(Continued from The National Artist Talks)
THIRD question: “How did writing become a habit?”
One word answer: Success.
Blame it on success.
Success is addicting.
Seeing my name in print is addicting.
Winning awards is addicting.
*
Getting the public to notice me is addicting.
Earning a certain clout in the media is addicting.
Being an internet celebrity is addicting.
How can I give up writing if I’m getting my high on these stuff?
Writing is more than just a habit for me now.
It’s a way of life.
*
I actually get general body malaise if I don’t write.
So I write everyday. Even if it’s crap.
I write something every week. Even just for a newspaper.
I write big literary stuff once a year. Even just for the Palanca Awards.
Every year or two, I publish a book.
So yeah. It’s more than just a habit.
*
And writing has become a part of me because of the people who loved my early works.
They gave me awards and recognition.
They gave me praises and accolades.
Even those who hardly read, or who don’t understand what literature really is, showed me appreciation.
So I continued, and persevered, to write to honor them.
To make them proud.
To make them understand that their faith in me was not in vain.
*
I remember this particular boy from Zamboanga.
He was 15 when he first encountered my book.
A classmate of his from Iloilo went back to Zamboanga with a signed copy of my book “Rated R” (1997).
He borrowed the book, and never returned it.
A real book thief.
He ripped out the page with my autographed dedication to this classmate.
And kept the book for himself. Until now.
*
I love this boy.
He wrote me a fan mail. From Zamboanga!
One of the first fan mails I received in the 1990s.
He said he liked my poetic voice.
Like, I’m saying the things he wanted to say.
Like I understood what he was going through.
*
I met this boy 20 years later. Online.
He’s become a great poet.
I’m in love with his poems.
We chatted again starting last month.
He said things that made me cry.
Like how he “borrowed my voice” for sometime.
How he used my voice to sing his own poetry.
*
It is for this boy that I continued to write.
Up to this day.
Because he wrote me a freaking fan mail!
The idea of this boy tortured me.
How can you fail the faith in you of a 15-year old?
This guy will always be a 15-year old fan reader to me.
*
In my mind, there’s always a 15-year old someone loving my work. Appreciating what I write. Somewhere out there.
And I don’t want to fail him/her.
I want to be good for him/her.
I would want him/her to think about me, remember me, 20 years into the future.
Wonder what has become of one Peter Solis Nery.
*
And I would want him/her to discover that I’m still writing.
Even if he/she doesn’t know that I continue to write because of him/her haunting me with his/her appreciation of my earlier, unpolished work.
Because of him/her, I try to be better in every next writing project I do.
That’s why I just keep getting better.
*
In the newspaper, I just keep getting bolder.
I push the limit every time.
And every time, I increase my power. Expand my clout.
What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.
Those critics who ridiculed my writing 18 years ago, where are they now?
These so-called present day critics, where are they?
So, I am going to be bold and daring.
Until my editors, my publishers, maybe even the Law, stop me.
But I’m thinking, Maybe not even then!
*
Because seriously, do you think I’d back down so easily?
Do you think Peter Solis Nery will just shut up, and go gently into the night?
You can bet your sweet ass, I will not go silently.
I will rage, rage against that good night.
Now that my readers have made me so powerful, I would always be a cause celebre, if you touch me.
Go ahead, and charge me with obscenity.
Let’s see what fun that would be.
I’ll fry you in court, and in the court of public opinion!
*
Anyway, back to this 15-year old boy from Zamboanga.
This boy, a gorgeous young man now, is Darrel Pobre.
In our last online exchange he said, “Write for those who need to borrow your voice, Peter. We are many.”
And I just cried.
I felt that my writing life is not in vain.
*
Darrel wrote a poem of his Peter Nery Solis experience.
I want to share this piece by my dear beautiful Darrel Pobre to you.
It’s a very accomplished poem. But experience it, and decide for yourself.
Beloved readers, ladies and gentlemen, the poem…
TEAR HERE
By Darrel Pobre
You have crawled into my open throat
And slipped down the thirsty walls
Reassembling into a pair of scissors
Opening and closing,
All I need are two fingers now
To trim new arteries
To separate synaptic junctions
To perforate non-permeable membranes
Snip, slice, a movement so precise
Incisions deep enough to reach between rib cages
Your words dot the lines to wound the flesh deepest.
It all began with a slurp of a page being ripped,
Torn with these bare hands.
A book you dedicated for someone else. (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
