THE HAY(NA)KU IS STILL TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD!

The Philippine Scholars Program, founded by Gary W. King (Minnesota, USA), began in 1994 with prioritizing the education of children of political detainees and desaparecidos. It since has expanded to include the children from marginalized groups encompassing farmers, urban poor, among others. Participants in its workshops come from both high school and college-level students. This year, the organizers thought to include a creative arts workshop for the first time in its summer camp that took place in the SVD retreat house in Lapulapu City, Cebu, Philippines. Writer/facilitator Malou Alorro handled poetry writing and Nenita Pacilan handled music and creative dance.

 

In presenting poetry, Malou also introduced the hay(na)ku (thank you, Malou!). Here are photos of the lovely participants Bryle, Byron, Lalaine, Maymay, Ereln, Jasper, and Prence.:

The following is a chained hay(na)ku encapsulation of the workshop:

(Malou) 

Workshop 

Its literary 

Now in culmination. 

(Bryle) 

Precious 

It's treasure 

Time well spent. 

(Jasper) 

Ideas 

Good work 

Expressing them well. 

(Maymay) 

Friendships 

Are built 

Knowledge is gained. 

(Ereln) 

Evokes 

A high 

Creative imagination, awareness 

(Lalaine) 

Scholars 

Summer camp 

Good times together. 

(Prence) 

Interesting 

Unexpected happenings 

So much learning.

 (Byron) 

Difficult 

But beautiful 

And it's enjoyable. 

(Malou) 

Poets 

Now free 

Are truly home. 

 

June 25, 2023 

Literary workshop of Philippine scholars at the SVD retreat house, Lapulapu City, Cebu, Philippines.

*

 

I continued to be envious of the hay(na)ku’s global jet-setting lifestyle, but am happy to receive such field reports. Thank you, Malou and other teachers. Thank you, Universe.

 

 

HAY(NA)KU IN NORTH MACEDONIA!

The hay(na)ku continues to be a jetsetter! Poet-artist-performer Dijana Petkova recently brought something new to Macedonian audiences with her project "Dragon Tamer" that presents Dijana's hay(na)ku variation called "hai[bun]aku"! The book Dragon Tamer was launched with a performance involving theater techniques at Skopje's House of Culture. Info and pics below!

[click on images to enlarge]

MUNGAN, A FORTHCOMING CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK WITH HAY(NA)KU TEXT!

The award-winning children’s publisher Sawaga Press, helmed by Justine Villanueva, will be releasing its third picture book, MUNGAN AND HER LOLA (Lola means grandmother). They are currently crowd-funding—LINK IS HERE—and I’d like to support it through this offer:

For every $40-plus donation, show me copy of your receipt (email to galateaten at gmail dot com) and I’ll send you a free copy (to a U.S. address) of my THE IN(TER)VENTION OF THE HAY(NA)KU. (Donations of other amounts are welcome and go as low as $20, which will reserve for you a copy of the book.) [Offer is good while supplies last for IN(TER)VENTION...]

What’s the relationship between my book and MUNGAN? Well, MUNGAN is not just written in three languages but it is written in the hay(na)ku poetry form! In fact, I reviewed the hay(na)ku text while it was still in manuscript form. This means you can give one hay(na)ku book to your kiddos and keep my IN(TER)VENTION for yourself—an adult/children hay(na)ku combination!

 

All donations to the crowdfundraiser also come with perks, such as a children’s picture book for each $20 donation. A perfect gift for the good cause of supporting multicultural (and Filipino) literature!

 

There is also an enchanting YouTube video about Sawaga Press and MUNGAN. You’ll see I appear there with some advance words for the book.

The crowdfunding LINK has more information about MUNGAN—here’s an excerpt:

Mungan and her Lola tells the story of the child Mungan who loves to make her Lola (grandma) smile. One day, Lola is inconsolably sad. Mungan and her family engage in Filipino rituals of care—cooking sabaw, performing hilot, and playing kulintang—to uncover the source of Lola’s sadness and find a way to bring back her smile.  

Mungan represents healing, light, laughter, and love. This story is inspired by the Bukidnon epic which tells the story of Mungan, the Babaylan (Healer) of Bukidnon. After Mungan's disease is healed by the gods, she becomes a healer who helps her people find their home, freedom, and everlasting life.

Mungan and her Lola is written in a mix of three languages: Binukid, Bisaya-Cebuano, and English.  It is also written in hay(na)ku, a distinctly Filipino form of poetry that covers diasporic themes. 

 

THE HAY(NA)KU CONTINUES TO TRAVEL!

I used to know (or know of) everyone who wrote hay(na)ku. That's no longer the case, which I love. And I love continuing to discover people I don't know who take up the form. Here are two examples: Vex Kaztro whose hay(na)ku showed up in an online course taken/monitored by a friend, and 9th grader (!) Leana Gyle M. Leviste whose poem showed up in an anthology (Scentsibility) in which I also appear. I share them below (click on images to enlarge):

VEX KAZTRO

LEANA GYLE M. LEVISTE

I'm grateful to see these.

