The Tree by Godofredo Burce Bunao (Poem) - Meaning and Analysis

The tree was very beautiful to me
When I was a boy
I climbed for fruit or out of a branch of the tree
Made me a toy—
A top, for instance, that spun around, carefree
And wound for joy until it toppled over and was dead.

No longer the boy,
I find the tree as beautiful as though not
Just for branch
Or a bunch of fruit but-more than that-for a bed
Or to fence the ranch
In which I raise the beasts that fill the pot
In the many shapes
My simple commerce turn them to like bread
Or fish or grapes
To feed the brood the little woman me.

There go the boys.
Go watch them, strong limb; spread up the tree,
They pluck their toys
Out of its branches, as out of my childhood tree

I shaped my joys.

Meanings and Analysis

Imagine the poet standing on a road and on the side of the road is a big tree. Such tree reminds him of his childhood. A childhood where he spent a lot of time climbing trees. Climbing trees for their sweet fruits. Climbing trees for their sturdy branches from which he'd create old-fashioned toys like spinning tops. The memory encourages him to write a poem about it.

At its core, The Tree is a poem about growing up - that memorable transition between child and adult. In this process, some things change but things remain the same and intact. Read the poem again. The poet finds trees beautiful when he was a child. He still finds them beautiful as an adult. But the reasoning behind why he finds them beautiful has changed. As a child, the tree is beautiful because it gave him sweet fruits and sturdy branches for fashioning toys. As an adult, the tree is beautiful because it gives him the materials to build furniture and fences. 

The poet also encourages the reader to watch boys climb trees so that they can also experience what he's experiencing - a sweet trip down memory lane. A trip to a childhood they'll never be able to go back to - physically at least.

The last line in the poem - "I shaped my joys" - is more open to interpretation. It could mean that the poet's childhood shaped his joys into adulthood. As an adult, he finds joy building furniture and fences from trees. The same joy he experienced as a child eating the sweet fruits of trees. Would he have enjoyed building furniture if he didn't experience climbing trees as a child? Probably not as much. 

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse by Mila D. Aguilar (Poetry Book)

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995) is a poetry collection by Filipino author and poet Mila D. Aguilar. It was published by the University of the Philippines Press and the Creative Writing Center on March 15, 1996. The book contains an Introduction by National Artist for Literature Francisco Arcellana, Sr. The Introduction was written in verse form and so was the Preface by the author.

The blurb from the book's back cover:

"This book is not only an autobiography in verse; it is the history of a society in radical transition. Mila D. Aguilar, without realizing it at the time she was writing her poetry, has chronicled the most significant turn of events in Philippine society in the last half of the twentieth century, as it affected a Filipino woman of the petty bourgeoisie, in her prime.

Mila D. Aguilar was born in 1949, a baby boomer strongly influenced by her father, who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his pioneering work on the community school.

In the late 60s, when stirrings of the world revolutionary youth movement started, she was in college at the University of the Philippines, hotbed of dissent. When activism broke out in 1970, she was a young teacher and journalist, assigned to cover the youth front. When martial law was imposed in 1972, she had already gone underground.

She saw it all. In 1983, her revolutionary party's response to the Ninoy Aquino assassination convinced her that it was time to leave her beloved movement. Arrested and imprisoned in 1984, she was released in the midst of the jubilation over the EDSA Revolt in February, 1986.

What became of her after that? Her poems will tell you."

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse by Mila D. Aguilar

Preface:

"The poems in this collection constitute a journey launched early in my teens in quest of the meaning of life. It was a journey that necessitated - without, of course, my knowing so at the start - the discovery of three major actors in my life: Self, Society, and Maker. It took me more than thirty years to unravel the correlation between the three, and even now I suppose I should be wary to say that I already have.

Yet the feeling grows on me everyday that I have. As I review these chronologically arranged poems, I begin to see a pattern of thought and feeling that has followed my trail through the years, wherever I have been buffeted. It is aa consistent, persistent pattern outside of my control that has inexorably spiralled from my finite Self to an expansive Society, and from there to an immeasurable, awesome God.

I present these poems to the public with trepidation and not a little sadness, for going through them makes me feel that I am at the end of my rope: I have said all I can about life on earth - that is, as far as my limitations can carry me - and now all I have left to discover is life in heaven.

I guess I will continue to exist on this planet only if something remains to be done."

The Fashionista's Book of Enlightenment by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Poetry Book)

The Fashionista's Book of Enlightenment is a collection of poems by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana that was published in 2009 by Designed by Words Co. The collection contains 43 poems. Some of the poems have been previously published in other publications and anthologies (i.e. Ani, At Home in Unhomeliness, Dark Blue Southern Seas, Ladlad 3, Likhaan 3, Montage, Philippines Free Press, Tomas).

