Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2009 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Aileen Ibardaloza:

First Place: “Butiki” by Michelle A. Penaloza

ABOUT THE WINNING POET: Michelle Peñaloza graduated from Vanderbilt University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. She is a carnivore and a sometimes omnivore. Her work has been published in Kartika Review.

Congratulations to Michelle for writing the following fabulous poem:

Butiki

I cannot sleep.
My only companions:
creek of acacia beams,
moon silence, colloquy
of gecko feet.

Legs and tails make letters,
then words
along the walls,
across the ceiling
constellations of sounds

long-forgotten—
puso            usok
           aral            mahal
         —glow above mosquito net,
           a sky of wiry scrawl.

Once, Lolo told me
fallen lizards were stars
of forgotten words, grew tails;
light gave way to skin
and limbs—nimble, crawling
—Lolo told me.

Look, he said, between
nets of tilapia,
under your Lola’s kalán,
inside the husk of bigas.
Look, stars, within
kalamansi halves, their clean tart.

The moon watches me call
butiki, butiki—
flit your cold-blooded feet,
walk fast—
melt across my skin;
crawl into my careless mouth.

*****
*****

FIRST PLACE WINNERS of the MERITAGE PRESS HOLIDAY POETRY CONTESTS:

2009: Michelle A. Penaloza (Judge: Aileen Ibardaloza)
2008: Rodrigo V. Dela Pena Jr. (Judge: Bino A. Realuyo)
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

NINTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com)
Judge: Aileen Ibardaloza
Deadline: January 5, 2010

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Aileen Ibardaloza is the Associate Editor of Our Own Voice Literary Ezine. Her works have appeared in various online and print media including Manorborn journal (Summer 2009), 1000 Views of Girl Singing (Leafe Press, California and U.K., 2009), A Taste of Home (Anvil, Manila, 2008), Fellowship (Summer/Fall 2008), Moria and Galatea Resurrects. She trained as a molecular biologist before job-hopping her way to the literary world. traje de boda, her first poetry collection, will be published by Meritage Press in 2010.

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Aileen Ibardaloza, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. By Filipino, we include part-blooded Filipinos. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of Jan. 5, 2010.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Aileen Ibardaloza to choose one winner. However, Aileen may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

traje de boda by Aileen Ibardaloza; the book is forthcoming in 2010 from Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com)

PRAU by Jean Vengua; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/prau.htm

MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/museum.htm

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/kalis.htm

THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku2.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

THE THORN ROSARY: SELECTED PROSE POEMS 1998-2010 by Eileen Tabios; the book is forthcoming from Marsh Hawk Press, New York, in 2010

THE BLIND CHATELAINE’S KEYS by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.blazevox.org/bk-et.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.ourownvoice.com/books/2004xpress.shtml

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.marshhawkpress.org/backlist.htm

FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2008: Rodrigo V. Dela Pena Jr. (Judge: Bino A. Realuyo)
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

Meritage Press Announcement

Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary literary & arts press based in San Francisco & St. Helena, is pleased to announce the recipient of The 2009-2010 Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize (”Prize”): Karen Llagas, with her manuscript entitled ARCHIPELAGO DUST. Congratulations to Karen, whose book is scheduled to be published in 2010 by Meritage Press.

The Prize results from a global competition among Filipino poets; more information about the Prize is available at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/?p=19 .

As regards the Prize’s recipient, Karen Llagas’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, {m}aganda magazine, Broadsided Press, Quay and Wompherence, as well as in the anthologies Field of Mirrors (PAWA, 2008) and Poems of the San Francisco Bay Area Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010). A recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2007, she holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and a BA in Economics from Ateneo de Manila. She lives in San Francisco and works as a small business consultant, a Tagalog interpreter & instructor, and a poet-teacher with the California Poets in the Schools (CPITS). ARCHIPELAGO DUST will be her first poetry book.

Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com) also would like to congratulate the following Finalists, listed in alphabetical order of authors’ last names:

Loved Letters: Mailed Without a Scent of Home by Niki Eskobar
traje de boda by Aileen Ibardaloza
A Dark Continent Companion by Sean Labrador y Manzano
RIZAL IN SAN FRANCISCO AND OTHER POEMS by Don Pacis
TATTOO by Joel Vega

Meritage Press would like to thank all the poets who participated by sharing their poetry manuscripts. We are honored to have read all of the poems, and are delighted to conclude that the high quality of participation bodes well for the future of Filipino-authored poetry.

