Of Poets and Philippine Poetry

By Claro Rafols Ceniza

From Sands & Coral 1951

Literary journals in the Philippines are pretentious because Filipinos try to write in a manner appropriate to the minds of Eliot or Yeats before they have learned how to write in a manner appropriate to the minds of contemporary Filipinos.

I do not say that poems resulting from the motive to express some genuine poetic object must be good. For poems can also be either successful or unsuccessful; i.e., the object of poetic expression can come out to us either whole or in unrecognizable shreds, depending upon the poet’s ability to express himself.

But given the ability to express himself I do not see why a poet should be condemned just because his poems are not indigenous to his country. A poet is individual, not national. The fact that a poet tries to be true only to his obsession should be taken as an indication that he has gained a heart of pure poetry.

And any casual reader of our magazines who knows something about poetry — granting that he will also meet a number of pretentious poems in them — will agree with me that there are some Filipino poets who can justify their poems, who are true poets in their own rights, although their poems may have been written, as Van O’Connor would have it, in a manner appropriate only to the minds of Eliot or of Yeats. In fact, Van O’Connor’s passing comment is turned not so much against the success of our poetry, as against its “un-Filipinoness.” Which shows that, but for the lack of local color — this must be admitted — he recognizes some merits in our poetry.

Because of this individualistic conception of poetry, one may have gathered that I eschew nationalism in it; that I think of nationalistic, indigenous poetry as, at its best, mere versification. That is not so. There are poets who are born with their nations in their hearts; who are, in effect, the summaries of their nations. I merely mean to say that one does not have to be nationalistic in order to be a poet.

There are a few people, however, both foreigners and Filipinos, who seem to be impatient about the lack of nationalism — of “Filipinoness” — in Philippine poetry. If so, they ought to recognize the fact that a poet does not become a poet in order to vindicate his nation — he becomes one in order to be an outlet for the message he contains; that a poet cannot change his poetry, and remain a poet, any more than a shrub can change itself into a tree, and remain a plant; and that the Filipinos are confident, without impatience, that in due course the Filipino poet will come to the front.