Reviews:

"This fine collection of forty-three poems is a gathering of odes and elegies to the grand frailties of the world: from missed relatives and pets, visited cities, to the many failures of the body as it continues enduring the daily grind of modern city-living. The poems in The Fashionista's Book of Enlightenment are driven by a formal, often detached (half-mocking?) tone that meticulously details chance encounters with strangers and instances of intimacy. Daoana delights in chronicling the many posturing and elaborate decorations of the high society, and is openly scornful at the artificial and heavily made-up. From couplets to experimentations with the prose-poem form, this book offers myriad themes that mostly revolve around a hunger for cleansing, an envy of angels, and a wanting for quieter evenings. Yet these poems are never insistent on lower volumes and change; they simply - and all-too-humanly - remain steadfastly watchful of little kindness." - Joel M. Toledo

"In The Fashionista's Book of Enlightenment we find one of the top poetic voices of the post People Power Revolution. The nuances of serene images like "The clouds hang low, bruise the tip/ Of the mountain, which, oddly, is chiseled/In such a way that the left slope looks like/Cragged ladder, broken teeth, an angle of anguish," fill the book with Byronic beauty with indigenous flair. If I were to pin my hopes on the future of Filipino poetry, Carlomar Arcangel Daoana's name would be amongst the top three. This book should be on the book shelves of serious readers of our contemporary poetry." - Nick Carbo

"Among our finest poets writing today - Carlomar Arcangel Daoana: in such poems as "Mending" and "Surrender", there throbs, beneath the casual intimacy of the considering eye and the tender feeling, a deep sense of the world's sorrow and calm, harm and care, doom and certainty." - Gemino H. Abad

Here are two poems from the collection:

Octopus

A male octopus travels an ocean
To have an embrace with his kind.
The tentacles know what to do
And soon the gaps are sealed as
If to say: nothing else but hunger.

The whirling in the depths is
A hopeless dance. No baby
Octopus shall swim in the ocean
Because of this love. As if to say:
Sacrifices is its own enduring gift.

The grip happens in darkness,
Ours, and we smell the ocean.
I knock on the door of your body
With a question: Who are you
In these ridiculously mortal clothes?

It took you half a road to enter
My bed, half a second to kiss me.
What dangerous hunger we have.
We descend into the doom -
A wreckage - arms locked.

Prayer

At this edge (must be), the altar of the world
(Given), a pile of words and significances tight
As house, light-ambushed and rain-cohered,
I invoke your pure delight and luminosity, boy
In a red jacket, registering as both breath and
Emergency, as the bus dips - sideways -
Into the three o'clock road. See you neither
Falling nor swimming in the fog, simply,
Standing and staring with no heft of purpose,
Just gazing, marvelously, letting time precipitate
As your slow body tilts toward the dissolved:
Landscape bereft of contradictions. I call to you
Instead of the muse, not just because we share
The same millennium, the same hollowed-out
Clouds of the unhinged city, but because -
Let me put it this way: You venerate lostness.
You know how to stop, and stopping, the blur
Is summoned from the details, and the unknown
Rolls like the spokes of white wheels, and
Something gets polished inside you and what shines
Is a small, incalculable belief in the little bit.
This morsel is what sustains me so the words
May come with blood in them - reprehensible,
Inert in many ways, hopefully human. As for you:
A revelation of salt, earth and the curved sky
Hiding beneath all this white. So bless me.
Restore me to my edgedness. Intervene
Against the wind shutting down flames and
Roses in my head. As soon as I hit forehead
Against the page, you should have known:
That I write because you exist on the other side,
Smoldering with a life that stays put (the way
You want it) complete and incomparable
In the total mist, needing me not one bit.

Moonlight on Manila Bay by Fernando M. Maramag (Poem) - Meaning and Analysis

This poem was supposedly published in 1912. It's difficult to verify if indeed this was the year that the poem saw print. If this is true, then the poem was published when Fernando M. Maramag was only 18 0r 19 years old. Maramag was born in 1893. A few years later in 1898, the Battle of Manila Bay happened. Commodore George Dewey of America decisively defeated the Spanish fleet thus marking the end of the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines.

In the poem, the narrator pays homage to a Manila Bay of old. He talks about a peaceful and innocent bay before the arrival of visitors from the East and the West. These visitors turned this peaceful bay into a tumultuous setting that betrayed what it once was.

A light, serene, ethereal glory rests
Its beams effulgent on each cresting wave;
The silver touches of the moonlight wave
The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests;
While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests
Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave;
And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave-
All cast a spell that heeds not time‘s behests.

- Here, the narrator travels back in time and takes us back to a simpler Manila Bay. A time when the breeze and the waves linger and roll without any care in the world. The moon watches over them with its beams and ethereal light. The narrator of the poem looks back at these scenes with nostalgia.

Not always such the scene; the din of fight
Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;
Here East and West have oft displayed their might;
Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair;
Here bold Olympia, one historic night,
Presaging freedom, claimed a people‘s care.

- In these lines, the narrator travels to the time when Manila Bay becomes the setting for events that transformed the history of a country. Wars have been fought and troubles have occurred in this little bay. The Chinese and the Japanese of the East have their fair share of moments in this bay. And of course, the Spanish and the Americans of the West have turned the bay into a battleground.

In the last two lines of the poem, Olympia is mentioned. During the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, the flagship of Commodore George Dewey was called USS Olympia. Indeed, this battle presaged freedom and captured the undivided attention and care of the Filipino people.

Other poems by Fernando M. Maramag: The Rural Maid, 

The Martyr by Nick Joaquin (Poem) - Analysis

As per Wikipedia, a martyr is "someone that suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party". This is the general definition of a martyr. In the context of a romantic relationship, a martyr is someone who is more than willing to sacrifice everything in the name of love. This is the context that surrounds Nick Joaquin's poem The Martyr. The poem is about selfless love, blind love, uncompromising love, the kind of love that ignores everything to make the opposite party happy and free from any form of distress, emotional or physical.

