ABOUT THIS MODULE

This Self-Learning Modules (SLMs) are prepared in response to the Distance Learning
and Blended Learning Approach of Our Lady of Lourdes College. Distribution of this booklet in
any means without authorization from the editor and administrators is highly prohibited.
This modular booklet contains topics for 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and
the World. For the first semester, literature from the Philippines is the main focus. The students
will be able to understand and appreciate the literary past and present of our country with varying
regional contexts and themes through a critical and close interpretation of the texts which will
then yield to a deeper perspective of our culture, society and its technological advances whether
in isolated or integrated view.
To properly guide the learners of how to use this module, here is a breakdown of the parts
of each module:

 Title: The title of each module easily describes the content of each module.
 Introduction: This give a short overview of the content of the module.
 Objectives: This part lists downs the competencies to be developed and achieved
by the learner in each module.
 Key Words and Concepts: This part provides words and concepts that are
reoccurring and significant in the module.
 Before You Begin: This part is a pre-assessment activity to refresh or recall
previous ideas that are related to the topic of the module.
 Language Lobby: This part provides exercises that can enhance the vocabulary
of
the learner.
 Dashboard: This part exposes the necessary information for each lesson. Each
module may contain several lessons that falls under the content
theme.
 Let’s Squeeze You Up: This part is an assessment activity that measures the
learners’ knowledge and comprehension capacity.
 Because Reading is Fundamental: This part provides a literary text that is
relevant to the topic.
 Note on Lit: This part is an assessment activity that measure the comprehension
and evaluation capacity of the learner relevant to the literary text.
 Work on It: This part is the final assessment activity of the module.
 Remember: This part summarizes the topic of the module.
 In Case You Want More: This part provides books, literature, articles and links
relevant to the topic which can enhance the learner’s
understanding of the topic.
 References: This part list downs the references used in the module.

This module is design as such to target different competencies necessary in increasing

 he learner’s literary appreciation and critical understanding. Some parts may or may not be
present in some topics.

MODULE 1. READING LITERATURE

A fundamental pillar of civilization is language. A language translated into written text

records the innovation of the civilization. Either written or spoken, these commentaries lived and
stood the test of times because of its universal appeal. These product of commentaries and
written accounts of the life processes are what comprises literature.

In this module, the learners will be introduced to literature, its characteristics and its
significance to the society. This will also cover the major forms of literature that will soon be
discovered by the learners: poetry and prose. This introduction is necessary to prepare the
learners of what they will be undertaking throughout the semester.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the learning experience, the learners are expected to:

 acquire different vocabulary words by using the dictionary;

 read literary texts in prose and poetry form;
 understand literature through its most essential description and forms;
 appreciate the essence of Literature as a form of art and an integral part of our
society; and
 demonstrate their understanding of different literary pieces through an objective
and subjective manner of interpretation of the literary texts.

KEY WORDS AND CONCEPTS

literature, prose, poetry, literary interpretation, culture, literary standards and merits,
Jose Garcia Villa

Once in our lives, we get to read a story or a book which may be short or a 500 page-
thick bound and they resonate to us in ways we cannot explain. Can you recall a title of a short
story, a novel or a poem that you dearly adore? How did it make it to your favorite list? Why is it
a special literary experience?

this is my favorite story since I finish reading it because I learned so many lesson from it such us Make money work for you Broke

people stay broke by spending all their money. Middle-class people stay middle class by saving all their money. Rich people stay

rich by laboring all their money. Teach yourself financial literacy It’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you

keep. This may sound noob. But keeping money is terribly hard. If you don’t believe me, look back at the income you made in the

last month and how much of it you have now.

Your mind is your best asset Intelligent minds don’t always get ahead, but brave minds do. If fear is too strong, the genius is

suppressed. Skills for success You may be a solopreneur, but there comes a time where you need to step up the game. Everyone

should learn these three main management skills to succeed.

Defining Words Using the Dictionary

Using a dictionary, find the meaning of the underlined words in each sentence.

experiencing or inducing feelings of isolation or estrangement 1. I felt alienate after years of not
coming home.

becoming smaller or less 2. The world is rapidly shrinking into a thumb-size digital camera.

to present or render in an unfamiliar artistic form usually to stimulate fresh perception. 3.

Defamiliarizing oneself of a certain fear is helpful.

enthusiastic or passionate. 4. Thanks for the ardent emotions, I believe I miss you too.

briefly and clearly expressed. 5. The content of her essay is succinct.

