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CANVAS - The Center for Art, New Ventures

and Sustainable Development

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First printed in hardcover 2019

Originally published in English
Published by CANVAS - The Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development
Printed in the Republic of the Philippines

Book design by Daniel Palma Tayona

Cover design by Kevin Candelaria
Edited by Gigo Alampay
All artworks featured in this book are by Marcel Antonio
Photography by Ocs Alvarez

All images originally rendered in acrylic on canvas

The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data

Recommended entry:

xxxx
xxxx
EDITED by GIGO ALAMPAY
 PEOPLE often ask me how and why I became a writer.
The easy answer is that I realized early on that writing
was the only thing I really loved doing, and which I could do
reasonably well.

At some point, I fancied becoming a scientist, and even

entered college as an engineering major. But I couldn’t hack
the math – in any case, I found words to be more fun than
numbers – and so I resigned myself to becoming a writer for
life: as a journalist, a playwright, a scriptwriter, a fictionist, a
poet, and an essayist.

I do all these things not because I’m brilliant, but because

I write for a living.

Some people live to write,

I write to live.

2
 Writers have offered all kinds of reasons why they write.

George Orwell famously said that writers write for four

reasons: sheer EGOISM, AESTHETIC ENTHUSIASM,
historical impulse, and political purpose.

Sure, some of us write to be famous, or

to change or to make history.

But it was the Nobel prizewinner Toni Morrison who, I
think, gave the simplest and most honest reason why we
writers write when she said, “I wrote my first novel because I
wanted to read it.”

5
 What do you need to
become a writer?
Let me toss out a few ideas.

First, a love of words, and a fascination with their origins,

meanings, and uses.

As an adolescent, I used to spend an hour or two after school

in the library, where I would flip idly through the pages of the big
fat Webster’s dictionary, picking up words I would never use (like

“fennec: a North African fox”) but didn’t

mind meeting.

6
 Second, a love of books and reading.
There’s no other or better way you can learn about words and
how they behave except by reading.

I was a reader before I became a writer, and I read everything

– the Hardy Boys, history books, science books, maps, TIME
Magazine, Liwayway.

9
 an insatiable curiosity about
Third,

the world and the way things work. We can’t get every-
thing by direct experience, but we can read up on woodworking,
jewelry, macramé, gardening, automotive mechanics, and New
Zealand – in other words, things we may not be too interested in
ourselves, or think about on ordinary days.

10
 Fourth, an empathy for people, a sense of how they think,
feel, and act, and a keen understanding of the workings of human
relationships. It all comes down to people and their motivations, or
why we do what we do.

13
 Fifth, a sense of narrative, a desire, and the ability to imagine
what happened or may have happened.

Sixth, faith in art – in my case the art of fiction –

and in its ability to deal with the most complicated human issues
and concerns.

Unlike science, art is not fact-based but truth-based, and

often life’s truths can be established not by reason but by
imagination and intuition.

14
 why should we read?
Why bother with books and literature, when it seems we can
get everything we need on Google and Wikipedia?

“Literature
We’re often told that like the other arts,

is what makes us human.”

But what exactly does that mean?

How does literature humanize us?

17
 Literature relies on language.
Whales, monkeys, elephants, and birds communicate,

presumably for the most basic things – food, sex,

danger. We might even call their most basic utterances
words and phrases. They perform a clear and practical function,
and they form sequences of meaning, like saying, “There is food
down there” or “I want to make a little baby with you.”

This is language, but it is not literature.

18
 Literature requires imagination
– dreaming of things beyond the immediate and the practical
– and furthermore, a medium of transmission and
preservation of the products of that imagination.
We are told that animals can dream. But, they cannot record
and communicate these dreams like we do.

21
 Literature is our waking dream,
a dream we describe and share
through words.
These dreams – these stories we make up in our minds –
can teach,
can delight,
can disturb,
can enrage,
can exalt.

They can remember and can therefore preserve our memories

– our thoughts and feelings – as individuals and as a race.

As far as I know, no other species – nothing and no one

else – can do this.

22
 Literature makes us human, because it allows us to tell stories

even stories that

that make sense of our lives,

never happened, except in our

imaginations.

25
 things
This is why and how belief in

like Paradise are possible.

26
 The magic of literature lies in how it deals with reality
and reason through fantasy and the imagination, and approaches
the truth through make-believe.

