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In the last couple of years, there were (and are) multiple personal transitions: the passing of pets, needing a new car, looking for a new job, and the last leg of my Saturn Return. As I am very human, I couldn’t help but fling my hands at the skies with your typical, “why me!” and “why now!” I lie on the floor wishing things weren’t so, then pick myself up and plunk away at my computer. I set aside time to respond, to be in touch, to reassure folks that I haven’t forgotten about them (and in this way, I feel it keeps me from drowning, and I’m grateful to be buoyed by my community). All of this, with the chaotic, unpredictable nature of human emotions. I walk outside and weep at two hummingbirds dancing in the sky (that must be Lolo!) and weep at the grave markers of Kobe and Pau, two dogs that passed within a year of each other, and weep at my dad’s phone screen as he shows me the used car he thinks would be best for me. I think of my current car, my darling car, the car to whom I refer as my son, who has been with me since I was 16 now must, also, transition to Valhalla. The summer days truly are ending, I think, but then of course, I always had a flair for the dramatic.

Because the truth is, not all transitions are negative; I’m starting to learn this truth, just now, in my thirties. My dad adopted a 3 month old puppy, and I’ve been helping with her crate training. She has gorgeous, baby-doll fawn eyes, rolls and a huge belly, and a raucous desire to play rough and tumble. Yes, there have been accidents and clean-ups and schedule changes, but somehow, it’s also been a job? I shared with my partner’s mother that it feels like I’m a parent with older children in college who just had a baby: I feel rusty and clumsy (when I should know what I’m doing! I’ve done this before!) but so relieved and fulfilled when I see her darling face. I would not trade her for the Before if it means losing her.

I’m also letting myself flow with the seasons: where I was in a phase of writing a poem (or parts of a poem) everyday, I find myself reading a lot and tending to other arts. I’m drawing and painting. I’m listening to music and podcasts. I, myself, am adapting to a porous state. This allows for more time with my critical paper (the first draft being terribly overdue with its new deadline at the end of this month!) and learning how to be a beginner again. It’s okay to be bad at something! I say this to my nieces, nephews, niblings, etc. but it’s a lesson I continue to learn.

So, here’s to being human! Here’s to stumbling and asking for help, and being held and carried through the autumnal and winter seasons of our lives. I hope you have the people and practices you need to get you through. Until the sunlight of the spring!

Updates;

Where to buy my books:

You can purchase The Language of Unbreaking, my first full-length poetry collection with Sampaguita Press from Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

You can purchase my chapbook, In Defense Of, from Amazon, or if you send me a screenshot of a donation of at least $5 USD to a relief fund, GoFundMe, or organization of your choice, I will mail a copy to you free (within the stolen lands of Turtle Island, or unceded lands of the United States of America).

What I’m reading:

• Poeta en San Francisco by Barbara Jane Reyes

• Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen

  and many more!

What I’m writing:

• the start of my critical paper (on to my moved deadline…I’m sorry, Rick!)

• my screenplay and two scripts

What I’m listening to:

• Doppelgänger by The Fall of Troy

What I’m watching:

• Ouran High School Host Club

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This is not to say that I am not finding joy in the days — I see community hard at work at providing for others in need, such as my mare’s fundraising for the Sameer Foundation, Spectator Books donating my royalties to Heal Palestine, (many) raucous group chats, etc., but I am definitely learning how to balance and differentiate between discipline and capacity.

As we continue into Virgo szn, I’m thinking about boundaries — how can I continue showing up and sharing care to the people I love and also replenish myself? How does this communication show up to me and to others? How do I advocate for what I need? Being ruled by mercury, I am constantly in need of lists, of communication, and chunky essay-esque text messages. How, too, do I self-soothe? How does doing the work, for myself, look like? Intertwined in this are FaceTimes, therapy sessions, furious written and junk journal entries, and taking time for art and leisure activities.