Literature and Its Significance

What is Literature?
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any written work. Etymologically, the term derives
from Latin litaritura/litteratura “writing formed with letters,” although some definitions include
spoken or sung texts. More restrictively, it is writing that possesses literary merit. Literature can
be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose. It
can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama,
and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain
aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
In Panitikang Pilipino written by Atienza, Ramos, Salazar and Nazal, it says that “true
literature is a piece of written work which is undying. It expresses the feelings and emotions of
people in response to his everyday efforts to live, to be happy in his environment and, after
struggles, to reach his Creator.”
Taken to mean only written works, literature was first produced by some of the world’s
earliest civilizations—those of Ancient Egypt and Sumeria—as early as the 4th millennium BC;
taken to include spoken or sung texts, it originated even earlier, and some of the first written
works may have been based on a pre-existing oral tradition. As urban cultures and societies
developed, there was a proliferation in the forms of literature. Developments in print technology
allowed for literature to be distributed and experienced on an unprecedented scale, which has
culminated in the twenty-first century in electronic literature.
Why Study Literature?
 Good literature is believed to demonstrate artistry and to have the power to raise
questions and debates, provides new points of view, and let the reader expands his understanding
to himself and to the whole world and even refresh his spirit.
When we read literature, we do so to learn more about:
● the human condition;
● the experience of loss and death;
● the structure of power in society and how it is implemented (including the issues
that surround race and gender);
● the psychology of characters and individuals in general; and
● the sociology and history of cultures that produce specific pieces of literature.
Two Literary Forms
Literary texts fall under two major forms: prose and poetry.
Prose – all forms of written or spoken expression that are consciously organized and that lack
rhythmic patterns; it implies logical order, continuity of thought and individual style. Examples
include short story, novel, myth, legends, folktales, and essays.
Poetry – an arrangement of lines in which form and content fuse to suggest meanings beyond the
literal meanings of the words; the language of poetry is more compressed and also more musical.
Poetry has rhyme, meter and rhythm. Types include narrative poetry (epic), dramatic poetry
(tragedy), lyric poetry (sonnet).
What makes something “literary”?
Artistry/Style – has to do with beauty & forcefulness in the weaving of words, with how all
elements are combined to form a creative whole.
Intellectual value – the capacity to stimulate or stir the mind, to make others think
Permanence – the timelessness & the timeliness; its relevance today as when it was written.
Suggestiveness – the capacity to uplift the emotions; to soothe the cares of man.
Spiritual value – the capacity to inspire lofty thoughts, especially about the
divine/godly/spiritual
Universality –the truth and meaning that transcend time & space, religion, age and creed

Identify what is being asked/describe in each question.

__Universality_1. This describes the ability of a literary piece to exceed with a significant value

amongst culture through various time periods and societies.

_litaritura_2. This Latin word means “writing formed with letters.”

___Artisty/style_3. The essential purpose of this literary form is to move us with the beauty of its

crafted language.
_FALSE___4. True or False: Ode is not an example form of poetry.

Sumerian civilization_5. Give one civilization that helped to develop literature.

___Poetry____6. This is any written work.

_meter__7. Poetry has rhyme, rhythm and _________.

_literary and culture 8. This literary standard unravels and conjures man’s emotional power to
define symbolisms, nuances, implied meanings, images and messages, giving and

evoking visions above and beyond the plane of ordinary life and experiences

_Prose_9. This form of literature implies a continuity of thought and logical order.

___True___10. True or false: Literature should have aesthetic produced by how all the

elements of the piece were combined.

The work you are about to study is from an author who is one of the greatest writers the
Philippines has ever produced. As you look into Jose Garcia Villa’s work, you might want to ask
not only what he tried to say and do with his poem but also why he did so.

JOSE GARCIA VILLA

National Artist for Literature (1973)
(August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997)
Jose Garcia Villa is considered as one of the finest contemporary poets regardless of race or
language. Villa, who lived in Singalong, Manila, introduced the reversed consonance rime
scheme, including the comma poems that made full use of the punctuation mark in an innovative,
poetic way. The first of his poems “Have Come, Am Here” received critical recognition when it
appeared in New York in 1942 that, soon enough, honors and fellowships were heaped on him:
Guggenheim, Bollingen, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards. He used Doveglion
(Dove, Eagle, Lion) as pen name, the very characters he attributed to himself, and the same ones
explored by e.e. cummings in the poem he wrote for Villa (Doveglion, Adventures in Value).
Villa is also known for the tartness of his tongue.
Aside from publishing various collections of poetry, Villa also added to the world of poetic
style, introducing a new rhyme scheme called “reversed consonance.” As Villa explained, “The
last sounded consonants of the last syllable, or the last principal consonant of a word, are
reversed for the corresponding rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for near would be run; or rain, green,
reign.”

