Guest Blogger: Diona Filipino Poetry by Ralph Semino Galán

I am hap­py to fea­ture Ralph Semi­no Galán as my Guest Blog­ger. He shares with us his work on a unique form of Fil­ipino poet­ry called “diona” which has been labeled as Pinoy Haiku. The poems are in Taga­log and are about coro­n­avirus.  This is part of his larg­er writ­ing project on the sub­ject mat­ter.  ~ Cecil­ia Brainard

Ralph Semi­no Galán, poet, lit­er­ary and cul­tur­al crit­ic, trans­la­tor and edi­tor, is the Assis­tant Direc­tor of the UST Cen­ter for Cre­ative Writ­ing and Lit­er­ary Stud­ies. He is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Lit­er­a­ture, the Human­i­ties and Cre­ative Writ­ing in the UST Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Let­ters and the UST Grad­u­ate School. He has a B.A. in Eng­lish (Major in Lit­er­a­ture), magna cum laude, from the Min­danao State Uni­ver­si­ty-Ili­gan Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and an M.A. in Eng­lish Stud­ies (Major in Cre­ative Writ­ing) from UP Dil­i­man. He is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a Ph.D. in Lit­er­a­ture in the UST Grad­u­ate School. His poems in Eng­lish and Fil­ipino have won prizes in the nation­al poet­ry con­tests. His works, both cre­ative and crit­i­cal, have been pub­lished in numer­ous nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lit­er­ary antholo­gies and crit­i­cal jour­nals.

He is the author of the fol­low­ing books: The South­ern Cross and Oth­er Poems (UBOD New Authors Series, NCCA, 2005), Dis­cern­ments: Lit­er­ary Essays, Cul­tur­al Cri­tiques and Book Reviews (USTP, 2013), From the Major Arcana (USTPH, 2014), and Sa mga Pag­i­tan ng Buhay at Iba pang Pag­tu­tu­lay (USTPH, 2018). He served as a juror of the Gawad Buhay!: the Philip­pine Legit­i­mate Stage (Philstage) Awards for the Per­form­ing Arts from its estab­lish­ment in 2008 until 2014. He is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a research project spon­sored by the UST Research Cen­ter for Cul­ture, Arts and Human­i­ties titled “Labaw sa Bulawan: Trans­lat­ing 100 Min­danao Poems from Cebuano into Eng­lish.”

You can read some of his oth­er works in Face­book using this link: @ralphseminogalan1972.

~~~

Isang Daang Diona sa Pana­hon ng Coro­na
(100 Diona in Time of Coro­na)

by Ralph Semi­no Galán

Copy­right 2020 by Ralph Semi­no Galán

The diona is an indige­nous or native Taga­log fixed poet­ic form. The tra­di­tion­al diona is com­posed of three octo­syl­lab­ic lines with a monorhyme, or three lines con­tain­ing eight syl­la­bles each that rhyme with one anoth­er. Since it is made up of three lines, the diona has been labeled by some Fil­ipino lit­er­ary enthu­si­asts as the Pinoy haiku. Like the oth­er tra­di­tion­al Taga­log songs, the diona was orig­i­nal­ly sung rather than recit­ed. The diona as a domes­tic song could either be a court­ing song or a wed­ding song. Noce­da and San­lú­car have pre­served the diona below which per­tains to mar­riage in their Vocab­u­lario:

Mayag aco sa masigu­ing,
ang malubay na ang aquin,
malayo ang madarat­ing.

I’m ready to take on a taut strand,
but I’d rather take the slack one,
for I could go far that way.