Eileen R. Tabios, Publisher, Meritage Press
Beatriz Tabios, Poetry Judge

+++++

Click on http://www.meritagepress.com/prau.htm for information about the inaugural recipient of THE FILAMORE TABIOS, SR. MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE: Prau by Jean Vengua.

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2008 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Bino A. Realuyo. Only one poem was chosen this year:

First Place: “Letras Y Figuras” by Rodrigo V. Dela Peña Jr.

The winning poem itself may be seen at http://meritagepress.blogspot.com/2009/01/2008-winner-of-meritage-press-annual.html (in order for the poem’s correct format to be presented).

ABOUT THE WINNING POET: Rodrigo V. Dela Peña Jr. has been a fellow for poetry in various writers’ workshops in the Philippines. His poems and stories have been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Mud Luscious, Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Philippines Free Press, and other journals and anthologies. He is currently working as a freelance writer and publicist.

*****
*****

ALL FIRST PLACE WINNERS of the MERITAGE PRESS HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST:

2008: Rodrigo V. Dela Pena Jr. (Judge: Bino A. Realuyo)
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

Meritage Press, as sponsor, is pleased to announce

A Call For Manuscript Submissions by Filipino Poets

for

“The 2009-2010 Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize”

DEADLINE: August 31, 2009

POETRY MANUSCRIPTS: Poets may submit as many manuscripts as they wish. Each manuscript should be at least 48 pages long. Each manuscript should come with two cover pages: (i) a cover page with Title, Author’s Name, E-mail Address, Snailmail Address and Phone; and (ii) a second cover page with just the Title. (Manuscripts will not be returned so don’t send your only copy(ies).) We are only taking printed (not emailed) manuscripts. Manuscripts should be sent to:

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Road
St. Helena, CA 94574
U.S.A.

PRIZE: The winning manuscript will garner U.S.$500.00 for its author and be published by Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com).

SUBMISSION FEE: None because Meritage Press prizes all poets…and we consider Poetry a Gift.

OPTIONAL: If you include $5.00 with your entry, you can get a free copy of the prior winning book, Jean Vengua’s PRAU ($5.00 covers U.S. domestic shipping/handling; if you wish to avail yourself of this offer and you live outside the U.S., email us first to discuss).

ELIGIBILITY: Poets of full or partial Filipino descent, living anywhere around the world. All such poets are encouraged to send your best work. Whether you’re an “emerging” vs “established” poet is irrelevant as judging will be based only on the merits of the submitted manuscripts.

JUDGING PROCESS: From the submissions, a group of Finalist manuscripts will be chosen by Eileen Tabios. From the Finalists, the winning manuscript will be chosen by Beatriz Tabios. Judging for the top winner will be done anonymously.

ABOUT THE JUDGES:
FOR FINALISTS: Eileen Tabios is a poet and the publisher of the multidisciplinary literary and arts press, Meritage Press (St. Helena and San Francisco, CA). She has released 16 print, four electronic and 1 CD poetry collections, a novel, an art essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, and a short story book. Recent projects include a novel NOVEL CHATELAINE (TeenyTiny, 2009); a new poetry collection NOTA BENE EISWEIN (Ahadada, 2009) and a conceptual project disrupting the form of biography THE BLIND CHATELAINE’S KEYS (BlazeVOX, 2008). Forthcoming is her ROSARY OF THORNS: SELECTED PROSE POEMS 1998-2008, edited by poet-critic-painter Thomas Fink. In her poetry, she has crafted a body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Modern Dance and Sculpture. She blogs as the “Chatelaine” at http://angelicpoker.blogspot.com and edits GALATEA RESURRECTS, a popular poetry review journal at http://galatearesurrects.blogspot.com