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Also, with learning balance — I’m doing my best not to over-indulge. Not allowing an intended 30-minute break become a 2-5 hour something-else (napping, reading-something-I’m-not-supposed-to-yet-like-comics, playing Cookie Run: Kingdom, etc.) and respecting what others need of me as well. This, I’m mostly working on with the duties of my MFA program. How can I be a better artist-in-conversation with my professors and fellow artists?

This is what I mean by the transitory; I am learning to be adaptable, open to malleability. When I think I’ve found the answer, I’m back to square one. I’m ever-learning how to ask for help.

The end of summer is not without it’s busyness, of course (I am a Virgo sun during Virgo szn, after all!), and I’m excited for the next event dates I have:

• Sept 19: Gilroy ArtWalk at The Clove with openers; Reginald Imbat, Lorenz Mazon Dumuk, Shaena Mae, Kyle Doria, Ellie Labampa, & Ellie Lopez

I’m also deeply excited for my birthday. I used to shy away from this and perform the facade of being indifferent. But, I’m so, so stoked. I’m grateful to be alive and to have the ability to work (I know, I know, damn earth signs and their workaholic-isms). But, also the privilege to play and speak and hold hands and be with others — as I grow older, I swear never to take these things for granted.

So, let me hold your hand, too. Salamat kaayo!

Updates;

Where to buy my books:

You can purchase The Language of Unbreaking, my first full-length poetry collection with Sampaguita Press from Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

You can purchase my chapbook, In Defense Of, from Amazon, or if you send me a screenshot of a donation of at least $5 USD to a relief fund, GoFundMe, or organization of your choice, I will mail a copy to you free (within the stolen lands of Turtle Island, or unceded lands of the United States of America).

What I’m reading:

• Poeta en San Francisco

• Ghost Of

• The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry,

  and many more!

What I’m writing:

• poems (always!)

• the start of my critical paper

• my screenplay and two scripts

What I’m listening to:

• De-Loused in Comatorium by Mars Volta

What I’m watching:

• X-Files with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson

I’ve been preparing for my upcoming writing residency (my penultimate residency for my master’s program), and I submitted the two poems for my primary genre, poetry, workshop.

This poem was born during a reflection. Steinian syntax, as created by Gertrude Stein, was introduced. And my not being familiar with her work, looked up exactly what composed ‘steinian syntax.’ This is explored more in depth in a previous post here.

I hope to write more poems in this style (and perhaps read some of Stein’s work in between!)

all multilingual speakers use steinian syntax di ba

eschew commas and semicolons everything is together
anong grammar anyways anong rules para ito 
we’re not always so ‘whatever’ about these things kasi
the grammar for tagalog is sobrang mahirap if it’s not
your first language may pandiwa and you know ganyan
self-contained ba ito? filipinos in this house are experts
at nitpicking a conversation about rooms are actually
veiled attacks and somehow someway everything became
passive aggressive and icky and now i’m as mad as i was
when i was sixteen and nay ignored me for a month nay
comes into my room a different room now and breathes 
relief believing she never hurt me i could never open my 
mouth to the truth to her or here or to anyone in this house
maybe that’s why i am constantly clipping against words 
used with no tact but have meaning everything has meaning
or am i just a scorpio stellium sigh mahirap to be this sensitive
this gusto mo bang prose poetry aling gertrude well here galing
diba experimenting with word order grammatical structures ha
aling have you tried a colonial fit no huh kasi purong languages mo
mga puti german puti french puti english puti you feel your emotions
in english you piss me off aling gertrude i want to feel my emotions in
tagalog no bisaya there were never commas or semicolons in our speech
just hands and smacking and chewing and laughing and shaking our heads
we’re not always so ‘whatever’ about these things kasi walang rules hindi the
truth is we make up the rules as we go i look back and see i made a mistake i added
a question mark in the fifth line pasensya aling gertrude i promise im trying ill do better
next time 

Poet, Sophia Dahlin, provides prompts in her generative workshops, allotting time near the end of class for all students to write. In one of these classes, a suggested prompt was to ‘write a poem in steinian syntax.’ I collect these prompts for later. At the time, I was drawn to another prompt and wrote towards that. But, I knew I would revisit this prompt again someday. And today is that day!