The poem is about the ultimate romantic sacrifice. There's a saying in Filipino: "magpaka-martyr". This is exactly the content and theme of this poem. Now, as a reader, you can have your own opinion on the "magpaka-martyr" thing. You may think it's dangerous. Or you may think it's romantic. But it's something that exists. And very common at that. Love can enslave people. Love causes people to throw logic and reason out the window.

Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry
After all, at some point in your life
That love was the most important thing to you,
That love might be the one that you hoped would last forever,
That love made you believe that destiny does exist,
And that love made you question,
Why you were afraid to fall in love in the first place.

Lines 1-7: The speaker gushes with pride and nostalgia about falling in love, and rightly so. Everyone has been there. Meeting someone, falling in love, and believing that the universe has given you everything. According to the speaker, because of these reasons, you are not supposed to ever say sorry. Because saying sorry will be a betrayal of these things.

At that time in your life,
Everything just seemed so perfect,
Everything seemed so beautiful,
Everything seemed to glow for you,
And you were my everything.

Lines 8-12: The speaker trudges on with the superlatives he started on the first stanza of the poem. Love is perfect. Love is beautiful. Love shines on everyone. Love is everything.

I wouldn't even think twice about sacrificing my own happiness for yours,
I was even willing to bare up this walled but crumpled heart of mine,
Just so I could be with you.
All I ever did was care for you.
All I ever did was to make you happy.
And all I ever did was love you.

Lines 13-18: In this stanza, the speaker is now referring to the martyrdom of being completely and uuterly in love. A person in love will sacrifice everything for the person he loves. He is willing to be unhappy to make the loved one happy. He is willing to uncover his flaws and dark secrets just to be with his loved one. His only goal it to make the loved one happy.

Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry
But I needed to ask forgiveness from the one who was hurt the most…
Myself.

Lines 19-21: Here, the speaker divulges that there's a catch to never saying sorry to someone you love. In one way or another, there will come a time when you are going to say sorry. So if you are not going to say sorry to the person you love, who are you going to say sorry to? Your own self of course. Again, it's another sacrifice. Another show of martyrdom. You're a martyr of love. That's what martyrs do.

Strangers at First Sight by Nick Joaquin (Poem) - Analysis and Meaning

Strangers at First Sight is a poem by Nick Joaquin. On initial reading, the poem seems to be simple enough to understand. No fancy wordplay. No overbearing metaphors. But upon closer inspection, it's actually more vague than simple. It's written in clear and easy language but trying to decipher its meaning requires a bit of mental exercise. The poem is about falling in and out of love. It's about nurturing a relationship, seeing it dissipate, and hoping that you don't have to go through the same process again.

The title of the poem could be a playful reference to the saying "love at first sight". Come to think of it. Before lovers became lovers, they have to meet for the first time. During this first meeting, they were strangers to each other.

The poem also has a tinge of pessimism in it. The speaker's experiences with feelings and love has rendered him pessimistic. Enough to cause him to ignore everything and shut off his senses.

How could you possibly start from nothing?
And then end up as everything?

- The speaker is amazed at the power of love and feelings. Two people start out as strangers to each other. They don't know each other. They know nothing of each other. They are basically nothing of value to each other before they met. But after meeting and falling in love, they become everything to each other.

I never thought I’d feel this way again…
More like I pushed myself to never fall victim again
To this arresting feeling

- Here the speaker takes the opposite stance. In the first lines of the poem, he speaks highly of the power and beauty of love and feelings. In these next lines, he pushes back against such feelings. The only explanation to this pushback is that he had a bad experience with falling in love. He even used the word "victim". He was a victim of love, a victim of falling in love at first sight. And he doesn't plan on getting victimized again.

How ironic is it, That what I wanted to lose the most,
Is what most people long for their whole life

- Most people dream of falling in love at first sight. Of finding the one. But the speaker wants the opposite. He doesn't want fall in love again with a stranger only to see it disappear again.

I don’t know what to do,
Guess I’ll just ignore everything again,
Time to shut my senses to all the assaults that the world has to offer…
After all, I’ve suppressed everything so far
What’s one more to add?

- Here the speaker meets a problem. Going against your feelings is a lost cause. If you meet someone and you like her, there's not much that you can do to stop yourself from loving her. This is why the speaker laments not knowing what to do. He thinks of ignoring everything and shutting his senses. He comforts himself by reminding himself that he has suppressed everything so far.

This is definitely a poem that can be open to varying interpretations especially the last five lines. But the overall theme of the poem is on the power of feelings and the consequences of these feelings.

Pedagogic by Cirilo F. Bautista (Poem) - Analysis and Meaning

I walked towards the falling woods
to teach the trees all that I could
of time and birth, the language of men,
the virtues of hate and loving.
They stood with their fingers flaming,
Listened to me with a serious mien:
I knew the footnotes, all the text,
my words were precise and correct-
I was sure that they were learning-
till one tree spoke, speaking in dolor,
to ask why I never changed color.

Analysis and Meaning

Merriam-Webster defines the word pedagogic as "of, relating to, or befitting a teacher or education". You can replace the title of the poem with this exact definition and it will make complete sense. The speaker in the poem is a teacher, an educator tasked with imparting knowledge to the less knowledgeable and the less experienced. The speaker is passionate about teaching. That's why he's always walking towards the "falling woods". The "falling woods" here is a metaphor. The "woods" can be a country, a population, or a citizenry. The trees in the poem is a metaphor for the people. By "falling", the speaker means that the people are intellectually dying. The people are either not getting the education they need/deserve or their their mental capabilities are waning.

