San Mateo, Lia Consuelo R.

March 5, 2015

Minsay Bilog, Minsay Ilog: Pagbubura bilang Pagbubuo

The lecture was held by Mesandel Virtusio Arguelles, a brilliant Filipino poet and author.
He talked about erasure. Prior to the lecture I had no knowledge whatsoever of this kind of art
form. It was only at the book launch where I was I was introduced to this clever and unique way
of creating beautiful poems. Mr. Arguelles first discussed how blank spaces arent necessarily
meaningless. They are a part of language and play a huge role in erasure. Erasure is removing
words and recombining different words from a text to form a new poem; it is the art of making
poetry with your eyes instead of your hands. His first erasure book was Alingaw, which was the
result of erasing from words from his manuscript of collection of love poems, Alinsununurang
Awit. He said he started to erase words from this manuscript after being discontented and
getting tired from constantly revising Alinsunurang Awit. He realized he could make something
more out of his work by creating something new from it. Thus, continuing on with this newfound
love for this art form, with his new book Pesoa.
After the lecture I realized two things. First thing I realized is how underrated Filipino
literature is. As a teenager, Im aware of the certain things the kids my age get hyped up about.
We get so excited when we hear a new book from Lang Leav, a poet just like Mr. Arguelles, that
we even rush out at the nearest bookstore on the first day of its release just to get a copy before

our friends do. I hear people talk about its content often, and the hype seems justified.
However, it saddens me how I have never hear of Mr. Arguelles and his work. It saddens me
how people my age and even myself tend to overlook Filipino literature. Mr. Arguelles has so
much talent, passion and humility. Its a shame that I only know of him now. I hope his book gets
the hype it deserves. And I hope in time, kids my age rush out to bookstores to celebrate the
beauty of Filipino literature.
I enjoyed how Mr. Arguelles pointed out how the art of erasure can unconsciously
symbolize many things. It can be represent violence, since we remove parts of a whole, tearing
and dissecting to create something brand new. It can be a symbolism for censorship, something
the government is no stranger to, comparing it to how erasure poems is also oppressed by
limitations of the words within the prior text.
The second thing I realized is how the art of losing parts of the poem to form an entirely
new poem is a beautiful concept. Just like Mr. Arguellas I was able to connect the art of erasure
with my life. I think that at many points of our lives, were going to lose people and were going to
lose things, even the ones you thought you would never lose. And I know that it wont make
sense when youre in the process of losing them because our thoughts would have been either
clouded with pain or denial. But Im going to keep the symbolism this brilliant type of art form
unconsciously possesses in mind; that no matter how much we lose, we must understand that
something new and even better things will come out of the loss. We are simply all just art at
work.