A national magazine once posed this question to Dumaguete writer and National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo: “What makes you stay in the Philippines?” Her answer was short: “The Dumaguete shoreline.” The response is perfectly emblematic of the pull of place in the life of writers, and how important where one comes from is in the life of the imagination.

Dumaguete is a singular place of importance when it comes to literature in the Philippines. For many, it is the hometown of Philippine literature itself, having been the nurturing ground for many of the best writers in the country, and the literal hometown to some of our most important contemporary writers, many of whom have helped shape the country’s literature.

For this inaugural issue of the City of Literature series, we celebrate one such Dumagueteño who is helping shape local literature. A young poet, Lyde Sison Villanueva graduated with a degree in Mass Communication from Silliman University in 2008. He was a fellow for poetry for the 2013 Silliman University National Writers Workshop. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at De La Salle University. His works have appeared in various publications like Sunday Times Magazine and The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. His first poetry chapbook entitled Made Easy was published in 2019. This year, he won Second Prize for Poetry at the Palanca Awards.

We share the title poem from that award-winning collection:

La Muerte de la Luz

In this Museum of Bones,
the study begins with light.

Fragments of a cranium
are arranged like an unnamed constellation,

attempt to replicate
the shape of the head.

Small patches of discoloration—
a tinge of sepia—approximate the time it lived.

A thousand years before Christ, maybe.
Or even older than fire.

The caliper used to measure its age
is the same period it takes half the carbon

in the specimen to naturally decay.
The other bones are missing

or maybe left unexcavated,
or the body was buried elsewhere.

The label says it is an early human—
unknown gender—but the first to walk

upright and migrate;
a race belonging only to the past.

Its identity is the number of prey
or enemies it defeated only to survive,

the distance of the land bridges crossed,
how did it get here, did it miss home?

With only a few fragments,
conjuring its body—where flesh and organs

used to be—is a near-impossible task

Mr. Villanueva wrote most of the poems in the collection for the creative exercise in his comprehensive exam for his MFA course: “My proposed thesis project is a collection of ekphrastic poetry and I was tasked to write a suite of poems based on the artworks of a Filipino master. I’ve always been interested in the intersection of various forms of art (literary and visual) that’s why I’ve chosen to take on this project.”

Asked how he feels about winning the Palanca, he says: “I’ve always found value in the Palanca awards not just on the national literary scale, but more so on the personal level. I consider the award as a validation of my work as a writer. But most importantly, I treat the Palanca as a production deadline. Every year, since 2018, I’ve tried to come up with a writing project or revise an old one for the Palanca. This is the first time I submitted this collection in the Poetry category and thankfully it won. But I also believe this is the Universe reminding me to finally finish my MFA thesis.”