The emergence of gay literature as
a distinct genre in the Philippines is unstoppable. Like Goethe once said that
there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. As Danton
Remoto echoes National Artist Jose Garcia Villa said, “Have come, we’re here.”
Brandishing the now popular Ladlad anthologies and many other books, waving the
words of the gay artists like flames in the wind, the flourishing of gay
literature in the Philippines is underway towards the mainstream.
But what is gay literature?
According to J. Neil Garcia (1997),
“Gay literature may be defined both as a self-conscious as well was unconscious
production.” He continued to explain what gay literature is about, saying that,
“Writing about gayness by gays who know they are gay, as well as any writings
that can be read in a gay way may qualify as forms of gay literature.” Who
would have thought that National Artists Jose Garcia Villa and Edith Tiempo, as
well as Poet Extraordinaire Ophelia Dimalanta wrote gay literature? But as Dimalanta
would always say in her class, there is no only one way of reading a poem, an
in this case, I hope I wasn’t over-reading or misreading her lines, or else I’d
get a failing grade.
We can therefore safely say that
gay poetry are those that are (1) produced by gay writers, inevitably, because
they are written in the consciousness and point of view of a gay person whose
experiences are unavoidably coming from a gay perspective; (2) those pieces of
poetry that talks about a homosexual experience; and even (3) those poems that
are written by heterosexual poets but can be read in a gay way.
In light of the first category,
there are many gay poems that we can’t see the gayness of the poet revealed in
the poems. While this is not because they do not want to be read in a gay
context or they don’t want to make that political decision of exposing
themselves as gay, but because they are already in the “pangatlong tendensiya
ng bakla sa panulaan ng bakla” (Evasco, 2003). Example of this is J. Neil
Garcia’s poem entitled Poem in which he did not reveal his gay self but
maintains that it is a gay poem because it can not but be coming from the
perspective of a gay poet. This poem is a social commentary on poverty:
The train that stops the traffic
did not stop for the boy at play
outside his home. Today his home
is torn limb for limb by the government
that let him die in the meanness
of his childhood: accidents happen.
No ball however flew streetwise.
No small hands swiftly flung caught death mid-air
by the jaw. He was skipping but a foot away
from their lean-to. The train barely licked
the door as it blew his body and soul away
so gently, he did not even think
it was anymore painful than his hunger
or the sharply pointed dreams that came from it.
It even looked beautiful:
its footprints smoothest, straightest tracks.
Now the homes that flanked the railroads
are piles of jagged bones. The boy’s family
has buried him in memory, in haste.
They all have other things to live with,
like the city’s latest show of might.
Traffic stops. The train comes through.
The poor rebuild, endure.
Another is a poem, still by Garcia
in which he included in his “Poems of a Religious Sort” entitled Nun. This, to
my understanding, is a poem that talks about human nature where even though a
woman chooses to be a nun, she still has human yearnings and silent needs. It
is a description of the whiteness and supposed purity of a nun, which she well
proves in the last for stanza. Take note of the role of irony in this poem:
All my sexual days
I am a virgin
Eunuched by habit,
Not by choice.
I wear the cloth
Of my lovelessness
Whitely, they say
With a cross
Hanging from my neck
Nike a noose,
But it is not this
That kills. Strapped
To my waist
Is a rope
That could. Its girth
Is a halo of thread
Binding up the mess
Of me:
Austere ribbon,
It keeps my pious shift
In place, my tummy
Hour-glass slim,
And time is cruelest
To a woman
At vespers.
Strangled at the crux
Where her womb lies
Entombed,
She is handmaid
To no man.
At the hour
Of twilight,
She hymns,
And hymns alone.
The second category of gay poetry
is that which talks about a homosexual experience. While it is possible that a
poem like this is written by a heterosexual person, I will include in this essay
a gay poem written by a gay poet because more often than not, according to
Evasco, “mas mapangahas, mapaglantad, at mapagsiwalat.”
Here is a poem by Nicolas Pichay
which talks about oral sex. Evasco furthered that, “Ang naturang pag-adka ay
isang paraang mapagpalaya at paghulagpos sa itinakdang limitasyon ng kasarian.
Ang mga tula ring gaya nito ang nagtutulak sa makatang bakla na magkaroon ng
espasyo sa diskurso ng paglikha.” This is a way by which gay writers be put
outside of the box, proving that writing about these things should not be
ashamed about because being ashamed of the truth is being shamed of one’s self.
This poem is entitled This Is A Delicate Matter, Sucking Cock:
This is a delicate matter, sucking cock,
You might not like it right away.
Remember not to pounce it indiscriminately in the dark
Lest you gag with foot in your mouth.
Nevertheless, do not deprive yourself blind
To the call of truth in thyself
Nor accept as gospel truth society’s
Definition of what it is to be a man.
This is a delicate matter, sucking cock,
You might not like it right away.
The mouth must be perfectly shaped
Incisors are not permitted to claw.
