Table of Contents: Diwata

I have added the following poems to Diwata:

• Upland Dance
• Garden
• Medicine Song
• Why Girls Do Not Speak
• Tocaya
• Aswang

The table of contents is now looking like this:

• A Genesis of We, Cleaved
• Auto/Bio [I am very close to omitting this piece; my tribute to my Papa is already apparent in the manuscript (at least to me) such that this piece is feeling clunky, even gratuitous.]
• The Bamboo’s Insomnia
• noong unang panahon
• polyglot incantation
• Hummingbird Diwata
• El Más Supremo
• Manila Mango
• Again, She Tells the First Story
• Upland Dance [Good to break up the prose poem sections with a poem in short, metered lines, almost restarting the next section of prose poems. In this way, it serves a similar function as "polyglot incantation." As well, "Upland Dance," is just that -- a dance, a ritual action that brings about the next set of circumstances or stories.]
• A Parable
• Duyong 1
• Duyong 2
• Duyong 3
• Duyong 4
• Duyong 5
• Dragonflies
• Garden [This Tao Po! poem was previously entitled, "Kaugnayan," which is just hard to read and pronounce, and has been mistaken for "Cagayan," which is the northern province where Papa lived.]
• Estuary
• Juneau
• Estuary 2
• the true color of the sea
• The Fire, Around Which We All Gather
• Sea Incantation
• Eve Speaks
• The Bamboo’s Insomnia 2
• Crossing
• Visitation
• Call It Talisman (If You Must)
• A Little Bit About Lola Ilang
• pananaghoy
• Pasig [Surely, this poem could use some work, especially now that I have spent some time reading, thinking, and writing about this river.]
• how i no longer believe in pious women
• she laments unnumbered losses
• pananaghoy 2
• a chorus of villagers sing a from another time now only a memory
• the villagers sing of the woman who becomes a wave who becomes the water who becomes the wind
• Eve Speaks 2
• Eve’s Visitation
• Killer of Ferdinand Magellan [I have edited out the dialogue of the "she," who is the "little sister" the old man addresses. I've also just gone ahead and referred to him as a diwata, because that is what he is or at least how she sees him.]
• In the City, A New Congregation Finds Her
• the city speaks
• In Her Memory, the Tattooed Angel
• Eve’s Aubade
• Having Been Cast, Eve Implores
• Having Been Cast, Eve Implores 2
• Medicine Song
• Why Girls Do Not Speak
• Tocaya
• Aswang [I like the idea of this energetic piece which ends with, "Blame me," to end the entire collection. Like "Tocaya," there is that shifting identity of the speaker, here contrasting the defiant "I."]

I have omitted “Monument,” which was the former closing poem, written in a too childlike voice, incongruous alongside the rest of the voices in Diwata. Some reordering needs to happen. “Why Girls Do Not Speak” may have to be moved up. It’s a little awkward to have this dense a piece so close to the end, then again I like the prose poems spread out a bit. As well, it’s nice to have the recurring images and events (the daughter taking the son’s responsibility of bringing the father’s ashes to the sea) spread throughout.

I am having capitalization issues. I need to resolve this.

The manuscript, including title page, table of contents, acknowledgments, epigraph, and dedication, is 72 pages. There are some very dense sections in it that don’t always get reset with a short-lined, metered poem, though density itself is not a bad thing. I think, or I hope, it serves the purpose of immersing the reader in this poetic world.

Wow, I think I need a writers’ group.

Tags: Diwata, manuscript revision