Collection
Poetry in English
Contemporary Philippine poetry in English by Filipino poets writing from the Visayas, Mindanao and the diaspora. These poems test what English can carry when it is shaped by Philippine places, histories and other mother tongues.
Read the same tradition in other languages: tula in Filipino, balak in Binisaya and poetry in Waray, or browse all poetry. For prose in English, see short stories, creative nonfiction and critical essays.
Every poem appeared in one of our journal issues. Meet the poets in our contributors, or read the submission guidelines.
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Night Walkers
To appease the women, the government decided all men should stay at home at night. Nights are for sisterhood. Nights are for our bar hopping, tequila after tequila – shot after shotuntil…
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Hip-hop in the Time of Appendicitis
what you don’t know can hurt youwhat you don’t know can turn your bodyagainst you—Brian Russell Blessed are those with low pain tolerance: The world drops you mid-air then…
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Infinite Backyard Choreography
Consider to pocket this moistLayer of loam: a cache of glass, Ore, bones before the banyaga Rattles the ground. The myth Describes a gentry of anitos Walked this very earth, sated…
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Affected Sectors
Pusang Gala But she’s got beautiful eyes, Mama!My little boy points to the calico cat.They glitter when it’s nightWhen they’re not oozing.I agree, they’re sympatheticEven honourable, battle-scarred,The tips…
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It is snowing in your country
I am looking out the bus window playing River by Joni Mitchell. It is snowing there, you sent me pictures of cobblestoned streets, of you and your lover,…
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Cartography
For Andrew 1. Say that there’s nothing left to plotAnd everything has sprawled itself a horizon on a map,From this time to this place, to this place to…
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The placenta of evening stars
After Jim Morrison Children are born navigators.The have crossed torrid wetlands,Slept in tombs full of water,Made love with the darkBefore they open eyes and seeThe mutiny of mundane…
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A Philosophy of Water
I. Myth In the beginning was the seaand there was nothing to contain it. How the spirit soars with each crestslough crest and cowers with the slough crest…