Karlo Sevilla : part five

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry? 

The burden of finding the best word and syntax, along with the awareness that revision may be perpetual. 

Karlo Sevilla : part four

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Lately, the following quote from Jack Hirschman has convinced me more that one of poetry’s noble purposes is propaganda for progressive politics:

“I don’t have the negative association with the word, ‘propaganda.’ I believe all poetry is propaganda. For one or another reason, a love poem is a propaganda for love.” 

 

Karlo Sevilla : part three

How do you know when a poem is finished?

Numbers matter. The longer the poem, the more words, lines, and stanzas that have to be kept in check. Monostichs, couplets, tercets, and quatrains, I can consider being in their final and eternal form in less than an hour. Longer ones, let’s say any poem of at least 10 lines, may take me and our Rat’s Ass Review online poetry workshop a few days.

I’m sure that it’s normal for serious writers to give any work a second to nth look, and revise accordingly until they are satisfied. The various modern poetic forms and styles aside, I’m still particular with “traditional” grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If there appears to be any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation error in my poem, most likely I’m just plain wrong – and not because I’m experimenting or “practicing” literary license or whatever. And until I’ve edited out such errors, a poem remains unfinished.

And like any poet, I have my own subjective standards on what makes a fine poem. Achieving its finest form is like ironing clothes: once I‘ve removed all that I perceive as wrinkles, it’s final and good to wear outside. However, I’m always more confident with poems that are workshopped, that benefited from the inputs of my incisive peers. But sometimes, an awkward line goes unnoticed even in a most extensively workshopped poem. One poem that was workshopped for three days was eventually published with the following problematic line: “I am ‘not (nor) sweet like Mary.’" (I’ve rectified this line and the poem will be included in the website I mentioned in the first part of this interview.)

Karlo Sevilla : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

I started writing poetry with confidence around 1988, when my sophomore high school English teacher Ms. Ilonah de Jesus complimented me after a haiku writing exercise. I’ll never forget that moment because at that time I still lacked confidence in my writing skills. So it was a sweet surprise when she declared, “So, we have a poet in our class: Karlo Sevilla.” 

Karlo Sevilla : part one

Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of the full-length poetry book Metro Manila Mammal (Soma Publishing, 2018) and the smaller collections You (Origami Poems Project, 2017) and Outsourced! . . . (Revolt Magazine, 2021). In 2018, his work was recognized among that year's Best of Kitaab, won runner-up in the Submittable-Centric Poetry Contest, and placed third in Tanggol Wika's DALITEXT poetry contest. In 2021, his poem made it to the shortlist of the annual Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition. His poems appear in Philippines Graphic, Philippines Free Press, DIAGRAM, Protean, Better Than Starbucks, and elsewhere. He is currently a student in the Associate in Arts program of the University of the Philippines Open University.

What are you working on?

I have just submitted almost 70 of my previously published poems (in several literary magazines and other platforms) for a website that will be put up exclusively for them. The website is a side project of a group of undergraduate university students who major in Multimedia Arts. It will serve as accompaniment to their final thesis: a short animated film inspired by my other poems. In short, both their final thesis and its side project are all about my poetry. These students are risking their college graduation by choosing my poetry as main source material for their thesis, haha! Seriously, I’m grateful to these young people for reaching out to me from out of the blue with their emailed proposal, and now they’re halfway done with their short film.

At first, I was ambivalent because I have long considered gathering my poems in a manuscript again for consideration for print publication as my second full-length poetry collection.  But I ultimately favored this student project and have a third of my previously published poems freely accessible in one website. I opted for the latter because I feel the urgency to make available online more texts that heighten awareness of human rights violations and social injustices in the Philippines that remain unresolved from the infamous Marcos dictatorship to the likewise murderous Duterte administration. Under our current president who happens to be the son and namesake of the late dictator, the administration has been lying and denying that such atrocities happened during his father’s reign. Worse, the son claims that the years under his father’s iron rule that was also marked by economic crisis was the Golden Age of our country. 

The poems I selected are invariably political propaganda pieces – on “different levels.” Collectively, they are a small voice/counter-propaganda, among others that give the lie to the government’s false narratives. (I’m also glad for this project because it gives me the chance to share my poems again, with needed revisions in some of them.)