FOR FINAL WINNER: Beatriz Tabios received her B.A. with English as her major from the Silliman University in Dumaguete, Philippines. She developed her love for poetry as a sixth-grader reading Homer, William Shakespeare, John Keats, Alexander Pope, William Wordworth and Samuel Coleridge while trying to survive World War II. She would further develop her appreciation for poetry as a college student instructed by poet Edith Tiempo, the first woman to receive the title of National Artist for Literature in the Philippines. The late Dr. Edilberto Tiempo, then the head of the English Department, encouraged Mrs. Tabios to continue her study of English and American literature. With Edilberto Tiempo’s encouragement, Mrs. Tabios wrote her Master of Arts thesis which was the first investigation, regarding Filipino literature, of “(The Use of) Local Color in Short Stories in English.” Later, she taught English literature at Dagupan College (now University of Pangasinan) and University of Baguio, before becoming a teacher at Brent School, a boarding school initially built for children from U.S.-American military, missionary and gold-mining families stationed in the Far East.

THE FILAMORE TABIOS, SR. MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE:
From Mrs. Beatriz Tabios: “My late husband, Filamore Tabios, Sr., and I were absolutely delighted when our daughter Eileen started to write short stories and poems. In memory of my dearly beloved husband and her dearly beloved father, we would like to encourage Filipino poets by sponsoring this Memorial Poetry Prize.”

BOOK PRIZES:
Finalists also will receive a set of books including these selected Meritage Press titles:

THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II coedited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young.

PINOY POETICS: A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL & CRITICAL ESSAYS ON FILIPINO AND FILIPINO-AMERICAN POETICS, edited by Nick Carbo.

THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen R. Tabios.

SMALL PRINT: Meritage Press reserves the right not to pick a winner and hand out the prize.

*****

ADDITIONAL QUERIES may be directed by email to Meritagepress@aol.com

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Bino A. Realuyo
Deadline: February 15, 2009

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Bino A. Realuyo is the author of the poetry collection, THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR, the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for poetry 2005 (University of Utah Press 2006 and Anvil Press, Philippines 2008). Prior to publication, his poetry appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, Manoa, and The Nation. He received Poetry Society of America’s Lucille Medwick Memorial Award and a Van Lier Fellowship in poetry. He is working on a second poetry collection titled, ON WHICH THE SUMMER LEANS, about the experiences of his father as a survivor of the Death March and a Japanese Concentration camp during World War 2 in the Philippines. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in education and technology and is a fellow in social entrepreneurship at Harvard University. He is also an accidental fictionist and suffers from a multiple literary personality/genre syndrome. He loves facebook.

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Bino A. Realuyo, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of Feb. 15, 2009.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Bino Realuyo to choose one winner. However, Bino may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the March 2009 edition of “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino A. Realuyo; for more information about the book, go to http://www.uofupress.com/store/product31.html

PRAU by Jean Vengua; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/prau.htm

MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/museum.htm

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/kalis.htm

THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku2.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

BABAYLAN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FILIPINA AND FILIPINA AMERICAN WRITERS, co-edited by Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.auntlute.com/babylan.htm

NOT EVEN DOGS, the inaugural hay(na)ku poetry collection by Ernesto Priego; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/notevendogs.htm

THE BLIND CHATELAINE’S KEYS by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.blazevox.org/bk-et.htm

THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios3.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.ourownvoice.com/books/2004xpress.shtml

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.marshhawkpress.org/backlist.htm

BRIDGEABLE SHORES by Luis Cabalquinto; for more information about the book, go to http://www.artbook.com/1885030347.html

FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2007 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Eric Gamalinda. The results include this contest’s second time for a tie for “First Place”, and also the first repeater for “First Place”:

First Place, Co-Winner: “First Winter Passing” by Naya S. Valdellon
First Place, Co-Winner: “O.N.S.” by Marcel L. Milliam
Honorable Mention: “AN EXPLANATION” by R. Torres Pandan

Naya S. Valdellon is this contest’s first poet to receive “First Place” twice, the prior time occurring in 2002 when she tied with Michella Rivera-Gravage in the contest judged by Oliver de la Paz. The 2007 results also feature our first non-English language poet winner. Unfortunately, Eric Gamalinda felt he was only able to assess the Tagalog entries, and so entries in other Filipino languages were not included in the judging.

