Jim Pascual Agustin's Blog, page 35
October 18, 2013
Paper, Water, Air, Alien Hands
My mother taught me how to make paper boats. Newspaper was not the best material to use, for water moves fast on its skin, further darkening the printed words. But newspaper was what I was allowed to fold and tear. What is a boat if it never runs on water? A round basin of water is no more than a cage. So making paper boats meant waiting for rain. Or setting your fragile boat on rushing open drains – water that spurted from neighborhood pipes, dragging bits of rice, fish bone, sometimes other stuff that I’d rather not mention. I was young and only what flowed mattered.
I never thought I’d be writing one day. My hands look like they were meant to do something else, hold a scythe or a hammer, tear down old buildings or mix cement. I have the hands of someone who might till the land. Yet I don’t. I write as if it was something like air for me. If I don’t write I know I am slowly dying – the kind that starts from inside, and no one else can see or sense until all limbs hang without a single beating vein.
Now this. After more than a full month in various dark places (sorting boxes, airplane cargo bays, conveyor belts running through metal tunnels, etc) and being handled by strangers who may never hear of me or read a single word I write, the only copy in Africa (yes! the only one! for now!) of my new poetry book in English (the language of one of my former colonial masters) Sound Before Water felt young and weary when I finally held it in my hands yesterday. That sentence was intentionally long and tedious to reflect the journey. Or just to test the patience of the reader. 
A very good friend, the poet Emmanuel Q. Velasco, sent Sound Before Water by post along with a copy of Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo’s book of essays, Stella and Other Friendly Ghosts and the various documents from the National Book Awards last year. I was thankful that my collection in Filipino was a finalist, but was also sad at the same time that the English collection was not even nominated.
My new book joins Alien to Any Skin and Baha-bahagdang Karupukan in their search for readers who might find my words on paper worth keeping. One more paper child is due to meet the world soon. We always hope for the best for our children.
Here is the Goodreads LINK to Sound Before Water.
Filed under: Africa, Asia, environment, Fragments and Moments, Imperialism, Influences, Life in a different world, Literary News & Articles, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Sound Before Water, Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Jim Pascual Agustin, Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran, Sound Before Water, UST Publishing House
October 16, 2013
7.2 Earthquake in my country of birth
Ang Gising na Lupa
Isang igkas ng kaibuturan
nitong lupang tinutuntungan
at magsusugat ang mga bundok
magnanaknak.
Lalamunin ng ilog
ang mga dating hangganan,
alingawngaw ng pagbabagong
iglap lang sa kasaysayan.
At tayo na matatag
kung matatag ang kinatatayuan,
magugunitang kay rupok
ng hibla nating hinahabi.
Nakatitig sa atin ang gising
na lupa, dinidilaan ng ilog
ang mga paa nating
walang sapin.
-o-
This poem appears in my collection BAHA-BAHAGDANG KARUPUKAN (shortlisted for the National Book Award in the Philippines)
The Earth Awake
One thrust from the depths
of this ground we stand on
and the mountains bleed,
gape open.
The river will sprawl
where it was once edged,
echoes of changes
that are but a second in history.
And we who stand firm
when we stand on firm ground,
remember the fragile
threads we weave.
The earth, awake, stares
at us, the river
licks at our
bare feet.
-o-
7.2 Earthquake news from Inquirer News
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, bohol, cebu, earthquake, Jim Pascual Agustin, Philippines, UST Publishing House
October 8, 2013
Pinay traumatized by horror trip to US | ABS-CBN News
Pinay traumatized by horror trip to US | ABS-CBN News.
This is not a special case, I bet. Israel has been doing the same and worse for decades, I’ve been told. I am sure more and more countries are treating people this way.
Put ignorance, prejudice, and plain stupidity in a uniform and there you go. Not that difficult, really.
It takes more effort to be human, it seems.
Filed under: Uncategorized
October 4, 2013
My Poems Greet Readers First!
The slightly delayed release of New Coin’s first issue for 2013 finally arrived in my postbox the other day and I was ecstatic to see my poems featured so prominently. No, it wasn’t just because my surname starts with “A” – I had that thought for a moment, too, upon opening the journal.
Subscribe to NEW COIN. Why? Because you get to read amazing poetry from South Africa! I’ve been informed that my work has also been accepted for the December 2013 issue… (Jim does a silly dance). This means I have better chances of winning the DALRO Award again hahahaha – yeah, keep wishing, Jim!
Here’s one of my poems in the June 2013 issue… one of four poems.
Subscribe and you get to read all four and a whole lot of other great poetry from South Africa! More great news to come in the next few days/weeks, so please keep visiting this little blog. Better yet, make me happy and consider purchasing my books from UST PUBLISHING HOUSE:
Baha-bahagdang Karupukan (shortlisted for the National Book Award)
and forthcoming … Kalmot ng Pusa sa Tagiliran
… end of self-promotion. Please move toward the EXIT in an orderly fashion. 
