This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
Dear Editor,
I would like to present to you a synopsis of a compelling, but often overlooked, landscape in this country's poetry. In the last decade, and increasingly so in just the last five years, the presence of Filipino-American poetry in American Letters has been remarkable. The resume I am about to present to you is extensive (and yet incomplete) but is subordinate to the most salient and propitious aspect of the Filipino-American poetic community: the individual poetries are markedly different, indeed sometimes contradictory. And despite the disparateness of styles and backgrounds and voices, they've forged a community, a welcome counterpoint to an American poetic culture that tends --either willfully or not-- to cultivate coteries and cliques.
The Filipino-American poetic community boasts a collective resume that includes high-profile awards and presses, academic appointments, and a dynamic record of creative production in journals and anthologies. Consider this: since Eugene Gloria's DRIVERS AT THE SHORT-TIME MOTEL was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa in 1999 for the National Poetry Series, Filipinos like Jon Pineda (BIRTHMARK, 2003 Crab Orchard Series Award), Oliver De La Paz (NAMES ABOVE HOUSES, 2001 Crab Orchard Series Award), and Aimee Nezhukumatathil (MIRACLE FRUIT, 2002 Tupelo Press Judge's Prize) have been staking new ground in the varied precincts of contemporary American verse.
Don't be mistaken. This community's work has been in the making for some time with poets such as Luis Francia, Eileen Tabios, Nick Carb?, Vince Gotera, Eric Gamalinda, the widely anthologized Jessica Hagedorn, and many, many more who have opened doors (both editorial and creative) for the current emerging group of Filipino-American poets. In addition to Pineda's debut collection, this year two other writers join the ranks of published Pinoys: Sarah Gambito, whose collection MATADORA won the Alice James New York Prize (an honor previously won by Gamalinda for his collection ZERO GRAVITY), and Paolo Javier, whose collection THE TIME AT THE END OF THIS WRITING will be published by Ahadada Books this month.
Still, this snapshot of Pinoy writers is terribly incomplete without Marisa de los Santos (FROM THE BONES OUT, which won the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series Award), Barbara Jane Reyes (whose playful and dark collection GRAVITIES OF CENTER was published by Arkipelago last year), Catalina Cariaga (whose CULTURAL EVIDENCE was published by Subpress Collective in 1999), and Rick Barot (a former Stegner Fellow and current Jenny McKean Writer who published THE DARKER FALL with Sarabande Books in 2002). One must count the voices of published Pinoy poets who do not have full-length collections (but may well soon): Leslieann Hobayan, F. Omar Telan, Bino Realuyo, Marlon Esguerra, Joseph Legaspi, and, again, many, many more. (note: Legaspi and Gambito have spearheaded Kundiman, an organization modeled partly on Cave Canem that will provide the first national Asian-American emerging writers' retreat this summer at the University of Virginia).
I would like to see Poets & Writers explore the dynamics of this burgeoning community, the way it it is cultivating personal and creative connections and dialogue without a homogenization of style and voice (I was informed recently by e-mail that a recent Pulitzer finalist just last week called Fil-Am poets "unstoppable"). Filipino-American writers are making notable contributions to this country's poetic culture both as individuals and as a real community. It is a group struggling with, and benefiting from, a spectrum of pragmatic, editorial, and artistic identities. Please consider an article highlighting the booming generation of Filipino-American writing. The wider notice of Pinoy poets has been a long time coming.
Patrick Rosal
