I got this fair-condition softcover from Better World Books. It's a collection of poems incorporating elements of Filipino poetry and legend. Among my favorites: the title poem, "Diwata", which retells a creation myth that's both lyrical and violent: "...Yes, hija, we were headhunters once, our people..."; "Manila Mango", which contrasts a luscious, dripping mango with the darker side of a Gauguin painting; "Call It Talisman (If You Must)", about skin-marking "with the ash of burnt coconut husk and sugarcane", and touching on women warriors; and "Aswang", a marvelously evocative short poem from the viewpoint of a demon from Filipino mythology. There are notes from the author about the inspirations of each poem, including several that drew influence from other authors' works - a source of future reading, perhaps!

I'm adding this book to the Far East bookbox, which will be on its way to its next stop soon. Enjoy!

A slang bit,

slung over a shoulder
then bitten.

I loved the cover on this one. It was what immediately caught my eye.

Not that I don't like reading poetry, but I had high hopes for it. I get what the author is trying to create, a tribal old world feel to it. I don't think it works in most of the poems and I felt my attention drifting. There were a few good pieces though, and I'll share one of them:


Why Girls Do Not Speak


You are wondering why some girls have lost their voices, when this one
here rushes her words as if she were a brook, engorged with monsoon. At
the running waters of Agos, a girl once stopped to fill her canteen. She
had come down from Bundok with her father's ashes. Because her father
had no sons, an unusual occurrence, the task came upon her to scatter his
ashes into Dagar, which the lowlanders called El Mar.

As I have said, it was unusual for the men of Bundok not to father any
sons. If one woman into whom he planted his seed could not give him one
son, the man would simply plant his seed into a different woman. And
if she could not give him a son, he would continue planting his seed into
other women until a son resulted. Many girl children were born this way,
set aside by their fathers.

But her father was different. He loved his child and he could not bear to
cast her away. He cropped her hair to her skull, and taught her to hunt. Like
a man, she learned to spear fish, to build bangka, to chisel their deities in
wood. She kept vigil with the other hunters, and yes, she also took heads.
She came to tell stories of the hunt, and the people loved her stories best.
Few knew this young storyteller was a girl.

Now, regarding the girl children of Bundok, pale men from the coastal
lowlands came to Bundok. They had heard stories of the women far
outnumbering the men. They came and found so many fatherless daughters, weaving mats, dyeing cloth, cooking meals, learning to tell story. Some sat idle, somber, bored, for there were more girls than needed to perform all of the daily work. When the elders explained to the pale men there were no enough of their own men to marry all of these young women,
the pale men promised to supply many good husbands. To this, the elders
responded with relief.

What the pale men did not tell the elders is that they forbade their women
from stepping outdoors lest the sun darken them. The pale men forced
their women's once bare feet into narrow, pinching shoes, shut their women inside exquisite whalebone cages, which broke the wives' ribs, and which did not allow them to draw air. Faint, the wives could no longer sing. They lost their ability to speak. Those wives who were still able to utter few words the pale men beat properly, as their fathers and mothers had taught them, as they would teach their sons and daughters. The wives learned silence was their only shield. When our young storyteller arrived with her father's ashes at Dagat, she begged the wives to return with her, but they claimed they did not recognize her, and so she returned to Bundok alone.

This lucky little book has become part of the latest Asian Bookbox round! :)

As you can see, this is the perfect book for it, so in it goes to hopefully find some new readers! ;)

Came home in the far east bookbox.

Selecting from the Far East Bookbox Round 3.

Sounds intriguing!

Found myself skimming and skipping. Just not to my taste.

I did like the first poem, "A Genesis of We, Cleaved". An interesting look at the creation of Adam and Eve and made me think of the theories of the mistranslation of the Adam and Eve story, particularly of the 'rib'. In some cases of the rib being a different body part and in others where it is translated as Adam and Eve being one being and 'cleaved' into two separate beings. Maybe that was what she was going for in this poem?

I also liked the structure of 'Sea Incantation' where she took her poem, 'The True Color of the Sea', and expanded upon it.

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One of many books to be released at the Gaithersburg Book Festival.

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Ended up not attending the festival due to personal reasons. I’ll find another path for this book.

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Released to the Little Free Library #36793 - Crystal City Water Park in Arlington, VA.

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