So the speaker walks towards them. To teach them. To impart knowledge upon them. "Time and birth" can be a metaphor for history and fields of study like anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, etc. "The language of men" can be a metaphor for literature and linguistics. "The virtues of hate and loving" can be a metaphor for philosophy and logic.

"Fingers flaming" means that the trees are starting to burn and it's just a matter of time before they start falling down. People are becoming more and more ignorant and it's the teacher's duty to help ensure that this doesn't happen. So the teacher teaches them everything - text and footnotes, and all. Precise and capable, the teacher thinks his lessons are getting through to his students. But he soon realizes that he was wrong. Instead of learning from him, his students are questioning him instead.

The phrase "speaking in dolor" plays a very important role in this poem. "Dolor" is a state of great sorrow and distress. The students are distressed about being taught. So what do they do? They rebel against their teacher. With that said, this poem can be interpreted as not just about the dying of education and the rise of ignorance, but also about close-mindedness or anti-intellectualism. Some people prefer being ignorant as opposed to having their eyes and ears opened.

Sadness by Bienvenido Lumbera (Poem) - Analysis and Meaning

Sweet little songs I make,
Tunes so pure and full of love.
When lovers are timid and mute,
I give them voice, I make them bold.
Once I bid a word to come
And help me put together a poem.
From far and near, from wherever,
The word brought the poem warmth.
Each word I painstakingly refine,
And I wash the impoverished tongue.
I soothe and salve the cry of pain,
I banish any trace of tears.
But sadness I cannot send away—
Its little waves lap and leave,
Lap and leave the shore of the heart,
This moment a whisper, next a storm.

Analysis and Meaning

This poem is about the power that sadness can hold over someone's heart and mind. Sadness can grip you so tight that there's nothing you can do but submit to it. All you can muster is wait for it to fade away and leave you alone. It follows that the poem is also about man's utter inability to deal with sadness. The reason why we always choose to submit to sadness is that there's very little we can do to prevent its onslaught. If you're sad, you're sad. You simply ride the wave and wait.

Lumbera applies analogies and metaphors in driving his message across. Singers can compose beautiful songs that can awaken timid and mute lovers. When listening to these songs, these lovers find their voice. The songs embolden them. Poets accomplish the same thing. They write poems that hit people's hearts and minds and give them warmth and feelings sof euphoria. Beautiful songs and lovely poems can erase pain and banish tears.

But sadness is a completely different monster. There's not much that poems and songs can do to banish sadness. In the poem, Lumbera describes sadness as waves that lap and leave the heart. One second, it's a little wave. The next second it's a tsunami. And most of the time, the heart isn't prepared for it.

This is a very lovely and sentimental poem. It's no wonder that some readers find it cheesy and corny. It's a great poem to read when you are sad. When you are lonely. Or when you are at the beach. Watch the waves as you contemplate Lumbera comparing waves of sadness to waves in the seashore.

Other poems by Bienvenido Lumbera: A Eulogy of Roaches, Servant, Ka Bel

Ka Bel by Bienvenido Lumbera (Poem)

Ka Bel is a poem written in the Filipino language by Bienvenido Lumbera. It's one of Lumbera's most well-known and most studied poems. It's often taught on poetry and literature classes in the Philippines.

Ang lider ay isang sangkap lamang ng tagumpay,
Ang masa ang siyang tunay na mapagpasiya.
Maraming beses na nating sinabi sa kanila,
Subalit makunat talaga ang kanilang utak,
Ayaw nang talaban ng ating katotohanan.
Iligpit ang lider at tuluyang mawawasak
Ang rebolusyong binabalak, iyan lamang
Ang kaya nilang paniwalaan.

Ulianin ang katarungang atas ng Malakanyang,
Dinaklot ng batas na walang kinamuwangan
Ang lider ng Anakpawis, di-umano’y imbitasyong lang,
Proklamasyon 1017 ang mahigpit na dahilan.
Nang maikandado ang seldang kulungan,
Inakala nilang nalumpo na ang himagsikan,
Kaliweteng party-list di na makagagalaw.

Subalit ang mga manggagawa, lahat ng anakpawis
Na walang pangalan sa mga pabrika at lansangan,
Ang mga pagtutol na isinisigaw, ang pagkakabigkis
Lalong tumitibay—Palayain si Crispin Beltran!
Ang masa, ang masa, pag nabuksan ang isipan,
Uugit ng landas tungo sa kalayaan.
Diwa ni Ka Bel di kayang ihiwalay ng rehas na bakal
Sa sambayang kanyang pinaglingkuran,
Naging sinag ng araw na tumimo sa kamalayan,
At ngayo’y liwanag na nagpupumiglas
Sa dilim at dagim na isinasabog ng Malakanyang.
Loob nati’y tibayan, likumin ang kaliwanagan,
Bukang-liwayway ng ating paglaya’y
Hinding-hindi na mapipigilan!