(trans­lat­ed by Bien­venido L. Lum­bera)

In my ver­sion of the diona, I have mutat­ed the form a bit—the way a virus mutates the genet­ic mate­ri­als of a cell—by remov­ing one syl­la­ble per line. In doing so, I real­ized that the form has become more flex­i­ble if not dynam­ic, for instead of three octo­syl­lab­ic rhyming lines that are typ­i­cal­ly end-stopped, what I have are three lines with sev­en syl­la­bles each, sim­i­lar to the mid­dle line of the haiku and the sec­ond, fourth and fifth lines of the tan­ka, anoth­er tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese fixed poet­ic form. These three sev­en-syl­la­bled lines have proven to be more mal­leable, capa­ble of pen­e­trat­ing all sorts of sub­ject mat­ter and types of con­scious­ness, as well as pro­duc­ing dif­fer­ent kinds of acoustic and rhyth­mic effects despite the monorhyme, the way the coro­n­avirus-19 is affect­ing and alter­ing the very fab­ric of our indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive lives.

With regards to the ter­cet, I have always been par­tic­u­lar­ly attract­ed to it as a stan­za­ic unit, rather than to the more com­mon­ly deployed qua­train or cou­plet, since as I have writ­ten in the pref­ace of
my sec­ond book of poet­ry in Eng­lish titled From the Major Arcana (Mani­la: UST Pub­lish­ing House, 2014), my sen­si­bil­i­ty and read­ing reper­toire are heav­i­ly “influ­enced by numerol­o­gy and the Kab­bal­ah, the num­ber three being sym­bol­ic of the uni­ty of mind, body and spir­it, hence the Holy Trin­i­ty of Roman Catholi­cism, the sta­ble struc­ture of the pyra­mid, and in the Wic­can
tra­di­tion the tri­par­tite god­dess of vir­gin, moth­er and crone.

Fur­ther­more, there are oth­er sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tions with the num­ber three: we per­ceive the flow of time as past, present and future (the very essence of div­ina­tion), phys­i­cal space is three-
dimen­sion­al (height, length and width), and there are three per­sons in Eng­lish gram­mar, which I have some­how exploit­ed in shift­ing the point of view and/or speak­ing voice (per­sona) from
poem to poem. (In some of the poems, like “Her­mit,” “Hanged Man” and “Dev­il,” it is the char­ac­ter depict­ed in the card him­self who utters from a first per­son point of view. In oth­ers, like “High Priest­ess” and “Empress,” the poet­ic per­sona address­es the card’s icon­ic image.) Three can there­fore be per­ceived as the num­ber of pro­gres­sion, prob­a­bil­i­ties, and the prop­er order of
things.

But the num­ber three in oth­er tra­di­tions does not nec­es­sar­i­ly denote bal­ance or har­mo­ny. In the pref­ace of her nov­el fea­tur­ing a love tri­an­gle, Instances of the Num­ber 3, British nov­el­ist Sal­ley
Vick­ers says: “It is said there were ancient schools of thought which held that the num­ber 3 is unsta­ble. If the rea­sons for this belief were ever known they are lost in time. A three-legged stool
refutes the claim, as — less pro­saical­ly — we are told does the Chris­t­ian trin­i­ty. What­ev­er the case, it is a fact that three is a pro­tean num­ber: under cer­tain con­di­tions it will tend to col­lapse
into two or expand into four …”

In terms of ver­si­fi­ca­tion, how­ev­er, the num­ber three in the form of the ter­cet does not only embody the rigid­i­ty of Apol­lon­ian order or the cthon­ic chaos of the Dionysian, but para­dox­i­cal­ly
both flex­i­bil­i­ty and stric­ture in lin­eation. In uti­liz­ing the ter­cet, I have real­ized that I can contain/ sus­tain a thought unit by mak­ing the third line of a stan­za end-stopped; or I can let the idea mean­der by mak­ing it a run-on line that spills over to the next stan­za. More­over, the ebb and flow, push and pull of the lines cre­ate a poet­ic ten­sion which appears to almost mim­ic the rhythm of nature: cycli­cal like the chang­ing of the sea­sons, cir­cu­lar like the end­less sequence of birth, death and rebirth.”

