Frank Cimatu launches poetry collection

BAGUIO, Philippines – Trilingual poet, fictionist, essayist, and journalist Frank Cimatu will launch his latest book, a collection of poems, on Tuesday, August 20, at Mt Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City.

Ang Mga Prusisyong Dumaan sa Unang Bangungot gathers 88 of Cimatu’s long-lost poems in Filipino, works that vanished due to the 1990 earthquake and computer glitches, as well as those recovered from old notebooks over the decades.

It includes the collection Desaparacido/Desparadiso: The Poems of Juan Caliban, which won the first prize in the Palanca Awards in 1991.

The limited edition of Mga Prusisyon is published by Ateneo de Naga, and will be available at Mt Cloud Bookshop in Baguio City and at Savage Mind Bookstore in Naga City for an introductory price of P600.

Ang Mga Prusisyong Dumaan sa Unang Bangungot is Cimatu’s first solo book. He has co-edited Mondo Marcos: Writings on Martial Law and the Marcos Babies, an anthology of short stories, poems, and essays, with Roland B. Tolentino; and Follow the Leader, a book on the campaign for reproductive health in the Philippines, with Chi Vallido.

Cimatu’s work has been the subject of academic papers by UP Baguio assistant professor Grace Celeste T. Subido, namely “Postmodern Inclinations: The Poetry of Frank Cimatu” and “Poetry as Historiography: The Routine Poems of Franklin Cimatu.”

Cimatu’s poems have been recognized by the Galian sa Arte at Tula, the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Surian Ng Wikang Pambansa, the Procyon Awards, and the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards.

A former longtime correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Cimatu now writes for Rappler. He is editor of the Baguio Chronicle. – Miriam Grace A. Go/Rappler.com