Poet Fidelito Cortes makes the everyday extraordinary
By John Labella“Everyday Things” dwells, it is true, on daily rhythms of living in California and Manila. The routine is “stronger than us and more durable,” its title poem affirms.
“Everyday Things” dwells, it is true, on daily rhythms of living in California and Manila. The routine is “stronger than us and more durable,” its title poem affirms.
Kristian Jeff Cortez Agustin, a poet and interdisciplinary artist, has published in London “For Love and Poetry,” a book that celebrates various art forms intersected with photographs and the art of weaving words.
From the tombstone of Edgar Allan Poe, one can reach the street by taking a narrow dirt path between two tall stone mausoleums and crouching for a few steps underneath a portion of Westminster Hall.
Prose and poetry are such different disciplines. Poetry likes to linger, to savor, to sit by the wayside spinning metaphors. Prose likes words, too, but never as the essence itself. Prose is more interested in telling the story, in bringing the tale to its conclusion. A dusting of metaphors is good enough, too many will distract.
In 2008, one of the five awardees of Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas was a small, unassuming man who received the Manuel Baldemor trophy with quiet delight. He wrote under the name “Yun H” or “Cloud Crane.”
“The Neruda Case” (Riverhead Books), by Roberto Ampuero. The great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote about Latin American history and landscapes, the simple beauty and depth of ordinary objects, but perhaps most memorably, about love.
“Rizalpabeto,” a collaboration between visual artist Elmer Borlongan and poet Vim Nadera, is on view at Manila Contemporary. The exhibition commemorates Rizal’s life and works in the continuing celebration of the National Hero’s 150th birth anniversary. It is part of the gallery’s main exhibit, “Through the Looking Glass: José Rizal.” Nadera’s poems about Rizal, one [...]
Kritika, the national criticism workshop, is back.
In the current exhibition at Galeria Duemila, avant-garde artist Cesare Syjuco presents an all-text exhibition in a show titled “A Life of the Mind: His Poems for Walls.” Showcasing works made entirely of words created in the past 30 years, Syjuco’s oeuvre utilizes the plastic arts to present literature where text has taken on a primarily visual function.
Last Friday was my dad’s death anniversary, and I marvel at the circumstances surrounding that day. Let me tell you about it through a couple of poems.
Poet and social critic John Berger believes that desiring justice is as multitudinous as the stars in an expanding universe with the suffering caused by genocide, war and natural catastrophes which happen unnoticed every day.
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