Interview with the Poet of The Door Opens …
By Eileen Tabios
Book Description:
Ysabel San Pedro Schuld’s The Door Opens… is a debut poetry collection that explores self-discovery, transformation, and resilience. The poet chronicles her journey of identity through experience determinism, confronting fears and embracing change.
The collection is divided into three thematic angles:
● The unpredictability of life (The Ride, Everlasting Flow, Oh What a Bummer!)
● The intensity of love (Love, Take Me, A Stunt, Marriage, Ten Thousand Kisses)
● Overcoming fears and embracing purpose (Amen, Over the Moon, Crying for Dawn, The Being of It All)
Through vivid imagery and raw emotion, Schuld captures the essence of love, loss, and personal evolution, culminating in an empowering declaration: “I am not done yet. The door opens, and we are here to conquer.”
ET: I like your concept of the book as a door; hence your meta-title: The Door Opens… That title and many poems present the poetry collection's voice as one of a philosopher. Can you share about yourself as a thinker—what you think about, what impactful lessons you have learned, and so on.
YSS: The recurring image of the door is more than a metaphorical ornamentation; it is the book's governing philosophy. At its core, its philosophy is experiential spirituality. I coined the philosophy, Experience Determinism (ED) fused with creative surrender.
Life does not wait for certainty.
The door opens briefly.
You step through – or you don’t.
It rejects victimhood, nostalgia, and regret. It does not romanticize suffering, but it extracts meaning from it.
This book does not confess or preach its message. It asserts life is not shaped by certainty, doctrine, safety but by lived encounters. Secondly, Transformation happens when one chooses movement over paralysis. (Listening to Mumford and Son’s song snippet, Anchor, I can’t say I am sorry when I am always on the run.)
Thirdly, Faith, love, art, and identity are not inherited – they are entered.
How did I become a thinker? Honestly, I did not know what I wanted as a child. When I was a teenager, I kept to myself. I regularly read not Mills and Boone (although I read some) but the detective stories of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mysteries. It was this momentum and willingness to risk one’s comfort zone to enter into the world of the unknown. Although they end up solving mysteries, it was the thrill of trial and error, the element of risk that seems sacred and holy.
When I started writing in the Scholastican college magazine of St Scholastica’s, it was the becoming of a writer not arriving as an accomplished writer that propelled me to take the so-called leap of faith.
Then I took the class, Philosophy of Man under Mario Bolasco. It pricked my cocoon of comfort and complacency. I wrestled with freedom vs. obedience, desire vs. surrender, love as sweetness vs love as weapon, agency vs divine orchestration among others. Later, we learned about existentialism of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Rilke and the mystics and life of the Saints, like St Ignatius, St, Therese, St. Paul, St. Peter among others.
There are lessons I learned:
Do I walk in it? Do I hesitate? Do I turn around? Do I stay still? Do I pray first?
First, this line shows that over thinking can be spiritual avoidance. Hesitation is a form of loss. Faith is not delay, faith is action
Second, Identity is forged through disruption. Fires, floods, protests, divorce, migration, reinvention—these are not detours, they are the forge. Stability never taught me who I was, movement did.
Third, love is not pursued. It reveals itself. The book shows love cannot be controlled, cannot be forced, arrives when ego loosens its grip. It means love in all its different configurations whether romantic, creative, platonic, and divine.
Fourth, writing is survival, not vanity. Writing is not presented as ambition or career. It is oxygen, witness, resistance, prayer. When writing is buried, the soul contracts, when it resurfaces, so does purpose.
Lastly, God is encountered in lived reality, not an abstraction. God appears in protests, tempests, in work, in exile, in love, in the door opening.
ET: This is your first poetry book. How long have you been writing poems and what made you decide to release a poetry book?
YSS: Yes, I was writing poetry in my college days in the early 80s. At first, I wrote a lot of love songs, too. In 1981, I submitted poems to Caracoa literary journal and they published my poems in their Break Text edition in 1983. I submitted also in chapbooks and journals in America. I put it on a long pause when I think it would no longer matter. In 1989, I got into journalism then, public relations writing.