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I have not yet read Gertrude Stein. While I will eventually get to her work, I make it a point to center my attentions toward authors of color, specifically Black and Indigenous women writers, creatives who are not given as much publicity as other demographics. Because I’m not familiar with her work, I asked Google, ‘what is steinian syntax.’ Among many things, the main rules I chose to follow were to follow an unconventional sentence structure, create repetition and pattern, and rejecting conventional punctuation. I read this and thought about my experience eavesdropping listening to conversations in Tagalog1. From that thought was born the poem “all multilingual speakers use steinian syntax di ba”:

all multilingual speakers use steinian syntax di ba

eschew commas and semicolons everything is together

anong grammar anyways anong rules para ito

we’re not always so ‘whatever’ abou these things kasi

the grammar for tagalog is sobrang mahirap if it’s not

your first language may pandiwa and you know ganyan

self-contained ba ito? filipinos in this house are experts

at nitpicking a conversation about rooms are actually

veiled attacks and somehow someway everything became

passive aggressive and icky and now i’m as mad as i was

when i was sixteen and nay ignored me for a month nay

comes into my room a different room now and breathes

relief believing she never hurt me i could never open my

mouth to the truth to her or here or to anyone in this house

maybe that’s why i am constantly clipping against words

used with no tact but have meaning everything has meaning

or am i just a scorpio stellium sigh mahirap to be this sensitive

this gusto mo bang prose poetry aling gertrude well here galing

diba experimenting with word order grammatical structures ha

aling have you tried a colonial fit no huh kasi purong languages mo

mga puti german puti french puti english puti you feel your emotions

in english you piss me off aling gertrude i want to feel my emotions in

tagalog no bisaya there were never commas or semicolons in our speech

just hands and smacking and chewing and laughing and shaking our heads

we’re not always so ‘whatever’ about these things kasi walang rules hindi the

truth is we make up the rules as we go i look back and see i made a mistake i added

a question mark in the fifth line pasensya aling gertrude i promise im trying ill do better

next time

National Poetry Month continues, and I hope have fun playing with language in form in your writing as well!

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It’s difficult for me to stay to a schedule. I’ll follow what’s determined on my Google Calendar (that is my brain and livelihood right there!) but it hardly remains the same week to week. This Monday won’t be like the next, or the one after that. Because of this, I haven’t ever completed a National Poetry Month writing challenge. Instead of writing everyday, I decided I would write when I could, and I would write in bursts. I would go a few days without writing but have a handful of small poems all written in one day. While I believe that everyone’s writing routine is different and by no means is one meant to crank out a “masterpiece” everyday, there is a beauty in setting aside time to sit with your craft.

As I try to lower my unintentional screentime (unintentional meaning scrolling through social media), it also helps to set aside time to read and tend to other avenues of my creativity. I’ve been drawing, keeping to my “artist dates” (as prescribed to one from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron), and I’ve been working on a chapbook in poet, Sophia Dahlin’s, generative class, Writing Without Permission. I’m trying to make time for things that bring me joy. So, I’ve restarted my bookstagram posts (intentional Instagram and or Twitter time!) and shared a bookish post here.

And who knows? Maybe I’ll make a zine of the poems I wrote this month, not for promotion or anything, but to celebrate the accomplishment of tapping into creativity. My dear friend, mare, kaibigan (and pinsan!), comrade, and fellow poet, Maria Bolaños, once said to me that creating a “genius” work wasn’t the point. The point of our art is being able to experience something beyond us, something unnamable, and expressing it the best way we can. And amidst everything, I find our art a small (and only a part of a greater whole of actions we should be doing together as a community) resistance against American, Western fascism and imperialism. We can take our time with our art.

Our art is celebration.

Updates;

Where to buy my books:

You can purchase The Language of Unbreaking, my first full-length poetry collection with Sampaguita Press from Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

You can purchase my chapbook, In Defense Of, from Amazon, or if you send me a screenshot of a donation of at least $5 USD to a relief fund, GoFundMe, or organization of your choice, I will mail a copy to you free (within the stolen lands of Turtle Island, or unceded lands of the United States of America).

