Caracoa's latest: In Praise of Poetry By Women
Caracoa's latest:
In Praise of Poetry By Women
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, February 10, 1988
VILLA had decreed that poetry was the language of the angels. But in "Caracoa 17," we find that poetry is really the language of women. Some of the most amazing poetry, I am now convinced, is written neither from the heart not from the head; it is written from the core.
Women have access to the core that men do not even suspect exists. And it is from this core that much of poetry's healing is derived. Some men may have the power to cure, but it seems only women have the power to heal. Who, pray tell, can argue with the refuge, the replenishment that is a woman? Certainly not the men.
Still, I must confess that I had avoided women's literature for years, never so much out of condescension as out of ignorant habit. Like most men, I didn't watch women's tennis on the idiot box, never once ventured into the ladies' section of a department store, and hardly ever looked into those liberated women's magazines. Raised on the curious notion that the sexes must never intermingle, I am as overjoyed about this first encounter as any blushing bridegroom.
The women in "Caracoa 17" range in age, attitudes and stature virtually from cradle to grave, and the anthology is all the richer, all the more faceted because of it. In all honesty, I must say that the poems of Merlie Alunan-Wenceslao, Maria Luisa Aguilar- Cariño, Edith Tiempo, Benilda P. Santos, Fatima V. Lim and Lilia Lopez-Chua literally blew me out of the water. The other featured poets – including Mariyi Soliven, Dinah Roma, Lina Reyes, Elizabeth Arcellana-Nuqui, Grace R. Monte de Ramos, Marra Pl. Lanot, Marjorie Evasco, Ruby T. Enario, Laura Elizaga, Ophelia Dimalanta, Merlinda C. Bobis, Joy Barrios and Tita Lacambra-Ayala – will doubtless unfold like paper flowers in their own time, or perhaps on second reading.
Special mention must be made of the fascinating illustrations by Beaulah Taguiwalo, an artist whose development I have had the pleasure to observe at close range.
The Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC), publishers of the six-year-old poetry journal "Caracoa," should also be commended for their publication's invaluable contribution to Philippine Letters. All good poets must peddle their little salves (cures, balms, etc.), and the difference between a psychiatrist and a masseuse is that the masseuse makes house-calls. Poetry is always a bit demeaning to the poet, the very act of transcribing one's work being so much manual labor. Perhaps the poet and the masseuse have that much in common, and "Caracoa," it can be said, makes housecalls.
* * *
Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Caracoa's latest: In Praise of Poetry By Women” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, February 10, 1988