After 30 years, I realized I still have the drive to share and communicate something to the world. About this portal, it begins when certainty ends. I call this threshold. The door is not a symbol, it is existential. I decided the time was on my side thus the book came about.
This book is not a confession that asks for absolution or a memoir that seeks to justify choices. It is an offering a record of awakenings, missteps, courage, and grace. It is a testimony of a woman shaped by movement across geographies, identities, loves, and beliefs. I do not present answers. I present a life lived attentively.
This book invites you not to agree, but to listen—to your own thresholds, your own hesitations, your own doors, what matters is not whether you are certain, prepared, or unafraid. What matters is whether, when the moment comes, you choose to step through.
In a nutshell, I learned fear is not the enemy, stagnation is. Two, faith is not stillness, it is courage in motion. And love is eternal not because it is safe, but because it is chosen again and again.
ET: Partly related to the above questions, what are some of your favorite reading materials (not just books) and who are some of your favorite writers, including poets? Would you consider other poets’ poems to have influenced or added you in some way?
YSS: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, and the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It talks of a journey and a quest of self-discovery and fulfillment that leads to transformation. I believe fear is not the monster … but stagnation. I do not read much poetry these days but before I read Sylvia Plath, Maya-Angelou, Susan Sontag, Mike Bigornia, Jose Garcia Villa, among others. I also like playwrights like Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and August Strindberg; philosophers like Soren Kierkegaard and Jean Paul Sartre; new generation poets like Rupi Kaur and Nayyirah Waheed; and novelist Haruki Murakami. I read self-help authors like Deepak Chopra and Eckart Tolle. One thing is certain: I am more inspired today than when I was thirty years ago. I believe in the timeless proverb, “Silence is Golden.”
ET: I get the impression you are a Catholic. Please correct me if I am wrong. Either way, can you share how your faith might affect or influence your poetry.
YSS: Yes, I was born and raised a Roman Catholic and have been to Catholic schools from kindergarten to college. Although, when I was 25, I had a wandering heart trying to explore other faiths like attending a Mormon ceremony; I even tried to see if I fit into Jaguar Guru’s Hari Krishna worship events. But these were merely transitional yearnings for discerning and understanding God’s perfect ways. I believe I do not need to change for its own sake.
My poetry frames faith not as a doctrine or insulation from suffering. It is a lived encounter—discovered in storms, exile, protest, labor, and silence. God is not found in withdrawal from the world, but in full participation in it. Prayer does not always precede action; sometimes action is the prayer. Risk is holy.
God is encountered through motion, not stillness. It is a spiritual autobiography of motion. A life understood as a series of Yeses to uncertainty. Faith is not ornamental, it is operational.
I have worked and lived fully, fallen honestly, and risen without apology.
ET: I feel your poem “I care” is among the collection’s most powerful. Let us share it here with Halo Halo Review. And please discuss the poem, perhaps including the very important topic of Overseas Filipino Contract workers (OFWs).
YSS: The poem “I care” talks about the unsung hero, the Overseas Filipino Contract worker, who sacrifices everything to feed, support and give comfort to their family back home in the Philippines. The 2023 NCSO Statistics show that the male vis-à-vis female ratio is skewed. At least 58% of OFWs are female and rest are male.
The nurturing selfless surrender of the woman in this poem shows she is the light of the home—ilaw nang tahanan is powerful in her home and in her work.
Ten years later, when she goes home unannounced, the false victory of truth sears her to the bone—the family she cared for dearly bit her by the hand as the last few lines evoke.
After ten years
I go home
My husband is with a baby
My daughter’s at a party
My son’s playing pool
I care
I cared too much
Too much
They couldn’t care less.
ET: Let’s have you choose a poem—perhaps your favorite—for sharing with Halo-Halo Review. After choosing, please share something about the poem that may not be (explicitly) revealed in the poem itself, perhaps its underlying inspiration.
