13th Plenary Session*

Dr Evasco mentioned that she has not read any cebuano poem referring to the act of lovemaking as the act of grating the coconut. She suggested that the writer remove the action with the chicken so that the action would be fluid. Focusing on language, Dr Evasco said that the typographical difference between H and h was a trick that was too easy, and she said the writer should remember the use of ug and og. Dr Coscolluela also had inputs with regard to more appropriate Visayan terms for the writer to use. Formal practice of language shows an awareness of how mind works.

In Death Fantasies, Dr Evasco also pointed out that the allusion should be to Sleeping Beauty rather than Cinderella. Workshop was a description of a situation, but the writer has to provide context. The work is still private and is a subjective take on the process. Not only that, it is a stereotyping of an image. Perhaps it was the writer’s response to a bad experience in a bad workshop.

Dr Tan found the chicken too literal and thought that this may destroy the metaphorical level of the poem. With regard to form poetry, he mentioned that only Apollinaire who did this.

Dr Coscolluela focused on Death Fantasies. She stated that caskets come in standard sizes. Because of the beginning, Dr Coscolluela expected the speaker to give the size of the casket, but the adjustments are not followed through. Instead the reader is given a tale of woe. Dr Coscolluela always imagines herself in the shoe of the subject, but she could not see the significance of some of the objects catalogued by the speaker. The work needs refinement.

Dr Deriada reminded the fellows that there are other traditional sexual/sex imagery in Visayan poetry. He said that Death Fantasies should be written in the present tense. Dr Deriada did not like the form poems, a 17^th century European tradition.

Mr John Teodoro noted that in experimental poems such as Memory, the form disappears when read aloud. He called these filler poems and asked that the writer justify the existence of the poem. According to him, if one were to write such a poem Sagada Stills is a good example of such acceptable experimentation. He liked the Cebuano poems. With Workshop, Mr Teodoro suggested that the writer trim down the 2^nd stanza, have a care with punctuation and work on the language as it seems the writer is not used to writing in English.

Dr Asenjo saw the works as cut-up prose and encouraged the writer to get sense of form and language.

Errol said that kagod may be a better title instead of Tunó, especially as in Davao the former has a colloquial meaning which is quickie or lovemaking. He wanted more descriptions of the person grating the coconut, something which VJ saw as sexist.

Genica repeated the panelists’ comments on Tunó and Death Fantasies. She thought that there may be dangling or misplaced modifiers in Modifiers. Cindy admired the form poetry which for her required the writer to sacrifice content for form, a challenge. She liked the flavor of Tunó and found Workshop to be not yet a poem. Irish found Tunó lovely; grating coconut is a sacred art in Bicol.

Vanessa Almeria said these works are edited versions of works she submitted to other workshops. The strange form in the form poems are the results of her difficulty with Microsoft word, and they are computer-driver forms. Red and blue represented binaries/opposites for her. Tuno was supposed to illustrate the patience of help but became an attempt at erotic poetry. Kite was inspired by Kite Runner and Workshop was a response to a very bad experience in a workshop.

*13th Plenary session documentation with my selected poems during the creative writing workshop at Bacolod City and some comments from my lead panelist(Ma'am Marj).