Other poems by Bienvenido Lumbera worth reading: Servant, A Eulogy of Roaches

Servant by Bienvenido Lumbera (Poem) - Analysis, Meaning

On the shut door of the mind
We knock, we of soul and body torn;
We who serve and are ignored,
Broken into pieces to be of use.
Our heads nod, our arms lift,
Our feet are quick, our faces turn:
We scatter our parts to the beck
And call of those higher than us.
Deep within, we have a name,
A story to tell. Against a harsh life
We’ve put up a fight, only
To end up with a servant’s life.
We serve the strong, we are
Feet and arms wanting to climb,
Heads and faces used to fool the law,
Will we be whole again tomorrow?
Up ahead the new day shines,
The change-of-fate we seek—
Then we shall rise again,
With our names and bodies back.

Anaylysis and Meaning:

This is a poem that laments the great divide between those who serve and those who are served. The great divide between the poor and the rich. The great divide between the corrupted and those who corrupt them. The great divide between the common folk and the elite. The great divide between the powerless and the powerful. The great divide between those born in the stinking slums and those born with silver spoons.

The speaker cries of the harshness of living as a lower being. Of belonging to a lower societal class. Servants serve while being ignored. Broken and grounded, servants give their body and soul to their masters. They have no choice but perform their master's instructions. They nod if they have to. They lift their hands if they have to. Their feet are always ready to move and their faces are always ready to turn should their masters tell them to.

Making matters worse is that servants have no choice but call on their masters. They depend on their masters for almost everything. This further strengthens the hold that their masters have over them.

Servants have names. They have life stories. They have feelings. They have ambitions. But all of these almost mean nothing because they are enslaved by their masters, physically and mentally. It's a very harsh life that involves fighting for existence and recognition every single day.

Everything is stacked against the servant. What are the odds that the servant can get out of his predicament? The speaker in the poem asks: "Will we be whole again tomorrow?" The speaker answers his own question with the suggestion that there is indeed hope. "Up ahead the new day shines," he exclaims. It's possible. The fates of servants can change. They can hope for something better. And to achieve that, they have to rise. They have to rise with the intention of getting their "names and bodies back."

The word "rise" in the poem is a metaphor for revolution. It could be a personal revolution (improving your status in your community) or a national revolution (political revolution).

Other poems by Bienvenido Lumbera worth reading: Ka Bel, A Eulogy of Roaches, 

A Eulogy of Roaches by Bienvenido Lumbera (Poem) - Summary, Meaning, Analysis

Blessed are the cockroaches.

In this country they are
the citizens who last.
They need no police
to promulgate their peace
because they tolerate
each other's smell or greed.

Friends to dark and filth,
they do not choose their meat.
Although they neither sow
nor reap, a daily feast
is laid for them in rooms
and kitchens of their pick.

The roaches do not spin,
and neither do they weave.
But note the russet coat
the sluggards wear: clothed
at birth, roaches require
no roachy charity.

They settle where they wish
and have no rent to pay.
Eviction is a word
quite meaningless to them
who do not have to own
their dingy crack of wall.

Not knowing dearth or taxes,
they increase and multiply.
Survival is assured
even the jobless roach;
his opportunities
pile up where garbage grows.

Dying is brief and cheap
and thus cannot affright.
A whiff of toxic mist,
an agile heel, a stick
-- the swift descent of pain
is also final death.

Their annals may be short,
but when the simple poor
have starved to simple death,
roaches still circulate
in cupboards of the rich,

the strong, the wise, the dead.

Summary, Meaning, Analysis:

This is a politically-charged poem which should not come as a surprise to you if you are familiar with Bienvenido Lumbera and his body of work. Lumbera's written works are often described as "nationalist writing" and A Eulogy of Roaches is a perfect example. Lumbera wrote to scream against unfairness, injustice, brutality, and incompetence. He was among the many literary artists who were arrested and jailed during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. If you sense a lot of angst in this poem and in his other works, you know why.

This poem is a direct indictment of the greed and corruption that is rampant in Philippine society. Lumbera is directing his ammunition here towards the greedy rich folks and corrupt politicians. To Lumbera, these shady characters are nothing but opportunistic cockroaches. Pests who exploit the poor, the illiterate, and the gullible.

The poet provides several examples of unfair privileges that the rich and the corrupt enjoy. They are untouchable by the police because they tolerate each other's corrupt practices. They don't work, they don't plant the fields, they don't raise livestock. But when the time to eat comes, they can choose whatever they want to eat. There's always a feast in front of them. They do not spin yarn nor weave textile. But they are always wearing the best clothes. They can live wherever they want because they don't have to pay rent. They don't have to live in fear because they are immune to eviction. They survive even if they don't hold jobs because there will always be poor and gullible people for them to exploit.

Lumbera lived through the 60's, 70's, and 80's and so he saw with his own eyes and experienced with his own skin the injustices and corruption under the Marcos regime. Remember that he was thrown into jail by the regime. So this poem is him making his case against all the injustices and corruption he has witnessed. There's a line in the poem that goes "they tolerate each other's smell or greed". He is probably referring to cronies here. Cronyism was very rampant during the Marcos years. Businessmen and politicians working together to exploit the country and its poor people.

In conclusion, this poem is a protest poem. It's a literary piece coming from an activist. An activist who has seen and experienced injustice and suffering.

Bonsai by Edith L. Tiempo (Poem) - Analysis, Meaning, Theme, Moral Lesson

All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe

All that I love?

Why, yes but for the moment-
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son’s note, or Dad’s one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a young queen
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.

It’s utter sublimation,
A feat, this heart’s control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand’s size.

