A Sort of Homecoming: Maganda Magazine Fall Reception @ UC Berkeley

I've just been invited by one of the current Maganda Magazine editors-in-chief Adrien Salazar to be a featured performer at their Fall Reception. Of course I said yes. I will be sharing the mic with a lineup of student poets/performers, and this ought to be some fun.

First of all: Naia [Gelato] Lounge. They have Milo flavored gelato there (sometimes).

Second: Maganda is where I was first published, and they also sponsored my very first poetry reading ever. Not to say any of my poetry back then was any "good," and for sure I didn't really know how to do a poetry reading. But hell, I was like 19 at the time, and that was a hell of a good place to start.

I was wondering whether I ought to do some kind of talk on Pinoy poetry and all. The reason why I am thinking this is because Oscar has told me that when Rigoberto González featured for Acentos, one thing that was especially meaningful (to Oscar at least as per what he's told me; I can't say what other folks in attendance took home that night) was having this well-established Latino author impart advice about working hella hard and creating good work that is good work not simply because it is Latino work, and then getting this work out into the big world.

I am thinking also of Amiri Baraka's recent Bay Area visit. Apart from the prestigious English Department reading series curated by Lyn Hejinian and Robert Hass, Baraka also read and spoke at a Cave Canem and Poetry for the People sponsored event, where he shared the mic with student poets and emerging poets. At this reading and talk, Baraka was very explicit about poets getting their work into the world. To paraphrase: it's worthless to call yourself a poet if you have got no work to show for it.

"You call yourself a poet? Where's your book?"

Again, that very important message of not waiting around for someone to discover you. You must create your own opportunities, which include going DIY. And in a show of support of the emerging poets of the Cave Canem and Poetry for the People communities, he absolutely insisted upon paying for Cave Canem poet Shia Shabazz's book, My Soul Sings Acappella, which she really just wanted to give to him.

I am thinking that when Maganda was my great big sea, what would I have liked to and needed to hear from established Filipino/a American authors? Well, that it was indeed possible, for a Filipina American writer to get published, to have her work be read, studied, and discussed seriously. At the time, before ever coming across Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters, I'd never seen a Filipina American authored work, much less a "nationally recognized" Filipina American authored work. When Hagedorn came to the UC Berkeley campus in the early 1990's, you'd better believe I was stupid with elation. Ninotchka Rosca was the second ever Filipina American author I met, for she also visited UC Berkeley around 1994-ish.

I thought about this again at Baraka's Cave Canem and Poetry for the People reading, when a young Pinay approached me after staring at me across the room for some time; when she finally came over my way, she was kind of inarticulate, agog, and very smiley/teethy, though able to tell me how honored she was to have finally met me. That was a strange experience but it reminded me of being a 19-year old emerging writer, badly needing Pinay author role models in order to legitimize my claim of becoming a writer.

So now we have something we can call visibility, literary presence, and some amount of privilege and prestige at being "nationally recognized," and "awarded." And while derision often results as community backlash response against Filipino/a American authors who've gained national recognition, for assumptions of tokenism, whitewash, and irrelevance to community issues, and for acting out professional jealousies, our community simultaneously voices their need and pride in seeing and claiming these Filipino/a Americans' literary accomplishments.

So there's that.

If you are in the area, do come by UC Berkeley's Naia Lounge on Lower Sproul Plaza this Saturday afternoon. There might be Milo flavored gelato there.