When did my love affair with poetry start?
In the island, I was reading Edna St. Vincent Millay and Walt Whitman courtesy of an American Peace Corps volunteer named William Keating.
In college I was writing poetry in the college publication and in 1971, my first published poem appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine.
After 50 years, I resumed writing poetry during the pandemic almost every day. My FB poetry audience grew far and wide.
At year’s end, my poem appeared in a marker dedicated to frontliners unveiled on my birthday by Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto with a special program complete with marching bands.
Two days after the Joe Biden inaugurals, my poem, A Poet Is A Lonely Hunter, appeared on the timeline of now celebrated poet Amanda Gorman. I greeted her with a poem..
My personal greeting along with this poem ended up in Amanda Gorman’s timeline.
Surprised even foreign netizens liked it.
Here it is:
A POET IS A LONELY HUNTER
A poet is a lonely hunter
Until people connect and a country listens.
I can’t help it
When I rejoice to see a young poet
Open the new era of governance
In good ol’ America.
The poem was moving
As it was real
The poet sounding off
The country’s hopes
And the recurring fears.
I like it
When hope finally beckons
I like it when decency returns.
I like the fresh wind moving
In this part of America
Even as thousands die
Helpless from the virus.
Still there is nothing
Like a poet’s voice
To remind us
There is something inherently human
In all of us.
There will always be compassion
Although buried in the sea of hatred
And lies
In some four weary years
Of our lives.
True
A poet is a lonely hunter
Until people connect
And a country listens.
On February 22, I appear as one of the poets in the UP Baguio symposium on the subject of poetry in time of the pandemic.
Not a bad comeback in poetry I must say.
And I am just restarting.
-30-