READERS SHOW SOME LOVE TO FILIPINO AUTHORS (HHR#3)

This Feature presents readers sharing some love about the talent of Filipino authors. We would welcome your participation. This section is for readers. You don't have to write "like a professional," "like a critic," "like an intellectual," "like a well-rounded reader," etc. Just write honestly about how you were moved. Live authors (let alone the dead) don't get to hear enough from reader(s) they may not know even read their works. To know someone read their stories and poems and books is already to receive a gift. Just share from your heart. It will be more than enough. DEADLINE: Jan. 30, 2017 for Issue #4. Duplications of authors and more than one testimonial are fine.


Mangozine's Issue #3 Presents

James E. Cherry on Cecilia Brainard
Eileen R. Tabios on E. San Juan, Jr.
Joseph O. Legaspi on R. Zamora Linmark
Leny M. Strobel on Rene Navarro
Eileen R. Tabios on Rene Navarro

Oliver de la Paz on R. Zamora Linmark
Malou Bobu Alorro on Erma M. Cuizon
Tony Robles on Jason Bayani
Eileen R. Tabios on Edilberto K. Tiempo

James E. Cherry on Cecilia Brainard

The following is poet and novelist James E. Cherry's introduction of Cecilia Brainard at the Second Literary Symposium in Jackson, TN, April 22-23, 2016.

            Cecilia Manguerra Brainard was born and grew up Cebu City, Philippines.  She is the award-winning author of nine books, including the internationally-acclaimed novel, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept.  She has edited four books and co-edited six others.  Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish and many of her stories and have been widely anthologized.  She co-founded Philippine American Women Writers and Artists, a collective of Filipino artists.  Mrs. Brainard has received a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate. She teaches creative writing at the Writers Program at UCLA-Extension and is married to Lauren R. Brainard; they have three sons.

            Without a doubt, this is an impressive list of accomplishments.  But these awards and accolades are not who she is.  Cecilia Brainard is a cultural and literary warrior.  She is a fierce and fearless cultural and literary warrior.  She loves the Philippines and she loves the Filipino people that it produced.  She has deeply rooted herself in Filipino culture, has embraced its customs, mores, legends, myths, heroes and villains.  She celebrates its beauty and is not afraid to confront the ugly aspects of its nature as well.

            Like some writers of color, she could take the easy and lucrative way out by seeing the world through Eurocentric lenses.  Instead, Cecilia Brainard lowers her bucket of imagination into the well of creative expression and from it extracts stories that are steeped in Filipino history and heritage, stories that exceed the artificial boundaries of race, ethnicity and national origin.  At the heart of her writing is fear, love, hate, revenge, joy, loneliness and how we as human beings overcome or fall victim to such emotions.

            In this regard, she is no different from other writers who have used their own culture as a springboard to address universal themes.  Writers such as the Englishman William Shakespeare, Russian Fyodor Dostoevsky and the African American writer, Richard Wright.

*****

James E Cherry is the author of three collections of poetry, a collection of short fiction and a novel.  His second novel, Edge of the Wind, will be published in September 2016 from Stephen F Austin University Press.  Cherry has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and resides in Tennessee.  Visit him on the web at:  jamesEcherry.com.

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Eileen R. Tabios on E. San Juan, Jr.

If you don't already know of E. San Juan, Jr., his Wikipedia page is a good place to start. Go to the link for more information, but I quote its first paragraph: 

Epifanio San Juan Jr., also known as E. San Juan Jr. (born December 29, 1938) , at Sta. Cruz, Manila, Philippines),^[1] is a known Filipino American literary academic, Tagalog writer, Filipino poet, civic intellectual, activist, writer, essayist, video/film maker, editor, and poet whose works related to the Filipino Diaspora in English and Tagalog writings have been translated into German, Russian, French, Italian, and Chinese.^[2] As an author of books on race and cultural studies,^[3] he was a “major influence on the academic world”.^[2] He was the director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut in the United States.^[1] In 1999, San Juan received the Centennial Award for Achievement in Literature from the Cultural Center of the Philippines because of his contributions to Filipino and Filipino American Studies.^[2]

In other words, Sonny (as his friends call him) San Juan is obviously much accomplished. But this is just a Love Note rather than a more formal treatise on his life so let me say that I also adore Sonny because he seems to me to possess and be possessed by a restless and rebellious mind. Such can be gleaned from a poem he wrote as a third-year undergrad student at the University of the Philippines. His "MAN IS A POLITICAL ANIMAL" was published in The Philippine Collegian, July 25, 1957, and got him SUSPENDED because the poem features the F-word in its last line!  How quaint, di ba?   

