she says to me she wants
to scrunch up her face, be
stupid or crazy, shed skin like
a snake, to be crushed, torn into pieces
she says her spirit is broken.
spirit within, pulsating spirit,
spirit of the bones of a wild wolf,
spirit planted in the crack of a skull.
spirit of the mud where she sows
the four walls of her end.
I say to her, I don’t want to be
a constricted prey in her resentment.
I don’t want to be crushed and drowned
between wailing waterfalls
and rocks in her dampalit.
I don’t want to be buried like an onion—
in the scorched soil of her slashed-and-burned field.
I don’t want to be trampled like goat shit—
in the dusty floor of her museum’s ruins.
May Multo sa Makiling
ang sabi niya sa akin ay gusto niyang
lamukusin ang mukha niya, maging
bobo o siraulo, magbalat na parang
ahas, madurog, magkalas-kalas
bali-bali na raw ang kaluluwa niya.
kaluluwang ubod, kaluluwang pulso,
kaluluwang buto ng mabangis na lobo,
kaluluwang punla sa bitak ng bungo.
kaluluwang putik na kanyang pinagtamnan
ng apat na pader na kanyang hanggahan.
ang sabi ko sa kanya ay ayaw ko
nang makupot sa kanyang mga hinanakit.
ayaw ko nang madurog at malasog
sa pagitan ng talon na nagngangalit
at ng mga bato sa kanyang dampalit.
ayaw kong maitanim na parang bawang—
a sunog na lupa ng kanyang kainging hinawan.
ayaw kong matapakan na parang tae ng kambing—
sa maalikabok na sahig ng kanyang museong bukbukin.
The revolutionary poet and activist Kerima Lorena Tariman was born in 1979 in Legazpi City in the province of Albay. She graduated as salutatorian from the Philippine High School for the Arts in 1996 and went on to the University of the Philippines Diliman where she served as managing editor for the Philippine Collegian from 1999 to 2000. Her poems appeared in several outlets, including the Sunday Inquirer Magazine and the Manila Chronicle. During her life she published the poetry collections Biyahe (1996), Pag-aaral sa Oras: Mga Lumang Tula Tungkolsa Bago (2017), and Luisita: Mga Tula (2021). She died at the age of forty-two at the hands of the Philippine military on August 20, 2021. A comprehensive compilation of her poems, Sa Aking Henerasyon: Mga Tula at Saling-Tula, was published after her death by Gantala Press in 2022.
Amanda Socorro Lacaba Echanis is a writer, activist, an emerging translator, and researcher for Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women from the Philippines. She has been in incarceration for the past four years because of trumped-up cases filed against activists and artists such as herself. Despite this situation, Amanda was given the opportunity to continue her studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman, studying Bachelor of Arts in Malikhaing Pagsulat (Creative Writing) sa Filipino. She currently attends classes online. She has published a collection of her writings, Binhi ng Paglaya (Seed of Liberation) including poetry she wrote while in prison. Last October 2023, she also became the recepient of a Southeast Asian translation mentorship program under the seams. She has been translating poems by the late Kerima Lorena Tariman, a Filipino poet, activist and martyr. The seams is a collective of literary translators dedicated to promoting the translation of Southeast Asian literature into English. The program is also sponsored by the Singaporean publisher Ethos Books. A petition for her release can be signed here. Learn more about the Free Amanda Echanis Movement on Facebook to get updates regarding her campaign for freedom.
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