ZOOM-ING THE HAY(NA)KU!

I was blessed this weekend to be a guest poet on a webinar series put together by Dr. Jeannie Celestial and sponsored by Balay Kreative. The above image is from the lovely maganda magazine who generously hailed my presence on Instagram. At the webinar, I presented and encouraged the writing of hay(na)ku. I was so pleased--and awed--at how everyone seemed a natural in the form! Many in the audience apparently were teachers and so I don't know how much related to how they easily took up the form (certainly, it was a means for me, too, to encourage hay(na)ku as a teaching tool, having been used in classes and workshops from the elementary to the college levels).

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the hay(na)ku written during the series. The first is a "haybun" (combination of prose and a hay(na)ku) that I wrote on their prompt "My mountain is ___." I then transformed the meditation into a single hay(na)ku tercet:

MOUNTAIN

My mountain may be where I’ve built a house: Galatea in St. Helena, California. “Galatea,” “St. Helena,” “California”—none of these names are accurate, for my mountain is really the land of its original people, the Wappo. And what the Wappo may have called my mountain that is not mine is unknown. But I find comfort in this not-knowing. Because my true mountain comes from the time when we humans form our gods—that time known as childhood. As a child, I grew up on a mountain in Baguio City, Philippines. I know that mountain no longer exists as it was snuffed out of its existence by pollution and overpopulation. Where once stood pine trees are now houses on top of each other to cover every inch of its once natural slope. Galatea, California, Baguio—it’s irrelevant now. All of my mountains share the same crumbling profile of Loss.

I turned my prose meditation into this hay(na)ku:

Mountains

Become valleys

Lost in memory

I was not privy to the participants' meditations but I did see some of their mountain-related hay(na)ku and want to share this written by Vex Kaztro as it so pleased me:

My mountain does

not climb

me

Vex Kaztro is a natural at the form! Here's another one she wrote:

mud,

make me

a hardened vessel 

Another participant, Camille Santana, also wrote a mountain-related hay(na)ku:

Mountain,

Bare feet—

I am here 

I think they're all fabulous. May the hay(na)ku come to be as natural to them and their communities as breath itself.

It is a delight to share with all of them a copy of my bilingual (English/Spanish) hay(na)ku collection with translator Rebeka Lembo: ONE, TWO, THREE!

THE HAY(NA)KU AS GARGOYLE!

As world-traveler hay(na)ku visits schools, I'm delighted to share a poem by Brianna Hobson, a student at a CUNY LaGuardia course called "Poetry Workshop" and taught by professor-poet Thomas Fink. Thank you, Brianna!

GARGOYLE 

By Brianna Hobson

I, 

Misanthrope Vampyre.

Erotic, macabre—gothic

I,

Medieval Trickster.

Counterculture creature-feature

I, 

Ghoulish decoration. 

Serpent on Cathedral

I,

Négresse poseur—

Tar baby black.

I,

Perfectly camouflaged,

Among dark flesh—

In,

Mourning garb,

Toe to head.

Charcoal

visage—covered

in whiteface makeup.

Hunchback—

—of Notre 

Dame—French Ogre.

lifestyle

is blasphemous—

Horrible, fiendish, Nietzschean!

The

crows and

ravens caw over

what 

about me

isn’t ‘black enough’

Graveyard 

Poet grieves 

for underground culture.

Basilica 

Moor nobody—

Silhouette of stone—

Flying

buttresses—of  

self-loathing. Gargouille?

*****

A few more students also wrote in hay(na)ku. If their poems become available for sharing, I'll be delighted to feature more on this space. I feel blessed!

And if anyone wants to learn more about the hay(na)ku, go to its link ... and here's my latest hay(na)ku book:

GRADUATING FROM BARNARD COLLEGE TO ...

"Eileen Tabios: From Barnard to hay(na)ku"

I’m grateful but also stunned by this unexpected article on me “By Barnard Archives and Special Collections.” I wasn’t expecting it, and felt a variety of emotions as I read through it. I feel a little shocked, to tell the truth, because this article  is the first time I get to have a sense of what a third-party would say about my life  based on researching what’s out there. It’s sort of a version of a life which is not immediately familiar to me. That is, while there’s nothing inaccurate in the article, the matters that are emphasized are different choices than what I would have made – thereby giving a different sense of the life that I thought I’d lived. I suppose that’s the difference between biography and autobiography, and/or biography written with or without the subject’s involvement. Anyway, I can only be grateful to Barnard College for the love. And gratitude to BC Class of 2020 students Sarah Barlow-Ochshorn and Jenna Jaquez

***

I should also thank certain poetry groups whose past attention on me or my works ended up being part of Barnard’s sources:

The Argotist

Jacket

Marsh Hawk Press

Our Own Voice

Poetry Foundation

WritingLikeAnAsian

THE HAY(NA)KU VISITS CUNY LAGUARDIA!