Villa also wrote something he called “comma poems,” where a comma is included after each
word in the poem. As he explained in the preface to his Volume Two, “The commas are an
integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poem’s verbal density and time
movement: enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the line movement to become
more measured.”

The Emperor’s New Sonnet

Jose Garcia Villa

Maybe you are wondering if the selection was accidentally missed out or forgetten. No,
there is no error committed here. That is just it. Now, try to read the poem once more. What can
you make out of it? To help you on that read the following.

Two of the very first things we ought to ask before reading literature or a selection are
“What is literature?” and “How should I read literature?” Cognizant that literature is different
from the other kinds of texts, we should, therefore, recognize that our approach to it should be
different as well. Formalists analyzed communication and purported that there is no such thing as
a message completely meaningful all by itself. In other words, a text becomes a meaningful
because of the context in which it is embedded.

So how does one go about interpreting a text? To interpret is not simply to state one’s
impression of a text. To ensure the fullness of one’s experience in reading a text, it would be
practical to break it down.

 Author or writer refers to the person who wrote the text or piece. The piece is more often
than not a reflection of the author’s beliefs., values, and style. As one gains understanding
of who the author is, one can gain a better grasp of the connection between the author’s
intention and the piece that was written.
 Text refers to the work itself. A text is to be analyzed at different levels. Analysis enables
a reader to make sense of “how” the text is written. Hence, describing (and later on,
evaluating) how a message is said is as important as knowing what the message is.
Performing an analysis, therefore, entails that you have a grasp of the genres,
conventions, elements, and devices used in certain texts.
 Reader refers to “you”. The totality of a reader’s experiences affects how he/she reads.
As some writers would put it “you don’t simply see other people as they are, you see
them as you are.” So bringin in your personal experiences and admitting how they colour
your interpretation is definitely fine; but remember that you need to distinguish between
purely personal raw prejudice and sound judgment. Interpretation entails that you also
describe how you are affected as a reader by the text that you read. (Culler,2011)
  Literary tradition refers basically to the body of work done in the past. It showcases the
history in which the work belongs (Bayot, 2010). Literary tradition also refers to the
tradition and culture of authors under a given genre.

When all these elements of literary experience are combined, one can come up with an
interpretation.

As your activity, your main objective is to tease out the theme of the poem and describe how
it achieved its perceived goals en route. Write your interpretation by answering these questions:

1. Who is Jose Garcia Villa? What distinguishes him from other authors?
Jose Garcia Villa was a Filipino  poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He
was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as
the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. José García Villa
(August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer,
and painter.

2. What did you feel when you read the “text”? Do you think that it wa actually part of the
process? Explain.
The story is an attack on snobbery and pretension, and makes fun of people who do not have their
own say on what is beautiful and tend to rely on other people’s judgments before making their
own. It tells its readers that sometimes, we need to view things as innocent as a child would so
that we could plainly see what true beauty is, free from all social conditioning that often warps
their perspective on things.
3. Did you realize that this poem of Villa is alluding to Hans Christian Andersen’s
“Emperor’s New Clothes”? What could have led Villa to write such work?

normal circumstances, I would go through a poem line per line in analyzing one, and see how
every line would contribute to the overall meaning. However, the poem to be tackled has no
meter, no extended metaphors, no symbolisms, nor any text whatsoever. All we are banking on is
its title, which alludes to the popular children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes, which was
written by Hans Christian Anderson.

