EILEEN TABIOS Engages
BALIKBAYANG MAHAL: Passages from Exile by E. San Juan, Jr.
(Philippine Studies Center, Washington D.C., 2007/2017)
My exposure to E. San Juan, Jr.’s poetry has been haphazard
over the years, in part because much of his original poetry has been in
Pilipino and published in the Philippines (I’m not fluent in Pilipino as I
emigrated to the U.S. as a young child). My first readings of his writings
probably were of his scholarly works as he is as well known as a scholar as a
poet, and I didn’t have a reason to have a prolonged dialogue with him until
1998/99 when I included one of his essays in my edited book THE ANCHORED ANGEL, a book on Jose
Garcia Villa put out by Kaya. All this is to say that I robustly welcomed my
read of his poetry collection, BALIKBAYANG MAHAL: Passages from Exile.
Since BALIKBAYANG MAHAL comes out in 2017 (updating a 2007
edition), it also bears the point of view of a seasoned human being—one who’s
fully gone through the Philippine diaspora and traveled around the world. As
such, there’s a spirit of elegy that wreathes through its pages. That
impression is based on my first read-through of the book, and re-readings
certainly will cause other emotions to well-up: enjoyment at his finely-turned
phrases and music, amusement at his wit, appreciation at the expanse of his
address, and so on.
But it is hard to disregard its most discernible undertone:
grief. And its presence makes sense
given its theme(s): “balikbayang” refers to the Filipino/a returning to the
Philippines after sojourns outside the country’s borders, and “mahal” means
love. To be balikbayan means to have been part of the Philippine diaspora that
encompasses how the Philippines is the world’s third largest recipient of
remittances from its overseas workers (World Bank, 2015). An entire culture of
loss, homesickness and sacrifice has surfaced from its diasporic history. A publisher’s
book description includes: “Less
a Baedeker for remembering or reaching a destination, this palimpsest of
tropes/signs hopes to construct zones of departure for discovering new
territory built out of a history of collective sacrifices grounding our dreams
and desires.”
For Dr. San Juan, his experiences have been more “white
collar” than most, given his scholarly and intellectual background (which can
be summarized by Wikipedia):
Epifanio San Juan Jr., also known as E. San
Juan Jr. (born December 29, 1938), at Sta. Cruz, Manila, Philippines), 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. As an author of
books on race and cultural studies, he was a “major influence on the academic
world”.He was the director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs,
Connecticut in the United States. 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.
His intellect, though, has enervated his poetry, not always
the case for those in the academy (cough). He has managed to hang on to a
welcome lyricism while offering references earned through a philosophical bent,
including the political (as regards the latter, I consider him my “favorite
Communist” though that’s more a personal rather than critical assessment). For example, this excerpt
from “PUNTA SPARTIVENTO” is no less than an address to “Beloved” even as it
hearkens “violated victims”:
[Click on images below to enlarge]
His knowledge results in a poem like “VICISSITUDES OF THE
LOVE AND DEATH OF VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY” excerpted here—
—though the travails of the Balikbayan are also explicitly
parsed, as in the book’s title poem; here’s an excerpt:
Further befitting the Balikbayan theme, the book also
presents his English and Filipino poems translated into Russian, German, Italian
and Chinese. These translations don’t intrude—they, rather, highlight the
collection’s wide expanse.
I had read other poems before by “Sonny,” as the doctor
allows me to call him. But for me, BALIKBAYANG MAHAL is also an effective
introduction to his poetry. It is effective in that it is mostly
pleasure-inducing in the way great poetry collections are. Whether, therefore,
one is steeped in Philippine history or affairs or not, BALIKBAYANG MAHAL is
recommended for poetry lovers. Let me
close with one of my favorites--it is a favorite poem for being successful despite including such non-poetic words like "capitalism" or the "Stock... Exchange," which is to say, it widens what an unsuspecting reader had assumed to be poetry's expanse:
*****
Eileen R. Tabios loves books and has released over 40
collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental (auto)biographies from
publishers in eight countries and cyberspace. More information is available at http://eileenrtabios.com
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