Here are the first 20 dionas of my ongo­ing 100-diona writ­ing project:

Nov­el Coro­n­avirus 19

Bigla kang nag­ing rey­na,
Salot mula sa Tsi­na,
Maawa ka, tama na!

***
Ayon sa Banal na Aklat

Sa apat, ang nau­na
May pana at coro­na—
Hudy­at, kat­a­posan na!

***
Ayon sa Bak­lang Byukon­era

Gus­to ko ng coro­na
Nasa ulo ng rey­na
Di dulot ay saku­na!

***
Ayon sa Lasen­g­gong Mahi­rap

Tan­d­u­ay ay puwede na,
Aabot din nir­vana—
Di ko kaya Coro­na!

***
Ayon sa Nag­beben­ta ng Bulak­lak

Rosas ay palaos na,
Nalan­tang Mag­dale­na—
Maben­ta ang coro­na!

***
Ayon sa Saw­ing Mangin­gibig

Parang koro­nang tinik
Sa pusong nanan­abik
Ang covid na nan­lin­tik!

***
Ayon sa Espesyal­is­tang Mediko

Tulog isi­nag­ilid,
Sobrang pagod at said
Mga dok­tor sa covid!

***
Ayon sa Pasyen­teng Pas­away

Di ako sin­un­gal­ing,
Sa Wuhan di nang­gal­ing,
Pasen­sya na sa bahing!

***
Ayon sa Poli­tikong Kurakot

Mag­bi­gay ng donasy­on—
Humi­hin­gi ng rasy­on
Bul­sa ko at ambisy­on.

***
Ayon sa Artista ng Peliku­la

Wag kay­ong mag-alala
Kapuso’t Kapam­ilya
Lahat tayo ay Tala…

***
Ayon sa Mahaderang Maes­tra

Utos ko ngay­ong Lunes:
Isum­ite sa Martes,
Online, mga pape­les!

***
Ayon sa Nalock­down sa Con­do

Kausap ko kisame,
“Ang covid guma­grabe!”—
Ito ay natameme.

***
Ayon sa Mahilig MagTik­tok

Wag manood kung ayaw
Sa aking kanta’t sayaw:
Hilig ko lang gumalaw!

***
Ayon sa Alter sa Twit­ter

Buwan ay bumibilog,
Lumalala ang libog,
Pasilip nga ng itlog!

***
Ayon sa Kala­p­at­ing Maba­ba ang Lipad

Saan ako dadapo
Ngay­ong ako ay hapo?
Barya lang, sige na po!

***
Ayon sa Kol­boy na Walang Book­ing

Kumakalam ang tiyan,
Bagsak na ang katawan,
Ser, pakape ka naman.

***
Ayon sa Yumao Kong Ama

Mag-ingat sa bayawak—
Ang lig­tas sa pahamak
Tang­ing nais ko, anak.

***
Ayon sa Real­is­tikong Taga­pag­masid

Hin­di kayang sagipin
Lahat ng nadidi­in,
Dap­at nat­ing tang­gapin.

***
Ayon sa For­mal­is­tang Edi­tor

Bago ko ilatha­la
Sinu­mete mong tula
Ayusin mo ang tug­ma.

***
Ayon sa Piloso­pong Intelek­t­w­al

Ano kaya ang premise
Ng covid, hypoth­e­sis?
Ang sagot, bukas, promise!

*****

This is also pub­lished in my Trav­el blog:  https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2020/03/guest-blogger-diona-filipino-poetry-by.html

Read also:

Poem by Ralph Semi­no Galán   “Lamen­ta­tion” 

Poet­ry by Elmer Omar Pizo 

Guest Blog­ger: Eliz­a­beth Ann Quirino’s Beef Nila­ga Short Ribs & Veg­eta­bles Stew

Tags: Philip­pines, Fil­ipino, Fil­Am, Taga­log, poet­ry, poems, Haiku, Diona