A POEM FOR LEONARD CO

ON A CHANCE ENCOUNTER* WITH A FRIEND:

A POEM FOR LEONARD CO

-  Nonilon Q. Queano

     “LEONARD CO’S life (which lasted a few weeks short of 57 years)

was much too brief, but it was a life that overflowed with professional

 accomplishments and friendships.

     Friends are ephemeral, ships passing by in the night as the saying goes.

Leonard built friendships that spanned the years.”

                          - Michael Tan, “Pinoy Kasi, Leonard Co,”

                           Philippine Daily Inquirer, 12/01/2010.

I would have thought I knew

Bright days from dreary dark

And seen red dawns

Breaking but clearly

Upon forests and greening trees;

I would have thought

There always would be singing,

Even from voids of blue

Though roads creep out

As chance meetings come and go.

It was even perhaps with bravado

That I regarded contradictions

And struggles, inevitable

Oh I could project them all

Confidently,

With the palmate light of wisdom,

Until it happened.

We met in a crowded mall

(Of all places),

I tagged him on the shoulder

As he walked past,

 Instantly, he beamed,

His chinky eyes cusped behind glasses

(I had always looked at him amusedly,

Like I would at some strange soul

I’d meet every now and then)

We hardly talked but connected

As old friends who knew so little of each other,

Briefly, sealed our friendships in some half-hug,

At parting,

Then walked our separate ways so nonchalantly

I had not even had time to think

How long  it would take us to meet again.

But it was quick

A few days, his bullet riddled body was splashed

On the front page of the dailies,

With the story of how soldiers

Allegedly mistook him for an NPA rebel,

Shot him then and there.

The look of horror drawn on his face,

His arms covering up as he begged for mercy.

Leonard Co, the much- respected, much-loved

Lead botanist in the country,

The great scientist taxonomist who discovered

Rafflesia leonardi, the plant that bore his name.

Leonard Co, the poet-friend I hardly knew.

What arrogance had I to believe that I understood fully:

That I could explain the contradictions in capitalism,

The struggle against imperialist plunder,

Life and death and the romance of split selves,

The sun, the moon, greenfields, forests, and mountains;

Yet through it all, hard put to making out

The idiocy of the band of killer soliders

Who murdered my poor friend.

And I had not even time to think

Of when or if ever we would meet again.

*Three or four days before the murder of Leonard Co, I bumped into him at SM North Mall on that heavily congested narrow corridor bridge between D’Block and the old, main building.

A GUERILLA FIGHTER'S PLEDGE

A GUERILLA FIGHTER’S PLEDGE

- Noni V. Queano/5December2010

(Translated by the author from his original Tagalog poem, “Panata ng Mandirigma”)

After goodbyes are said  or memories forgot,

Loneliness would sometimes come

Suddenly, like a woman in black,

Emerging from the dark forest.

But always the guerilla will dash out to flee,

A twister speeding,

A hurricane blasting the void.

Yet his comrades will not notice

In their silent trek.

The many times spent serving the masses

Would  have been enough to make him forget.

Yesterday was the people’s march

Against the education budget cuts,

To continue to sound the call for justice

For the murdered farmers at the Hacienda,

For the murder of Leonard Co,

To denounce  the plagiarism incident at the Supreme Court,

For the 58 innocent victims of the Ampatuan massacre,

To give support to the impoverished in the kuliglig assault,

And today,  THE HUNGER STRIKE TO DEMAND FREEDOM FOR THE MORONG 43

(Alas, when will the goddamned President ever learn?)

What if the muse leaves?

How will the self measure up

In the face of poverty, injustice, and grief over their dead afflicting the masses?

The guerilla fighter will carry on the struggle

And the poet, always keep eye on

The mountain, forest, and greenfields.

PANATA NG MANLALAKBAY

PANATA NG MANDIRIGMA

- Noni V. Queano/5December2010

Tila nakaitim na dilag,

Minsa’y dadalaw ang panglaw,

Pagkaraang mamaalam o dapuan ng alaala.

Bubulaga sa dilim ng gubat.

Ngunit lagi’y mapapaigtad at pupulas,

Ang gerilyerong ipu-ipo sa tulin,

Tila unos na hahampas sa kawalan.

Wala namang mamamalay ang kasama.

Sa tahimik na paglakad.

Ilang panahong pakikipamuhay sa masa’y

Sapat na ring makalimot.

