Stories poetry tells
My love affair with the written word has always been straightforward. Writing was my puppy love, then my first love.
At the age of 10, I tried publishing a newspaper for my elementary school using a cursive typewriter, backed by a loyal gang of friends who diligently wrote their assigned articles using pretty pink stationery and fragrant Funny Friends pens. We thought putting together something so special meant we had to utilize no less than the best supplies. (We didn’t print anything, in the end. But that’s another story.)
Not long after, undaunted, I typed up the draft of my first novel using the same cursive typewriter. I spent an entire summer cross-legged on the waxed floor of my parents’ house, giving myself pasma and red-dyed hamstrings as I tenaciously churned out the manuscript of the migration saga of a fictitious British clan during the American Civil War. (I didn’t publish this, in the end. Don’t ask. Then again, any takers?)
My relationship with poetry was something else in my tween years. I wasn’t any good at coming up with rhymes. Every poem or verse I wrote sounded cheesy, forced and unoriginal.
It wasn’t until I started attending journalism seminars during high school when I had my epiphany. I was in Negros Occidental at the time, billeted at a public school as a delegate of the National Secondary Schools Press Conference (NSSPC), looking through the displays of photojournalism boards entered for this particular category. The photographs taken by the contestants, ranging from still life to scenic views, were all captioned with well-chosen words, painstakingly-crafted verses that sounded almost… poetic.
Nothing rhymed, not really. Most of the verses had no meter, either.
One thing was certain, though: they all sounded beautiful, vivid, honest… and real.
That, for me, was the beginning.
I never really thought about writing poems in particular, but something about the natural flow of those captions stayed with me all through the journey back to Iloilo City.
Fresh from a victory in the English Editorial-Writing category, I went home to my trusty typewriter (my old cursive one traded in for a more traditional portable unit), put in a piece of paper as I would any other time, and started pounding out the words to what would become my first poem, nationally published in The Philippine STAR: “Passengers.”
It was a simple free-verse piece about the fleeting nature of life and the things we leave behind, accentuated by flavors of Edgar Allan Poe and James O’Barr.
One can say there were stages in my free-verse journey: the starting point, the exploration, and the endgame, as with any good story.
The inception, if you will, was a stage when I looked around in wonder. I took on the role of chronicler, more witness than partaker, as stories unfolded before my eyes. My earliest poetry was inspired by random things and events, both captivating and mundane. This was a time when words flowed organically from my headspace, fearlessly diffusing ideas into the greater, wider world.
The middle of the journey was the odyssey: a time to move and find my place under the sun. I wrote treatises on the world I lived in; shared stories as witness to greed, destitution and despair. I shared unfettered views of unforgiving places and their dark corners.
My endgame, I could say, has always been to triumph over the adversities and tribulations of life. This was not really the conclusion of my journey, but the pinnacle of what I believe poetry could achieve: capturing one’s tragedies and victories, hopes and dreams, loves and losses; sharing the sublime beauty of life, both in the shadows and in the light.
Many years after I typed down my first poem, I still marvel at how words could capture and immortalize the indefatigable hope in the human spirit. Although other creatures are imbued with the ability to regrow lost limbs again, humans are in possession of a far more superior gift: the capacity to hope, even in the face of great adversity.
I have seen hope thrive in the darkest, most decrepit of places. I have witnessed remarkable stories of resilience and survival, pain morphing into impenetrable armor, and loss bringing forth new beginnings.
These are all stories poetry tells.
But the dust, too, shall tire and fall
And I will find the light
Streaming—first in puddles,
then in waves—into my path.
Alone once more, I face the beginning.
Alone once more, I know there really is no end.
—“Divide” by Shirley Siaton