Till seashells are broken pieces
From God’s own bright teeth,
All life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child

Analysis and Meaning:

The poem is about the human capacity for memory-keeping by collecting keepsakes. Nurturing great memories is the main theme of the poem. The poem is about the art of remembering and the joy of collecting things that remind us of a memorable happening in the past. The speaker begins by saying that she collects keepsakes in a box, in a hollow post, or in her shoe. This is not a metaphor. She's being literal here. She's talking about real boxes, real hollow posts, and real shoes.

In the next several lines, the speaker provides examples of the things she collects as keepsakes - her son's letter, her father's necktie, a roto picture, an Indian shawl, and a money bill.

In lines 15-19, the speaker gushes in amazement at the heart's capability to scale down love and all the memories attached to it to the size of a "cupped hand". As an example, let's take into account the "son's letter" that was mentioned by the speaker earlier in the poem. This single letter means a lot to the speaker. We may not know what it contains but it's likely that it's brimming with so much love. Enough reason for the speaker to keep the letter in a box. According to the speaker, it's amazing to think that all the love and all the memories between mother and son can bre represented by one single letter. How can so much love and memories fit in a "cupped hand's size"?

In the final stanza, the speaker proclaims that this practice of collecting memories and keepsakes will be with humankind until the end of time. Life and love can be scaled down to something very simple like a letter, a picture, or a shawl. Something so simple that you can without remorse, hand over to a child nearby.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Why did the poet title her poem "Bonsai"? Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing miniature trees in pots. The poet used it in her poem as a metaphor for the human capacity of keeping and nurturing memories through tiny keepsakes. Bonsai is the art of shrinking trees. Collecting keepsakes is the art of shrinking love, life, and memories. For example, the letter that the speaker keeps in a box is a miniature version of the love and memories she and her son has for each other.

2. What does the line "Till seashells are broken pieces, From God’s own bright teeth" mean? I think she's talking about the end of mankind, the end of Earth. Science has come to the conclusion that the solar system which includes the earth will end when the sun exhausts its source of energy and dies. The poet could be referring to the sun as "God's own bright teeth". When the sun dies, it will explode. That should burn and break down all seashells on any shore.

2. What's the moral lesson in the poem? Bonsai is one of those poems where there isn't a moral lesson. There is no need for one. So you shouldn't be looking for one. The poem simply projects the poet reflecting on one of the most important aspects of being human - the ability to gather memories and keep them fresh in the mind and heart by collecting keepsakes to represent them.

Other poems by Edith L. Tiempo: Lament for the Littlest Fellow, 

Coñotations by Paolo Manalo (Poem) - Analysis

1. I’m like tripping right now I have suitcase fever.
2. Dude, man, pare, three people can be the same.
3. Except he’s not who he says he is, pare. He’s a sneeze with Chinese blood: Ha Ching!
4. Naman, it’s like our Tagalog accent, so they won’t think we’re all airs; so much weight it means nothing naman.
5. Dude, man, pare, at the next stop we’ll make buwelta. So they can see we know how to look where we came from.
6. It’s hirap kaya to find a connection. Who ba’s puwede to be our guide?
7. Dude, man, can you make this areglo naman?
8. Make it pabalot kaya in the mall. So they can’t guess what you’re thinking. That’s what I call a package deal.
9. Who says ’coz should be shot.
10. Only kolehiyalas make tusok the fishballs. Us guys, dude, pare, we make them tuhog.
11. Talaga, she said she’d sleep with you? Naman pare, when she says talaga, it means she’s lying.
12. Hey, wala namang like that-an.

Analysis, Meaning, Critique:

Coñotations is a poem that appeared in Jolography, a poem collection by Paolo Manalo that was published in 2003 by the University of the Philippines Press. It's a poem that copies the form and style of a listicle. A listicle is an article that lists things. Here's a few examples of listicle article titles:

- The 101 Greatest Novels of All Time
- 7 Things You Should Never Say in a Romantic Date
- 15 Reasons Why You Should Leave the Philippines and Live Somewhere Else

Listicles have become very popular online and majority of online media outlets use them for their articles. You could say that Paolo Manolo used the same format to craft his poem Coñotations. Whether he did it this way intentionally or otherwise, the fact remains that the poem has the form and style of a listicle. It's basically a listicle in poem form.

Manalo invented a new word - coñotations - which is the title of the poem. It's the offspring of two words that Manalo forced into marriage. Conyo and connotations. Conyo is a label used to tag Filipinos who speak Tagalog-English. It's also used to refer to the "kind of speech" produced when someone speaks in Tagalog-English. It's often called conyo talk or conyo speak. Conyo or conyo talk is also attached to a stereotype - those who speak conyo are people from the middle class and upper class in the social structure.

A key to understanding this poem is the definition of the Eglish word "connotation". The general definition for connotation is that it's "an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning." In philosophy, it's defined as "the abstract meaning or intension of a term, which forms a principle determining which objects or concepts it applies to." Read these definitions very well then go back and read the poem with these definitions in mind. You should be able to get the gist of the poem already.

In conclusion, the poem is a list of conyo talk and their hidden connotations.

Questions and Answers for Discussion:

1. What does "suitcase fever" mean? This probably means attachment. The person may be too attached to someone the way he's attached to a suitcase.
2. Are all the speakers in the poem men? It does sound like that. The words and phrases in the poem are mostly male lingo.

