IYAS: Towards turning a new leaf

A dream brought me there. A vision, however fleeting, has taken hold of me, and though for a year it was put aside in the pursuit of other things, it has nevertheless shown itself insistent.

The 13^th IYAS National Writers’ Workshop was the second creative writing workshop that I attended as a fellow. The first was the 8^th Lamiraw Regional Creative Writing Workshop in November 2011. Lamiraw, we were told, is a Waray word which meant a vision, a fleeting dream. Iyas, on the other hand, is a Hiligaynon word for a prized seed that is expected to grow better than others. Hence my awakening: a fleeting dream which has gripped me even in my waking hours, so that I am now ready to be sown in the literary fields.

The IYAS Poster announcement 2013

I received the IYAS e-mail immediately after the secretariat sent it. I hesitated to read it at first for I feared a rejection, a refusal which would cause me to further spend more time in writer-ly frustration. So when I read ‘Congratulations!’ at the start of the message, I knew I wouldn’t let anything else bar my way to IYAS. With more than a year spent keeping my writing to myself, I felt I was more than ready for this.

Getting there, in the literal sense, was not as much of a problem as it looked. I had already spent the last six months in Cebu that I was relatively unfazed when it comes to entering new territories. (In fact, one of the reasons I applied was because of the location. I wanted to backpack my way to anywhere my legs would take me.) Figuratively, however, I almost moved heaven and earth. IYAS, though one of the few national writers’ workshops that accept works in the regional languages, does not accept works in Waray. Language was the foremost issue: although I haven’t had a single successful attempt to write in Waray, my English still seemed to me like reportage, stripped of the musicality I admire in the regional languages. Yet I was hell-bent on joining another workshop to gauge my progress. In the end, though it seems a contradiction and even a betrayal of my mother tongue, I chose to write in Cebuano.

With this contradiction, I imagined I was the most disadvantaged of all the fellows. All the others were naturally comfortable and at one with the language they chose to write in – their personalities were no doubt interwoven with the language they used. And I was there, apprehensive to be caught left-handed.

Added to this was the fact that some of the fellows already moved in their own literary circles and I was just starting. I remember texting my close friends back home during the welcome dinner at the residence of IYAS co-founder and Palanca Hall of Famer Dr. Elsa Coscolluela for want of comfort and assurance that I would hold my own with these big fishes. Yet this was what I wanted, and if this was what my itching feet would bring me, then bring it on!

Sights and Sounds in Sugar Country

Eager traveler that I was, one aspect of the workshop that appealed to me was the city tour where we were taken to the historical sites in Bacolod and nearby cities. Our first stop was the Bacolod City Plaza where they usually hold the Masskara Festival. The tiles in the plaza and converge towards the gazebo, marking it as the undoubted center of the plaza. The gazebo is marked with the names of the great composers of the classical period: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Around the gazebo are several fountains with sculptures depicting scenes in mythology. The plaza has a decidedly European influence.

Next was the Lagoon of Distance, as an admired writer named it. This lagoon faced the Provincial Capitol in the usual neoclassical structure brought by American influence. Ma’am Marj told me that in the previous years, the panelists took the fellows around to spots like the Lagoon for a writing exercise combined with sightseeing.

After stopping for lunch at SM Bacolod, we went to Balay ni Tana Dicang, a famous woman captain in Talisay who entertained in her house the likes of President Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña. The house was a real treasure of ancient riches, the floors made of high-class wood and the furnishings in true antique fashion.

After Tana Dicang’s house, we stopped for coffee and shopping at El Ideal Bakeshop in Silay, where it was established since the 1920s. Then on we went to Victorias to the Angry Christ Church which sparked such curiosity from the fellows. Why is this Christ angry? It is Judgment Day, that’s why. The painting at first generated controversy among the townspeople themselves, but later it settled in. The Church is also an architectural achievement as Architect Alcazaren explained since the structures supporting the roof will not cave in in case of an earthquake.

And finally, though we paid the entrance fee from our own pockets, we pushed on to the Taj Mahal of Negros. There we found Love among the Ruins, a mausoleum built by Don Mariano Lacson for his beloved, Maria Braga. The structure of the Ruins is all that remains now, since it was razed to the ground to prevent Japanese occupancy. Yet the token of love is still there, tall amidst the sprawling green, standing even against time.

