Of Poetry In 1979

Of Poetry in “1979”



I have this theory that people live their lives in states of drunkenness—instances happen as quickly as sudden spasms of light, we stumble through them, and we forget. But sometimes, a spasm of light may grow, large enough to fill a room even, and in these moments of clarity, I see a chair and my old orange typewriter in that room, and I write. To me, these moments of clarity come in varying stages of luminosity—sometimes, a mere scene is evidence of living. I remember being struck by the beauty of a dinner table left outside, candles still-lit in the rain, water pooling into the hollows of spoons and wineglasses and petals. At other times, it is as small as a sound; a car pulling away from a street always makes me feel alone, and I would be standing on the curb staring at my feet. But sometimes, it is as large as a realization; our vision of the world is perpetually circular: irises, light, earth, particles. What does this say about us?

Our ability to recognize these moments of clarity is transient and almost always relies on chance. Given another opportunity, I am not sure if I would have thought the  same dinner table was beautiful, or if I would have experienced the particular sadness I felt that day, on the curb. Moreover, the varying forms these moments of clarity take—a scene, a sound, a realization, make me realize how fleeting they are, and how I must find some way to remember each one. It is because of this that I write. I write to remember each moment of clarity with a vigor, so as not to forget particular emotions or thoughts. I write so that life may come with a reassurance that it has been lived.

I’d like to think that the varying forms of clarity caused the different genres to emerge; maybe a sound is best contained in a poem, while a realization best understood in a novel. My moments of clarity are often small; an image or sound caught in a split-second. To me, these solitary moments are translated most meaningfully through poetry. It is a genre that can sustain one solitary image throughout the entirety of a piece. This is due mainly to the fact that poetry has far more room for condensation, and therefore far less room for distracting elements.

Moreover, poetry attests to the weightiness of words the best way out of all the genres. Simply because of word count and form, poetry must say in a handful of words what fiction talks about in pages and pages. Each word may be the equivalent of an explosion, has the potential to change a prolonged discourse of the mind. I also like writing poetry because it provides me solitude. It is here where I make the distinction between solitariness (which I referred to in the previous paragraph) and solitude. Poetry provides me both of these.

I find solitude in being able to write about stories or moments of the self, inspired by the hustle and bustle of the world.  The city, the trees, the women selling balut across the street, inspire a point of view and create a certain solitude, an understanding that is unique to me. Mookie Katigbak once said that the trend of writers holing up in Sagada to write is something that she could never be able to relate to, because the craziness of her life here in the city is what inspires her writing. I agree with this. It is the seemingly inconsequential experiences I have when I am actively living life that inspire my writing. For example, hearing “Ang Huling El Bimbo” playing when walking to the LRT; going to Star City for the rickety-thrill of the rides; listening closely in philosophy class. All of these worldy connections find meaning in my own comprehension, and therefore in my solitude.

Poetry also lends a kind of ambiguity when I need a particular solitude even from my reader. Selfish as it may sound, there are times when I deliberately exclude my reader through obscure language and personal references. After some thought as to why, I narrow it down to two reasons. The first is that there are certain works that I write for myself and no one else. This is because I find it comforting to know that there are some things in safekeeping, a cluster of words that contain a particular  understanding only I can grasp. I find this also causes the reader to pry and possibly come up with his or her own understanding. The second reason is that I’ve read pieces containing personal references before and they have intrigued me to learn exactly what those references meant to the writer. In this way, the piece transcends itself to directly include the writer’s quirks and background.

I don’t afford myself this solitude as often as I would like, however; after all, what would be the point in writing? Most of the time, I try to write for the reader, to paint a solitary image or sound so as to render a certain state of mind. I want the reader to see things from another viewpoint—to attach meaning to the mundane, to marry vision with taste and sound. Maybe this is why I find my eyes closed when writing, straining to remain as faithful as I can to a state of mind, to attach concreteness to the impalpable. I often find this a challenge, and I can say that writing does not come as naturally to me as I would like. Images come naturally, colors, and even tastes. I am fascinated with the hyperreal, and envious of synesthetes. Translating these images into words, though, has always proven to be a trying task.

Thinking about it, I wonder why I try to render these solitary images or sounds to the reader. In philosophy, there is the concept of inductiveness, in which generalities are arrived at from the specific. Perhaps a solitary image may induce a realization significant to the reader’s life. Perhaps poetry about the quick, tiptoeing sound light makes at night may once again prove the beauty of the world to someone who has lost this belief.