Judge Eric Gamalinda says about the winning entries:

“First Winter Passing” is a lovely poem about how language connects and disconnects, and how it is nearly impossible for many of us to bridge this solitude except perhaps through poetry and its spectral silences. “O.N.S.” is deceptively old-fashioned like a kundiman, but fused with a naughty, graphic eroticism and a verbal precision that no translation can do justice—by lines 7-9, I was captivated by its masterful lyricism. “An Explanation” is a quiet, elegant little poem that feels like an iceberg: beautiful, mysterious, larger than it seems. I apologize to those who sent poems in other Filipino languages that I couldn’t read; I had to exclude them from the competition, and thus only judged the Tagalog-language poems.

Here are some information about the winning poets:

Naya S. Valdellon is currently finishing her M.A. in English major in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. Her chapbook of poems, The Reluctant Firewalker, was published by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts as part of its UBOD New Authors Series in 2005. Her poetry has received the Hart House Poetry Prize, the Maningning Miclat Award, and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature.

Marcel L. Milliam is Ilonggo by birth but Capiznon by association. He is the founding Chairman of “Yanggaw”, The Capiz Writer’s Circle, and a member of the “Dagyang Pulong” Iloilo Writers Group. He works for GMA TV6 in Iloilo as a talent under the ETV Department. He writes poetry mainly in Hiligaynon, but produces pieces in English and Filipino as well. After receiving fellowships from the 1st Fray Luis De Leon Creative Writing Desk of the University of San Agustin, Iloilo, “2nd Panagsugat” Writers workshop of UP Vis-Min, 12th Iligan National Writers Workshop of the MSU-IIT, and the 7th Iyas National Writers Workshop for his Hiligaynon poems, he has now “crossed-over” into fiction. He has won twice the NCLA-VI “Paktakontxt” of the NCLA-VI, consecutive wins in the UPV SWF Bigkas Binalaybay sponsored by the NCCA from 2003-2007, both in the Pagbigkas at Pagsulat Categories. His works have been published in four issues of SanAg, the official literary Journal of the Fray Luis De Leon Creative Writing Desk of the USA-Iloilo as well as in the 33rd ANI of the CCP and numerous other local and national publications. At present he is a 3rd Year student in the Bachelor of Laws Program (Llb.) of the University of Iloilo College of Law and is actively involved in the works of the Alternative Law Groups Inc. (ALG) and was a paralegal intern of the Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB), Cebu. When he miraculously has free time, he is also involved with the Iloilo theater scene as a stage actor.

R. Torres Pandan has been a law school dean for ten years and a partner in the biggest law firm in Bacolod City, Philippines for 16 years. He has won the Palanca Awards for poetry and his first book of poetry was short-listed for the 2005 National Book Awards. He is also the Research Director of the Philippine Supreme Court’s JURIS project on mediation.

We are pleased to share the winning poems:

First Place, Co-Winner by Naya S. Valdellon:

First Winter Passing

“the tangled language of those who always stuttered as they spoke, caught as
they were on the narrow ridge between two nearly native tongues”
—Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones

1. Daylight Saving Time

Thirteen hours between Toronto and Manila—
soon to be twelve next Sunday, the eleventh of March.

The hands of the clocks in my room ache to be moved—
all three of them, telling time minutes apart.

Dali’s watches wilt in the waning light, in the poster
inches above our heads, hardly original. Tell me,

what’s another hour to lose while we loosen our tongues,
stifle our yawns? A fly grazes the sagging face

above our faces. Ants kiss on top of the stopwatch.
Here and now, the cliffs between us persist.

2.

Tell me about your country.

A constellation of islands
near the world’s waistband.

Tell me what it looks like.

A crouching old woman
with a walking stick
and a hand on her hip.

I don’t mean on a map.

You mean from a plane?
Through window panes? A mirror?
Describing seven thousand selves
in one sentence is impossible.

I’m not asking for it.

No, you’re better at imperatives.

3.

The man I love has faith in words.
They count, he says. He wants to make a name
for a shade of nostalgia
for things that haven’t happened
yet. You’re not original,
I tell him. It’s called longing for a reason.
He plays songs backwards
for fun, leaves too many bookmarks
between too many pages.
He loves me for my mind. One must have
a mind of winter, I say,
not finding refuge in my own words.

4.

Silver white winters that melt into springs—
not my song, not my seasons. In my country,
summer is warming up, doing morning stretches.