What I’m reading:

• The Man with my Face by Jennifer Tseng

• Black Bell by Alison C. Rollins

• Storm #5 by Murewa Ayodele, among others!

What I’m writing:

• wrapping up the 30 poem challenge for National Poetry Month

• the last stretch of my critical essays!

• my screenplay and two scripts

What I’m listening to:

• Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance

What I’m watching:

• Senpai wa Otokonoko

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I write to you from a busy first quarter of 2025: from a residency in Washington state, to being sick with a cold for about a month, then two weeks in Los Angeles, a string of local artist’s events, my first full-length book’s release, spring break with family, and a family pet’s ascendance.

It was my 2nd AWP, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, but it was the 1st time having a shared booth with the folks at Kaya Press. Kaya Press invited Asian American publications, such as Sampaguita Press, to create a Scholastic Fair-esque corner dedicated to Asian American voices. It was amazing to have a space dedicated to As-Am voices, and to meet the folks, face to face, of other As-Am publications, such as slant’d, Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and of course, Kaya. I ended up working at the Sampaguita Press the majority of the time, but I was grateful to have attended 1 panel (with Rick Barot!) and to see faces I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to see.

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It’s always a whirlwind in spring time for me (more so now that I participate in attending AWP): my sister’s birthday falls around this time and my cousins, near and far, from Los Angeles and Las Vegas, make their pilgrimage to San José to spend spring break with us. I’m close to my auntie and my baby cousins (I was 16 when the eldest was born, so I helped babysit and raise them until they moved away when I was in my 20s), so I feel weepy when they arrive and when they inevitably leave. I think of them when I write. I want them to know our family; I want them to know where they come from. And, I want them to know I’m excited to see where they go, what they explore, and who they become.

Spring was (still is I realize!) a season of transitions for our family as well, as our family dog, Pau, passed away a few weeks shy of her 14th birthday. She passed with us around her, holding her as she ascended, and while I mourn her (and feel her absence in our home), I’m at ease knowing we were able to be with her. She was a Gemini pug-chihuahua who loved to eat, so I’m extra glad she got to be a part of a Filipino family while she was earthside.

I’ve been struggling with the critical work of my master’s program, this beginning of the end. Such ill timing with the Trump Administration that I’m entering the final year of my master’s program (woe is the graduate student who is not wealthy). Pushing the worries of my student loans aside, I’m beginning the end of this academic journey with much needed help.

I’m grateful to have these same handful of folks pouring time and care to support my writing. My partner stays on FaceTime with me while I read and write. My best friends in my cohort, Milo and Kerry, also stay on FaceTime and work on their own assignments while I do mine. It’s in this gentle love that I find peace in spring. In a conversation with Milo and Kerry, we talked about love. How love is more than romantic, and how love can, and should, be shared with all of those you love. And instead of finding my need a nuisance, these people, who I love and who love me, sit with me across hundreds of miles to make sure my work is completed.

And with that, I hope this spring, if you haven’t already, that you sit with your loved ones. That you look at the blooming flowers and offer each other tissues if the pollen gives them allergies. Peel them the orange. Rest your head on each other’s shoulders. We only have each other, like this, while we’re on earth.

Hold your hands out with love.

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Updates;

Where to buy my books:

You can purchase The Language of Unbreaking, my first full-length poetry collection with Sampaguita Press from Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

You can purchase my chapbook, In Defense Of, from Amazon, or if you send me a screenshot of a donation of at least $5 USD to a relief fund, GoFundMe, or organization of your choice, I will mail a copy to you free (within the stolen lands of Turtle Island, or unceded lands of the United States of America).

What I’m reading:

• Tabako on the Windowsill by Hari Alluri

• Jailbreak of Sparrows: Poems by Martín Espada

• Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver,

  among others!

What I’m writing:

• attempting a poem a day for National Poetry Month

• a bunch of critical response essays…

What I’m listening to:

• American Idiot (20th Anniversary Edition) by Green Day

What I’m watching:

• Kidou Senshi Gundam: GQuuuuuuX

  Thanks for reading Pamalandungon! This post is public so feel free to share it.

