Anxious, excited, nervous, excited --- these were my feelings before the start of Edgar Calabia Samar's lecture last February 28. It is the Pinoypoets' fifth anniversary this year, and the group planned to hold a series of lectures on poetry, and this Samar lecture was going to be the first in the chain.

 

We were privileged to have the Ortigas Foundation, Inc. (OFI) as our partner for this free lecture. They were then celebrating their anniversary as well.   OFI has been known to generously play host to culturally (and literarily) relevant events, so their hosting of the lecture was not just an honor but a real treat.  

 

We were also more than glad to have Ateneo professor and Palanca awardee Edgar Samar as our featured author for the first of our lecture series. Sir Egay was one of the panelists during the 2nd Pinoypoets Workshop, back in 2004, so the group can claim to share a bit of history with him.  His talk, entitled "Niloloob ng Nobela ang Tula: O ang Makata bilang Nobelista," leaned on the particulars of and the relations between the novel and poetry.  I thought the topic was very timely, with Sir Egay having just launched his debut novel "Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog," under Anvil Publishing. 

 

In the course of the lecture, he stressed: "May mga kapasidad ang nobela na kapaki-pakinabang sa subersibong layunin ng sakop...sa bisa ng heteroglossia o pagmamaraming tinig. Kataliwas umano ito ng singular na lohika ng tulang lirikal...na walang akomodasyon sa kontraryong pananaw, at pangunahin pa ngang tagapagpatibay ng namamayaning kaayusan, tagasuporta sa mayhawak ng kapangyarihan, tagapagbigay ng katwiran sa istruktura ng dominasyon."

 

And I think we are (after 4 months) still in shock from the revelation made by the writer, while discussing the seeming need for writers to choose between the two genres: "Subalit nobela ang pipiliin kong isulat, dahil sa daigdig natin ng prosa, lalong nagiging mahalaga ang nobela sapagkat sa kinathang daigdig na ito ng tuluyan, na mas hindi pangingimiang pasukin ng karaniwang mambabasa, naipaaalala ang pangangailangan ng tula, kung bakit kasintanda halos ng sibilisasyon ng tao ang pagtula."

 

We are still in the process of transcribing Sir Egay’s lecture, as we know the transcript will shed a lot of light on the context of the above pronouncement.  So stand by for that!  We’ll be posting it as soon as it’s done.  (Yes, we know it’s been four months. Sori naman, may day job din kaming lahat, hehehe!)