Here, his fingers skate on my skin. My blood hisses
as I parse his vocabulary of sighs. He tries hard
to say the word mahal, which means both love

and expensive. His tongue teeters over kita ,
a possessive pronoun roping You to Me, as well
as the interrogative “See?” I want him to stutter

his way into my archipelago. Later, our breaths
interlace in the frosty air. The specters
of our unsaid things look white and willful.

5.

News from Manila           My father had a stroke           Of bad luck
Bad blood           Blood clot causing           Traffic in his brain
I should have called           Long distance           When I dreamt of him
Playing Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise           Last song over Warsaw radio
Before the slaughter           Why do I know this           My father loved
The piano           Loves           My poems           Ways of passing time
My lover brews espresso to keep me going           He had a French girlfriend
Does the taste of her persist           Fall back            I will be patient
Under observation           Hospitals skew hours           My father gets impatient
When his fingers press the wrong keys           Ice plummeting
From the CN Tower           Keeps us indoors           He has no key yet
Miles between us           Arpeggios           Chords like a phone ringing
My mother’s voice           Metallic and rusty           With relief
Wheeled to a private room           Spring forward           This is good
He can’t stand up on his own           Yet           He holds my hand in his sleep

6.

I’m writing him a card, a catalogue
of streets, slushy with the voices
of crazy people. I wonder whose children
they could be, whose lovers.
             Santa squats
along Bloor and Bathurst, unable to return
north to December. Sleigh broke down.
Passersby who throw him coins pay tribute
to their childhoods.
             It’s my birthday,
the man on St. Clair declares, as if it were
a demand, palms turned up like a saint
that’s strolled out of church and misplaced
his halo, lips parted for what could be curses,
what could be kisses.
             A woman outside Future
Bakery screams, The lights don’t change!
The lights— she stops as the green man
glows, the outline of his body telling others
Go.
             A pedestrian pats the back of a man
on a unicycle along Yonge, shoulders dusted
with snow, arms embracing the world,
and pedalling, pedalling by.
             Get well soon.

7.

Write the truest sentence you know.

I have true thoughts every two minutes.
As many as you can in two minutes then.

All languages sound lovely until you hear their words for shit.

Winter makes us all look like impostors.

It’s impossible to get lost in this city of grids and signs.

There are too few original thoughts and too many translations.

Everything I love has an expiration date.

8.

At the bakery, the women behind the counter
converse in Filipino. They are shorter than me,
browner, more at home. When my turn comes,
I smile, Hello. Magkano yung tinapay sa dulo?

One of them looks at me icily, their circle
broken. The other replies in perfect English—
That would be four dollars, plus tax—
A’s overextended, twang taut with defiance.

I hold the bread to my chest, negotiating
the slushy sidewalk. I need an interpreter,
not a translator. When I tell this story
to my lover, he says proudly, Oh, mahal.

*****

FIRST PLACE, CO-WINNER by Marcel L. Milliam:

O.N.S.
(Oras ng Silakbo)

Unan mo’y mga bisig ko
Sa aandap-andap na ilaw
Kinukumutan kita ng yakap
Hingal at kapwa sisinghap-singhap

Salikop ng labi mong bumibigay buhay
Angkin mo’t ayaw mapaghiwalay
Mga anghel kaya’y magalit
Sa mapangahas kong pagpuslit
Sa likurang pintuan ng langit?

Buong lakas kong naisambulat
Sinimot, nilasap mo, ulang kumalat
Pagbuhos ng bugso ng nakaw na saglit
Saan kaya kakanlong, sa bagyong masalimuot

Ngunit haring araw, lulok na sa kanyang trono
Bangon na, bago pa man makahalata ang mundo
Halik ang syang tanging huling gawad
Bago lisanin, unan, kumot, bisig, at nakaw na saglit

*****

HONORABLE MENTION by R. Torres Pandan:

AN EXPLANATION

He counted fifty-nine swans
At Coole Park, and convinced
Himself each was half of a pair.

I don’t believe Yeats erred
When he claimed they flew
Lover by lover. No doubt,

He likewise found the odd male
Skimming the surface of the pond,
Wooing its own mad reflection.