4. Is Villa’s poem still relevant nowadays? Explain.

If you find that your interpretations differ from Villa's, do not feel that yourideas were necessarily
incorrect. Note how both the interviewer and the poetadmit that it is not an easy task to give an
exact prose interpretation of a poeticexpression, particularly because poems are not explicitly
stated; the interviewer,at one point, admits: "I have always found the next lines difficult to
comprehend":
 David Ian Hanauer (2001) argued that literature is a valuable source of cultural
knowledge. Given this, we can deduce the reciprocating significance of culture and literature.
Literature and Culture
For centuries, people have felt the need to express their opinion on things and events
happening around them and to them. The necessity to demonstrate and locate their own position
in the spatial and temporal dimension naturally led to the process of documenting these events in
various forms and by various media.
Moreover, literature is seen as a reflection of culture and society, portraying people’s
ideas and dreams set in certain time and space frameworks in the most creative and imaginary
way. It both depicts and inspires social changes and is often treated as a credible source of
culture representation. Following Hanauer (2001) who argues that literature is a valuable source
of cultural knowledge precisely because it does present a personal interpretation of the life and
values as the author of the literary work experiences them. Thus, Cruz argued that the study of
literature allows people to develop new ideas and ethical standpoints, and can help individuals to
present themselves as educated members of society, and he focused also on that studying
literature can be an enriching eye-opening experience.
There is a final value for which the study of Philippine literature becomes not only
desirable but even necessary. We refer to the cultural background that any literature provides.
For while a literary tradition disseminates itself, it simultaneously disseminates the culture
behind it. This function or property resides in the nature of literature. For example, while
studying the literature of the Philippines at the time of the Spanish rule, we simultaneously get in
touch with the Pilipino-Hispanic culture that produced it. We hope that by the study of certain
parts of Philippine literature so long neglected, we shall imbibe aspects of the Philippine culture
so long unrecognized, and contribute to the discovery of our cultural identity —over which so
many other branches of learning and the life itself seem now to be preoccupied and at times,
obsessed.
This cultural backgrounding is, as we asserted, almost a necessity. The Filipino in general
is, in some areas and to a significant degree, markedly Western, and the typical Filipino student
in particular, shares this Westernization. Not that we preach cultural isolation with the aim of
obliterating all foreign influence nor do we make a fetish of nationalism; but that some deliberate
effort at Filipinization be practiced. Whatever the case, exposure to literature as a cultural
manifestation might help crystallize our cultural ambiguities into something “Filipino.”
The relation between literature and culture can be likened to the relation between speech
and thought, which simultaneously serve each other. The more we know a literature, the more we
know the culture behind it; and the more familiar we are with culture, the better we understand
and appreciate its literature. (Maramba, 1971)
Here is another literary text for you to read. “Babel Rising” is a short contemporary story
written by Said K. Sadain Jr. on 1999. He studied engineering at the University of the
Philippines – Diliman in Quezon City as a UP Scholar. He has worked as an engineer in Saudi
Arabia since the mid-1980s and he continues to work to bring an awareness of the political and
literary histories of Muslim Filipinos to wider audiences.
This text will help us capture the complex was Muslims from different background
interact with and help define contemporary Filipino and intellectual life.

Babel Rising (1999)

Said Saidan Jr.

In a time and place

In a time and place whose technology was just a little bit more advanced than ours,
there existed a schoolboy named Salm. The past year, on his 15 th birthday, his father
had given him his own personal agent on the Net. Soon everyone will have his own
software agent, his father proudly told him then, but for now, you are one of the
privileged few who can afford this. Make good use of it, son.

His father was a busy man as was the tendency of techno-fathers during this period
and was away from home for most of the time, notwithstanding the Office Wall in their
reading room. His father would always tell him: Salm, the world is rapidly shrinking into
a thumb-size digital camera. If you do not want to be sucked in, you will have to step
out and grab other people’s hands. His father’s thinking might have been largely
affected by the fact that his father worked as a network administrator for a long time
before his company recognized his abilities to connect people to people and people to
information, and made him an information integrator for their global clients. The only
time Salm recalled his father having stayed a full three months with them at home was
a long time back, when Salm’s father installed the Office Wall in the house, which made
his mother happy because she thought that that should keep her husband from
traveling too much. But his father went back to his hectic travel habits when the initial
magic of the Wall had worn off.

Of course there were side benefits to all these traveling. Every now and then, Salm and
his mother would go along on a trip, which was why Salm’s mother did not really object
to his father’s work. In some ways, Salm understood his father’s philosophy about
grabbing other peoples’ hands, although he did not really enjoy the trips as much as his
mother did. The world was at once both big and small, and it seemed that the only
reassuring perspective during these moments of realization was when one was shaking
the hand of the person in front of him and staring at his smiling face.

The company of men is like the notes on the musical staff, his father would say. One
single note played on the piano is simply a sound. That note played repeatedly
becomes a noise. But if you have a variety of notes on the staff, then it can become a
musical masterpiece.

