RAINBOW CHRONICLES AND OTHER POEMS

PATTERNS

The chisel as creator
Lends shape to wood, to stone.
Shape being the truth of character,
Reality of body and bone,
Sculpted fact of form,
The confidence of matter.

The paintbrush as creator
Draws maps of rainbows,
Contours of celebrations,
Then blends faithful colors
With their reserved spaces.
Spaces being the measure of possibilities
That can curtail the guiles of prisms.

The pen as creator
Carves the word, clips the line,
Sets limits, distance or depth of language;
Language being either the sense of anecdotes
Or the dialectics of rumors,
Where words intersect at certain
Attempts in proclaiming a name for the void
Between ground and sky,
Gorge and crater, craft and art.
Each one seeking to explain the blunders of terms.

(2021)

Rainbow Chronicles and Other Poems
by Merlita Lorena Tariman

This volume despite its bulk is highly readable for all those interested in Philippine and Bikol poetry. The poems that span more than fifty years reflect the voice of a generation now in its twilight, ever searching for home, one of her themes. While some poems will fuel exercises in close reading, Rainbows would be perfect for a literary history, based on the enduring as well as changing themes of the poems, to trace what has changed through the years based on society’s expectations, as recorded in this prism of reflections and experiences of a Bikol poet, wife and mother, the author of the poetry of her life. – From the Foreword by Paz Verdades-Santos

Publication Year: 2024
Language: English, Bikol, Filipino
Format: Print
Pages: 236
Size: 5.5” x 8.5”
Selling Price: Php 550. Order from https://shopee.ph/gantala_press.