One of my poetry teachers once asked me to write down something I believed in. I wrote, “The world is beautiful”. She then asked me to write a poem about it—I surprised myself by writing about Adam and Eve, the apples that could never be torn from their existence, and the consequent taste of cider ringing in their mouths. Thinking back, I probably wrote about them because I believe that the cider taste matters, in knowing where you have come from, and that life is beautiful even outside the Garden of Eden. I write not only to be reassured that life has been lived, but that there is a life to live. However, knowing there is a life to live and living it is not always enjoyable; laudable, yes, but not enjoyable. There have been times when I’ve felt a great despair for the living of life, but it is at these moments that I experience the sincerest form of living. “The Refutal of Home”, a poem about wanting to see far-off into the earth but being unable to because of home’s proximity, is witness to this. I think of my poetry as short stories about the self—then again, so is any genre, any form of writing. Even if you’re writing about something seemingly self-less, you are still conceiving ideas, opinions, a part of the self into your work. This, to me, is justified. What one poet said, that “one person in one room could tremble with so much life,“ is true. It is absolutely true. Writers are just regular people who feel an urge to disguise parts of their lives in stories. How elaborate a disguise; well, that’s the exciting part. One may choose to clothe his story in layers of the city (Mikael de Lara Co), in chalk-drawn equations of physics (Arkaye Kierulf) or sometimes opt to do away with disguises completely (Vincenz Serrano). I’d say that the disguises I imagine for my work are pretty straightforward. Only recently have I realized this fact, in that most if not all of my works are undisguised. I do not deal with other people or with issues outside of the self, but rather only with me and my take on the world.

In the future, I would like to be able to stretch my writing to include the people who are just as much a part of my world as me. I would also like to try writing in a language other than English—being Chinese and having all these intricate stories of the color red, temple visits, and delicate food, I feel a piece written purely in English would do these lovely things a disservice. At the same time, I cannot claim myself to be particularly fluent in either Mandarin or Foo Kien; maybe a piece written in English with a smattering of Chinese would deserve to tell the tale. I say this because I believe that small yet significant elements do get lost in translation. For instance, the  Mandarin word “nin” translates to “you, respectfully.” The nuances of certain words cannot be translated simply into typeface on a page. Some words must be felt, through a sense of familiarity and background. It is then that a culture is truly understood, and a story fully comprehended. I think that craft, just as much as content, has to suit a particular work, in that all the elements the reader will be encountering have to tell a solitary story.

I find that if a good story in any genre must conclude at one thing, it must be emotion. What is a piece of writing if it doesn’t stir the reader in some way? Above knowing that there is a life to live and being reassured that it is being lived, I write to be able to communicate emotion to another person. This to me, is the main purpose of any form of art, be it painting, photography, literature, or theatre. It is immortalizing emotion and transitively, life, into something tangible. Paradoxically, I find that the primary mover for my writing is also emotion. I have an affair with emotion, one that I can conclude from my sporadic bouts of writing. I constantly feel the need to be stirred in some way, and it is this that motivates me to experience the world through art, travel, and people.

When I look back on my body of work, I would like to see my life collectively and hopefully cleverly narrated in disparate but admittedly comprehensive angles. Doing so in the present, I see that certain works reflect significant periods in my life, for example, “Postcard” was written when I badly needed to apologize to someone in another country. “The Squash Colored Veranda” when I desperately missed the ease of childhood, probably because I was at a point where I felt my life was getting too complicated. The poems I’ve written narrate times in life that remind me of how richly I’ve lived.

I remember writing poetry for the first time; I had heard “Balisong” by Rivermaya on the radio. “Your face lights up the sky on the highway”—not the greatest poetry in the world, but the melody and Rico Blanco’s sincerity in singing it got me. They say that the greatest poetry was inspired by pop songs—



Morphine city slippin dues down to see

That we don't even care as restless as we are

We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts

And poured cement, lamented and assured



“1979” by The Smashing Pumpkins



Aptly enough, my former English teacher Vincenz Serrano performed this song for us on our last day of class. Being exposed to a song like this, its lyrics and melody, inspires a certain kind of emotion. “1979” for example makes me feel like a restless teenager driving down a street, knowing the night provides a hundred different possibilities. But being inspired by another person’s art and creating your own is another story. Creating art, or writing poetry for that matter, not only inspires emotion but produces it. You go into it not knowing what exactly will be produced, only knowing that it will be something. Upon closer reflection, writing poetry is much like how “1979” makes me feel—wide open and restless to find out what it is exactly I have created. That being so, I write because I do not want to live only with the emotions that other art forms provide me, because the ability to create is the essence of being human, and because I learned, long ago, how words can bring about versions of reality that rise starkly above the drunkenness that is life.