October 29, 2021 at 10:41 pm (Artists and Writers, Calls, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Recommended)
Tags: causes, COVID Reading, Filipino writers, Fridays, grief, heroes, inspiration, Jose Rizal, memorial, memories, poetry, The Philippines, US history
This poem is epic.
The molave was a Philippine hardwood (said to be impervious to fire), now extinct.
Jose Rizal was the writer of the seminal novels Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. He was tried by the Spanish for inciting a revolution, and shot by firing squad in Manila’s Bagumbayan Field.
Self has not been able to find much about Rafael Zulueta y da Costa. He died in 1990, and apparently this was his only poem. He wrote in English. At the time of writing, the Philippines was still an American colony.
Like the Molave, Part I:
Not yet, Rizal, not yet. Sleep not in peace:
There are a thousand waters to be spanned;
There are a thousand mountains to be crossed;
There are a thousand crosses to be borne.
Our shoulders are not strong; our sinews are
Grown flaccid with dependence, smug with ease
Under another’s wing. Rest not in peace;
Not yet, Rizal, not yet. The land has need
of young blood — and, what younger than your own,
Forever spilled in the great name of freedom,
Forever oblate on the altar of the free?
Not you alone, Rizal. O souls
And spirits of the martyred brave, arise!
Arise and scour the land! Shed once again
Your willing blood! Infuse the vibrant red
Into our thin anemic veins; until
We pick up your Promethean tools and, strong,
Out of the depthless matrix of your faith
In us, and on the silent cliff of freedom,
We carve for all time your marmoreal dream!
Until our people, seeing, are become
Like the molave, firm, resilient, staunch,
Rising on the hillside, unafraid,
Strong in its own fibre; yes, like the molave:
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October 20, 2021 at 6:36 pm (Books, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Recommended)
Tags: Filipino writers, historical novel, history, The Philippines, work-in-progress, writing process
Self is a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines. Her Dear Departed Dad’s province was an island in the central Philippines called Negros (yes, really, the Spanish named the island after its inhabitants, who were dark-skinned)
For today’s Past Squares post (many, many thanks to Becky at Life of B for hosting the Squares Challenge), here are two books on Philippine History that she’s found invaluable while doing research for her current project, a novel about a 16th century Spanish priest who is sent to the Philippines to fight demons:
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August 15, 2021 at 7:29 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Calyx Press, Literary Magazines, opportunities, Pembroke Magazine, Prairie Schooner, seasons, short story, summer, transitions, Western Humanities Review
It has been QUITE a summer. How fast it went. And now the Olympics are over, we’re out of Afghanistan, and fall is just around the corner.
You’re alive, we’re alive, wear a mask.
Thank you to the host of this challenge, Clare’s Cosmos!
Support Literary Magazines
Self has short stories in all of these literary magazines.
Gratuitous self-promotion, what?
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
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August 11, 2021 at 10:47 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Places, Publishers, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Carmel, Filipino writers, Gardens, inspirations, patti moed, Philippine History, photo challenge, road trip, seasons, spring, summer
Wow! Self LOVES the quote from Agnes Martin that inspired this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge!
She had a lot of fun going through her archives to identify her sources of inspiration.
Which are MANY. Here are a few:
The Jesuits in the Philippines, by Horacio de la Costa, S. J. (Harvard University Press)
Self is so glad she can share her inspirations with dear blog readers.
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April 27, 2021 at 12:30 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Explorers, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, postaday, Publishers, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: 1888 Center, art, Bath, Dublin, exhibits, Irish artists, short story, Small Press
This challenge is hosted by Mama Cormier. Every Thursday, you post a picture of a trio.
Self knows, it is Monday today. Nevertheless.
- Bath, England 2017
- Self’s three contributor copies of The Cost of Paper, published by 1888 Center in Orange, CA
- A trio of Mike Byrne ceramics, at an exhibit in Dublin Castle, May 2019
- Alan Meredith’s ebonised wood triptych, at the same exhibit in Dublin Castle, May 2019
Searching for trios can be quite addictive!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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April 15, 2021 at 9:57 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Links, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Black writers, essays, Events
A Conversation with Emily Bernard
Author of Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine
Moderated by Edvige Giunta and Meilli Ellis-Tingle
Tuesday, April 20, 6 p.m.
Emily Bernard is the author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Mother’s Time and Mine, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio. Black is the Body won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose. Emily’s previous works include: Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendship, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age; and, with Deborah Willis, Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs, which received a 2010 NAACP Image Award. Her work has appeared in: O the Oprah Magazine, Harper’s, The New Republic, newyorker.com, Best American Essays, Best African American Essays, and Best of Creative Nonfiction. She has received fellowships from the Alphonse A. Fletcher Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Arts Council, and the W. E. B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University. Emily was the James Weldon Johnson Senior Research Fellow in African American Studies at Yale University. She is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont, and a 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Emily lives in South Burlington, Vermont with her husband and twin daughters.
Free with RSVP.
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March 22, 2021 at 3:51 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Links, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: advice, inspiration, memories, Mondays, writing process
Kathleen Burkhalter was a member of Dear Departed Sister’s barkada at Wharton. When Kathleen passed away a few years ago, self lost more than just a friend: she lost a member of her squad. And one of the few people self stayed regularly in touch with, over the decades. With Kathleen, self never had to explain how she was feeling at a particular time of her life, she always understood.
She wrote and self-published a series of books about her life. Her daughter, Mercedes Bell, is now a singer. Here’s a link to her FB page.
And here’s a post self wrote about Kathleen, four years ago.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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March 21, 2021 at 4:10 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Personal Bookshelf, Places)
Tags: Ireland, Irish writers, memories, poetry, Saturdays, wisdom
Fluent
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
— from Conamara Blues, which Dear Departed Father Richard Haslam gave to me on my first visit to Ireland, 2014
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March 17, 2021 at 10:29 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, COVID Reading, Ireland, memories, Northern Ireland, poetry, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Because it is Saint Patrick’s Day, the poet is from NI: Csilla Toldy came over from Hungary, when there was still a Wall. We met in 2014, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig. The picture is of the lake.
Csilla was kind enough to allow me to post the whole poem. It’s from her collection Red Roots – Orange Sky (Belfast: Lapwing Publications, 2013)
Love in Paris
Arriving late at the wrong address
a stranger in the street,
Ali, offered her a bed. He lovingly
treated her wounded knee —
that she had fallen on
when searching the sky for the guiding star
at the green borders to Italy.
Her nerves frazzled
by the long march through the Alps
on pills of caffeine and amphetamine,
taken by the echoes of her throbbing heart
when face-searched
and feeling so lucky for not looking like any
one of the Red Brigade.
So grateful for a clean sheet
after a week in ditches with crows and crickets,
yet fearing horror dreams of her misconceptions
she fell into a black hole
to be woken up by sunlight
glinting on a tray of golden croissants
brought up by Ali.
Recently, Csilla has been focusing on films.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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March 3, 2021 at 2:04 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Women Writers)
Tags: Doreen Fernandez, favorites, The Philippines
Every year for the last seven years or so, I have written one piece in March or April — the beginning of its traditional season — on the mango, feeling that it is one of the best fruits in the world, and that all of the folklore, songs, sarswelas and recipes do not even begin to do it justice.
— from Fruits of Memory, the Introduction to Fruits of the Philippines, by Doreen G. Fernandez
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