  Share

It’s in this weather that I long to be comfy. While at my day job, I plunked away, mask, jacket, scarf, and all, daydreaming of my blanket. I sat in my car during my lunch break and thought of pillows. I thought of the gusts flinging my hair around and how annoyingly accurate water droplets landed on my glasses. It’s also in this weather that I long to write.

I continue to be grateful for the virtual offerings of fellow creatives, as I recently joined another of Sophia Dahlin’s classes, Elemental Poetry: Earth Air Fire Water. Being a millennial, I feel that I was raised on elemental contemplations, especially with shows like The Last Airbender. And, as it was recently Lunar New Year, I think of other elements not normally mentioned, like wood and metal (especially since I and my partner respectively are these minor elements). And with the rain and its vigor, I thought of the water in me, my scorpio stellium, and felt it was entirely fitting that we discussed poems of water and air on a day that was particularly windy and rainy.

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I wrote a poem in today’s class that wasn’t necessarily about water itself. Rather, I tried to use water to talk about a house. A house where, I have this memory, that’s now separated by twenty-six years. It’s not necessarily getting older that scares me, but it’s the distance between things, and people, now gone that sit in me like a stone.

So, this little work in progress, is a portrait: imagine a child eating hot sinigang in the kitchen with their parents and Lola. Their mother works swing shift, so she’s still home. Their father works night shift, so he’s still home. This is why lunch time is the best time. And this child is allowed to go home for lunch and eat with their family. And while the rain poured outside, there remained a bustle and movement inside. Lola cooking and serving. Mom and Dad laughing and talking. Were my siblings there yet? These are the patches that we can’t help but have. Was there an uncle living with us yet? Or was it another lola? Was it an auntie? This scene standing still while time still swirling behind and all around it. This was lunch at the Cathay house.

Lunch at the Cathay House When It Rains

Plop into plastic bucket
Plop the black stain on the ceiling
Plop the four sinks
Plop the two kitchens
Plop the hidden bathroom (sacred hiding place from chores & trouble)
Plop Goku, plop Aurora, specifically her dress of pink and sparkle
Plop a little sister, then a little brother
Plop all the cats and the dog yearning for the moon
Plop the dark
Plop the sun and how it hits the brown walls and leads your eyes to Jesus
Plop Jesus and his eyes
His dark, upturned eyes

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In Sophia Dahlin’s most recent generative workshop offering, students were provided many prompts. One of which begged the question of a world that supported love. This prompt was the entry point for me to touch on communities that need more visibility in my poem1.

What does the world need to look like to support and abet love?

Palestine is free. 
Congo is free. 
Their children and
all children are never hungry.

Sudan is free.
We don’t need to hold flags
on television and run because
there is no one to chase us. 
They’re already cared for.
We all strive to do right
by our Creator.

I see my kaibigan, my kasamas
and we are masked beautiful,
N95, K95 emanating attraction
in pink or reds, all hearts. 

Lauvey croons in the streets,
someone’s speaker blasting.
We crowd together, yelling
laughing over the music and
food with tsinelas the ants
leading you in or out the door
while Lolo falls asleep, apo
tucked perfectly in his arms.

I ask you to take this question with you with whatever art you practice: how will you use your voice?

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Finally, my anak, my daughter, and my poems for the past 2 years are here! Please meet my child, my first full-length book of poetry, The Language of Unbreaking.

Poetry is, has been, and will always be a way of processing. I’ve shared with my therapist the thought process of writing poetry, and I’m pleased to say that it was deemed a healthy outlet.

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This book took its time being born with an original publication date of February 2024. While I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at the changed date, the book is all the better for it. New experiences and new lessons learned helped to inform different editing decisions. It allowed for more time for the editors to not only work on the book, but live their lives without the stress of a sooner deadline.

Her presence in the world lets me sit back and reflect on everything that’s happened these past two years. How much farther, yet closer, I am to Lolo. How I still can’t help but long to see Lolo’s face at his reaction to seeing this book. How I already know what that reaction would have been.