Now that he was growing

Now that he was growing into his own man, Salm needed to gravitate around other
people, mostly his friends in high school, which was mainly why he did not relish being
away from school for long periods. Salm’s mother would dismiss his concern as a
tendency to readily panic. When you were younger, she would say, you were always
quick to catch up on your studies. A few moments of reviewing your schoolbooks here
and there, you always did fine. How much more these days when they have the entire
curricula all bundled up on the Uniweb? Surely, you can still keep up with your lessons
on the Net. All you need is the hotel’s refrigerator set.

His mother would probably understand if he told her that he was not worried about the
school lessons, since this arrangement was in truth being encouraged at the University
in order to extensively test the newly-installed Uniwebsity Learning Program, but Salm
was a sensitive young man and he did not want his mother to know that, more than
anything else, he was anxious about his corporeal presence in his Literature class
because of a girl named Anis. He liked his mother best when she was pre-occupied for
hours with the kitchen’s microwave oven than when she was doting on him.

Salm was particularly feeling bad today because the schoolyear had just ended, he
received his report card with some not too desirable grades, and Anis was going on a
summer vacation far, far away. Maybe it might not be bad if his father took him on one
of his trips too. But his father was himself thousands of miles away from home. Salm,
his mother called up from the kitchen, it is about time to talk to your Dad now. He
especially wants to see your report card today. He would be at the Shanghai office by
now.
Salm went into the reading room, settled into his father’s favorite chair, briefly searched
for the right button on his father’s desk, and powered up the Wall. The lacquered
brown wall, five meters in front of him, turned pitch-black. He pressed his right thumb
on the scanner’s glass embedded on the right corner of the desk, and for a while waited
for the hourglass icon to disappear from the wall. When it came back with an
‘Unauthorized’ message box, he took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped clean the
scanner’s glass surface. Why can’t they, he thought, devise a foolproof glitch-free
system? He then pressed his thumb again, and this time, the Wall lighted up into a
large Qualia Inc. logo. The logo was a big gently swirling question mark, a colorful blob
that constantly changed its hues at each twist and turn, floating against a backdrop of
deep, probing black. In a moment, a white boxed query emerged from a dark corner
asking for a password and a purpose. For a while, Salm felt disoriented when he could
not locate the keyboard on his father’s desk, and then remembered that his father liked
to tuck the keyboard into the center drawer whenever he went out of town. Of course,
there was also the microphone, but Salm had a lot of problems with that in the past,
more than with the scanner. Salm pulled out the keyboard and punched in his personal
agent’s password and the command LOCATE as his purpose. He fidgeted with a couple
more input boxes on the screen, then the entire wall lighted up into a crisp, steely-silver
room with a matching, long silver table running across it. The straight edges and neat
surfaces of the room were only broken by a terse sprinkling of small bamboo plants
sprouting from tall, curved ceramics at the far corners of the room.

Where are the Chinese? Salm asked his father while trying to sound cheerful. Salm’s
father was sitting at one end of the table, not exactly in the center of Salm’s view,
which made him more uncomfortable, considering that he had an unbalanced report
card to show his father. The meeting is not going to start in another fifteen minutes,
son,  his father was looking smart in his black suit as he stood up and walked towards
Salm. Your mother told me last night that you have some interesting figures to show
me.

Salm walked up to the right end of the Wall, and inserted his report card into a narrow
orifice on the wall. His father reached out for it while staring him in the eye. Salm noted
that he was now almost as tall as his father was. Unless the Wall was not telling him an
accurate picture. When his report card came out again from the aperture, it made a
whoosh and a thump that startled him. Relief came when his father smiled at him, This
does not look as bad as I thought, son. You will however have to do better in Language
and Literature next semester. If this will serve to motivate you: The Word is very
mighty, son. You will have to give it more respect and more attention. Do you know
that a lot of our problems now on the TriNet are due to our deficiencies in the
understanding of languages? Sometimes, it is like pushing around a square wheel for
most of the developments we want to roll out, and I hope that someday, you can
contribute to this effort. That will be a proud day for both of us.

Salm was thankful when the first Chinese entered the room. Otherwise, his father could
go on and on pontificating on his vision of a wired world.

