The Charmer’s Box: Poetry

by Edith L. Tiempo

“My mother (Edith L. Tiempo) writes poetry much in the same way the violets in her garden grow—and the other living, well-loved things in her care, as well: the furious secret mysterious processes taking place unobtrusively underneath the carefully tended balance of sun and shade and a gentle hand, with logs of open space. At marvelously unpredictable intervals, my mother’s poems appeared, breaking into life with a certain wondering silence at the heart of each of them, and no distracted, inattentive look to signal their coming. There’s a singular joyfulness in this collection that is its best achievement.”—Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas

83 pages

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fiction writer, teacher and literary critic is one of the finest Filipino Writers in English whose works are characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of craftsmanship and insight. Her poems are intricate verbal transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in two of her much anthologized pieces, "Lament for the Littlest Fellow" and "Bonsai." As fictionist, Tiempo is as morally profound. Her language has been marked as "descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous detailing." She is an influential tradition in Philippine literature in English.

Together with her late husband, writer and critic Edilberto K. Tiempo, they founded (in 1962) and directed the Silliman National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, which has produced some of the Philippines' best writers.

She was conferred the National Artist Award for Literature in 1999.

(from wikipedia.org.)

Reviews

[Virg · Rating 2 out of 5]

How do i even read the book?

[Nicko Castro]

ddd

[Trixie Bulambot]

awesome