This Feature presents readers sharing some love about the talent of Filipino writers and artists. 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 writers and artists (let alone the dead) don't get to hear enough from others who engage with their works (some may not even know all who comprise their audience). To know someone read their stories and poems or appreciated their artistry is to receive a gift. Just share from your heart. It will be more than enough. DEADLINE: April 15, 2025 for Issue #19. Duplications of authors/artists and more than one testimonial are fine.
Mangozine's Issue #18 Presents
Maya Escudero on Beverly Parayno
Oscar V. Campomanes on Grace Talusan
Grace Talusan's THE BODY PAPERS: The language is quite demotic, in a strangely gut-wrenching way, in full accord—nay, in apt consonance—with the rawness of the affects being expressed at every turn; at every encounter with pain and hurt; and at every crossing that sometimes succeeds, and often fails.
It is a brash and fresh confessional that dares to court—yet remains fearless in the face of—the reader's/Other's judgment/s.
If, as one fabled theorist of the autobiography puts it, the writing about a life is the making of it, then THE BODY PAPERS does that with such invigorating élan, such inspiring brio!
Get your copy and read it, and be ready to get gripped, pronto!
Ante’s collection also provides an argument for looking into non-literary language for making poems. Which is to say, making poetry be truly in the world—a true world that’s much larger than the literary. Note how even the title makes use of such: antiemetic—a word I learned by reading her poetry—is a drug that is effective against vomiting and nausea. Antiemetics are typically used to treat motion sickness and the side effects of opioid analgesics, general anesthetics, and chemotherapy directed against cancer. Such diseases can become easy metaphors for the migration experience.
The above elements powerfully manifest in the opening poem “Half Empty” that fittingly bears the epigraph:
“The Philippines must be half-empty; you’re all here running the NHS.”—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
NHS stands for the National Health Service, England’s publicly funded healthcare system. The epigraph is a good way to root the collection as it leads into the poet’s migration stories. The effect is occasionally heartbreaking, turning the word “resilience” into an obscenity. Such is the power of longing. Such is the power of her poetry.
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Leny M. Strobel on Justine Villanueva
I was told that there was a small group of Filipino Americans in Detroit who gathered around a Fire one starry night in late Summer and they read aloud Mungan and Lola to each other. Afterwards, as if Mungan had kindled something in their bones, they started telling stories about their nearly-forgotten Lolas. Stories of affection, of love and care, of struggle and survivance. Their tears flowed as the Story wove its medicine into their hearts.
I am crying as I write this, too. I am remembering the first time I met the story of Mungan in Herminia Coben’s Verbal Arts in Philippine Indigenous Communities: Poetics, Society, History (2010). Mungan, the first Babaylan of the Manobo peoples, lives inside the epic of Agyu. I wrote this love note to her then and I made a promise that I will keep her story alive. So I passed on her story to a few people who I trusted that they would want to live with her as well. https://lenystrobel.medium.com/mungan-the-first-babaylan-6cd70bdfa1bf
Now I hold this book, Mungan and Lola, illustrated by Ray Nazarene Sunga, in my hands and I can see the imprint of Mungan’s spirit as manifested by Justine and her collaborators. A community (200+) came together from Bukidnon to Turtle Island to bring together Mungan’s story to you. They are artists, book designers, translators, educators, culture-bearers, community members, funders. In this book, Mungan is a child who wants to heal Lola's sadness. Written in three languages – Binukid, Bisaya, English – and illustrated with the vibrant colors of the earth in the lands of the Bukidnon, Higaonon, Talaandig, Manobo, Matigsalug, Tigwahanon, Umayamnon peoples – Mungan comes alive!
In the Filipino diaspora, Eileen Tabios’ invention of the hay-na-ku poetic form narrates the story of how Mungan healed Lola's sadness. In these 3-2-1 or 1-2-3 line formats, I dive into words like minghoy, agkaulian, getek and I can taste the delicious and heartwarming sensuousness of our indigenous languages. As Mungan prods her Lola to tell more stories about her life, she realizes that Lola’s storied life and memories needed to be retold and shared.
As Justine remembers that the medicine of Story needs to be carried forward with a reverence of approach and care, the book includes sections on “Rituals of Care”, “Remembering Filipino American History”, “Honoring our Ancestors”, “About the Hay(na)ku”, and “Mental Health Check in with Sample Lesson Plan”. And on the front and back pages the Butterfly and the names of our Lolas live on.
This is how you make a book. This is how you make a Story come alive. This is how you make Medicine.
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Maya Escudero on Beverly Parayno
Wildflowers is exquisitely written…and I am really enjoying the stories…savoring each character’s development...and wondering “what’s going to happen next? I want more!” as the story ends on an emotional cliff!
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