wooh! this is long!

[zzah]

Of course, this post is gonna be long. And because it is, I'll put it under several cuts so as to not scare potential readers by the obscene amount of paragraphs.

i. Preamble, Or Putang Inang Yan, Anong Nangyari Sa Yo?

That hiatus was more-or-less a conscious decision. Can't really claim that I've been busy, since I spent a lot of time hoarding books

Comments

[sarj_hoshino]

I like this line:

Ten years, and like a proper dream you must / go.

It's a rather common awareness (that dreams are, perhaps more than anything, the most fleeting and hardest to let go of.) But it's a well-put goodbye. It captures the poignant sentiment that a dream isn't one (a "proper" dream) unless it leaves us. What makes this line effective and real is how it expresses the resignation to this goodbye. Acknowledging and accepting that all good things come to an end: the persona knows that the dream has to go. The ephemeral nature of things, experiences is what makes partings or endings tragic, yet it's also what makes us (forgive this cheesy term) cherish them while we have them with us. (Again, cliche, but universal. True in its simplicity.)

Maybe you can continue with the sentiment that magic wears off. Or at least, the immediate potency of it. But what would be real "magic" is if you could look back fondly on this magic even years removed from it, and still feel it, somehow.

As for the overall poem, do you really intend to write within the traditional structure of rhyme and meter? (Although there really isn't any meter in there, as it is. :P) You know, poems don't have to rhyme anymore. In fact, the better poems (and poets) nowadays use free-form. Don't confine yourself. And if you're tuned in to the trends and tastes of contemporary poetry (local or otherwise), you'll notice that very few rhyming/structured poems are published in the leading or authoritative literary publications. If any at all.

Have you heard of Angelo Suarez? He's a UST graduate, he's now one of the young hotshots of contemporary, postmodern and performance poetry in the local scene (I'm not a fan of his performance poetry though). He got a book of poetry published when he was 19 -- The Nymph of MTV, decorated with a Palanca, a National Book Award, the Maningning Miclat Award for Poetry (WTF??!). He was part of the Thomasian Writers Guild and wrote for The Varsitarian. If you're into poetry these days, you don't need to look any further for a starting ground on contemporary poetry. UST has a very rich culture in that field (and not only with Gelo Suarez in the roster).

As for DH and HP in general -- DH I think is the best-written in terms of language. There's evidently a shift towards more literary prose, as compared to the previous books. But I agree -- HP as a series isn't all that fantastic. Or original in concept. (Joel Toledo -- another poet who happens to be a friend of the aforementioned -- told us how Rowling just ripped off one of Ursula le Guin's works. I don't read her though so I'm not sure which.) There are too many inconsistencies; Rowling evidently didn't plan and iron out everything from the start, had to improvise with a lot of justifications and deus ex machinas from the middle to the end of the whole saga. But overall, it still weaves its magic: it grips you, it's an entertaining read, shoving aside literary elitism.

[zzah]

I have heard of him, but that's about it. I really, uhm, don't like poetry that much. =_= I currently write poems because it's sort of required (I'm hating my org more and more because of it).

And thank you for the suggestions. :) It means a lot to me that you read it and found a line nice. And yes, I would like to continue rhyming. :O It's a proving-myself thing: all my other poems are free-form, and I suspect that this is so because I *cannot*, and not merely because I don't like, rhyme. T_T;

I especially love HP because it's a brilliant conversational gambit (since it is popular) and because it opened avenues for books of the similar genre. It makes me happy to find people who wouldn't normally crack open a book peruse their copies of HP. Perhaps it is a poseur thing, but in the end it is still a passion directed towards a book, and that makes me happy. ;)