There were days when

There were days when Salm felt that his father gave him the personal agent for a grand
but mysterious purpose, maybe deeper than the purposes of those characters in that
classic cult film, Men In Black. Over the past year though, Salm had learned to apply
the agent into more straightforward and less grandiose uses. The best use he had of it
lately was when he fed it in great detail with his preferences about music and
songwriters, and let it loose on the Net before retiring for bed at night. In the morning,
the sound system embedded in his favorite pillow never failed to wake him up with
some of the best, according to his taste, fresh songs and tunes that he was hearing for
the first time. Most of the artists that his agent picked out were unknowns, which suited
him better than the more hyped but commercialized hits.
Most of the time, Salm used his personal agent to help him research for school term
papers and filter down long reading materials into more sensible, concise constructs. It
worked well with dissertation papers, business reports, history and scientific papers, but
did not exactly yield the results he wanted when it came to creative writings. On several
occasions, he had used the agent to negotiate the purchase of made-to-order sports
gears like that mountain bike his mother so vehemently objected to. His mother had
said then, I know this is a big country and that it naturally pulls you out of the house to
want to explore and adventure, but until you can pay for your own hospital bills, don’t
try mountain biking yet.  He argued with his mother that he had already logged at least
100 hours on the Net doing mountain biking in all kinds of terrain. He had read and
heard all the tips from experts and had even joined newsgroups to discuss issues he felt
were not adequately covered by Web sites. He was never in doubt of the quality
assurance of the MonteCome Company that sold him the bike. He did not exactly know
how his mother pulled it off, but the day after their argument, on the breakfast table,
she produced several pages of news clippings, company reports and photographs
indicating that the MonteCome Company was using child labor in a Pacific island camp
that was secured by heavily armed guards. Since that time on, Salm had developed
more respect for his mother’s microwave oven.

Some time this week, he thought to himself, I need to show Mother how to program
her microwave appliance to retrieve some alternative rendering of the classical tunes
she likes most.

In the meantime, Salm needed to write Anis a love poem. He learned in Literature class
that she liked poetry, and it seemed that sending her a poem or two was a good start
to get in touch with her this summer. She had given him an e-mail address where she
can be reached during her vacation, and he wanted the first summer e-mail to be a
memorable one. But it had been several nights now that he had sat staring at the blank
tabletop. Every night, he adjusted its surface tilt probably over a hundred ways
between 0o and 180o and wrote and re-wrote the opening lines but always ended up
zapping them out of the screen. He would have wanted to be original but the juices
were simply not flowing, even when the sea down at the beach outside his window
beckoned alluringly. I have never been good at this, he grumbled.

Finally, Salm decided to send his personal agent out on the Net, There is no harm in
starting with a good poem and improvising on it, changing words here and there,
inverting lines around a thought, shifting rhythms forward and backward until it did not
look like the original poem anymore. He recalled that there was even a recent service
offering advertised by one utility company that can morph several written articles into a
new article with a completely fresh perspective, and nobody called it plagiarism.

The criteria Salm gave to his agent were not too restrictive, but he also did not want to
give the agent too much search time on the Net lest it showed conspicuously on the
information bill at the end of the month. After stating that his purpose was a PERSONAL
SEARCH, he quickly typed in LOVE POEM, LONGING, DISTANCE, CONTEMPORARY
UNPUBLISHED AUTHOR and, staring outside at the calm beach under the moonlight, he
gave it 30 minutes max to move around and fetch him something not more than 50
lines of poetry. As he tucked himself into bed, Salm hoped that the Qualia agent would,
by now, have known sufficiently enough about his personal preferences to bring forth
something pretty close to his heart during its first forage.

At 4:00 am

At 4:00 am, Salm woke up with the ethereal feeling that the whole night sky was
shining through the window. His tabletop, tilted 110o to face his bed, was glowing
softly. It was strange that his favorite pillow was almost inaudibly but repeatedly
playing one of his mother’s favorite classics, Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum
Fairy. He had expected to be roused up later in the morning by some strong vocals
sung a cappella, as what the agent was bringing him for several mornings now. It must
be one of those times when the agent was playfully glitchy and did not exactly do what
it was supposed to do, or did Mother messed around with my agent?

