FRESHET POETICS

"One of the most beautiful words in English describes these waters streams where a river becomes the sea—they are called freshets."

"...what is being Filipino? For me, it is the grand conspiracy to be ourselves—once more or at last, or for the first time ever. I don't know what or where it is, when it is going to be. It is both an act and a possibility...Maybe it is a place, a feeling, a heart, a memory. The memory of one and the memory of many. It is a decision to remember. It is the rejection of oblivion."
--Marne Kilates

Have you been reading one of the greatest Filipino poets out there -- Marne Kilates? Coz you should have been. And if you want to know where I'll be for the first half of August, you can read him too HERE and HERE as he's synchronistically blogging about the Ilocos, my birthplace and also for "19th CENTURY ILOCANO POET Leona Florentino, [who] couldn't study because he was a woman, privately instructed first by her mother, then by a priest, both of [whom] saw her talent early, before long her poem was included in an in an international anthology published in France".

Leona is one of the three poets to whom I dedicated Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole...where, in the U.S., I began this freshet turning into YOUR sea, oh lovely Peeps.

And Marne's photos! Gorgeous. Check 'em out to see the logic as to why your Chatelaine is hirself quite GAWWWWW-JUUUUICE!

"SONG": MOI POETICS

I am so happy and grateful we in the Bay Area had a chance to celebrate kari edwards' life and poetry...

When I translated kari edward's poem -- for Friday evening's memorial celebration (see prior post), it was the first time I'd translated a poem into Ilokano, my first language. I had never thought before to translate something into Ilokano because I don't consider myself fluent in it anymore; I was ten years old when I left the Philippines to become 100% immersed in English. But as I told the SPT audience, I felt compelled to translate kari into my birth tongue because I have always felt inexplicably at home in hir poetry.

The process was revelatory. First, I translated the English to Ilokano -- the text being translated was all numbers (which I chose for numers' transgenderedness). But I could only remember the Ilokano words from 1 to 10. So when I was faced with a number larger than ten to translate, I would translate its addition to that sum. For instance, I would translate "25" into the Ilokano words that meant "ten plus ten plus five".

What this facilitated was a number of repetitions of words -- since the vocabulary being used was only ten words -- that then generated a certain rhythm....that then led to my first poem-as-chant. It's why I entitled the poem "Chant for kari".

I felt aflight as I began reading-only-to-end-up-chanting the Ilokano poem. And winging it as I read/chanted, I began to play with modulations of tone.

I felt the poem as pure abstract sound -- as pure song. It is, I feel, the most pure "song" poem I've ever written.

And that the (Ilokano) texts in it were technically/formally garbled or grammatically erroneous (as well as undoubtedly misspelled) just proved again something that I said, too, in my introduction to the poem-reading when I pointed to a black box scribbled against a page in kari's iduna as my favorite "poem", -- a black box that is illegible -- "Poetry is not words."

Later, Rebecca who was in the audience encouraged me to pod-cast the reading. I, the luddite, just said, Huh? But then Rebecca also suggested something that came to mind as I was chanting the poem -- that the poem for kari would be great with a kulintang collaborator. I appreciated hearing that -- I like the notion of gongs while chanting.

I translated the poem an hour before I left for SPT where I performed it for the first time. This meant that I hadn't yet fully developed the performative aspect of the poem. But now that I see its possibilities, I can see that kari left me with yet another gift. kari is always so good at *engendering* effects. Thank you, kari.

And another effect of the exercise is that, now, I'm looking to translate other poems into Ilokano. But I wish specifically to use my Ilokano to be what words I remember; that is, I don't wish to relearn Ilokano so that I can translate. I wish to work within the limits of, not Ilokano per se, but (my) "diasporic Ilokano."

I think that will work since my aim is pure sound.

And in this process, I also hope to combine two thoughts from Jose Garcia Villa:

young Jose: Poetry is music.

older Jose: I used to think a poem should sing; now I believe, a poem should think.