The book that sits before me now is everything I could ever want and more. She looks vastly different than the first drafts.

And, she is so, so beautiful.

Please find the book available here, or please reach out to me if you’re interested in a signed copy!

Currently, I’m

• reading:

  • Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin

• watching:

  • Severance, S2

• listening:

  • DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS by Bad Bunny

    Thanks for reading Pamalandungon! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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I recently finished an online, generative workshop with Sophia Dahlin, The Possibility of Love. I joined this class because the thought of writing love poetry in itself was already daunting. I weigh my interest in poetry in how much it moves me emotionally. I describe this to my partner as the clutching of my chest, or the gasp, or my hands flying to my mouth. This is especially hard to accomplish with love poetry. So, I thought, why not? How do we learn if not to challenge ourselves?

Each of the poems in this budding manuscript was written in response to a prompt provided by Sophia, some harder than others, but all harder than any other poem I’ve tried to write before.

This first poem, “wrap my legs around your hips,” was an attempt towards the sensual, the erotic. How better for me, as someone who grew up with layers of shame solely on the basis of being born a daughter and Catholic, than to reclaim my joy and wants in intimacy?

And so, this is love, or rather, just one of my many thoughts on love.

wrap my legs around your hips, 

and teach me how to beg, reach and	
stretch my tongue until my voice		
coats this room into waves, 			
wrap us in universal dust and dwarf	
event horizon of precious touch, 		
breath meeting breath desperate		
exhale of atoms entwining and 		
heaving until the release, until you	
seal the sweat and skin, until you		
spill black and purple overflow into		
brilliant sinewed stars, please	

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My last post was in November 2024. My second Covid-19 infection was at the end of November 2024. Because of the current political and social climates, masks are not enforced or encouraged outside of small enclaves of persisting Covid-19 activists who do not have the luxury of the risk of reinfection. Thanks to their research and communication, I’ve stayed masked. I’m the sole masker at my current workplace. My partner and close friends mask. But all of this is not enough if not everyone in your household masks.

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And so, because I don’t mask inside my home, I was infected by another family member. This family member is on their fourth Covid infection with the firm belief that reinfection makes them stronger. All the while, this person is more aggressive behind the wheel, more impatient, and more forgetful. I was devastated at my positive test. I remained in my room the full 14 days (while other folks who were infected in my home emerged after 5). My first infection was already incredibly hard for me physically and mentally. My fitness, obviously, all but diminished completely. My existing executive dysfunction became worse. And my memory, my beloved memory, also became worse. This did not bode well for my second infection.

Much to my dismay, my fears were correct. I had the same symptoms as a “general” Covid-19 infection and more. I had chest pain and intense GI symptoms. These new symptoms followed me after my negative test. I was winded walking up the stairs. My hard earned fitness, again, diminished. My second infection interrupted a lot of exciting events for me: I stopped my hula lessons, jiujitsu lessons, and violin lessons. How could I dance or grapple or play if I could hardly stand? Assignments for my MFA were due, and I could not bring myself to complete anything. Writing a sentence was daunting, let alone an entire essay. I could not read.

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I grieve for my health and my youth, what my body would have and could have been if we had upheld masking, if we all continued to mask. I held my anger towards the people in my life who claim they love me. How could someone avoid testing when sick? What of our duty to each other? Our responsibility?

All of this to share to say that I’m one of the lucky ones. Only time will tell the lasting damage my body and mind has endured. What lurks around the corner for me? Preventing another infection is of dire importance. By the third reinfection, the roulette for getting Long Covid goes up exponentially. I have to protect my baseline. Please protect your baseline.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m one of the lucky ones. This echo is meant to hang in the air and sit with you. I don’t know if I’ll be lucky again should I be reinfected. Because I am lucky, I rested. I took the time to rediscover my baseline. So, here I am, three months later. Wanting to be a writer. Wanting to share and create. Having so much to say during this scary, violent point in time. But we have each other. We must care for each other.

And so we continue.

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