A Kind of Burning by Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta (Poem) - Analysis, Meaning, Critique

it is perhaps because
one way or the other
we keep this distance
closeness will tug as apart
in many directions
in absolute din
how we love the same
trivial pursuits and
insignificant gewgaws
spoken or inert
claw at the same straws
pore over the same jigsaws
trying to make heads or tails
you take the edges
i take the center
keeping fancy guard
loving beyond what is there
you sling at the stars
i bedeck the weeds
straining in song or
profanities towards some
fabled meeting apart
from what dreams read
and suns dismantle
we have been all the hapless
lovers in this wayward world
in almost all kinds of ways
except we never really meet
but for this kind of burning.

Analysis, Meaning, Critique:

If you have read other poems by Dimalanta, it should be easier for you to understand this poem. There are certain poets whose styles of writing can be used as a tool in understanding their poems. Dimalanta is one such poet. If you are familiar with her work (and her style), understanding her poems can be much easier. If it's your first time to read a Dimalanta poem (A Kind of Burning in particular), I wouldn't blame you if you think the poem is all over the place. There doesn't seem to be a coherence to it.

A Kind of Burning is a love poem. This much is true. There's no doubt about that. I sometimes joke to my students that I refer to this poem with an alternative title - "A Kind of Love". The speaker of talking about a kind of love. This is where the varied interpretations arise. What kind of love is he talking about? Some say it's about unconsummated love. Some say it's about long-distance relationships. Some say it's about an abusive relationship. Some say it's about love gone stale. Some say it's about tempered love. Some say it's about the love musings of a deranged person.

Here's my interpretation. A Kind of Burning is about guarded love. Maybe it's not all about it but it's the main foundation of the poem. In the first six lines of the poem, the speaker talks about keeping a safe distance because closeness is a destroyer of feelings. People often assume that being close keeps things together but that is not always true when it comes to love and relationships in general. Sometimes, closeness achieves the opposite. It causes people to grow farther apart from each other.

The lines from 7 to 17 tell of the things that the speaker and the other party share. Both common and uncommon things. As far as romance is concerned, they are a match. A pairing seemingly ordained by circumstances. And of course, they have their differences as well. One is slinging at the stars while the other one is content bedecking the weeds. One prefers songs, the other one prefers profanities.

The last 4 lines in the poems drive the message home that the poem is about guarded love. In most circumstances, the two parties would have been serious and passionate lovers. As I said earlier, they are a good match for each other. But as the last 2 lines explain, they meet not because they want to be lovers but to enjoy "this kind of burning". They prefer it this way. They didn't want to take what they already have any further. Why? Unfortunately, the poem ends here.

Definitions:

1. trivial - of little value or importance 

2. gewgaws - a showy thing, especially one that is useless or worthless 

3. hapless - (especially of a person) unfortunate 

4. wayward - difficult to control or predict because of unusual or perverse behavior 

5. dismantle - take (a machine or structure) to pieces

Last Piece in the Puzzle of My Life by Vic P. Yambao (Poem) - Analysis, Meaning, Critique

The sweetness of your voice
Your soul-searching eyes
Throw in the smiling lips
Makes my life complete

Missing you, when you're gone
But frozen stiff
when you're around
As my worthless life
is now complete
This dream might end...
if I'll stir...

Analysis, Meaning, Critique

This poem is very straightforward. And needless to say, it's quite easy to understand. It's a love poem. A guy is basically expressing his feelings of love to a girl. The first stanza describes why the speaker is in love with the girl in the first place. She has a very sweet voice. She has beautiful soul-searching eyes. She has irresistible smiling lips. The stanza ends with the line "makes my life complete". The girl makes the speaker feel full. Seeing or being with the girl makes him feel like he has everything and that he doesn't need anything else. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone can understand this feeling.

Love makes you feel full. It makes you feel complete. It makes you feel like you have achieved everything. It makes you feel that you can take on the world.

The first five lines of the second stanza is a continuation of the adulations in the first stanza. Just expressions of pure love and unbridled longing.

The last two lines in the poem is where things get a bit more interesting. Unlike the rest of the poem which can be read literally, these last two lines can be approached with a few different interpretations. The keyword in these last two lines is "dream". This can be interpreted as a literal dream. The speaker is merely dreaming. Everything contained in the poem is but a dream. The girl may be real but the descriptions of the speaker being complete are but figments in the dream. This is why he's afraid and concerned that the dream will end. We all know that feeling. We are having a beautiful dream and we are scared to stir or move a muscle because we just might wake up and find out that everything was just a dream.

An alternative interpretation of the last two lines is that the speaker is not describing a literal dream. Everything about him and the girl is real and true. It's so real and true that it feels like a dream. We all know this feeling of bliss and satisfaction. In the poem, the speaker is overwhelmed by this bliss so much that he's very scared it might end. This is why he must avoid to "stir" anything at all costs. The "stir" here could be a metaphor for doing something stupid or reckless that will eventually put an end to the romantic bliss the speaker is currently experiencing.

Who Am I by Brian Joseph Sy (Poem) - Analysis, Meaning, Critique

Who am I to blindly believe that
I can become parcel of this sacred ground?
To pretend that I am a strong wind
to guide your ever sturdy wings

Who am I to change this persistent blue rain?
To pretend that I can wash the sorrows away
from your ever beating heart

Who am I to care for this mortified soul?
To pretend that sanctity ascends in my
figureless touch…

I am none. Transcending only the littlest of
existence only meager eyes could see.
In the skies I plead alms
to catch your merciful grace;
To rescue me from this lonesome cloud of misery
that I call self

I am ceaselessly yours.