As one of my own teachers put it, art (or literature) is “the

mirror of Perseus.”
That’s because – if you recall the story of the Gorgons –
Perseus could kill Medusa, whose fatal gaze would have turned
him to stone, only by using his shield as a mirror. Literature is
that shield. By deflecting our gaze and seeming to look at other
people, we are able to see the truth about ourselves, in all its
harshness and unpleasantness.

29
 It is therefore not enough to say that literature makes

literature makes us
us human; rather,

better humans, by teaching us discernment

and critical judgment.

30
 Literature is a history of the words that have made
Like the Bible or the
sense of our lives.

Iliad or the Noli and Fili, it shows us at

our best and worst, so we can choose how we want to live –
whether as individuals or as citizens or as a society.

33
 To help us use both our reason and imagination,
literature uses language,
and language uses words.

Through carefully crafted stories, poems, and essays, literature

shows young readers that words are supremely important in
becoming a better person.

This is especially true at a time when words like “friend”

have been devalued by Facebook, and “hero” by those to

whom history, and honor and honesty,

especially in public service, no longer mean anything.

34
 Every entry and every post that we make on Facebook
and on Twitter is a test of how well we have learned our
language and literature.

I’m not talking about our grammar.

I’m talking about our sensibility – the way we think and
express ourselves, the way we deal with other people,
especially people holding an adversarial opinion.

How careful are we with

our ideas, with our choice
of words?

37
 This is the first and the most important lesson of all literature:

Words have meaning.

And because they have meaning, words have power, and
words have consequences.

38
Words can hurt.

Words can kill.

But words can also heal.

Words can save.

Words make law.

Words make war.

Words make money.

Words make peace.

Words make nations.

41
 Words are the songs we sing to our loved
and lost ones.

42
Words are the prayers we lift up to the skies.

45
Words are the deepest secrets we confess.

46
 Words are what we tell our children the first
thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

49
 Words are all that some of us – especially those
whom we call writers – will leave behind.

50
 Seven hundred years ago, a Persian poet named Hafez
wrote a short but wonderful poem:

Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says
To the Earth
“You owe me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that.
It lights up
The whole
Sky.

This, my friends, is why we write, and why we read.

We light up the sky of our minds with love – the love of

ideas, of our engagement with ourselves and with the world.

53
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOSE “BUTCH” DALISAY JR. (born January 15, 1954)
is a Filipino writer. He has won numerous awards and prizes
for fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction and screenwriting,
including 16 Palanca Awards.

He has published more than 30 books of fiction and

nonfiction; his second novel, “Soledad’s Sister,” was
shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize
in 2007. He is a Palanca Hall of Fame, TOYM, and CCP
Centennial Honors List awardee, and the Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.
Professorial Chair in Creative Writing has been endowed in
his name at the University of the Philippines.

He has received Hawthornden Castle, British Council,

David T.K. Wong, Rockefeller (Bellagio), and Civitella Ranieri
fellowships, and has held the Henry Lee Irwin Professorial
Chair at the Ateneo de Manila University; and the Jose
Joya, Jorge Bocobo, and Elpidio Quirino professorial chairs
at U.P. Diliman.

Prof. Dalisay taught English and Creative Writing at

the University of the Philippines, where he also chaired
the English department and served as Director of the UP
Institute of Creative Writing, and as Vice President for
Public Affairs.

In 2019, Prof. Dalisay was appointed as professor

emeritus of the University of the Philippines.
 ABOUT THE ARTIST
The Chagallesque works of MARCEL ANTONIO (born
June 28, 1965) often involve mysterious themes, utilize
fabular images that combine myth with reality, and inspire
stories and imagination.

The son of Filipino painters Angelito Antonio and

Norma Belleza, Marcel achieved early recognition when
he launched his first solo show while still in college at the
University of the Philippines. This was followed by a string of
sold-out exhibitions, and he is today considered as among
the most important artists of his generation. His paintings
continue to be prized by collectors in the Philippine and
Southeast Asian art markets.

Marcel has exhibited in numerous major galleries in the

Philippines, and has also exhibited in Berlin, Australia, and
Singapore.
CANVAS’ 1 Million Books for One Million Filipino Children Campaign
aims to inspire in children a love for reading
by donating its award-winning books to public schools, hospitals,
and disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

A child that reads is a creative, empowered, and imaginative child

who will learn independently, envision a brighter future,
and ultimately lead a productive and meaningful life.

You can help us!

For more information, visit www.canvas.ph,
email [email protected], or find us on Facebook:
Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development.

CANVAS, a non-profit organization,

works with the creative community to promote children’s literacy,
explore national identity, and broaden public awareness
of Philippine art, culture, and the environment.
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