Well, I and The Halo Halo Review are happy to present for the first time online the poem by E. San Juan Jr.'s  precocious young self--the poem that made Sonny the second poet (after Jose Garcia Villa) to be censured by the University of the Philippines! Sonny was banned from publishing for a year. His poem is for the history books on writing in U.P. in the 1950s.

This image is a photograph of the poem; click on the image to enlarge:

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Joseph O. Legaspi on R. Zamora Linmark

Presented as part of "An Impressionistic Social-Intellectual History of R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's on its 20th Anniversary" in The Asian American Literary Review, Spring 2016, Eds. Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis & Gerald Maa

I Love Chachi: On the 20th Anniversary of Rolling the R's

I’m foggy as to when I first read R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling the R’s. It’s a book that’s been a part of me, like a good friend. You don’t recall when or where or in what circumstance you met because you seem to have known each other all your lives. Every time I flip through its pages, as I do now, on Rolling’s 20th anniversary, it blows open the proverbial floodgates. Torrent of fantastical narratives, pidgin, Tagalog, 70s pop culture, Donna Summer, Farrah Fawcett, Catholicism, attitude, poetry. The book remains defiant, distorting the status quo of Western literature, populating a world with mostly Asians and Asian-Americans with more sass than a drag queen. To some it may be an alternate universe but for me, sufficeth to say, this book encapsulates my adolescence, my  upbringing as a Filipino-american, born int he Philippines, raised in Southern California. An immigrant learning the ways and pitfalls of assimilation. Never have I read characters closer to my own life. Do not underestimate this power. To be confronted by persons, albeit fictive, mirroring what I was then struggling to grasp and confront: sexuality, identity, class and race. I was the self-loathing Nelson. Clueless Mai-Lan. I sold World's Finest chocolate bars to fundraise in high school. Like Edgar, I fantasized about Chachi, or a telegenic equivalent. I may not remember when I first read Rolling, but I recall the feelings when I was reading those passages of gay desire. I shivered. Vexed yet relieved by a deep sense of recognition. I felt warm all ovelr, then cold. I was thrilled by what seemed illicit. I felt wrong. I felt rift. I wouldn't come out for another few years. My world was topsy-turvy then, a whirlwind. Rolling, this coming of age novel, a tornado unto itself, served as a catalyst and an chore. I felt less alone and braver. Brave enough to march forward and eventually live in the open, a life that is ultimately affirming.

*****

Joseph O. Legaspi, a 2015 Fulbright fellow, is the author of Imago (University of Santo Tomas Press (Philippines); CavanKerry Press (U.S.)) and two chapbooks: Aviary Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), winner of the David Blair Memorial Prize,and Subways (Thrush Press). He co-founded Kundiman, a non-profit organization serving Asian American literature.

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Leny M. Strobel on Rene Navarro

Rene Navarro is coming to town and I will finally meet him. I've known of Rene, first through the poet, Eileen Tabios, whose poem, "The Fairy Child's Prayer" (that ends with the phrase and physical gesture, "Fairy Child praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaoling Kung-Fu Fist") was inspired by Rene.

Since being introduced to Rene, I've kept track of his travels to the Philippines, to Southeast Asia, Europe, and around the US, as he taught Daoist healing arts, martial arts, acupuncture, internal alchemy, tai chi, and other modalities that he has mastered through decades of training with various Masters.

Over the years, we’ve exchanged emails mostly talking about Filipino healing arts, Filipino history, decolonization, and Asian healing arts. We would both wonder aloud as to why the indigenous healing modalities in the Philippines have not been well codified as a body of knowledge in the same way that Chinese medicine is, for example. We agreed that there are so many similarities in the practices but the language used is a borrowed one.

