Tiger, Tiger by Tala Roque
Tala Roque is my granddaughter, born in 1999 when I was 50.
Early in the second quarter of 2006, a high school Fil-Am student in the U.S. by the name of Gabrielle Molina wrote me, asking questions about my poetry. Since she never bothered to answer back after I had answered all her questions, I may as well share these answers with the world. Here it is:
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Gabrielle, your teacher replied promptly, but I haven't had the time to answer your questions till now.
Let me answer your first and third questions first:
Why do I write? I write poems out of emotional need, essays out of a desire to share ideas, and short stories out of an urge to explain the phenomenon of life vis-a-vis people. My training in literature has taught me to focus on the particular and specific, at the same time drawing universal lessons from them. As you may have seen, I have written more poems than essays, and short stories least of all. But I hope to write more short stories someday.
As you can see from the list of my favorite poems [see links below], though I write socio-political poems, my favorites have nothing to do with content, but rather with poetic style, with a preference for the lyrical.
Now, that brings me to your second question. What are my favorite techniques, you ask? Maybe I don't use my favorite techniques too often, eh? My belief is that poetry boils down to three inextricably-linked properties: sound (or rhythm), imagery, and tension. Poetic sound, to me, comes not only from rhythm, but from assonance, alliteration, as well as internal and external rhyme, with a preference for internal rhyme. Those are the techniques I use in my poetry. Of course, I don't always manage to pull it off, but there.
For a longer exposition on my poetics, you may want to read Pinoy Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo. I have an essay there entitled "The Poetics of Clarita Roja."
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The "period poems" (blue, red, purple and plain period) are from my collection Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995) published in 1996 by the University of the Philippines Press.
The Blue Period
- And Now Her Petal Tips Contain
- The Thirst I Keep
- Time Slides Down
The Red Period
I wrote these poems during the Marcos dictatorship, when I was underground. The dictatorship lasted from 1972 to 1986; I was in prison in its last one and a half years.
The Purple Period
Prison and after comprised my purple period.
Period
On March 3, 1990, I was born again in the Holy Spirit. And that is why this period is called Period.
From Chronicle of a Life Foretold
This collection of poems from 1995 to 2004 has 101 poems in it. Isagani Cruz, noted Filipino critic, wrote the Preface. Bienvenido Lumbera, National Artist for Literature, as well as Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, feminist critic, wrote the afterthoughts. But I haven't gotten around to following up its publication up to now. :(
From Poemes Suisse
The second poem can also be found in the blog I maintain for my students. I had 31 poems in this collection as of, May 27, 2006 but now it's March, 2009 and I have only 37! What did I do in those three years? Plenty. I've learned a lot.
Oh, and the poems are arranged alphabetically, not chronologically as I would have wanted.