On the dimly glowing tabletop, below the small headings on ownership copyrights,
bibliographical information, addresses and all that legal speak, Salm read the following:

Author: Hans Acadiane

Title: the edge of a continent is…

the edge of a continent is

a lonely place to lie in wait
for the closing of the distance
or the heaving
heaving of the heart
where white stallions
burdened by their mane
fling themselves upon the shore
fading fading like cirrus clouds
in supreme sacrifice
my heart clings to the sand
as the distance slips back
into the horizon
i see your face gently
gently breaking into a smile
and a fluttering like
the mane of white stallions
gasping rushing at the edge
of a continent
a lonely place a lovely place
to lie in wait for the stallions crests
race up to the shore
to kiss the land
and praise the sky
with playful wings or burdened chests
and the softly howling wind will tell
will tell of a lonely place
a lovely place
where your morning hair
is like the silky breeze
that fondles
fondles for evermore
the heaving troughs the restless crests
the twisting clouds
of the edges
the edges
of a continent

Salm read and re-read and pondered on the poem. By the time he decided that the
poem carried just about the weight of longing and emotion he wished to send to Anis,
his curiosity was at a crescendo, How could such a haunting poem be written? by
whom and for whom? what motivated the author? would it be justice to corrupt it into
something else? Maybe, Salm thought, I could simply get Hans Acadiane’s permission
for me to send the poem to Anis, unchanged. Maybe, he can even ask Hans Acadiane a
brief explanation about the piece. That could provide him with more insight as to how
to handle Anis herself, who, he was certain, will know that the poem is not his original
and would probably ask him more questions than he could answer.
Hi, Hans, my name is Salm, I am 16 … , he fired up his standard opening e-mail lines as
he had done many times before when he was meeting new people on the Net. I came
across your poem, ‘the edge of a continent’, and I was wondering if you can allow me
to send this, unchanged and with your byline, to a girl that I like very much. If you do
not mind, I would also appreciate if you can tell me more about the circumstances
behind the writing of this poem. I’d like to be a friend, so please feel free to tell me
about your self. I also hope you are not going to charge me for the use of the poem,
I’m just a high schooler.

The reply was instant, and almost seemed to make that same whoosh-and-thump
sound that startled him at the Office Wall with his father the day before, Hi Salm. It is
nice to know that someone fancied my poem. I am honored. Not that I write very well.
But it can really get lonely out here.

The celeste had stopped playing and only the distant waves were breaking the silence
of a rising dawn. The chat service had turned on automatically.

Where are you, Hans? Who are you?

Out here, in the most forsaken place you can imagine. I am a member of an
international peacekeeping mission that tries to disengage people from killing each
other. The mission is presently posted in Angola.

Cool! Do you actually carry a gun?

No, not me. I am a linguist, and I am mainly around to help offer an insight into the
people we are dealing with and sometimes help with the translation services. As in
Kosovo several years back, I never did carry a gun, although there were times when I
wished I had one. I would however prefer any day my mobile communicator over a
blazing rifle. Aside from recording my diary, I could do wonders with the communicator,
programming, experimenting, juggling, you know, stuff like trying to solve the
conundrum of the Tower of Babel

Angola! Kosovo! You certainly are traveling places. Like my father. But I thought these
conflicts have already been resolved?

You don’t seem to keep up with your news readings. Of course these stories don’t
make the front pages anymore, more so when people personalize their news bulletins
and prefer to skim over these stories. But really, this grim business is not going to end
any time soon. Analyze any history database about any region on Earth, this stuff has
been going on for ages, in cycles and trends, again and again and again. Like waves
racing to the shore, they almost always bring froth and scum. Even when, sometimes,
they can be cleansing.

Have you engaged in actual combat? How is it like?

Not often. Once in Kosovo, our verification team was trapped in between the Serbian
Army and a civilian community, which was being pounded with tank guns. Without
munitions, we felt so helpless. While some people told me later that being unarmed
was probably what saved us at that time, it nevertheless did not save the unarmed
men, women and children of the village. Can you explain that to me? I

Explain what?

I still cannot fathom humanity. That was a horrible, horrible period. All the while, in the
words of Pablo Neruda: like an eyelid held open hideously, we were just watching

Let us change topic. Who is she?

Who is she, who??

The lady you wrote the poem to.

O, she is my wife, Nely.

You write with such rhythm or depth, or something.

You think so? When you go through hell almost everyday and see the one-eyed
monster through its iris and there is nowhere to turn to except the sea and your gray
matter, you can write with interlaced agony on almost anything.

It does not strike me that your poem was about agony.

It really is an attempt to connect the small pockets in between the sea of agonies

What did your wife say about the poem?

There was a brief delay in the reply.

Come to think of it, she did not reply at all on that poem. According to my records, it
was delivered to her e-mail inbox shortly before last New Year’s day, that time of the
year when people reflect on a lot of things and, with more enormity, write things like a
poem or a resolution or a testament

That’s over six months ago. She must have said something.