The larynx should also be open
So that everything may be taken all the way.
If by these, he still does not groan in pleasure
Look again, your bedmate may be a fish.
Go look for someone else
Our community is full of mermaids.
This is a delicate matter, sucking cock,
You might not like it right away.
And there is no truth to the old wives’ tale
That a gentle man’s love is never ever repaid.
For how then that a poor shepherd such as I
Was able to find a matching slice of life
While walking along an unromantic river bank.
With a glance, he aroused the tip of my desire.
And after crossing swords without drawing blood,
We swore by the shimmer of the goddess moon.
This is a delicate matter, sucking cock,
You might not like it right away.
By my leave I give you a word
A simple advice, do not take offense
The severe and mindless tirade
Of pontificating men “holier than thou.”
Because the true mettle of a man
Is not found in his color, intellect, orientation or looks
It is in the purity and sincerity
Of his dealings with other men.
This is a delicate matter, sucking cock,
A fact that everyone must be made aware of,
No reason to hide in shame
Emerge from the dark, my friends!
The third category of gay poetry is
those poems that are written by heterosexual poets but can be read in a gay
way. There is quite a lot of this, since almost everything now can be read in
the gay perspective. Since reading and writing both constitute to production of
meanings, it is not surprising that when a gay person reads a poem in his point
of view, another dimension of the writing comes out.
A classic example would be that
very popular poem by Dr. Ophelia Dimalanta entitled A Kind Of Burning. A wary
reader will ask right away why the lovers can’t meet but for that certain kind
of burning? Perhaps, because, it is not meant to be. And what’s a more
convenient way of interpreting it when it’s read by a gay person hiding in his
closet? Yes, some incorporated reader’s response here and there, and if you
look at it in a gay’s perspective, it’s can’t but be hailed as something true
and honest in how the persona paints the situation, and how painful it would be
to be trapped in that situation.
it is perhaps because
one way or the other
we keep this distance
closeness will tug us apart
in many directions
in absolute din
how we love the same
trivial pursuits and
insignificant gewgaws
spoken or inert
claw at the same straws
pore over the same jigsaws
trying to make heads or tails
you take the edges
i take the center
keeping fancy guard
loving beyond what is there
you sling at stars
i bedeck the weeds
straining in song or
profanities towards some
fabled meeting apart
from what dreams read
and suns dismantle
we have been all the hapless
lovers in this wayward world
in almost all kinds of ways
except we never really meet
but for this kind of burning.
I also picked out some pieces of
interesting verses from National Artist Edith Tiempo that can be read in a gay
perspective, in which a gay experience is well-described. In her
Between-Living, she we all know that true love is almost unattainable in gay
relationships because as they say, men are innately polygamous despite the
sexual orientation. Sometimes, I am led to believe so, but I nevertheless hope
that there will come a time when maturity and security will dawn upon them, us,
and the ideal will be met:
When we love a wanderer,
We wait for footsteps
That may, or may not come:
First the hours, the days,
Then, the years. Then never.
Yet always we do know
Whereof we wait…
On the other hand, in the lines of
her poem Belief, however illogical and incredible things are (frequently
equated with a heterosexual male loving a gay male in spite of what he has or
has not, and what he is and is not), this poem is a heartfelt statement of
truth, not necessarily the truth but a truth believed:
Truth is the world believed:
Only what the eyes sees,
And the heart approves.
So where is gay poetry leading us?
Still according to Eugene Evasco,
gay poetry has three phases. The first one is where the gay writers are writing
poetry mainly to letting the world know that they appear and are present in
literature. It’s a political decision to come out in the writings because they
are already exposing themselves in spite of the patriarchy or the control of
the mostly heterosexual male and those who share their machismo thinking. This
first phase is largely characterized by aggressively graphic depiction of male
to male sex as a vehicle of letting the world know who they are.
The second phase is where the gays
are already made known in the scene and is now ready to actively go against the
prevailing norm. This phase is often associated with the upholding of the
ideals of those gays that they look up to, scrutinizing the social problems in
the gay perspective, actively trashing the notion of males as the oppressors of
the supposed weaker sexes, discriminating against the institutions that have
gender insensitive policies, among many others. As Jun Cruz Reyes bluntly
stated, “hindi na lamang titi ang pinoproblema ng makata,” on the contrary,
they are already making active movements against those who manifest acts or
even tendencies of looking down on them.
And in the third phase, as Evasco
very well put it, “Nalulusaw naman ang kasarian sa ikatlo at huling tendensiya
ng panulaan ng bakla…Hindi na maaaring matukoy ng mambabasa abf kasarian ng
persona ng tula, maliban na lamang kung batid nito ang kasarian ng makata.”
This goes to say, like how Neil Garcia talks about things around him without
being known as a gay, that gays are not different from the heterosexual people
around, thus eradicating the notion of the Other. In this phase, gays talk
about history, academe, politics, agrarian reforms, government and other things
without giving notice to the sexuality of whoever is saying it.
