The previous night, Benilda Santos, Beni to her friends, was in her element as a teacher in Savage Mind, a bookshop-cum-cultural hub in Naga City. She was there to launch her newest collection of poems. The photos though showed the poet, her arm raised now, the other hand clutching an unseen breeze between her face and the ether the next. She was giving a lecture and she was, I would find out the next day, doing asides. Then she listened to invited artists to read her poems. In all of this, she was intense, caught in the space that seemed to mark directions about the past and the present, navigating times and periods that had passed on and acting on days that were yet to come. She was tracking the routes in her mind. Like the title of the book that was released that night—Ruta. Route.
The next day, Beni was in Ateneo de Naga. This time to give a short talk, listen to guests read some of her poems, and then launch the book, which was published under the Ateneo de Naga University. This was almost the same itinerary that she took the night before.
I have always known Beni to be a good poet, one of our major poets writing in Filipino language. But my utmost familiarity with her was in the field of film criticism. We are both members of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino. To see her therefore in a night where we were not to be talking about cinema but instead bearing witness to the power of literature was quite an experience.
One of the tasks of the Manunuri or Critic is to review one or two of the nominees for Best Picture. It was during one of those deliberations where she asked me if it was alright to send a poem for her review. “A poetic review?” I asked her. To myself I said, it must be a review but written with all the nuances of a poem.
When at last the publication containing our reviews was released, I excitedly looked for Beni’s review. There it was, the review. It was not an essay but a poem!
That night in Ateneo de Naga, my task was to talk about the poet as a critic. I wanted to tell her, there was not much difference between a poet and a critic. The critic can be poetic and the poet can be critical.
But Beni was also a former Dean in Ateneo de Manila. She was a wife. She is a mother, and now a widow.
Beni was also an admirer of Nora Aunor’s genius. I expected it therefore when she whispered to me: “I have two poems about Nora.” Beni was referring to the actor. In a moment, we were briskly leafing quickly through the book until we reached the poem. It was simply titled, “Nora.”
The poem was soon assaulting our senses with the sound that was there and not there: “Sa igiban ng tubig/narinig ang awit [Where they draw water/could be heard the song].” The simplicity of the opening lines betrays the complexity of associations intended by the poet. Marvel at the sound that flows from the source of water and listen to the birth of the song. Which is the birth of a singer.
The poet seemed to ask two questions: where do the waters flow? Where do the songs go?
In the case of this tribute to Nora Aunor, the song removes the thirst and heat because the voice is soothing (Pinawi nito/ang uhaw at alinsangan/sa lamig at hagod/at taginting).
The same voice is carried by the wind to conquer the city in its squalor (Saka napatangay sa hangin upang/ sakupin ang gitatang lunsod). What would have been merely a sweet paean turns political with the song in the wind waking up the public to embrace the voice so it would never go away (Nagbangon ang madlang/nagising at ikinulong ang tinig/sa mariing yakap/nang hindi pakawalan.) My quick translation of the lines does not capture the bittersweet contradictions of Nora Aunor fandom—she awakened a new consciousness in film but then admiration imprisons (ikinulong) a person even if the manifestation of adulation is in the form of a tight embrace (mariing yakap).
Routes may be living but, in the verses of Beni, they can also terminate…in death. And yet, it is to the credit of the singularity of her thought that her poems about dying, or suicide, are never elegiac. In “Ang Babae sa Billboard [The Woman on the Billboard],” she narrates a reporter talking to a woman on the ledge of the billboard that serves as a seat. The media person tries to distract the woman on the billboard. She pleads to the woman and asks what she is doing up there. The woman on the billboard says “wala lang [no reason really].” Come down then, says the journalist. Then it happens: the woman on the billboard stands up, takes a step and flew fast down. Beni describes the flight:…nang wari anghel na nakalimot magbuka ng pakpak. Like an angel swooping down forgetting to open her wings.
I was already in Manila when the book launch was finalized. The poet and recently heralded Philippine recipient of the Southeast Asian Writers Award (S.E.A. Write Award), Kristian Sendon Cordero, requested that I be one of those who would talk about Beni, as a critic.
I traveled back and made it to the ceremony in Ateneo de Naga on January 23, 2020. Before the mixed crowd of writers and students, I shared my reason for being there. “I owe this person a lot,” I thus started my story. When my mother was still alive and her consciousness and memory were starting to go away, I would be up with her at 2 or 3 in the morning. On one of those sad, anxious early mornings and in the quiet of my mother’s room, I sent a message to Beni. “Mama is restless,” I texted to her. “Pray the Hail Mary,” was Beni’s response. “It is the prayer meant for women.”
The next morning, I was happy to tell Beni that the prayer worked. But Beni is Beni. She had another advice: “Remember though that your mother will never be well again.”
Benilda S. Santos in her book and in her person is tough love. But it is tender, tough love. Listen to her poem called “Enero.” She writes how the pine trees are weary during this cold month, the branches all drooping. But nothing will fall, yet. “Walang nahuhulog nang wala sa panahon. [Nothing falls off unless the time has come.]”
Ruta: Mga Bago at Piling Tula is the new collection of poetry by Dr. Benilda Santos whose works have won the Palanca and National Book Awards. Santos was also recognized as an Outstanding Educator by the Metrobank Foundation Inc. She is also a film and literary critic and served as former dean of the School of Humanities, Ateneo de Manila University.
Cover and Book Design by Paolo Tiausas. Artwork by Carla Gamalinda
Image credits: Jimbo Albano