*****
*****

ALL FIRST PLACE WINNERS of the MERITAGE PRESS HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST:

2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

SEVENTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Eric Gamalinda
Deadline: December 31, 2007

ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Eric Gamalinda’s publications include Amigo Warfare [Cherry Grove Collections], Zero Gravity [Alice James Books], Lyrics from a Dead Language [Anvil, Manila], poems; My Sad Republic [University of the Philippines Press], Empire of Memory, Confessions of a Volcano [ both Anvil Publishers, Manila], Planet Waves [New Day, Manila], novels; Peripheral Vision [New Day], short stories; Flippin’: Filipinos on America, anthology [Asian American Writers Workshop, co-edited with Luis Francia]. His awards include the Cultural Center of the Philippines Independent Film and Video Awards [2004], the Asian American Literary Award for Zero Gravity [poems, 2000], the New York Foundation for the Arts [fiction, 1998], the Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for My Sad Republic [novel, 1998], the National Book Award, Manila, for Planet Waves [novel, 1990], and a number of Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for fiction, poetry, essay and playwriting in the Philippines. He is working on a new collection of poems to be entitled Relic Light. More information about him and his works are available at his website: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeslrlq/gamalinda/index.html

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Eric Gamalinda, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn’t matter whether you’re established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of December 31, 2007.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Eric Gamalinda to choose one winner. However, Eric may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the February 2008 edition of “Babaylan Speaks” at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

AMIGO WARFARE by Eric Gamalinda; for more information about the book, go to http://www.cherry-grove.com/gamalinda.html (Patrick Rosal and Eileen Tabios discuss Eric’s amazing book, AMIGO WARFARE, at http://galatearesurrection8.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-books-by-eric-gamalinda_30.html and http://galatearesurrection8.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-books-by-eric-gamalinda.html

PRAU by Jean Vengua; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/prau.htm

MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/museum.htm

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/kalis.htm

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios3.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.ourownvoice.com/books/2004xpress.shtml

BRIDGEABLE SHORES by Luis Cabalquinto; for more information about the book, go to http://www.artbook.com/1885030347.html

AND SELECTED MERITAGE PRESS POETRY TITLES:
COMPLICATIONS by Garrett Caples; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/complications.htm

THE OBEDIENT DOOR by Sean Tumoana Finney; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/obedientdoor.htm

OPERA: Poems 1981-2002 by Barry Schwabsky; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/opera.htm

100 MORE JOKES FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD by John Yau and Archie Rand; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/100morejokes.htm

FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).

PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)

For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce the recipient of “The Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize” is

JEAN VENGUA

for her manuscript, PRAU.

Ms. Vengua (Santa Cruz, CA) will receive a U.S.$1,000.00 prize and PRAU will be published by Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com) for a release date in Fall 2007.

We would like to thank the poets who participated in this contest. We read many wonderful poems by other participants. In particular, we would like to acknowledge Finalist/Second Place Winner Edgar B. Maranan (Quezon City) for the lovely lyricism and imagery displayed in his manuscript, STAR MAPS & OTHER POEMS.

Submissions were screened by Eileen R. Tabios to generate Finalists’ manuscripts. To determine the winner, manuscripts were reviewed on an anonymous basis by Beatriz Tabios to ensure that judging was based solely on the merits of the poems themselves. We are pleased to present below some samples from Jean Vengua’s winning manuscript PRAU, and hope you will remember her entire book — as it turns out, her debut poetry book — when it is released later in 2007.

FROM PRAU:

THE PAPER HOUSE

Because back then, I truly did not care. I want to return to the fold. This is the text, these are the tears along the creases of time. If time is that room, and an interior of paper and ink, which some say is “not limited,” then I must have built it all myself, and furnished it with my loneliness. I became beautiful in a manner of speaking, and without adequate protection against intrusions, I framed and latched the windows and thought this is myself. So, if you don’t mind or even if you do mind, I’ll return to the hundred rooms mansion, and put on the ornate cuffs and collars left by my changeling masters and mistresses. I will lock the doors tightly.

I am all yours, O.

******************

NIGHT DIARY

She removes her clothing before going to bed.
Allusions she drops along the way.
What can you find out by picking through the trash.
4 dimes rest on each other like fallen dominoes.
The headache diminishes with an illusion of surcease.
Chartreuse post-its and floppy disks.

Mind your manners.

