
how
the
thud
through
the
kitchen
and
bedrooms
made
its
way,
drumming
all
the
drywall.
How
they
both
had
such
a
way
with
words
until
they
found
her
on
the
first
landing.
When
the
ambulance
arrived,
how
they
couldn’t
get
in
through
the
gangway
to
our
rear
apartment
with
a
stretcher.
How
papa
couldn’t
find
any
way
to
tell
them
they
wouldn’t
need
the
stretcher
as
he
led
the
way
up
the
stairs.
The
Four
-
way
discussion
with
the
EMT’s,
all
tears
and
black
zipper.

******************

charmed
by Yvonne Hortillo

there is this
like falling snow
de-scen-ding

and then, next
moment gives way,
for-ever away,

impossible to retrieve
e-ven if
turned over, again.

like a persistency,
a chafing, soft
impossi-bi-li-ty,

how can it
i-rri-tate
from you so?

like descending powder
covering all whi-te,
it melts quickly,

palm, open,
heart-beat,
the air, warm.

************************

JEAN VENGUA’S JUDGE’S COMMENTARY:
The winning poem is “Spaces.” Although the winning poem was clear, it seemed nearly impossible to choose the three honorable mentions, because every poem I read seemed worth reading and mentioning.

“Spaces” was quite lengthy, but it maintained a deft balance between seemingly disparate elements (stanzas varying from “historical” narrative, to the epigraphic: “Happiness is simple. / Sadness forks into many roads.”). I chose this poem for its almost cinematic shifting between multiple scenes and eras; its evocation of distance and separation; its play upon the spaces we inhabit and claim.

The three honorable mentions are:

“Save as Draft”
“A House”
“Apo Bakit”

“Save as Draft” unfolded wonderfully from consideration of “draft” or “poem” to the shape of change itself. “A House” pulled me into a magical realist interior that tasted of bitter orange seeds. I loved the title of “Apo Bakit” [Grandmother Why], and the way the narrative coils darkly and lovingly around its subject.

Special mention for the extended descent of “way/ way” and the meltingly ambiguous “charmed.”

*****************

POETS’ BIOS:
Amalia B. Bueno is a researcher and publicist living in Honolulu. Born in Quezon City, PI she emigrated to Hawaii at the age of seven. She has a BA in English Literature from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and entertains herself with writing poems and short stories. She was published for the first time last year, when three of her poems, “Filipina,” “Shame,” and “On Hearing My Mother Call Out To Our Neighbor Over the Courtyard Fence” were included in Bamboo Ridge Press, Spring 2005 Issue #87. “Apo Bakit” is a tribute to her grandmother.

Poet, Writer, Teacher, and DJ, Marlon Unas Esguerra is second generation Filipino American Muslim, born and raised in Chicago. He is a first year M.F.A. candidate in Poetry at the University of Miami. In 1998, he co-founded the panAsian spoken word ensemble, I Was Born with Two Tongues, which has since performed in over 300 colleges and venues across the country. Marlon is a three-time Chicago poetry slam champion and recently performed on Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. He is currently completing his first manuscript of poetry and is co-editing a new anthology with Nick Carbó, Son of the Dragon: Literary Dialogues with Asian American Men. Marlon’s most recent awards include a fellowship to the University of Miami, the Wallace Douglas Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Columbia Award for Scholarship, and two Eileen Lannan Poetry Prizes from the Academy of American Poets.

Yvonne Hortillo says about herself: si yvonne? inuumaga kung matulog. walang tulog ‘yan. di natutulog. hinihintay yung kindat ng araw sa umaga bago magpakalunod sa kumot at unan. maraming plano, ambisyosang nakakatawa. di mapigil kung tumawa, tunog asukal at malaya, tunog kapit-patalim - lahat ng ligaya, simot na simot. pareho pa rin, natatandaan ko nung high school - mahilig sa nobelang may bidang dragon: lahing aswang.

Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf is a senior chemistry student at the Ateneo de Manila University. He was a fellow of the Ateneo and UP National Writers Workshops, and a recipient of the Loyola Schools Award for the Arts.

Mikael de Lara Co graduated with a BS in Environmental Science from the Ateneo de Manila; he is supposed to be working on his MA in Panitikang Pilipino - Malikhaing Pagsulat from the same university. A fellow of the Ateneo, UST, Iyas and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops, Mikael has been writing primarily in Filipino since his college days and has yet to publish a poem in English. He plays lead guitar for the new wave/punk/blues band Los Chupacabras, and is lead vocalist for Gapos, a progressive rock/jazz/blues band with a social realist bent.

Joel M. Toledo is currently finishing his M.A. degree in Creative Writing (majoring in poetry) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is an instructor at the Department of English of Miriam College. In 2005, he won first prize for his poetry collection, “What Little I Know of Luminosity” in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He was also awarded second place for his poetry entry in the 2004 Palanca Awards. Joel is the recipient of the 2006 National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writers Prize for poetry, a grant for the writing and possible publication of his first book of poetry.

MERITAGE PRESS’ 2005 HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST

Dear Filipino Poets:
You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

FIFTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CON TEST
Sponsors: Meritage Press and the NPA (New Poets Army)
Judge: Jean Vengua
Deadline: December 31, 2005

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
JEAN VENGUA lives in California. She is a writer, poet, and book editor. Her poetry has appeared in various print and online journals and anthologies including Proliferation, MiPOesias, Fugacity, Interlope, Babaylan, Returning a Borrowed Tongue, Moria and Sidereality. Her essays have appeared in Critical Mass, Our Own Voice, Behind the Blue Canvas, and Jouvert. She is co-founder of Tulitos Press, and co-editor with Mark Young of The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage Press, 2005). Jean’s blogs include Okir  Mood Ring , Mnemosyne’s Hem and The Nightjar . 

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Jean Vengua, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of December 31, 2005.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Jean Vengua to choose one winner. However, Jean may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the February 2006 edition of “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE winner also will receive copies of:

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku.htm

60 lv Bo(e)mbs by Paolo Javier; for information about the book, go to http://www.obooks.com/books/60lvboembs.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

A COMMERCE OF MOMENTS by Sofia M. Starnes; for more information about the book, go to http://sofiamstarnes.com/

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

THE ANCHORED ANGEL: SELECTED WRITINGS BY JOSE GARCIA VILLA; for more information about the book, go to http://www.kaya.com/aa.html

and the only single-poet collection published by Meritage Press this year, THE OBEDIENT DOOR by Sean Tumoana Finney; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/obedientdoor.htm

Other finalist-winners besides the First Place winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

HAY(NA)KU SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, coedited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young is now at the printer’s. So Meritage Press is offering a SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER with a deadline of Nov. 30, 2005.

NEW SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER!!!!

If you are a poet who has written hay(na)ku (and that includes you contributors who may want more copies than your contributor copies), you can pre-order this ground-breaking anthology for $7.00 — more than 50% off the retail price of $14.95 and we’ll toss in free shipping/handling.

If you are interested, the offer is good through November. E-mail me at GalateaTen@aol.com or MeritagePress@aol.com if you are interested.

Eileen Tabios
Publisher, Meritage Press