Impulses
Pitiful poetry
For years, I thought that poetry is just another overrated discipline that is hyped by equally glorified scholars forcing people to believe that it is so vital to human beings like breathing while you sing the last part of the national anthem for the opening fight of Manny Pacquiao and Jorge Solis. It's like a front-seat ticket to a prized fight of the century. No stub, no jab; no poem, no being.
I was wrong.
Let me explain my feel.
I am correct in believing that poetry is an essential ingredient in the battle for humane existence (or whatever it means in the existential level). I am correct that there are puffed-up Shakespearean wannabes out there waiting to devour struggling poets by stabbing their attempt pieces like torture as if they have the license to kill issued by their seem-to-be omnipotent persona.
What is wrong is the idea that poetry is overrated. It isn't. It is rather undervalued, sad to say.
The gap between what we think and feel and how we say and write using words is still out there waiting to be entirely bridged. That's where poetry, a powerful tool that effectively suggests more operational and creative ways to express oneself, comes in.
Poetry attempts to communicate unspeakable aspects of human experience. It is structured like a garment that shapes and clothes the thought within us making the translation of the concept into words more authentic, supposedly avoiding misconceptions, among others.
But why is it that writing poetry is not that popular even as a hobby nowadays compared to playing computers (or to the PC geeks, it means letting computers play them) or watching the idiot tube (take note the stress in the word idiot)? Most people will solve the sudoku challenge or watch the Pinoy Big Brother (alleged) reality show than scribbling notes for a literary attempt.
Maybe it's because of the kind of push-button generation that we have now: More visual and kinesthetic; everything should be cooked or turned on at an instant. Maybe people don't have the liberty of time anymore. Maybe poetry for them is ironically too abstract to handle.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm no poetry expert. All I wanted to say is that poetry mustn't be a dying proposition. Something must be done to save it. Better yet, something must be done to save us.
* * *
In my previous article, I listed down the different luwas penned by some grade school and high school students of Ateneo de Iloilo as they continue their 6th Ripples Creative Writing Plus Seminar-Workshop facilitated in by Palanca awardee Prof. John Iremil Teodoro.
Today, we go to the different haikus, tankas and limericks that these students put in writing yesterday.
Let's have the haiku.
By the way, haiku, like tanka, is poetry in Japanese verse poem. It is notable for its compression and suggestiveness. It consists of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Traditionally and ideally, a haiku presents a pair of contrasting images, one suggestive of time and place, the other a vivid but fleeting observation.
Taken from the Encarta, here's a haiku by the poet Bashō, considered to have written the most perfect examples of the form:
Now the swinging bridge
Is quieted with creepers ...
Like our tendrilled life.
Now let's have the Filipino version of haikus from Ateneo de Iloilo students:
Sophomore Daphne Barce says:
Lumubog ang araw
Dumilim ang kalangitan
Ang mukha ng buwan
Desiree Allen Cadiena laments:
Mula sa langit,
Tinulak siya ng apoy
Sunog ang pakpak
Marielle Jacomille cries:
Nahuhulog na'ng
Pinakahuling dahon...
Paalam na
Titled Bukang Liwayway, Roeyna Famisaran notices:
Sa 'king bintana
Bumungad ang liwanag
Sa 'yong pagsikat
Ilych Mana-ay spots:
Ang pulang dagat
May tahinik na bangka
Magkasintahang kumakanta
Now tanka is a form structured around alternating lines of 5 and 7 syllables. It has five lines with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7, resulting in a poem of 31 syllables.
Here are some of the excellent tanka masterpieces, at least in the point of view of Prof. Teodoro, of some of Ateneo's aspiring poets:
Desiree Allen Cadiena weeps:
Pawis at dugo
Ang pina-ulan dito
'di na mabilang
Ang natambak na bangkay
Wala na yatang humpay
Cadiena further emotes:
Nasisilawan
Sa maningning na bituin
Muntik mabulag
Sasisindak sa araw
Sa kanya pumupukaw
Romellaine Arsenio wonders:
Nasa mesa na
Ang maiinit mong kapeng
Aking tinimpla
Ba't dinaanan mo lang
Kape ko'y lumamig na?
Arsenio assures:
Hawak-hawak ka
Ang rosas na mapula
Kahit may tinik
Ngayo'y hawak ko pa rin
Masugatan man ako
In the grade school group, students were also taught how to make limericks. This is a humorous verse form, the subject of which is often nonsensical but the structure is strictly prescribed. This definite pattern consists of five anapestic lines. Lines one, two, and five contain three metrical feet, and rhyme; lines three and four contain two metrical feet, and rhyme.
Here's one example by English painter and humorist Edward Lear from his Book of Nonsense:
There was an Old Man of the Coast
Who placidly sat on a post;
But when it was cold,
He relinquished his hold,
And called for some hot buttered toast.
Here are some of the renditions of our Ateneo de Iloilo elementary student writers:
Gerrod Villaruz quips:
If I can see you holding a softdrink
I can immediately make my eyes wink
Then, you felt a stomachache
Mother rushed you to the lake
Amazingly, in just one blink.
Elizabeth Toledo marvels:
He met a poor little girl
Who loves to twirl, twirl and twirl
and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and at
I wonder if her cat likes to swirl
Toledo tells:
While riding in our new car
I saw a bright falling star
I bowed and made a wish
To have two big gold fish
In a big glass of imported jar
Ennah Faye Tolentino marks:
There was a little girl named Anne
Bringing with her a fan
She wants to reach
The Boracay beach
To get Boracay tan
Anya Isabella Cordero thinks over:
My dessert is a yellow jelly
I eat it, it goes down my belly
It wiggles and wobbles,
Just like big blue bubbles
I'll earn money if I do a little selly.
Anya carps:
There was once a big wimp
Who acted like a chimp
When I say something, he would run
I don't feel like having much fun
Because my friend is such a wimp
The brother, Adrian Paolo Cordero, kids:
There was once a big bird
His voice was never heard
When he sneaks around
No sound is abound
Except his farting that is absurd
Paolo further jests:
There was a big lump
On a camel's hump
The lump was so ugly
Its form was so bugly
If you would see it, you would jump
Ma. Patrice Gabito views:
Once there was a model
Who loves to read a novel
She likes to have fun
Around and under the sun
And is still flat like a shovel
That's it for today dear friends. Need I say more?
***
Engr. Herman M. Lagon may be reached through h_lagon@yahoo.com.