But since it was sugar country, perhaps the most compelling sight was that of trucks loaded to the full with sugarcane, a sight so woven into the painting of life in Negros. Yet like anything else, this sight carries with it heavier questions as was shown to us by Direk J. Abello’s movie Pureza. All things considered, what price must be paid for the sugar in your cup of coffee? How much labor do the saccadas, the field workers, make to bring you the two or three lumps you need for every cup? Somehow, those questions dulled my appetite during the session breaks when they would serve snacks fully coated with sugar delight.

Mixing business with pleasure with coffee and sugar delight!

The Panelists and IYAS Buddies

Perhaps the best gift of the workshop is the sense of nourishment that pervaded the atmosphere. They couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate name for such a nurturing workshop as IYAS.

One reason for this is the panelists themselves. Although it was only the second workshop I attended, I had also been an auditor of the 7^th Lamiraw workshop and had met other literary giants before I decided to plunge into creative writing, and I could say that the particular group of panelists that we have had was by far the gentlest group I’ve met. They showed me that criticism doesn’t have to be cutting to be sharp.

Ma’am Gen Asenjo with her sharp eye had the sharpest tongue among the panelists. Ma’am Gen was very straightforward with her comments in her search for emotional truth, yet was also effusive with her praise. She often cited authors and works that she would like the follows to read. Her most memorable advice was to think of the big idea that would permeate the poem.

Ma’am Grace Monte de Ramos-Arcellana, who took Dr. Elsie’s place as the resident nitpicker of the panelists, nevertheless saw much insight in the works of the fellows and was ever ready to listen to other views, old feminist that she professed herself to be.

Small group craft session with Ma’am Grace Monte de Ramos-Arcellana.

Sir Ronald Baytan, like Sir DM, also gave smooth yet informative critiques. Although he only gave comments for works in Filipino and English, he still contributed to our general discussions on writing. He served as panelist in-charge whenever Ma’am Dinah is not around and saw to it that we followed the schedule.

Sir DM Reyes, gave critiques that, although given last in danger of being kicked out of the panel as Sir JI joked, put more into the poems and short stories than was intentionally written by the authors. His comments were very much informed by theory, and his manner very calm you would think he was only giving a friendly reminder.

Ma’am Dinah Roma Sianturi was the workshop director this year. Like the rest of the women panelists, she felt the intuitions of the fellows and gave credit to these. She begged off giving comments on works of fiction because as she says, poetry is her preference. Yet she voiced the weighty questions we fellows dared not ask, and voiced it in such humility you would have thought she wasn’t a recipient of the National Book Award for Poetry!

Sir John Iremil Teodoro provided translations in Filipino for works in Cebuano and Hiligaynon. Always playing the devil’s advocate, he spiced up the discussions with up-front comments that were laced with humor. Sir JI gave life to KRITIKA-IYAS interfaces that were otherwise highfalutin to us fellows, giving a practical comment on art and criticism by saying, “Yes, we are writers, and sometimes we have to pay the rent.”

Ma’am Marj, a beloved panelist from the 8^th Lamiraw, only sat on the sides during the sessions this year because she was the documenter for the NCCA report. Still, her presence was felt. She held a session on the Art of Bookmaking with her new book Fishes of Light: Tanrengas in Two Tongues with Cuban poet Alex Fleites. There we had ourselves copies with a personal message from the author herself! That revealed her intuitive observations on each of us, with, as in Isabel Allende’s character Belisa Crepusculario, the gift of a secret word to drive us towards luminosity. The words she gave were for us to keep, and for me, those words were as much of a present as her critiques had she joined the panel.

Ma'am Marj and I

And though we only had a chance to really talk with Dr. Elsie during the closing night when we had a picture taken with her, she nevertheless had done her part by giving us motherly advice. Referring to her comments and nitpicking on Arkay’s poems, she said, “This is what I would have done if the poem was mine because this is how Edith Tiempo taught us.” She nevertheless maintained that we, the fellows, still had the last say on our work.

And of course, the fellows and IYAS buddies made the workshop a true gathering of like-minded comrades.

