Tuesday, August 26, 2008

8:26 AM | Marjorie Evasco to Talk About the Art of Poetry and Healing in Silliman University Today

Today, the Silliman Cultural Affairs Committee is sponsoring a lecture by the major Filipino poet Marjorie Evasco, the 2008 Outstanding Sillimanian Awardee for Creative Writing. She will be speaking on "The Art of Poetry and Healing" at 2 p.m., at the Audio-Visual Theater 1.

Dr. Evasco was born in Maribojoc, Bohol, and finished her B.A. from Divine Word College of Tagbilaran (now Holy Name University), M.A. in Creative Writing at Silliman University, and her Doctor of Philosophy in Literature at De La Salle University. She became a member of the faculty at De La Salle University, while completing her doctoral degree in 1998. For many years, she was Director of DLSU’s Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center.

She has received several Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, National Book Awards from the Manila Critics’ Circle, the Arinday Awards from Silliman University, Gintong Aklat (Book Development Association of the Philippines) and Philippines Free Press prizes for her poems and essays. Her poems have appeared in many important anthologies including Luna Caledonia and Six Women Poets. She has been published extensively in Asia, Europe, and North America. She has also received various international fellowships; among them, a writing fellowship at the International Retreat for Writers in Hawthornden Castle in Scotland in 1991; a Rockefeller grant and residency in Bellagio, Italy in 1992; 10th Vancouver International Writers’ Festival in 1997; International Writers’ Program fellowship at the University of Iowa in 2002; University of Malaya Cultural Centre grant in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in 2003; the Wordfeast 1st Singapore International Literary Festival in 2004 and the Man Hong Kong Literary Festival in 2006.

Evasco’s prizewinning poetry books are: Dreamweavers: Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987) and Ochre Tones: Poems in English and Cebuano (1999). Ochre Tones was launched last May 1997 at National Artist Edith L. Tiempo’s residence on Montemar, Sibulan, Negros Oriental. Evasco calls this volume a “book of changes,” following Dreamweavers which for her was a “book of origins.” Evasco hopes to finish her third poetry collection soon.

Evasco’s other books include A Legacy of Light: 100 Years of Sun Life in the Philippines, Six Women Poets: Inter/Views (co-written with Edna Manlapaz), Kung Ibig Mo: Love Poetry by Women (co-edited with Benilda Santos), A Life Shaped by Music: Andrea O. Veneracion and the Philippine Madrigal Singers and ANI: The Life and Art of Hermogena Borja Lungay, Boholano Painter.

Evasco was a founding member of two organizations espousing the cause of women writers: Writers Involved in Creating Cultural Alternatives (WICCA) and Women in Literary Arts (WILA). She has written many essays on women’s poetry, several of them finding their place in various anthologies. She is an associate fellow of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC).

Labels: art and culture, cultural affairs committee, dumaguete, poetry, silliman, writers

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