Say nothing.

Say little.

It’s late.

Tiny adjustments all day long.

In the night the body, the meat diary, remembers certain conversations.

******************

THE PROBLEMS (2)

I barely know what I’m writing; it’s true. Something comes out of “reality.” Some letters; something is missing, and we know it. The sound of that engine is indifferent to humans, like a dog nosing garbage. Aching for some taste of something. Fat and the heat it generates. Beuys understood this. Or the assemblage and movement of parts. What might be fashioned from it? Still the old bird keeps trilling. Mimicking the bird next door. Mimicking, in fact, the door. Something opening and closing on squeaky hinges. Nothing is new, or should be.

******************

TURNCOAT

position the bird in a side pocket or put it to sleep in poetry. step right up to the shining path. a broken column is pinned to the collar bone, pillar to support her head. she paints a portrait, enlarges upon puddles hidden behind creative writing, drips tears onto a palette, rips open her camisa de dormir. there are two fine breasts cleaved up the middle, and crowning the brow a hairy sliver of moon. the bees are joined in marriage behind literature, european. i kiss your hand, madelaine. i eat your cookies. she unstraps her camisa de fuerza. el corazón beats between science and the mystery of moths and myths. there is cooking for my mother’s rosary, juvenile for our apocalypse. choose your color, advance one square, retreat six. cambiarse la camisa is to change categories. in fiction, one must cross two rivers, being careful to avoid the black holes, center stage. fall forever into universe, tell a story, make place.

******************

THE HOKUM FLOWER

this in the moment
being hurried &
little time to say…

this is beef stew
being et while jotting
a number of tasks

to do

this is not listening
to the still deep bubble
of ecstatic hokum flower

flowering in my gut
i promise someday dear
ecstatic lightning rod

& transcendent protein

i will listen i will
write you i will listen

i promise

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2006 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Michelle Bautista. The results:

First Place: “Atonement” by Joel M. Toledo
Second Place: “The foundress” by Ivy Alvarez
Third Place: “Contact” by Joel M. Toledo
Fourth Place: “Psalms on the Evening News” by Marie La Viña

Note that the First Place and Third Place poems are written by the same poet; this results from that the contest was judged anonymously — that is, based solely on the poems themselves. Meritage Press received many lovely poems for this year’s contest, and we also are delighted to recognize the other stellar finalists:

Finalists:
“Poet in Seven Days” by Cristina Querrer
“DEATH BY FREEWAY” by Lilledeshan Bose
”Driving, 1-80 Nebraska” by Kristin Naca
”Honey gatherers” by Ivy Alvarez
“Gray” by Alvin Malpaya
“Another Song about Death” by Alvin Malpaya
“Why I’m Not Afraid of Fire” by Marie La Viña

Judge Michelle Bautista has this to say about the poems:

1. “Atonement” - I really love how, when I read this, I suddenly find myself listening for the sound of crickets even in the middle of the city. And the last pair of stanzas that speak to a shared primal need.

2. “The foundress” - I love the transition between images and how the writer carries us from one to another, from splinters to paste to glasswings and prisms. The image of the hourglass at the end asking the reader to find the sense of time in the poem.

3. “Contact “- I love the relationship of the zoologist to the sedated wild animal, relating the animals fangs to his grandmother’s hands, a sense of fear, curiosity, excitement to face the wild animal with an intimate connection.

4. “Psalms on the Evening News” - I love the community created in this scene of the isolated insomniacs contemplating God. There is simultaneously attachment and disconnection.

Here are more information about the winning poets:

Joel M. Toledo has an M.A. degree in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, .where he also holds undergraduate degrees in Journalism and Creative Writing. He is a faculty at the Department of English of Miriam College, Quezon City. He was the 2nd prize winner of UK’s 2006 Bridport Prize for his poem, “The Same old Figurative”. In 2005, he won first prize for his poetry collection, “What Little I Know of Luminosity” in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He was also awarded 2nd prize for his poetry entry in the 2004 Palanca Awards. Joel is the recipient of the 2006 National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writers Prize for poetry, a grant for the writing and possible publication of his first book of poetry.

Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Washington, DC: Red Morning Press, 2006) and three chapbooks: ‘what’s wrong’, ‘catalogue: life as tableware’ and ‘Food for Humans’. She is also the editor of A Slice of Cherry Pie, a chapbook anthology of poems inspired by David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Her poetry appears in journals and anthologies worldwide and online.

Marie La Viña was a fellow of the 2004 Dumaguete National Writers’ Workshop and the 2005 UP National Writers’ Workshop. She graduated from the Philippine High School for the Arts in 2004 and spent the next two years figuring out what to do next. She is currently a freshman philosophy student at the Ateneo de Manila University.

We are pleased to share the winning poems:

First Place

Atonement
Joel M. Toledo

Where they are exactly, no one knows.
It is enough that they lie somewhere,
slicing the darkness with their sharp sounds.

Far off, in the cities, people are making do
with light and music and wakefulness.
Here, it is not so different. Only here,

the fireflies are satisfied with their nature,
their flickering envy of stars.
The same is true of the bullfrog,

announcing its presence by the pond,
and of the waiting owl, wide-eyed
and dark-winged and silent in the tree.

But the crickets, weak and ready
for the taking, are the boldest,
frantic with their unlinear music

as if they want to be found, as if
each singular blade of grass contains a single note,
contributes to the grand monotone of the evening.

Troubled and sleepless, I step out to look for them,
flashlight in hand. But outside there is only
the unblemished night, alive with its occasions of light,

harsh sounds, and the unseen crickets, nearby
and far away, mocking the frog, the owl, me.
As if their chorus is both for death and deliverance,

or simply because the night would be too silent
without their sacrifice. Eventually, they would
be discovered. Maybe not tonight, and maybe not

by me. This is the call of both the wild
and the human: our constant search for sources,
answers. Then again, there is the question

of God, our natural need to be heard, forgiven,
as these crickets–-noisy but perhaps
full of prayer, perhaps already redeemed.

*****
Second Place

The foundress
Ivy Alvarez

in these paper cells
some god writes through me
I cannot help myself

the six sides
and the half light
scratches

the dark
all my day
I am chosen

and I gather the wood to me
splinters in my mouth
the hoard I chew

and spit
chew
and spit

my little hands
form a poultice
I paste the walls together

grey paper
I may be writing history
with this copper body

there is beauty in my belly
my plated segments
my geometry

my glass wings
prismatic
there are hooks in my back

I marry
the days’ long drudge
to feed my young

the thin hum
of fear and love
I am the nest

suspended exposed
I birth and give of myself
I cannot count the cells

the small blind lives
break through daily
their thin membranes

deep into the catacombs
I go
there is an hourglass in me

the sky brings its sting
winter’s come
and all my shine dulls

*****
Third Place

Contact
Joel M. Toledo

To be sedated, handled with fingers,
the fear conquered and the animal harmless
like the ordinary orchids in the greenhouse,
its body just another thing to be tampered with.

I think of the young zoologist, his first time
in the field, lab work and books behind him,
hands calloused from too many chemicals.
How his body shudders now, this moment

with the animal of his wildest dreams.
It could be a lion, rhino, some poisonous snake.
It really doesn’t matter. He is caught
in this moment of pure closeness. He holds its paws,

hooves, wings, the pointed and useless fangs,
rough but firm like his grandmother’s hands,
as during that first trip to the zoo one summer,
a long time ago, before he forgot how

the sun exposes everything, alights gently
on the living or the dead, and how everything ends up
being touched, even the fierce ones, even this animal—
for now familiar, for now almost like family.

*****
Fourth Place

“Psalms on the Evening News”
Marie La Viña

So they say,
God will very soon be packing his bags for another universe.
It was on the news last night, and I allowed myself some nostalgia
When the network played a psalm we used to sing in church as kids,
Before I opened a can of beer and joined the consolable.
Like an invisible rain, I heard the world weeping outside my window.
No one slept. And to the grieving, the ghost appeared
In corners of window panes, a quiet light inside an empty glass.
We asked at dawn, “Is the godless air as good
for the lungs?”

People shouted his name in the streets, and there was no reply.
They fell to their knees. And there was silence.

Brothers, sisters,
your loneliness is dense as the atmosphere, warm as the ultraviolet.
Tell me, insomniacs, the teary-eyed among us: What does God know?
Has he ever worshipped anything?