When poetry is woman

Rina Angela Corpus

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Rina Corpus reads the poet Ruby Palma's 'Quintessence of Dust' and discusses the Filipino woman's journey into motherhood and beyond

RISING HIGH. "Abutin ang Tala." Sandra Torrijos' artwork that complements Palma-Beltran's poem "Urduja Rising." Photo by Rina Angela Corpus

It was a few weeks after Mother’s Day when I joyously rediscovered a tome of poetry collection in my shelf that richly speaks of a Filipino woman’s journey into motherhood and beyond.

Ruby Palma’s Quintessence of Dust (New Day, 2007) is a bilungual poetry anthology that spans a quarter century of the poet’s life. More known as a gender advocate, having served as Gender and Development head of the Quezon City government, Palma charts out the female and feminine experiences into chapters that speak of her sojourns with the men and women in her midst. Her chapters are built according to the shared journeys of women and are titled thus: Girlhood, Womanhood, Sisterhood, Motherhood, Moon Series, and Echoes.

WOMEN IN SOLIDARITY. "Damayan" is Sandra Torrijos' artwork that complements Ruby Palma-Beltran's poems. Photo by Rina Angela Corpus

Notice that most of the poems under the chapter Girlhood were written in lowercase, akin to e.e. cummings, cluing us to the juvenilia and playfulness of that period in her life. In the poem ‘little brother,’ she bemusedly speaks of her younger male sibling: I watch you in amusement:/ Celestino the 3rd in petticoat/ and bonnet, face made up by/ feisty sisters who fight/ your bullies in/ schools and jeepneys.

In ‘spirit of ’69’, she writes of the spiritedness of her high school years but with a decisive tone of activist ardor, as if in anticipation of the cudgels of the 1972 Martial rule: the class breaks up into march/ and tires are burned in condemnation,/ we are the passion.

In the chapter Sisterhood, she writes of the shared solidarity between female friends and comrades, as in ‘To a Sister Fighting Her Thymoma’: I shall not mourn for your baldness:/ You shine with or without your hair.

Photo 2: The book's back cover with Sandra Torrijos' artwork and Ruby Palma-Beltran's poetry. Photo by Rina Angela Corpus

She also offers solace to women pushed in the perils of the flesh trade in ‘Prostituted’: no longer weep over torn hymens or lost edens; in pain lies forgiveness, salvation and winning.

Reflecting on the prevalent issue of domestic violence, with sensitivity and maternal solicitude, she writes in ‘Kay Rosario, Na Namatay sa Pang-aabuso’: Sana’y sisiw kitang/ nalimliman/ at inahin akong/ pumutak/ sa sinuman sa iyo’y/ humawak.

The poems on motherhood are especially plaintive, chornicling her joys of birthing a newborn. She speaks of a mother’s intuitive strength in ‘Mother-1’: and she lasts/ until the world awakes and finds her/ still there, marveling at how firm she is,/ how whole.

In ‘Mother-2’, Palma lengthily describes the painful peregrination of her losing a firstborn son to an illness. This is perhaps the most prosaic of her poems, an emotive narrative of what transpired as she holds herself together while sitting beside an ailing son on the hospital bed: i screamed his name again but nobody came nor seemed to hear; his face contorted from a smile to surprise to resignation,/ to red, to blue, to yellow; then the final release/ of fluids, of soul.

HERSTORY. The Quintessence of Dust by Ruby Palma. Photo by Rina Angela Corpus

Palma has devoted the final chapter of the book into collected poems by her women friends, as if to honor a sacred bond shared by kindred spirits. This part is especially endearing, making us aware of the power of friendships and collective work, not just in art-making but in the task of advancing shared and worthy causes.

Further, the book was interspersed with exquisite female-centered drawings by visual artists Sandra Torrijos, Bernie Cervantes and Gari Buenaventura.

Perhaps, Palma captures best in ‘quintessence of dust-2’ the spirit of the never-ending soul-seeking and shape-shifting that characterizes women’s lives in a world that tries to hold the feminine spirit – which has always resisted containment.

Here, she writes an apropos paean to women who continue to brave through every crossing and threshold in the journey:

poised to change/ again into a new form/ a new dance,/ donning another color/ destined to fade again/ braving each death/ while rising higher,/ shining brighter./ a new goddess released in the/ womb of recycled souls.

While not a poet by career, but a trained administrator-leader in various capacities, Palma-Beltran opens our seeing eyes and listening ears that poetry and art can be the righful sphere of any woman who dares to sing new songs – of no less than their own.

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