April Column

First appeared in The Evening Sun on Sunday, April 25, 2010

Poetry always brings people together in unexpected ways. When I began my tenure as Poet Laureate, I never thought I would make connections with people halfway around the world. So, when I received an email from Mark Anthony L. Daposala, from the Phillippines, telling me my Hanover Poet Laureate blog had reached an international audience, it shocked me. I never thought my blog would reach an audience beyond Hanover, PA, nonetheless beyond the United States and the Western Hemisphere!

After a brief correspondence with Daposala, he entered my poetry contest. After much deliberation, we have chosen his poem, “Amidst the chaos sprouts a rose,” as the winner in the adult category.

Daposala is a young writer, beginning his career as a burgeoning poet. He is from Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines. After graduating with a Bachelor's Degree in English Language and Literature Studies from Xavier University, he now works as a Web Content Writer. Of poetry and its importance, Daposala writes, “To entangle the cluttering strings of language, and somehow weave a shape out of it is enough to make [me] smile for the day.”

When he sent me his poems, he included the following note: “Paraphrasing from Dickinson, I hope these three poems are alive.” To me, his work certainly comes “alive” on the page. Even more so, his poetry lives with an urgency rooted in the real. I admire his instinct, as a writer, to keep his content concise. He uses a few specific details and does not add filler information to make the scene easier to digest or prettier than the reality. Instead, he chooses the right words to paint something realistic, and thus, more powerful. Here is his winning poem, “Amidst the chaos sprouts a rose.”


Amidst the chaos sprouts a rose


All I thought of that night
was how we ended up
in that jam-packed bolgia.
Still your heart lingered
at the sound of cymbals
crashing
like beer bottles
shattering
on concrete.

You sat
observing the scene
behind your horn-rimmed glasses
as the guitar’s distorted notes
flew like flies dissipated
in the tobacco fog
fuming from the mouths of fiends
in vintage shirts and tattered jeans
bought fresh from the Ukay-Ukay .
They raised their pitchfork fingers
in the name of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.

You were barely 16
sipping your can of coke with a straw.
and exclaimed your view of anarchy,
“Can you see it now?
Amidst the chaos sprouts a rose.”

I fell silent.

All I saw was you.



Ukay-Ukay / ʊkaɪ ʊkaɪ/: a.) literally means “To Dig.”

b.) The word also refers to the contemporary stores in the Philippines that sell bulks of secondhand goods like clothing. They are also sold in cheap and negotiable prices, making it popular to the frugal masses of the Philippines.




In his biography, Daposala included: “I’m an advocate of Carpe Diem.” I think this poem illustrates that mindset well. I read the poem as a nod to heightened awareness and consciousness. Isn’t that the point of seizing the day, being suddenly aware of everything happening around you and making something of it?

The poem opens with “chaos.” The speaker finds himself in the middle of people, music, and violence, implied by his metaphor: “cymbals / crashing / like beer bottles / shattering / on concrete.” After he sets up the scene, he goes on to describe the people there with his best demonic imagery. My point is that when someone finds himself in the middle of chaos, it usually looks and sounds more like a blur. How often does chaos involve precise imagery, the recollection that “the guitar’s distorted notes / flew like flies dissipated / in the tobacco fog”? These specific images and remembrances bring me back to the idea of carpe diem, of heightened awareness. Though the speaker faces this moment of chaos, he remains conscious of every detail around him.

On top of this, how often does chaos involve a moment of epiphany? Yes, sometimes it happens afterwards, but not usually right in the midst of it. In the middle of this crazy moment, his friend explains a personal view on “anarchy”: “‘Can you see it now? / Amidst the chaos sprouts a rose.’” These lines bring the reader back, once again, to that idea of vision, of seeing, of consciousness. Can the speaker “see” this single symbol of beauty rising out of the riotous atmosphere?

In the final two lines of the poem, after being asked this question, the speaker has his epiphany. He begins, “I fell silent.” I read this as epiphany because all of a sudden the poem becomes still, silent for the first time. We experience a quiet moment with just the speaker, and this change in volume signals a change in awareness to me.

Next, the poem ends with, “All I saw was you.” Though some may read the “you” immediately as a love interest, in my reading of the poem, “you” becomes more than that. “You” transcends the person who introduced the speaker to the new idea, and becomes the idea itself. “You” is a change in awareness, a new vision of the world. Though the reader is not privy to the specifics, he or she can still glean the main point: epiphanies come in unexpected times and unexpected places if you live consciously. So, seize the day!