#kundiman

Sa buhay ko'y labis

Ang hirap at pasakit

Ng pusong umiibig

Mandi'y wala ng langit

At ng lumigaya

Hinango mo sa dusa

Tanging ikaw sinta

Ang aking pag-asa

Dahil sa `yo nais kong mabuhay

Dahil sa `yo hanggang mamatay

Dapat mong tantuin

Wala ng ibang giliw

Puso ko'y tanungin

Ikaw at ikaw rin

Dahil sa `yo ako'y lumigaya

Pagmamahal ay alayan ka

Kung tunay man ako

Ay alipinin mo

Ang lahat ng ito'y

Dahil sa `yo

Kung tunay man ako

Ay alipinin mo

Ang lahat sa buhay ko'y

Track 01: The Light

https://youtu.be/Fh3QcRu_Ddo

Track 02: He’s Into Her

https://youtu.be/bCTCq4ZQVak

Track 03: When I’m With You

https://youtu.be/O3rP5DLcr7c

Track 04: Fly Away

https://youtu.be/i993cSzVyGI

https://youtu.be/ghyD6bWU0sw

Track 05: The Baddest

https://youtu.be/tRmKuVIfzPc

Track 06: Rocketman

https://youtu.be/9UVkej_WJZs

Track 07: Sabay

https://youtu.be/8hWpuJR9m04

Track 08: Kundiman

https://youtu.be/9x4ASx1Kj5A

Track 09: The Light Bahasa Version

https://youtu.be/zmCMv7DhWCQ

Track 10: The Light Japanese Version

https://youtu.be/bGCfVunS20Y

Track 11: The Light Spanish Version

https://youtu.be/dl4MFqQhuxs

Track 12: The Light Thailand Version

https://youtu.be/VluVKlzDkik

Writing Advice for My Younger Self by E. J. Koh at Catapult

Writing was not the thing. It got me to the real thing—how I saw myself and my relationship to the world.

1.

To know your country and tongue, know another country and its tongue. I began to contemplate what it meant to be American when I lived in South Korea and Japan. My adoration of the Korean and Japanese languages grew like a tree, with those same feelings for the English language. These feelings did not leave me with my learning of those histories between the countries still affecting my family. Rather, I was bolstered toward coalition, recognition, and healing.

What is as inviting as being greeted in your own tongue? Speaking to others in theirs, they taught me. After years of studying, then further study, the greatest gift of my education was to discover that I know nothing at all. Learn those untranslatable words, and in the capacity that art gives us, translate them.

2.

In my research of inherited trauma, I became aware of the pain of words. I have long known the damage of words from one generation to another. To research is to rehabilitate.

But I would see over again that words can not only heal previous generations, they can reverse the trajectory of damage into future generations. Forgiveness is a word that sparked the bodies of the living and the dead—a word that changed damage across time—in my past, present, and future. To listen rather than speak or never burden and only let go. I promised to write toward love.

3.

I was visiting a book club in Brooklyn discussing Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Though slow to convince others, I defended my love for the book with glee. I recalled my work in critique, which practices reading with suspicion, and I noticed its damage. I wanted to read as I lived, and that was gently. Instead of me reading the book, the book was allowing itself to be read by me. Reading a book, do not seek to be a force acting upon it. Let the book be a force acting upon you. This is how books are loved.

I loved books again instead of trying to save them. I no longer asked them to be enough for me. I spirited myself toward a new possibility. If critique is a knife, it must gently pare back the rind to reveal a thing both beautiful and alive. To see harm done is no great skill. To experience light where unseen is.

4.

My book editor called to ask why I must cut out a whole chapter. I’d cut several already. I wrote an amount I would never find again. I was proud of what I had wrought. I said, “It’s too cheesy.” She said, “But aren’t you a little cheesy?”

Who can embrace a book that isn’t embraced by its own author? I wasn’t cutting words from a book. I was cutting out parts of me from myself. This was my violence. I had done this before—a missing chunk of my throat, a hole in my stomach. I had a pattern of a self-harm that appeared as if it were harmless, as if it were the chapter I disliked and not my own person.

Treat your words and your person kindly. They have traveled a vast distance over the span of human history to be with you.

5.

I had not prepared a place in my heart to hear these next words: Your writing cannot take place for the sake of itself.

Writing was not the thing. It was the thing that got me to the real thing—how I saw myself and my relationship to the world. Years ago, I had given up on books and decided to write a thousand love letters to strangers. I learned that I could live without writing, but I could not live without human connection.

When I had forced myself to write in my small room, I observed that the greater discipline might be to participate in life’s events with writing as a means to kinship and togetherness.

6.

Perhaps it took me longer than others to nourish a sense of value in my own life. In my youth, I regularly attempted to take my life.

The verb live bothered me in its action, which opposed my inaction. However, the noun life suggested that whether I chose to live or not, I was life. The verb, a hindrance. The noun, a place of calm neutrality. Rather than living to sacrifice and overcome, life became a thing to observe and contemplate.

If there was value in any life on earth, then value must be present in mine. If I believed in this one thing, I could write freely.

I learned to know my life as valuable. Whatever I wrote was a natural occurrence of life. I trusted that each day was building up to say something to me, then me to the world. There was no such thing as alone. I practiced joy and ease the way I practiced my writing; this freed me to imagination, sincerity, and compassion.

day thirteen - december 23, 2019. 55 days til recital (i think i counted wrong last time lol)

i’m singing a song from the philippines on this recital, so today i took a bunch of notes on the history of the genre, spelling and pronunciation in tagalog, and cultural context. i also did a song map or two, made dinner, and cleaned the bathroom! so it was a productive day 😊

“Occidentalism” by Sally Wen Mao. From Oculus. 2019. 

A Kundiman fellow and Asian American studies instructor at Hunter College, Sally Wen Mao is a renowned Chinese American poet with work appearing in multiple collections and anthologies. Mao has authored two books, Mad Honey Symposium (2014) and Oculus (2019). Her poetry, often stylistically experimental and venturing into the unorthodox, is replete with poignant and incisive diction hinting at roiling turbulence beneath the neatly-parsed lines. In an interview with the Rumpus Poetry Book Club, Mao noted, “I think the anger is definitely there, perhaps right beneath the surface. I haven’t written a plainly angry poem in a while—I think that this book I’m trying to work toward that, but it is a challenge.”

Now accepting 2019 Kundiman Asian American Creative Writing Retreat applications!

Faculty include Hala Alyan, Myung Mi Kim, Craig Santos Perez, Tania James, & Shawn Wong! Open now through 1/15! Apply and spread the word.