This Publisher's Column shall feature developments related to Filipino literature. Each monthly update also shall include a featured poet and poem. For comments and suggestions, please e-mail Meritage Press Associate Editor Jade Afable at Jade@meritagepress.com


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APRIL

April's featured poet and poem is Nick Carbo and his poem "Ang Tunay Na Lalaki Meets Barbie At The Shark Bar." Nick's poem appears in his latest poetry collection, SECRET ASIAN MAN (Tia Chucha Press, 2000) which was rated No. 5 in the Pippistrelle Best of the Small Press Awards for 2000 (over 300 small press publications were reviewed). However, Meritage Press lauds Nick Carbo primarily for having originated the idea for the first U.S. anthology to feature Filipina women writers from around the world: BABAYLAN (Aunt Lute Press, 2000) which he co-edited with Eileen Tabios. Here is his poem ("Ang Tunay Na Lalaka" means "The Real Man"):


ANG TUNAY NA LALAKI
MEETS BARBIE AT THE SHARK BAR

on Mulberry and Spring on a rainy night.
Her head sticks out of some woman’s tote bag
placed on top of the bar, she winks
at Ang Tunay na Lalaki. He looks at his gin and tonic,
looks back at the doll and hears her tiny voice
even though her lips aren’t moving. "Hi there,
big guy. I was made in the Philippines. You look
like you were made there too." He responds
just to humor himself, "Where, at the Subic Bay
manufacturing plants? Did you enjoy
being made by exploited laborers?" Barbie crawls
onto the sticky bar and sits herself on the edge
crossing her legs. "I remember those delicate fingers
expertly sewing the hairs to my head. Those women
were so nice to me." She bends at her waist
to let her hair down and dramatically lifts her head up
so her blond locks turn into a glamorous puff,
"See, they did a good job. You must admit."
"You’re incorrigible," he exhales a cloud of smoke
after lighting up a cigarette, "And you’re
all plastic, petroleum based plastic."
Barbie places her palms against her face
and begins to sob. Ang Tunay na Lalaki sticks out
his middle finger, strokes the back of her head,
"Now, now, doll. First time anyone ever told
you the truth?" Barbie lifts her left arm
to swipe away his finger, "My name’s Barbie!
Not Doll, Sweetie, Honey, or Dolly. It’s Barbie!"
Ang Tunay na Lalaki sips his gin,
"Look, Barbie. You have the perfect life,
you’re the world’s best-selling doll
and millions of little girls are buying you dresses.
Even the top fashion designers design
outfits for you." Barbie straightens her back
as if she had a spine, places
her hands on her lap, "But you don’t know
how hard it is to be beautiful all the time. See,
you made my mascara run." He takes a napkin,
dips it into his drink, proceeds to wipe off
the small black streaks on her cheeks, "It’s acrylic,
a water based paint." He reaches into his pocket
for a ball-point pen, draws rich eye lashes
around her eyes. Barbie slides over to a shot glass,
stares at her reflection, "Hey, you’re good
at this. Have you ever considered a career
in make-up? I could recommend you
to our designers, you know."
Suddenly a woman’s human hand plucks
Barbie off the bar, stuffing her
back into a tote bag. His eyes follow
the tote bag out the door. All he can see
is a puff of blond hair and a stiff arm
swaying back and forth like a metronome.

—for Denise

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Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios will host a special presentation of writers from BABAYLAN at this year's annual Associated Writers Program Conference on April 21 at Palm Springs. Other featured writers include fictionist M. Evelina Galang and poets Marisa de los Santos, Luisa Igloria, Aimee Nezhukumatathl and Barb Natividad. To celebrate BABAYLAN, Meritage Press presents "Revolt From Hymen," a poem written in 1940 by Angela Manalang Gloria. Censors had forced Ms. Gloria to change the last word from "whore's" to "bore's" if she wished it to be included in Philippine textbooks. How boring -- and so Meritage Press is pleased to feature the poem the way Ms. Gloria originally wrote it:


REVOLT FROM HYMEN

O to be free at last, to sleep at last
As infants sleep within the womb of rest!

To stir and stirring find no blackness vast
With passion weighted down upon the breast,

To turn the face this way and that and feel
No kisses festering on it like sores,

To be alone at last, broken the seal
That marks the flesh no better than a whore's!


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Leny Mendoza Strobel recently released her groundbreaking book COMING FULL CIRCLE: THE PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION AMONG POST-1965 FILIPINO AMERICANS (Giraffe Books, 2001). The book discusses how Filipino Americans may begin to unlearn and undo their colonized mentality. Strobel offers a framework for the healing of the Filipino colonized psyche through the recovery and re-imagination of Filipino identity and culture.

COMING FULL CIRCLE highlights the importance of: naming and telling our stories; of opening the doors to our memory and imagination; of using Filipino language/s to express our deepest values; of replacing colonial knowledge with Filipino cultural and historical knowledge; of community institutions; and of integrating indigenous spirituality in our lives. Eileen Tabios also discusses the book in a feature article entitled "The Healing Capacity of Affirmation" available online in the March 2001 issue (check Archives) of www.Reviewwest.com.

Leny Mendoza Strobel was recognized by the University of San Francisco’s School of Education as its "Most Outstanding Student" in 1996 for this research project. Her most recent writings have appeared in Postcolonial Theory and the US: Race, Ethnicity and Literature, Encounters: People of Asian Descent in the Americas (which she co-edited), Amerasia Journal, The Other Side, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals and magazines. She also holds the 2001 Gamaliel Chair for Peace and Justice of the Greater
Milwaukee Campus Lutheran Ministry.

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THE ANCHORED ANGEL: Selected Writings by Jose Garcia Villa (Editor Eileen Tabios, Kaya, 1999) has received an Honorable Mention, Adult Non-Fiction Literary Award from the National Conference on Asian Pacific American Librarians (NCAPAL). This was the only poetry book honored in NCAPAL's awards which were categorized in only two ways: "Adult Fiction" which was given to Land of Smiles by T.C. Huo (Plume Books, 2000), and "Adult Non-Fiction" which given to First They Killed My Father by Luong Ung (Harper Collins, 1999_. The judges cited THE ANCHORED ANGEL as follows:

Adult Non-Fiction Honorable Mention (awarded posthumously) Villa, Jose Garcia. The Anchored Angel: the selected writings. New York, Kaya, 2000. (Ed. Eileen Tabios)

This meticulously edited volume is an important revival of Villa's work, and is fascinating for poets and scholars alike. Villa's experimentation with form and idiosyncratic punctuation show the same vibrant energy and intellectual force as his Modernist predecessors and contemporaries. The homage at the end written by today's writers and poets provides the collection with a historical, social, and personal context.