With the news of his visit, I visited his website (http://www.renenavarro.org/writings) again and re-read his essays and poems, which reminded me of why he is a kindred soul. From the story of Mang Elio, a babaylan/shaman, who, after much resistance, agreed to teach Rene and take him under his wings to the story and poem about Inday, a maiden who works at the bar who leads Rene into musings about the economics of desire to the instructional essays about internal alchemy—Rene has become the embodiment of wholeness, or as one who walks The Daoist Way.

Every time he travels to Manila he send me news about the trainings he does for the blind massage therapists or the hilots and therapists who work with the victims of Typhoon Yolanda (or Haiyan). Reading about his travels to Bali, Burma, Chiang Mai and all over Southeast Asia as a pilgrim and as a teacher, I can appreciate the long road he has traveled to become a Healer. As someone who gave up being a lawyer to choose to follow the leading of his indigenous soul, he is someone I've kept an eye on for a long time.

I want my Kapwa to know about this Kapampangan healer.

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Eileen R. Tabios on Rene Navarro

I want to show some love to Rene Navarro as he not only is a great healer but also is a wonderful  inspiration (see above Love Note by Leny Strobel). As an example of his inspiration, my encounters with him helped me write one of my favorite poems, "The Fairy Child's Prayer." The poem resulted from an afternoon years ago that I spent with him Bino A. Realuyo in Bino's then-Manhattan apartment. One of the martial arts forms he taught us was the form "Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaolin Kung-Fu Fist."  Here is a photo of Rene in the midst of manifesting that form:
(click on imageS to enlarge)

Here is the poem he inspired (from my book I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED):

What's interesting about this poem is that it's one of the most popular poems I present at poetry readings, not necessarily for its text but for the physical gesture with which I end the reading of this poem -- a gesture from "Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaolin Kung-Fu Fist."  I thank Rene for having taught me this form, and much much more.

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Oliver de la Paz on R. Zamora Linmark

Presented as part of "An Impressionistic Social-Intellectual History of R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's on its 20th Anniversary" in The Asian American Literary Review, Spring 2016, Eds. Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis & Gerald Maa

I was living in Upstate New York back in 2003 when I got the call from Zach. He was apparently in New York City and bored out of his mind. I had never met Zach. In fact, knew very little about him then. The writer Evelina Galang had given him my number because she knew I was roughly (very roughly) in the area. The conversation was a little awkward. He was trying to figure me out and I was trying to figure him out. We circled and circled around topics like who we knew in common, what there was to do once he got to New York, who to meet, and I kept wondering, Who was he? Why was he calling?

Zach was hitting on me. Yes, he hit on me for a good fifteen minutes over the phone. I’ve always been a dense person when it comes to these kinds of things. There came a point, however, when I finally figured out what he was doing and I’m pretty sure he figured I was interested in women. I’m pretty sure we figured each other out right around the same time. Then a whole other cascade of minutes flew by once we got ourselves “straightened out,” so to speak. We said our goodbyes, figured out ways to get in touch with each other, and then that was that.

The very next day I ordered Rolling the R’s. How could I not? I read it quickly from cover to cover on a snowy Saturday. I was intrigued by its polyglot. Its hybridity. Its cacophony. Really, it’s a remarkable novel that’s as shapeshifting as the pop culture that much of it invokes.

Zach’s playful and wonderful conjuring of the 70s immediately brought me back my family’s early years in the U.S. My family had emigrated from the Philippines in 1972 when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. We were part of the “brain drain”—the intellectuals and professionals of the country were leaving in droves, encouraged by the Marcos regime to leave. It’s easy to rule a country when those who could oppose you are gone. And though my family experience and my own family life were different from the Hawaii of Edgar, Vicente, Katrina, Loata, Mai Lan, Florante, and the host of characters in the book, there were enough parallels to my own story of growing up. I grew up in farm and ranch country. An exile of sorts, and in many ways I was awkward and teased in the same way Edgar was for being one of three Asian American students in my high school.

But I had the greatest affinity for Florante, and the piece from the novel that struck me immediately was “Requiem.” The line “Memory is a mosaic of tongues licking dirt, of lies / embroidered to protect the King of Martial Law” was particularly resonant because my family lived it. We had to leave the country because my uncle was on the “blacklist” of the Marcos regime. My father, sensing our danger, immediately stood in line at Camp Creme for a visa enabling my mother, father, and myself to leave. And what ensued was a strange and lonely life that certainly ensured that I would become a writer.

