ASEAN poetry & fiction

A significant part of the celebration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ 50th anniversary is the publication of a literary anthology featuring the poetry and fiction of the original ASEAN members.

The First Five: Anthology of Southeast Asian Poetry & Prose was decided upon at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair when publishers from the five countries followed up on the idea first proposed by Ethos Books of Singapore a year earlier.

The foreword recounts:

“Earlier ties of friendship and new-found ones had drawn these publishers together. … We believe that the literatures of Southeast Asia is a rich mine of creativity and that the peoples of this region should be invited to share their stories and poems with one another. These two genres are more readily accessible to readers who wish to take a quick dip into the literatures of their neighbors. And the English language, being the de facto lingua franca for all of us, has been chosen for the same reason.”      

Seven pieces of the anthology were translated to English. Curating the collection, it was noted that “The stories and poems, while not converging on a singular theme, all explore various forms of relationships that defy time, culture and national boundaries.”

The publishers for each country are: Ateneo de Manila University Press in the Philippines, Buku Fixi in Malaysia, Ethos Books in Singapore, Silkworm Books in Thailand, and Yayasan Pustaka Obor in Indonesia.

Each of the publishers was supposed to submit four poems and two short stories, but Thaiand came up with only two stories, by Pahd Pasiigon and Pongwut Rujirachakorn, while Indonesia wound up with two stories and two poems, by Faisal Odang, Hanna Rambé, Hanna Francisca and Ibnu Wahyudi, respectively.

We’re surprised over our unfamiliarity with Singapore’s contributors, given our long-standing relations with our literary colleagues from that country, with whom we’ve even co-published a bilateral poetry anthology, and shared pages in thematic fiction anthologies and academic journals. Here to represent Singapore are fiction writers Clara Chow and Teo Yi, and poets Diana Rahim, Loh Guan Liang, Sithuraj Ponraj, and Theophilus Kwek.

Representing Malaysia are short story writers Nizam Shadan and William Tham Wai Liang, and poets Alina Rastam, Bernice Chauly, Jerome Kugan, and Oh Pey Pey.

For the Philippines, the selection includes Angelo R. Lacuesta and Dean Francis Alfar for fiction, and for poetry, Marjorie Evasco, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Ricardo M. de Ungria, and this writer.

Future editions expect contributions from the other five members of ASEAN — Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam — so that it can “be a continuing conversation among the people of ASEAN.”

As the coordinating publisher, Ethos Books will launch its edition at the Frankfurt Book Fair this October. The other country publishers will then craft their own editions, possibly with different covers.

As a teaser, following are excerpts from the Philippine selection.

From “Sarge” Lacuesta’s short story “Not Like Us”:

“On Boracay island he sees the whole sky and he is surprised to find the sand finer and whiter than at any of all those other beaches he’s visited. He sees all of them here, too, the country managers and the analysts, the journalists, the students and the peace corps volunteers, the quick friends he made at the socials, the clubs and the hotels, the folks who come and go whenever and wherever and with whoever, at the bars and the seaside lounges.

“… At a cafe built out of driftwood, the owners — a Norwegian couple with uncomfortably darkened skin — comp him drinks and tell him about themselves, in a repeat of his own brief experience: how the Philippines seemed, at the start, a messy, uncomfortable and forgettable place, how deplorable and rundown everything was, how impossible the notion to get settled.

“But once you get past the surface it’s all crazy fun and easy,” the husband tells him.

“The barriers disappear once you figure out how everything works, and who’s behind it. It’s all about who you know.”

From Dean Francis Alfar’s “This Is the Story”:

They married immediately, both leaving their studies behind for a new life. He told her three things: that he would find work, that getting married was the right thing to do, and that he loved her anyway. On their wedding night, he insisted that she do what a wife should do, before throwing her down on the bed. That was the first night she fought back, curling her fingers into a fist like her father had taught her in the province; she struck him in the face, but he just laughed. He displayed his growing excitement and overpowered her. This would continue almost every night for as long as their marriage lasted. The man would demand satisfaction, she would resist, and he would take her in whatever position she landed in: on the bed, on the floor, on a table, in the bathroom. Her tears were an aphrodisiac, the screams he muffled with his large hands, intoxicating.

“When she learned she was pregnant, she told him, thinking it would deter his desire. It did not. When the girl miscarried, she blamed him, adding the death of her unborn child to his litany of sins.”

From Marjorie Evasco’s “Quicksand”: “The tide pulls in and you walk with seawater/ up to your calves, every step the suction of air/ and nothingness beneath the sand. Quicksand/ marks this beach, a map for tourists vaguely/ warned. You quicken to life, hear what the wind/ was saying to your sorrow: perish not/ for want of knowing. …”

From Ricardo M. de Ungria’s “A Tale for this Mountain”: “Sometimes in anger a world could begin/ from opposite ends./ when the storm has played out, there is time to poke/ at the heat with a finger uncrossed, hear/ each other out, decide to go it not/ alone, be kneaded into another,/ and touch a key in the air/ that begins all music.”

We can’t excerpt Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta’s “It Was Autumn or Fall or Whatever,” as it’s all of flowing piece, so we share it here in full: “It was autumn or fall or whatever/ But the trees were not budding/ Across the river, it was russet or/ Puce, or whatever, but the trees// Were redding or yellowing at the tip/ Only the window saw it in spears or dots/ Along the oaks or gingko trees/ As whisper or innuendo or whatever// Would not flame, the swirl of dirt/ In the long whirl was autumn or fall/ Or whatever, the squirrels nicked/ Hard acorns and nipped into the brush// As rote or custom, whatever,/ Across the river that somewhere/ Would end in a big word. Mississippi/ Or new Orleans or Chicago,// The water so still it was silt or slate,/ Or whatever didn’t catch into the trees./ And you touched me or I touched you,/ Or whatever, it was only narrowly autumn.// And the squirrels darted back/ Into the brush, each time we advanced/ Toward them across the lawn.” (After Marianne Boruch)