Analysis, Meaning, Critique

The obvious question here is this: who is the poet speaking to? To understand this poem, you have to discern and define to whom (or to what) he's speaking to. Is he speaking to a lover? Is he speaking to a loved one who is not necessarily a lover (i.e. a son, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor)? Or is he speaking to a higher being like a god or a spiritual guide? Is he speaking to the universe at large? Or maybe he's speaking to an imagined someone or an imagined thing?

To analyze this poem, you have to start with the above question and decide for yourself to whom (or to what) the speaker/poet is speaking to. It will be a lot easier to try to understand why the poet is feeling the way he does if you have decided on who he's speaking to.

No matter how you decide who the poet is speaking to, it's obvious from the poem that the speaker feels unworthy in front of of the person or thing he's speaking to. He's speaking almost in complete shame and ends the poem with the line "I am ceaselessly yours" which is basically an proclamation of surrender.

There are several words in the poem which can be described as religious words. These words make some readers believe that the speaker in the poem is talking to a religious god. These words appear in the poem: sacred, soul, alms, merciful, grace, sanctity. These are very common words in religious parlance. So yes, maybe the narrator in the poem is speaking to a god.

Definitions:

1. mortified - subdued by self denial or discipline
2. sacred - connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration
3. transcend - be or go beyond the range or limits of (something abstract, typically a conceptual field or division)
4. meager - (of something provided or available) lacking in quantity or quality
5. sanctity - the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly

Shadows by Gerson M. Mallilin (Poem) - Critique, Analysis, Meaning

They are like strangers on the ground,
These shadows shy;
Walk upon them, strike them,
They never cry.

And yet within me something says
They are the hosts,
And we but strangers in a place
Whose kings are ghosts.

Analysis, Meanings, Notes:

In this poem, the poet attempts to define and understand the world of shadows. He articulates what most of us think of our shadows. Mallilin describes shadows as strangers who are shy and who never complain despite being walked upon. Describing shadows as strangers is very appropriate. They are always with us wherever we go. But they are also always nameless, formless, and devoid of any emotions.

In the second stanza, the poet puts forth the kind of feelings stirred within him by shadows. He turns upside down what he talked about in the first stanza. Instead of the shadows being the strangers, the poet thinks that we are the strangers and that shadows are our hosts. The poet imagines a parallel universe where ghosts are kings, shadows are their subjects, and people are mere strangers.

For discussion:

1. Why did the poet describe shadows as shy?
2. Do you agree that shadows never cry?
3. Do you share the poet's feeling that shadows are the hosts and that we are the strangers?

The Knockers by Gerson S. Mallilin (Poem) - Critique, Analysis, Meaning

The first one knocked
At the house with his heart,
No one heeded him
The door did not part.
And before he could think
Of knocking with stone
The life from his heart
Had flown.
The second knocked
With a piece of gold,
The door opened promptly
And someone called:
“Come in, Friend, come in
And join us here—
We welcome all callers,
Anytime of the year.”

This poem is a direct indictment of one of the saddest flaws of being a human. This flaw is the tendency of a person to be warm and welcoming to the haves while be cold and condescending to the have-nots. Mallilin frames the poem through an anecdote featuring a house and two knockers. The first person knocks with his heart but he is ignored. The door remains closed. The second person knocks and the door immediately flies open. What does this second knocker have that the door is opened for him? Gold. He has gold.

The first person knocked with his heart because it's all that he has. Although disappointed, he thinks of knocking again but it's too late. His previously warm heart has gone cold and empty. So not only did the people in the house show themselves as selfish and uncaring towards the less fortunate, they've also hardened somebody else's heart.

The poem is also a criticism on human hypocrisy. The first person who knocked was denied. The second person who knocked was allowed to enter because he had gold. The people in the house then tells the second knocker that they welcome anyone who knocked or called "anytime of the year." That's textbook hypocrisy and blatant lying. The denied the first knocker which basically debunks their claim that everyone can knock and enter.

Other poems by George S. Mallilin you can check out:

- A Distinction

Snail by Tita Lacambra-Ayala (Poem)

Snail
by Tita Lacambra-Ayala

Home is where the slug is
where the hair does not grow
nor distance trod with feet
speech is silence silvering
tracks on green, unseen.

Artist of the gnaw and nibble
dissolving with scummy spittle
the frantic bud, the speechless bean
the squat pacific tuber under ground.

Raping the dew, seducing
lichen from the walls without a quibble
holding a vegetation reign over
the garden, balding.

How rout a brainwashed enemy
curdling into his shell when touched
melting into little yellow soldiers
when crushed?

Lament for the Littlest Fellow: a Poem by Edith L. Tiempo

Lament for the Littlest Fellow
by Edith L. Tiempo

The littlest fellow was a marmoset.
He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes.
You said he knew us, and took my arms and set
My fingers around the bars, with coaxing mimicries
Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are
Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial
Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far
Into my mind, something enormous and final.

The question was unasked but there is an answer.
Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow,
I would catch our own little truant unaware;
He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our rage,
But I would snatch him back from yesterday and tomorrow.
You wake, and I bruise my hands on the living cage.

Other poems by Edith L. Tiempo: Bonsai,