Naturally my closest IYAS buddies were the ‘girls’ of the group: Ate Kei Valmoria-Bughaw, whose Cebuano stories were commentaries on the beliefs of the rural folk and whose short story Ang Deboto ni San Roque triggered such a discussion and led Sir JI to comment that ‘excluding the first paragraph, this is the perfect short story’ because of her deftness in planting ideas (her room became our official hangout); Stef Tran, my roommate from Ateneo de Manila, whose very rich historical material and unconventional collection of poems explores the limits of poetic language; and our youngest fellow, Winston Gallo of WVSU whose coming out poems dealt with the ‘poetics of victimage’ as Sir Baytan put it but possessed very high potential.

Yet we also bonded easily with the others: Cedric Tan, another Atenean and our resident orator who, along with Arkay, recited classic poems tit for tat, his stories were commended for their fluid language; Manu Avenido of Cebu who was able to handle various POVs in his short story Ang Milagros sa Baryo Camansili, which, incidentally, won second place in this year’s 2^nd Sinulat Awards in Cebu; JP Cuñada, our attorney and group leader whose poems, though very didactic, are very lyrical; Nikos Primavera of UP Visayas whose Hiligaynon poems are a torrent of words painting a picture ala Brilliantes Mendoza according to Ma’am Gen; Bicolano Elmar Templonuevo whose poem Quezon Avenue Station, according to Ma’am Grace is the most poetic justification for giving coins to a beggar instead of bills, and who, Sir Baytan says, has mastered the shape of poetry; Rommel Roxas of UST whose poems exuded a daring to explore metaphysical themes toward a spiritual revelation; Danilo Niño Calalang, our Direk, whose short story Bagahe was, as Sir DM says, a short and uncanny story that could powerfully make a comment on something serious and sick in our society and  Jombits Quintos who was a fellow of the KRITIKA last year and reinvented myth with his Si Nagmalitung Yawa.

And of course the Medyo Bad Boyz of this year’s IYAS: Arkay Timonera of Silliman, whose high level of technical proficiency and emotional maturity made Ma’am Gen say that his collection of poems was ‘namumukadkad at humahalimuyak’; Michael Gomez, another Sillimanian,whose smooth dialogues were praised was nicknamed the Godfather for his stories of the gangster life; and Erik Tuban of Cebu, our Neruda, whose strong sense of irreverence and fantastic imagination is nevertheless embedded with very sharp observations of contemporary realities.

With these companions, I knew that though I may be discouraged, I will write on.

IYAS Panelists and Fellows 2013

Turning a New Leaf

            And so with the lazy schedule, the good food, the relaxed environment of the Balay Kalinungan (literally House of Peace in Hiligaynon) inside the compound of the University of St. La Salle, and the small group craft sessions with very kind and very approachable panelists and equally crazy fellows, the IYAS atmosphere of gentle encouragement took root in me.

            My own poems were favorably received. Sir JI even jokingly asked, ‘Bakit pag Cebuano poetry magaganda? Sinasadya mo ba ito, Marj?’Later, my co-fellow and IYAS buddy Ate Kei assured me further that my language was seamless. In the same vein, my ego was boosted when one of the panelists, Ma’am Grace, told us that they only chose the two best entries for every genre and language. This meant, luckily, that of all those hopefuls who applied for Cebuano poetry, I was one of the best two!

Ma’am Merlie Alunan said that attending a workshop does not make one a poet. True. Yet the encouragement that one gets from a workshop such as IYAS does wonders to a discouraged spirit. This morale boost is perhaps because IYAS is already a national writers’ workshop and the fellows who are accepted have more or less achieved some level of development in their writing that they only need encouragement from that point on. Still, melancholy more often than not slips in, and a reassuring word often is enough to tip the scale towards writing again, and writing better this time.

Dr. Elsie said in previous workshops that, “What we look for in the works of a fellow is the seed of creativity, the seed of talent that we can nurture. Being a fellow is an achievement in itself. It means you have that seed, that talent. So don’t be hurt if we criticize your work.”Indeed, though at first I had misgivings because of my language position in the IYAS, I came out undeterred because of that literary seed they saw in me, that seed they helped to cultivate. And I will continue, because as was pleasantly pointed out by Sir DM, “Even while you are listening right now, you are helping form Philippine Literature… Tandaan ninyo ‘yan, bahagi kayo ng paglikha ng panitikan ng Pilipinas.”

Bacolod, the City of Smiles, has taken on a new significance for me. I’ve come a long way from dreaming. Now I will sprout leaves and shoot for the stars.