Rebecca T. Anoñuevo’s newest poetry collection, Isa Lang ang Pangalan: Mga Tula, a title under the highly celebrated 400 Books project of the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House marking the quadricentennial celebrations in the university, celebrates the poet’s endless redefinitions of the self-as-voice and marks a new beginning by coming full circle and paying homage to the poet’s own creative origins. Reading the book brings back the memory of the poet’s first book Bago ang Babae, which launched her career in 1996 as a premiere woman poet of kept intimacies and intelligent engagements, in the tradition of Elynia Mabanglo, Benilda Santos and Joi Barrios. In her signature language, elegant but genuinely contemporaneous, Anoñuevo “revised” the highly political feminist poetics prevailing in Philippine poetry and created a remarkable body-as-politics pronouncing itself through the lyric of the everyday, meditative and perceptive, always embodying life in all its forms and contradictions. Isa Lang ang Pangalan sports the same qualities, but heightens the utterance and the perception. In this new collection, the poet reinvents craft by seemingly figuring in that which must not be named—not just art, as Isagani Cruz puts it in his blurb, but the art of living itself turned into poem.
Anoñuevo’s centerpiece poem is “Bago ang Babae Redux,” a celebration of her canonical poem “Bago ang Babae” from her first collection, and a constant favorite of her readers. The earlier poem reflects in gratitude amidst the ironies of the contemporary. This redux meanwhile explores the consciousness that has probably passed through more experiences as woman in these unsettling times. She finds herself not only in utter domesticity but in various spaces and habitations. As poet of the imperative, Anoñuevo re-creates the voice, not anymore as a construct of history (“Mabuti na lang at sa panahong ito ako/ Ipinanganak na babae”) but as a participative witness to the changing times (“Mabuti na lang at naabutan ko/ Ang panahong ito bilang isang babae.”). There is much conviction in the redux as it immerses itself with the paradoxes of her life (“Kung mapaluhod ako’t mangudngod/ Sa pagkapahiya, nais kong arugain/ Ang bunga ng aking pag-uusisa.”). The voice obliterates all apologies and musters all her strength to become the receptacle of memory and thought, reiterating humanity, and her primal state of womanhood. The collection, like Anoñuevo’s first, feasts on femininity, but this time transcends the predictable emancipative attitude. Emancipation for Anoñuevo has already been reached by simply being woman in its various manners—for instance in relating to other women, as in the poem, “Kumare” which looks at the bonding together of women as empowerment through an indigenous female myth, and in being a lover herself. Through the years, the poet’s personae have proven to be love-women personified, especially in her collections Pananahan (1999) and Nakatanim na Granada ang Diyos (2002). The voice-constructs in poems such as “Gutom”, “Barter” and “Kondisyonal” prove to be bolder and braver than the previous ones. They reflect whatever the voice in the redux emphasizes as vital in her life as woman of the times.
This woman-as-body-as-voice also characterizes itself as a tender, loving individual, tempered by time and various life experiences. Loss is but one important theme of the collection, and the persona deals with it not only with courage, but with insight recollected not only in tranquility but in complete openness to its blessedness. Loss as animus of the elegiac not only becomes a point of poetic reflection but a moment to return to roots. The first poem in the collection “Henerasyon,” looks at parenthood and how it becomes the primary drama-in-cycle of humanity. The poem is followed by other pieces dramatizing brief but intense moments, of grief for instance, for a parent who passed away (“Sa Sintang Abo Sa Santa Clara”, “Nahidlaw”, “Antigo”), or awe for the robust living of father-figures slowly dissipating because of old age (as in “Kung Mananalangin Sila para kay Lolo” and “Magkapaa”). This same loss, locating itself in domestic space astonishingly reaches poetic heights in utterances like in the title poem “Isa Lang ang Pangalan,” which turns the image of kitchen-keeping as a gesture of memory (“Bawat saglit ay dumadalaw ang kaniyang pag-ibig/ tulad ng tambak sa lababong mga pinggan,”) and “Disyembre A-Trese, 1964,” a longing remembered in the image of a garden, among others, almost mythic and otherworldly (“Nauulinig ba ng mga lila, rosas, ilang-ilang, at buko/ Ng sampaguita ang pagsamyo mo sa kaniyang manipis/ Na buhok, sa langis sa kaniyang noo at tuhod?”. From the personal, the voice moves to the political realm, a clear expression of the poet’s current engagements in the public sphere. We hear the poet commenting on elections and the spirit of Edsa (“Oras Na”), on tragedies made by human hands (“Isang Hapon sa Riverbanks”), on migrant workers (“Agenda”), and even on a renewed evaluation of a forgotten hero (“A.D. Signos”). In this set of poems, the poet shares her piece of mind on her ideals (as in “Tatlong Dalit”), and her own take on the nation’s poverty, as showcased in the ekphrastic poem “Retoke”: “Walang kakupas-kupas ang pagtabon ng pinta sa mata./ Nilalansi ang madla, nilalango sa mga tabletas at pakete ng himala”. The consciousness’ relocation in the world, after inhabiting domesticity, broadened the mindscape manifesting through the poems.
Towards the end of the collection, Anoñuevo returns to the personal and tackles her worldly concerns as woman, poet, lover, and perpetual student of life. The poems bear the centeredness of silence the voice has elected for herself while looking at instances of creation, of some other losses (as in “Propesiya,” a homage to Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta), and of other valued moments of insight. In the poem “Pagbukas”, the voice inhabits the same familiar space of the home to celebrate the poetic in an encounter with the ordinary: “Naririnig na ng magkakayapos na bagay/ Tulad ng mahahabang unan at hita/ Ang simula ng paghinga.” A short poem, “Kakatwa,” meanwhile returns to an enormous paradox of love: “Sa lahat ng makatang may utak/ Ay siya ang saklot ng puso./ Gayong walang puso.” In “Inggit”, the persona expresses her envy at a colleague’s prolific writing, but in the end turns the table to the poem’s addressee by pondering on the reason of her creative silence—love blossoming: “Hala. Nang-iinggit ako. Hindi na ako makasulat tulad ng dati.” The collection closes through an invocative anaphora, “Suma Total”, which remembers all that the persona could give, in the name of all that is dearest to her. What is uttered through the poems then is the ultimate act of oblation by the persona. When the persona says, “Kaya mas pinipili ko ang katahimikan” (“Mustasa”), she is offering attention to the various acts of remembering, and consequently, loving. In silence, the persona finds solace and re-inhabits the self after living life in all its complexities. This, we may surmise, is the very power of this collection, embodying the consciousness of a woman who keeps renewing herself. No tiredness could be sensed in the poems, only vitality of perception, always keen and sharp as the lines, well thought-out in form and inherent music. Whoever told Rebecca Anoñuevo to cease writing poetry must begin to repent. She has brought her new woman to the edge.
Sanchez, LJ. "Another 'New Woman' in Isa Lang ang Pangalan." Louie Jon A. Sanchez: Poet, Critic, Teacher, Filipino. Wordpress, 26, Jan. 2013. Web, 19 Mar. 2013.
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