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Lesson 2: Discovering Filipino Aesthetics Through Poetry: Sadness

This document discusses Filipino poetry and aesthetics through two poems. It provides background information on famous Filipino poets Bienvenido Lumbera and Ophelia Dimalanta. Lumbera's poem "Sadness" explores the fleeting yet powerful nature of sadness. Dimalanta's poem "Finder Loser" is about a life spent searching for lost objects and constantly losing and finding things. Both poems showcase symbols, images, and figurative language to present realities of life according to Filipino aesthetics.

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187 views3 pages

Lesson 2: Discovering Filipino Aesthetics Through Poetry: Sadness

This document discusses Filipino poetry and aesthetics through two poems. It provides background information on famous Filipino poets Bienvenido Lumbera and Ophelia Dimalanta. Lumbera's poem "Sadness" explores the fleeting yet powerful nature of sadness. Dimalanta's poem "Finder Loser" is about a life spent searching for lost objects and constantly losing and finding things. Both poems showcase symbols, images, and figurative language to present realities of life according to Filipino aesthetics.

Uploaded by

sachi minatozaki
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© © All Rights Reserved
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LESSON 2: DISCOVERING FILIPINO AESTHETICS THROUGH POETRY

CONCEPT : Poetry uses symbols, images, figurative language to present the realities of life.

VALUE : Enhancement of the power of imagination

SADNESS
Bienvenido Lumbera

Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera (born 1932, Bien to most) is a poet, author, literary and film critic,
librettist, literary historian, anthologist, revered mentor, and activist. Despite (or perhaps
because of) his doctorate in literature from American universities (with Filipino literature as his
thesis), Bien has long been a socially-engaged writer and academic, and an ardent advocate of
Filipino as national and literary language. Together with Rolando Tinio (another later National
Artist), he pioneered the teaching of Filipino at Ateneo de Manila, and later developed the
Philippine Studies course at the University of the Philippines. He was the Ramon Magsaysay
Awardee for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communications in 1993, and was conferred
the Order of National Artist for Literature in 2006.

Sweet little songs I make,


Tunes so pure and full of love.
When lovers are timid and mute,
I give them voice, I make them bold.

Once I bid a word to come


And help me put together a poem.
From far and near, from wherever,
The word brought the poem warmth.

Each word I painstakingly refine,


And I wash the impoverished tongue.
I soothe and salve the cry of pain,
I banish any trace of tears.

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But sadness I cannot send away—


Its little waves lap and leave,
Lap and leave the shore of the heart,
This moment a whisper, next a storm.

_______________________

FINDER LOSER
Ophelia Dimalanta

Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta was born on June 16, 1934 in San Juan, Rizal. She obtained her
B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Santo Tomas, where she has been
teaching literature and creative writing since 1953. She has been the recipient of numerous
honors, including fellowships from the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii, The United
States Information Service and the International Writers' Program of the University of Iowa;
Poet and Critic Best Poem Award from Iowa State University (1968); Palanca Awards for Poetry
(1974, 1983); Fernando Maria Guerrero Award (1976); Focus Literary Awards for Fiction
(1977, 1981); Cultural Center of the Philippines Literature Grant for Criticism (1983); the
Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from the Writers' Union of the Philippines (1990) and
the South East Asia (SEA) Write Award from King Bhumibol of Thailand (1999). She died of
stroke on November 4. 2010.

More than half of my life


I spend searching for lost
objects ( papers, receipts,
old letters, pills and whatever
else) and causes and the rest,
losing and finding, and losing
them again, found or otherwise;
losing what I have in good
measure, finding what

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I can’t almost have-


One perpetual lifetime probe,
Forever rummaging through
Bureaus and drawers and pages
Of my life’s past disarray…

And so when I finally go


keep vault unlidded for I
shall surely sit up and look
around to pursue this search,
holding on to dear life,
or to dear death, does it matter-
they are one in the proper
time but not till then,
I shall go on seeking out
lost faces and faiths in the
cold, collecting, calculating
crowd, sadly aware that later
but an unbreath away
I shall lose them all again;
as I was won’t, losing all
in this final irretrievable
lose of my death time
or perhaps, possibly, yes,
death will be kinder and oh, yes
allow me at last this
flowing final find.

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