Years later I had the opportunity to read at the University of Miami where both Zach and Evelina work. We had a good laugh remembering our initial awkward exchange. And we rejoiced at having so much in common. 

*****

Oliver de la Paz is the author of four collections of poetry, Names above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, and Post Subject: A Fable. He is the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board.

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Malou Bobu Alorro on Erma M. Cuizon
Erma M. Cuizon: Her Woman Collected Essays published by University of San Carlos Press in 2014. As the title suggests, this is a collection of 30 women stories and insights taken from Erma's essay collections from earlier books Time of Year, Vital Flow and her weekly column of Sunday essays published since 1990 in the newspaper Sunstar Cebu. At the age of 80, Erma tells me in our taxi rides together that she has problems with memory. Each story she has written is memory in abundance. Together most often I share with her a taxi ride going to our monthly meetings with Women and Literary Arts-Cebu team. When I bring her home in the same taxi rides, she tells me to take care and to 'message me' that I reach home safe, as well. But always, she calls me how I have been with that taxi ride. This woman is a traveler. And her books breathe many of life's essentials. Twilight in Misamis is a recent publication but is sourced from way back in Erma's college years when her father prodded her to interview the main character herself, Josefa Borromeo Capistrano, the founder of a resistance group in 1942 called Women Auxiliary Service. 

Erma Cuizon could have stayed in New York City as there had been chances when she was younger, she once told me. But she did not want to stay there. She missed home. In her Woman Collected Essays, she aptly writes as dedication: 'April 2016. Dear Malou, I hope you will be as much a woman as before you read this book. Love, Erma'. And with the Twilight in Misamis book, she writes me: 'June 21, 2016. Dear Malou, Sometimes we over-show the women sense but it's there everywhere as where you and me are. Happy reading. Erma.'

I walk with Erma to help her with the balance. She prefers that she holds my arms so, as she says, 'she's in control.' She told me once that the Capistrano book needs a sequel from another memory of scenes after the war. And I gladly offered, I could ask my mom to write her journals and that will probably do. And she agrees. And Erma is a poet too.

In her 80s she seeks the ever familiar sounds and rhythms
Of a book launch
The readings there, the awes
There will be laughter at the cocktails and books to be signed as well
There will be selfies and noddings of faces familiar
And after all has been said and done
There will be taxi rides with Erma M. Cuizon.

Today I am in the middle of reading Erma's Women In The House, a finalist in the National Books Awards in 2006.

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Tony Robles on Jason Bayani

Love to Fil Am author Jason Bayani. Jason takes the jigsaw pieces that make up the love's landscape of the body and heart and puts it together, connecting history, memory, contradictions, the ludicrous and shapes it into verses that insert our strength, perseverance and integrity. In a genuine dissection of who and what we are, he gives us a serving of love through his poetry.

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Eileen R. Tabios on Edilberto K. Tiempo

Unexpectedly receiving a review of one of Edilberto K. Tiempo's books (Monica Macansantos' review of his novel To Be Free) for Halo-Halo Review encouraged me to write this Love Note for fictionist and educator Mr. Tiempo. I've never met him. But I heard about him -- and his wife, poet Edith Tiempo -- for many years from my mother Beatriz Tabios. Before the Tiempos created the official Silliman University Writers' Workshop, they taught my mother. It was Mr. Tiempo who encouraged Mom to continue on for her Master's, during which she'd come to write a thesis that was one of the earliest studies of "local color" (Philippine references) in Filipino English-language literature. It can be enough to write and publish. But it is also useful for there to be critical (including scholarly) analyses on a writer's work -- Mr. Tiempo obviously understood this. It was the middle of the 20th century and Filipino English-language writings were relatively new, with critical reception still not common as reception lags behind creation. Encouraged by Mr. and Mrs. Tiempo, my mother wrote her thesis and treasured that achievement for decades. After receiving her Master's from Silliman, my mother became an English teacher. For making such a huge positive impact on my mother and her life, I am deeply grateful to Mr. Tiempo. I hope we all have experienced and/or find such teachers during our schoolings.