Ménage à Trois of Tongues (A Trilingual Homecoming)

The following brief essay and three versions of a poem are excerpts from Pag- uli, Pag-uwi, Homecoming. Poetry in Three Tongues. Merlinda Bobis, University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2004. A few years ago, she returned to writing poetry after four novels.

Poems

Run Dun / Ren Dang Food-talk with Pramuka The factory In our house Dwel

Fish-hair woman

Lemon grass. When the river was sweet with its scent, they came for me. Half an hour after the Angelus, kang nag-aagaw su diklom buda su liwanag — when the dark was wrestling with the light, as we say — they came in a haze of the first fireflies. Tinsel on the green uniforms of the three men, bordering a sleeve here, circling a belt there, filling buttonholes, dotting an insignia, and smothering the mouth of the sergeant’s M16. He of the sullen face — young Ramon, wasn’t it? So like a dark angel with his halo of darting lights, harbinger of omens from the river. I’m sure it’s lemon grass and, putang ina, too many fireflies, he said, swatting the light on his pouting lips. That night, the roots of my hair knew this was going to be the last time, the last time, and I heard keening in my scalp

Food, precious food: Migrating the palate

Food, precious food: Migrating the palat

Dwell

To keep a place alive in your heart, it must dwell in your mouth. Heart-Mouth. Mouth-Heart. This is how you remember or want to remember. The first plum shared with Nancy of the plum garden next door. It was heady sweet. You were both twelve, but she was taller. You were blissfully worried that she might kiss you, because you had plum skin stuck at the roof of your mouth

Water-Earth (3 poems - Water Trail / Funeral of the River /The Flowers That Would Not Open)

In the house, the taps have dried I am searching for the water In the backyard, the pump has dried I am searching for the water Around the corner, the well has dried I am searching for the water Up the hill, the creek has drie

\u27Voice-Niche-Brand\u27: marketing Asian-Australianness

This essay discusses the publishing and marketing issues in Asian-Australian writing. It charts the writer\u27s journey from a distinct voice (and cultural sensibility) with which s/he can create a literary niche, and how this niche is eventually transformed/hijacked into the \u27Asian-Australian brand\u27 by the market

Excerpt from Merlinda Bobis’ novel ‘Fish-Hair Woman’

Three soldiers, two killed by their own guns, the third by asphyxiation. Under the berries ripening in haste: a crimson chest, a shattered groin, a snapped neck. And no moon, not even a firefly now to light the men’s frozen stare, this attempt to memorise the final tableau so they can take it to the other side. It was stingy dark in the coffee grove, a no-face night. One went by feel alone. Listen to that night when the soldiers came to take me to the river, and how the coffee grove detained us. Tony, I want you to hear my history. I want you to know my village beyond your brief, foreign idyll into war. To know the heart of terror and grief, of love—not yours but theirs. I want to wrap you in my hair, these strands that would not stop growing into story after story, into all that I remember of my village in 1987 and the years before. Stories that can save, that can kill

States of Poetry 2017 - ACT: T'he colour of eyes'

Poetry https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/poetry/states-of-poetry-2017/author/6572-merlindabobi

Sensing and sensibility: The late ripple of colonisation?

A Conversation between Author and Translator history hurts my hair (Bobis 1999 11) la historia hiere mi pelo pigpapaduso kan nakaaging istorya an sakuyang buho