Tokhang the [uni]verse

Before Buwan ng Wika ends, I published through my social media account “tokhang ang daigdig,” a poem rendered from Alejandro Abadilla’s “ako ang daigdig.” In every illuminating moment of replacing each of Abadilla’s ako with tokhang, the new work gradually forms and reveals itself as something relevant in these dark times, yet conscious of the limits of its being. I leave further reading and thinking up to those who want to dissect the derivative work, which, hopefully, has its own merits. So I can devote enough space to translation. Along the way, what Hans J. Vermeer calls skopos (aim) and/or commission (definition) shifted accordingly, that ended with the translatum (target text), “tokhang the universe.”

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Talks of Life

I was, for the longest time, (and still am, to a certain extent) considered an ingglesera, an epithet that I did not particularly mind. In my mind it was, as I was growing up, an unavoidability. As a child I loved to read (and still do), but aside from the delightfully written and illustrated Ibong Adarna books (which I adored but eventually outgrew), there were almost no non-English books for young readers back in the day. My family also had the middle-class predilection for American TV shows and movies, encouraged in no small way by local programming dominated by noontime shows and melodramas.

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Seed of dreamt peace: Binhi sa damgong kalinaw (Part 4)

The Tres Sawahes lick the mouth fluids that trickle down their jaws to savor the satisfaction they feel for having reached a consensus. Their tails twine as an expression of contentment. They seem to envision the future scenario they want for the world they belong to. And above all, they relish the thought of commendation and applause by their Big Boss Bakunawa.

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