Filed under: Africa, Asia, Fragments and Moments, Life in a different world, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, Filipino poetry, Jim Pascual Agustin, New Coin, Rhodes University, The Sound Before Water, Vonani Bila
October 3, 2013
Rhodes University MA in Creative Writing
Rhodes University MA in Creative Writing
If I had the time and pocket, it would be great to get into this very interesting MA put together by Robert Berold and other respected writers and teachers at Rhodes University.
Anyone got a winning lotto ticket to donate?
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: MA in Creative Writing, Rhodes University, Robert Berold, South Africa
Rhodes Memorial MA in Creative Writing
Rhodes Memorial MA in Creative Writing
If I had the time and pocket, it would be great to get into this very interesting MA put together by Robert Berold and other respected writers and teachers at Rhodes University.
Anyone got a winning lotto ticket to donate?
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: MA in Creative Writing, Rhodes University, Robert Berold, South Africa
October 2, 2013
Now I can Share This News: The DALRO New Coin Prize
This news came as a welcome surprise after many years of writing and trying to put my work out there. Despite having published five books of poetry, and a sixth on its way to the printers hopefully before the end of October 2013, I have never really won a major award in my country of birth for this art. The closest one was when my book of poetry in Filipino, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, was shortlisted for the National Book Award.
Last month I received an email informing me that I had won some prize I’d never even heard of, for a poem that, until then, I didn’t know had been accepted for publication back in 2012. I remember sending a few poems to New Coin late in 2011, but since I never heard from the editor, let alone saw a copy of the issue, I had simply forgotten about it. That poem, “Village Potter’s Wife,” found a home in my collection Alien to Any Skin.
Bjork’s song “All is Full of Love” insists on keeping a sense of hope that someone worth sharing what you have to offer will one day come around. Maybe you’re just not looking in the right direction.
The big news then, which came days before another milestone for me (that’s another story for another post), can now be shared.
DALRO New Coin prize winners announced
The winners of the DALRO New Coin Prize, awarded for the best poems that appeared in the literary journal New Coin, have been announced. Genna Gardini took first prize with her poem “The Pot”, while Jim Pascual Agustin’s “Village Potter’s Wife” came second and Megan Tennant’s “On a June day that I spent on the beach with two children” was awarded third prize.
LINK TO COMPLETE PRESS RELEASE WITH POEMS
Filed under: Africa, Asia, Literary News & Articles, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, DALRO prize, Jim Pascual Agustin, New Coin, South Africa, Village Potter's Wife
October 1, 2013
Official Announcement of the release of SOUND BEFORE WATER
LATEST RELEASE:
“Sound Before Water” (Poetry)
by Jim Pascual Agustin
UST Publishing House, 2013
P 250.00 (send order inquiries to ustph.info@gmail.com)
* * *From the back cover:
“Sound Before Water’ is a carefully thought-out collection, with Jim Pascual Agustin clustering the poems around five poetic markers that suggest different ways into the labyrinth of memory, while keeping their bearings in the phenomenal world of things and names. As part of the literature of the Filipino Diaspora, this collection gives valuable insights on the chosen South African milieu of the poet, as well as his global perspective. Faithful to his craft for more than 25 years now, Agustin shows the gift of his lyric imagination, which roots us in each poem’s rhythms and resonances.”- Marjorie Evasco
“There’s a rhythm to these poems that didn’t take long–took only a few poems, that is–to get to me. Not so much the rhythm of the words and the lines as it is of feelings and ideas and the images that are their correlatives.”
- Cesar Ruiz Aquino
“Reading Jim Pascual Agustin’s English poems is like treading on ground littered with watusi firecrackers. Every piece is cramful of surprises, the rhythmically fragmented lines crackling at every step, without knowing why they are there, we stumble on, and every step of the way we are startled by the exploding light, and we are blinded by the many moments of marvel that the poet has laid out for his readers. The collection invites us to exclaim, My God, Mr. Agustin, where did you learn to poeticize this way? Overnight, in my book, you have mounted the stage of Filipino poetry in English, and on it you stand tall as an artist.”
- Bienvenido Lumbera
-o-
Filed under: Literary News & Articles, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry Tagged: Bienvenido Lumbera, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Jim Pascual Agustin, Marjorie Evasco, press release, Sound Before Water, UST Publishing House
September 26, 2013
I, ICARUS issue of Paper Monster Press
I, Icarus poster
I have a poem in this issue of Paper Monster Press! If you can, go attend the launch!
Filed under: Africa, Asia, Sound Before Water, Uncategorized Tagged: Jim Pascual Agustin, Paper Monster Press, poetry, Sound Before Water
