This is a project that was born out of isolation. With the entire Luzon in full quarantine, the world was coming to a halt. This does not mean, however, that art and art should stop.
The Savage Mind, the maverick bookstore and cultural hub founded by Kristian Cordero was so near and yet so far. I would have to pass through two barricades and, in our home, only one nephew was benefited with a pass.
I knew Kristian, as usual, was brooding and brooding to come up with a project that could breach any quarantine without breaking any manmade laws.
What if we have poetry reading online? Kristian was posing a query but I knew he had the answer.
Whose poems? Let us do Bikol poetry. I agreed. We were closer to the roots and we knew the people and we knew what to do.
I don’t remember now whose idea it was but the name came up: Jaime Fabregas, the actor. Jimmy is a friend of the group. He has always been very generous with his presence in and support to our endeavors.
Things went fast. Kristian drafted a rationale for the project. I was soon calling Jimmy, and Jimmy agreed.
Jaime Fabregas would be reading Bikol poems!
There were no rules except for one thing: the selection of poems would come from Kristian. There was another informal agreement: I would be the talent coordinator, the one to contact our readers.
With both Kristian and I used to disputing each other as to poetics and other forms of valuation, it was a surprise that we smoothly agreed on the first three poems, and the poets from which those treasures came, to be presented for the first edition. One was Luis Dato, a pre-war writer who was part of a small group of masters that included Angela Manalang-Gloria and Jose Garcia-Villa. Dato would be joined in by New York-based Luis Cabalquinto whose roots are in Magarao, and Marne Kilates, Albayano but now residing in Manila. Dato’s poems are required readings in Philippine contemporary literature in English, when that category was still strictly pursued. He was what you may call a legend. Between Luis and Marne are numerous awards and countless honors making them poet-laureates not only of this region but also of a nation trying to define itself.
Jimmy asked where he would do it. Anywhere, we told him, in his home. We were imposing on him but Jimmy was cool about it.
While discussing the poem and the reading, we even asked Jimmy what he thought of the name of the project. Kristian came up with the name Himati, which is a Bikol word for “feeling” or “sensing.” In other places of the region, Himati has its roots in “bati” or “to listen.” Jimmy said it is up to you two.
Later, Kristian would seek the technical assistance of Nicol Cardel.
The first to be recorded was Dato’s “Day on the Farm.”
Should we put music as background? It was a question never settled. Kristian, in particular, was adamant about the poem standing on its own, which is a given and lovely proposition.
One night, Kristian sent me the video with Jimmy reading Dato’s work. There on the tiny screen of my mobile phone, a verdant field with mountains blue at the distance moved quietly with the somber music from a piano. The pastoral scene faded and in trailed the reader: Jimmy in his living room, the rich voice full and fluid in velvet and brass. By the time he reached the last lines (come with me, love/you are too old for crying/the church bells ring/and I hear drops of rain), I was unabashedly in tears (That was alright, I was alone anyway in my room). The sweetness and sadness of the day’s end, the memories of a young passion urgent in these painful times of plagues, all caught in the reader’s inflections that seemed to rise and ebb not with time’s passing, but with a deep heart full of entreaties and vows, were all we need for this magic to happen.
The responses were terrific. We immediately sent Jimmy our feedback and thanked him for the wonderful reading. He answered back and said it was the poem that made the reading work.
“Magarao” of Luis Cabalquinto was next. The poet reminisces about his hometown. He cannot be there in his home and in his town but his poetry brings him back for eternity in that ordinary/extraordinary night of a time that has ceased to move because only the stars are bright on the face of a water, in that stillness of a return to a land of birth that in remembering a man can wish upon himself. Jimmy’s voice gently nudged the memory of a humble meal as the dark notes from the cello soared with the white and gray clouds bidding both embrace and goodbye.
By the second installment, our viewers had started expressing their enchantment with the Bikol words. Many said the poem made them realize how rich their own language was and how it became even more beautiful when couched in lines and rhythm crafted and nurtured by the poet. I was more candid when I offered to Kristian my theory why the poems came alive in the good reader: Jimmy was reading without reading. He was sensing the poem.
The softest of guitar strains pushed the streaks of the whitest fleeces of clouds on the sky as the verses from what I believe is the saddest Bikol love poem from Marne Kilates came forth. Pampang kan Sakong Pagkamoot is how Marne translated his poem, The Only Shore I Seek. A poem metaphors conjured out of seascape began with May sarong lugar an puso/Banwang sadiri kan pagkamoot (The heart has its home/The only country it needs), and ended with maglayag man sa ibang dagat/Pampang ka kan sakong pagkamoot (After sailing all oceans/You are the only shore I seek). Brevity was never the limit of this poem as word after word, line after line, the wisdom of the poet throbbed with love’s meanings—the infinite longing and the lonesome beauty tender and giving in that endlessness. The sighs at the end sent in by readers were expected. One of our significant women-writers, Francia Clavecillas said of the poem: “nagpapakalma nin puso” (literally, it calms the heart).
By the time you read this column, Lui Quiambao-Manansala, an actress whose presence in indie films and television cannot be ignored, has already read her first poem, Jun Belgica’s Soneto 2. Intense but not melodramatic, Lui paid tribute to the words selected by Jun in a recitation that measured each word against an unseen source of beat.
By the time also you read this column, more actors have signified their intention to be part of this singular project. Enchong Dee, who hails from Naga, has already recorded his first poem. Waiting on the wings and ready to “experiment” are two of our most exciting actors—Christian Bables whose last major film was the award-winning “Signal Rock” and Sandino Martin, who acted and sang in the film and stage version of Nick Joaquin’s “Portrait of the Artist as Filipino/Larawan.” Angeli Bayani, another multi-awarded, has also said yes to our request for her to be one of the readers. As if this grand list is not enough, Kristian has just talked with Eddie Ilarde, another Bikolano, who has expressed his interest to read poems in English, Filipino and Bikol!
Himati is a project of the Ateneo de Naga University Press and
Savage Mind.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Ed Davad