LAST WEEK, I started you on Western Visayas’s foremost literary historian and critic Felino S. Garcia, Jr.’s prolegomenon for my book “At My Father’s Wake,” which was published in the US in late January 2019.
The book is basically ten elegies in English with their Filipino and Hiligaynon versions that I wrote/translated myself. But what made the book so much bigger than my poems are the smart introductions and intelligent commentaries by foremost Filipino writers, who happened to be my friends. You can order the book from amazon.com.
This week, I continue to yield my column space to Felino’s work. Felino is the winner of the 2014 Special Peter’s Prize for Literary Criticism, and the first ambassador of The Peter Solis Nery Foundation for Hiligaynon Literature and the Arts, Inc. for literary scholarship.
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Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night — A Prolegomenon of the Introductory Essays to the Elegies
by Felino S. Garcia, Jr.
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There is a delicate quality in Noahlyn Maranan’s reading of the elegies. Written in elegant Filipino characteristic of her Southern Tagalog origins (Batangas and Quezon Province), and aptly entitled “Sa mga Pagitan”, the essay peers like a Freudian voyeur through the troubled and enigmatic father-son nexus.
It gives a soulful rendition of the existential continuum of anguish, suffering, death, and the in-between-ness, the liminal so to speak, that distantiates the father from the son, and vice-versa, in terms both geographical and psychological—“ang mga pagitang ito ay hindi lamang may kinalaman sa milya-milyang layo niya sa kaniyang ama, bagkus kinalauna’y isang paghahanda rin sa pagitang naglalayo sa ama at anak.”
Noel G. de Leon’s introduction, “Elehiyang-elehiya”, projects its discursive frame on the ars poetica of the elegies, emphasizing the socio-historical contemporaneity of the verseletting.
In simpler terms, poetry can never be separated from the social context of its production. Thus, while the essay acknowledges the role of the personal, and how it affects any form of literary production, it does not over-personifies the persona’s interiority, but rather situates the creative process in a broader milieu of the social.
Cultural studies concepts like culture, representation, and consciousness are among the salient points in his essay—“…naiaakda natin ang ambag nating konsepto na nakakabit sa kultura at pinaniniwalaan ng partikular na grupo. Nabibigyan natin ng representasyon, hindi lamang ang mga personal nating damdamin, kundi ang pulso at sensibilidad natin bilang manunulat o, sa mas malinaw na pagpapaliwanag, nabibigyang representasyon natin sa mas malawak na scope ang kamalayan ng bansa.”
The last, but not least, of the essayists’ introductions from the Filipino section is that of Lawrence Bernabe. What he wrote in Filipino is actually a continuation, a sequel to the one he started doing in English.
“Acts of Survivorship” is an essay divided into English and Filipino expository parts. The first one I mentioned a while ago. Now, comes the last part in Filipino.
This may have been done deliberately by Bernabe to prove to us, readers, that it really makes no difference for bilingual writers to attempt this rather risky tightrope act of traversing from one linguistic code to another. And he emerges marvelously unscathed and triumphant for the level of discourse is carried on seamlessly from one language to the next without any hint of difficulty or some signs of an impending semiotic gap.
In lieu of pontificating an omniscient authorial voice in his reading, Bernabe opts to invite his readers instead to participate in the meaning-making process by suggesting varied and interrelated modes of interpretation of the elegies. In more precise terms, he is an avowed partisan of the many possibilities of reading. His version of the reader-response approach resonates with a more liberal tone resulting into a much wider field of reflective engagement with the elegies — “Maaaring sadya ito ng makata upang ipaliwanang ang labi ng pagsaksi at ng pananalita sa panahong kagyat ng pagkawala, pagpanaw o pagkasalanta… Maaaring ituring din ito bilang patlang na waring pakahulugan ng lahat nang kung sa anumang dahilan ay hindi nabigyang bisa ng makata sa panahon ng pagkakasulat ng kaniyang lipon.”
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Thy Mother’s Womb — Hiligaynon
Jesus Insilada’s introduction, “Introduksiyon para sa Elegies nga Ginsulat ni Peter Solis Nery”, underscores the element of perfection in the literal-poetic discourse of the elegies (“perpekto nga timpla sang literal-poetic discourse”). For him, the elegies are easy to read and understand, despite what he calls as their heavy punch on both the emotion and the intellect (“may bug-at nga epekto sa emosyon… may intellectual punch”).
Insilada observes as well the effective use of black comedy in the elegies, which according to him is but a consequence of Peter’s versatility as a writer (“tatak na ni Peter Solis Nery ang iya pagka=versatile. Makasulat sia sang de-kalidad nga mga sinulatan bisan sa ano nga porma kag sahi”). This literary technique is a pervasive characteristic hovering over the elegies. A device which the poet has put into good use. “Ara ang iya kinaadman sa pagbinalaybay nga bisan masubo na ang ginahambalan, makayuhum ka gihapon.”
Written in a Hiligaynon reminiscent of the literary masters of the language exemplified by Ramon Muzones, Magdalena Jalandoni, Flavio Zaragoza Cano, Conrado Norada, Santiago Alv. Mulato, among others, Ismael Java’s essay, “Haya”, bursts with intellectual fervor and lyrical vigor through his careful and studied use of the Hiligaynon lexicon.
Listen to the melodious syntax of his description—“…ginsipadsipad sang manunulat sa pulo ka bahin nga mga pagpanaghoy sang balatyagon ang mga nagapunduk nga mga daga sang paghibubun-ot sa dughan. Mga panukmaton nga wala napautwas sang buhi pa ang nagtaliwan. Mga panukmaton nga naghatag sang tunay nga larawan sang pag-inupdanay kag kaangtanan sang anak sa amay. Mga panukmaton sang dughan nga nagasinggitan sang mga kakulangan sang kaangtanan.”
Take note of his use of the word “daga” as a metaphor for the elegies — “mga nagapunduk nga mga daga sang paghibubun-ot sa dughan.” It comes from the Spanish word “daga” which means a dagger. Hence, the elegies are like daggers of unexpressed anger stuck deep in the heart (my translation).
The expressive and onomatopoeic onslaught of the word “panukmaton” approximates the semiotics of the English infinitive—to blame, yet panukmaton’s very own verbal and orthographic strength emanates from the dagger’s sharp, and piercing pain, as its psychological mooring in the Hiligaynon cultural sensibility and linguistic sign system allow it to be embedded nowhere else but in the heart (“mga panukmaton sang dughan”). (To be continued/PN)