Kahapon, ang martsang bayan

Laban sa kaltas-badyet sa edukasyon,

Sa kawalan ng hustisya,

Sa magsasakang pinatay sa asyenda,

Sa pagpaslang kay Leonard Co,

Sa plahiyarismo ng huwes ng Kataas-taasang hukuman,

Sa limampu’t walong minasaker sa Ampatuan,

Sa inaping mga dukha ng kuliglig

At ngayo’y ang hunger strike

Ng apatnapu’t tatlong health workers sa Morong

Na sukat lang ikinulong.

(A, kailan pa matututo ang tinamaan ng lintik na pangulo!)

Ano ba kung ang musa’y mamaalam?

Papaano susukatin ang sarili

Sa harap ng masang nalugmok

Sa hirap, inhustisya, dalamhati sa napaslang?

Patuloy ang manlalakbay sa paglaban

At makata’y patuloy ring magmamasid

Sa bundok, gubat, at parang.

SYLLABUS FOR POETRY WORKSHOP 1

POETRY WORKSHOP 1

Syllabus

References:

Della Volpe, Galvano. Critique of Taste. New York:  New Left Books, 1978.  (CT)

Adorno, Theodor W. Notes to Literature.Volume 1. Translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen.  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1991.  (NL)

Eagleton, Terry and Drew Milne, eds. Marxist Literary Theory, A Reader. Cambridge, Massachusetts:  Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 1996.    (MLT)

Perrine, Laurence and Thomas R. Arp.  Sound and Sence, An Introduction to Poetry.  Orlando, Florida:  Harcourt Brace and Company, 1992. (SS)

Gross, Harvey and Robert McDowell. Sound and Form in Modern Poetry. 2^nd Edition. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1996.  (SFMP)

Hosek, Chaviva and Patricia Parker. Lyric Poetry, Beyond New Criticism. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985.  (LPBNC)

Forche, Carolyn.  Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 1995. (AF)

I.  DEFINITIONS/THEORY

Selections from Galvano Della Volpe, Critique of Taste, including, “Image versus Idea,” (15-19); “The Poetic Discourse,”  (20 – 23);  “History as Humus,” (24 -25); “II.  The Semantic Key to Poetry;” and “the Semantic Dialectic” (171 – 200).

T.W. Adorno, “On Lyric Poetry and Society,”  CT, 37-54.

Ernst Bloch, “Marxism and Poetry (1935),” in MLT, 84 – 90.

II. FORM:  Elements, Devices, Modes, Conventions

Perrine and Arps’s Sound and Sense will be used as a kind of general textbook as it presents most, if not all, of the elements of poetry, including,  “Denotation and Connotation, Imagery, Figurative Language – simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy; symbol, allegory; paradox, overstatement, understatement, irony; allusion, meaning and idea, tone, musical devices, rhythm and meter, sound and meaning, and pattern”), plus two chapters on “bad poetry and good” and “good poetry and great.”

(Illustrations of the various elements may be derived from sample “good poems,” written  either in Filipino or English, specifically those appearing on FB and in Arkibo.)

“Prosody as Rhythmic Cognition,” SFMP, 8 – 21.

“Imagism and Visual Poetry,” SFMP, 99 – 124.

Northrop Frye, “Approaching the Lyric,”  LPBNC, 31 -37.

Jonathan Culler, “Changes in the Study of the Lyric,” LPBNC, 38-54.

John Hollander, “Breaking Into Song:  Some Notes on Refrain,”  LPBNC, 73-92.

John Brenkman, “The Concrete Utopia of Poetry:  Blake’s “A Poison Tree,” LPBNC, 182-192.

David Bromwich, “Parody, Pastiche, and Allusion,” LPBNC, 328-344.

III.  POETRY AND IDEOLOGY/THE USES OF POETRY

T.W. Adorno, “Commitment (1962),” MLT, 187-203.

Etienne Balibar and Pierre Macherey, “On Literature as an Ideological Form,” MLT, 275-295.

Carolyn Forche, “’Introduction’ to Against Forgetting,” AF, 29-48.

(Sample poems from Against Forgetting will be read to illustrate the main points about the uses and functions of poetry in the struggle.)

IV.  WORKSHOPS on poems written by participants. (This part may also include a demonstration of how social and political issues may precisely be written into the poem with full aesthetic effect and impact.)

V.  PROJECTS, PLANS,  TASKS  (Arkibong Bayan, et al,, c/o Mon)

WRITING ACTIVITY: Each participant should be able to write, at least, one lyric poem during the course for presentation and submission to the workshop.

Prepared by:

NONI V. QUEANO/5December2010