Sometimes, world-traveler hay(na)ku visits schools. I'm delighted to share a poem by Janessa Graham, a student at a CUNY LaGuardia course called "Poetry Workshop" and taught by professor-poet Thomas Fink. At this course, Janessa wrote--and thank you, Janessa!

Its Truth-By Janessa Graham

(Co-inspired by Robert Creeley’s “The Language” and Eileen Tabios’s Hay(na)ku)

            Poetry,

its truth

is a persona’s

            lyrical

dancing through 

pen taps on

            floor

piece, the

living, the crux

            posture,

of visceral

the sculpt of

            its

body matter.

*****

A few more students also wrote in hay(na)ku. If their poems become available for sharing, I'll be delighted to feature more on this space. I feel blessed!

And if anyone wants to learn more about the hay(na)ku, go to its link ... and here's my latest hay(na)ku book:

DAY 6/7 FOR MINIATURE BOOK SOCIETY

I’m a new member of the Miniature Book Society and I was nominated to post 7 books for MBS’ Facebook page. "Miniature" books are sized at 3-4 inches or less. I’ll be replicating the posts on this blog for the next 7 days.

DAY 6/7  My favorite miniature book covers

MBS

I’m sharing books by some of today’s contemporary poets. My sixth presentation is of a family-oriented series, books by Melinda Luisa de Jesus and her children Malaya (8-years-old) and Stinson (13-years-old). While Melinda is a noted feminist/peminist scholar, she is also an artist/poet who raises her children accordingly. In recent years, Melinda underwent training in the letterpress arts at the San Francisco Center for the Book where she studied with Mary Laird and became certified to use the Vandercook cylinder press; she started her own press, "Latenight Letterpress/peminology." She printed these three books published by Minitage Editions entitled MANGOS (by Melinda), SPAM (by Stinson), and MERMAIDS (by Malaya). These are all 3 x 3 inch accordion books handprinted from polymer plates on Stonehenge and Nepali paper.

All of the poems are in the Filipino diasporic “hay(na)ku” form that is based on three lines with the first line being one word, the second line two words, and the third line three words. It’s, thus, nifty that the authors also number three! As well, I present the hay(na)ku and this Filipino-Pennsylvania Dutch family because it’s Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month here in the United States and Melinda is a Filipina-American with Pilipinx kids.

 *

Today I nominate any new member of MBS. I love seeing all the books already shared, AND I’m also interested in the *gateway* books—those that made you discover mini books or the first books you’re collecting. Some of the books I’m posting, for example, were created before I knew that miniature books were a thing. So I nominate MBS New Member #6.

*****

This is a challenge for contributing to the spread of reading culture. The method of participation is to post a favorite book, one book per day, for 7 days. You upload some images with a short explanation about the book and invite one FB friend to participate in this challenge.

NEW HAY(NA)KU REVIEW

I'm grateful to Neil Leadbeater who reviews my latest Marsh Hawk Press book, The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku for The FilAm. As The FilAm prints an abbreviated version of his review Neil's original review is also up at the Marsh Hawk Press Blog.

HAY(NA)KU IN SCOTLAND!

World-traveler hay(na)ku thrives in Scotland. Neil Leadbeater becomes the second writer (after Stephen Nelson) to write hay(na)ku in that United Kingdom nation. I'm delighted to present some of them with this trio on the theme of sea shells!

A hay(na)ku of Sea Shells

Who can resist

a cache

of

shells washed up

on the

beach?

Single valves of

Senilia Senilis

at

Fadiouth in Senegal,

Turitella gastropods

in

a cove in

Costa Rica

or

limpets and clams

punctured with

holes

nearer to home

on Chesil

Beach.

Who can resist

a gift 

unwrapped

brought by waves

from the

sea?

Second hay(na)ku of Sea Shells

Who can resist

a hoard

of

shells: rayed mactra

and slipper

limpets,

rose petal tellins

strewn with

precision

out of a 

parting wave?

Banded

tulips on island

shores, sand

dollars 

exposed to the

sun, olives

sporting 

a glossy finish,

red calico 

scallops

with carrot cones 

and zebra 

arks,

species of wentletraps

the ultimate

prize.

Third hay(na)ku of Sea Shells

Beauty aside, they

are the

exoskeletons

of invertebrates, animals

without backbones,

that

came from the

sea: marine

molluscs

whose soft parts

have decomposed,

the

moulted shells of

crabs and

lobsters,

animals who had

a history,

lived

life, and were

unafraid to

be.

***

Neil Leadbeater is an author, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, 2011); The Worcester Fragments (Original Plus, 2013); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, 2014), Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017) and Punching Cork Stoppers (Original Plus, 2018). His work has been translated into several languages.