YSS: San Juanico Bridge dubbed the Bridge of Love has stood majestic and resilient in floods and tempests. Urban legend says it is strengthened by the blood of workers who toiled to build it as well as the tortured souls during the martial law reign of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. I had to pass this way not once but twice to fully embrace the saints of the forgotten.
San Juanico
San Juanico
The saints of the forgotten
You stood
Erect and perfect
in passion and prayer
San Juanico
You are our savior
You are our lifeblood
San Juanico
The saints of the forgotten
You stood
Erect and perfect
in passion and prayer
You never forget
You are our savior
You help us move on
San Juanico
We cannot live without.
ET: Describe your attitude regarding the ellipsis. You use it in several poems as well as the title. What is the difference to you if the title didn’t have the ellipsis?
YSS: The use of the ellipsis is to let the reader think freely of the suspended thought. I aim not to amuse them of the dots as a slip of the mind omission but to let them fill it in.
The Door opens, ready or not. The Door Opens is always waiting. Time is our teacher. God is our companion. Love is eternal not because it is untouched by suffering but survives it.
If the title does not have an ellipsis, it restricts movement as though it does not have a heart that is eager to consent to grace. A free will that enters the world of the unknown. You do not have to be truly prepared and ready to enter I leave it up to you since the door is waiting. It does not argue, it is a passage that you need to take. Hesitate and it could be your loss.
ET: Do you have a targeted reader or audience for the poems in the book? It has only been a few months since the book has been released but can you share some feedback you received to date on book’s poems?
YSS: it is not a conventional memoir nor a poetry collection alone nor a devotional. It is a spiritual autobiography of motion: a feminist spiritual narrative or even a faith-infused existential writing.
The backbone is this: the door does not open because you are ready. You become ready because you step through it.
This is a book for someone who hates stagnation. Someone whose faith is to take courage in motion. Someone who believes love is eternal, not because it is safe, but because it is chosen again and again.
The collection has strong potential in the niche of experimental, spiritually infused poetry and prose. It would appeal to readers of authors like Rupi Kaur, Nayyirah Waheed, or even Kahlil Gibran—those seeking raw emotion, vulnerability, and spiritual exploration over conventional plot. The challenge lies in its genre fluidity; it is not a traditional poetry book, nor is it a memoir, the collection defies categorization.
I can share the feedback from Cymbeline Villamin. The Halo Halo Review publishes her review HERE.
*****
Ysabel San Pedro Schuld aka Ysabel San Pedro aka Ysabel San Pedro McDonald was born and raised in the Philippines. In 2025 she released a collection of poems entitled, The Door Opens…
She worked as a freelance journalist and correspondent with Philippine Daily Inquirer from 2006 to 2008 and the Hongkong based Asia Technology magazine from 1989 to 1990; and as senior researcher and writer for Anzor Public Relations in the 1990s. She has contributed to various journals like Saipan based Umanidat Journal, Philippines’ Caracao Journal; Quill Books; Wayfarer Magazine; The National Library of Poetry; The Asian Reporter; What’s on in Manila Magazine; The American Poetry Association; Department of Science and Technology Science Technology Information Institute Journal and FOR aka Friends of Repertory newsletter, among others.
She also has worn many hats as an economic development researcher, executive secretary, high school and ESL teacher at Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands as well as a home equity and account resolution specialist in a bank where she worked for 23 years, among others. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she has worked as a medical Tagalog interpreter for the past 11 years.
Eileen R. Tabios has released books of poetry, fiction, essays, art and experimental prose from publishers around the world. Recent publications include a children’s book Tata Efren’s Forever Laughter (with Mel Vera Cruz and Jeannie E. Celestial); the novels The Balikbayan Artist and DoveLion; the poetry collections Engkanto in the Diaspora and Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography The Inventor; the short story collections The Erotic Space Around Art Objectsand Getting To One; and an art monograph Drawing Six Directions. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.com
Congratulations, Ysabel!
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