I recall that was also the time when the fighting was unusually heavy in Angola and our
unit was, for several days, marooned with our back to the sea. It seems that the
closing of a year can also bring in more resolve for people to go on a binge. Much like
fierce salesmen haggling and negotiating to meet or exceed their annual quota.

And your wife did not say anything about the poem? Did she read it at all?

O yes, I got her return receipt, properly time-stamped and authenticated, just moments
before our mission boarded the mercy flight bound for Cabinda. She had sent, on a
separate packet, a New Year’s greeting at about the same time, but that was it.

I hope my girl would be more appreciative of your poem when I send it to her.

Try it. It is always a challenge figuring out what’s coming from the other end of a
connection.

It is already 7 am. I promised Mother to catch her some sea urchins for breakfast
today. I’ll get back to you later, Hans. Thank you so much. Say, what time is it there
with you now?

It is 07:01:1.15. What a nice day, Salm! Ciao.

Funny, Salm wanted to type some more into the chat channel, that we are on the same
time zone, I thought you were in Africa. But the channel was already disconnected.
There lingered only the low static humming of the desktop and the distant sound of
waves outside Salm’s window.

Salm went back to his e-mail and quickly attached the poem to his previously prepared
message for Anis. Below the attachment icon, he added a short note: Anis, I hope you
like this poem. It is written by one Hans Acadiane for his wife. Interesting fellow, I met
him on the Net this morning. Like me, Hans is far away from his loved one and misses
her very much. This sincerely comes from the depth of our hearts.  Then with a click
and a prayer, Salm sent the e-mail to Anis.

In the evening
In the evening, Salm fixed his room more tidy than usual, combed his hair longer in the
mirror and was more particular with the choice of the pajama he put on, before he sat
at his study table and turned on the tabletop and the deskcam. After some effort, he
located Hans through the Qualia service and opened a chat line.

Hi Hans, remember me, Salm?

Hi Salm.

Do you have a screen large enough? Please turn on the videocon, this is me, Salm. Can
you see me?

Can you hear me, too? Salm spoke out.

Salm’s videocon window remained blank, but the chat line was active.

Hi Salm, you look regular. Maybe you need a haircut, but otherwise, you look fine. Your
parents must be proud of you. Let me guess, Malay or Latino?

Hans, if you don’t mind, can I also see you?

My communicator does not have a camera. But, here, this is the nearest to a picture of
Hans Acadiane, the great warrior, the great fisherman.

Salm’s videocon window pulled up a picture which could have come straight out of a
coffee-table travel book: a tall, well-disposed man in a loose safari uniform against a
backdrop of deep blue sky, glassy, green sea and glittering white beach, struggling with
a fishing rod to hoist up a foot-long redfish, which, like his uniform, his thick hair and
beard, was flapping in the wind. He grins like a Hollywood star, Salm thought.

You’re looking good yourself, Hans.

James Coburn, The Bahamas, 1999.

Now that you mentioned the name, you do look a lot like James Coburn. Hey, this is
James Coburn! I’ve seen a few old movies where he starred, you know that? And I like
his style.

I knew you’d like this picture. Movies used to be just a flat two-dimensional stream. It
has a start and an end. Until they loaded them on those humongous netabases. Have
you tried playing a thousand movies all at the same time?

Even if I could, why would I want to do that?

It is like all the possibilities, all the threads to one’s existence are being enacted all at
once, and one is never quite sure where to start and where to end, except for one’s
choice from frame to frame or instance to instance. It is very much like Life.

That’s a strange way of looking at life, Hans, but don’t get too poetic with me. Poetry
still confuses me.

Me too.

They chatted for the good part of an hour. When Salm’s incoming e-mail chimed, he
excused himself from the chat to open and read Anis’ message.

She was, Anis wrote, in a hurry since her family was moving on to their next sojourn in
a couple more hours, and she had to help pack up their luggage. She was enjoying the
vacation, and she thought that Salm ought to enjoy the summer himself by doing better
things other than making up stories about a departed soul. But honestly, she liked the
poem so very much - Thanks for the ardent emotions, I believe I miss you too - she
made her own quick research about the author. She attached a bulletin about a
UniForce helicopter that crashed down in Angola and highlighted in glowing pink the
name of Hans Acadiane, Ph. D. among the fatalities.

Salm could not at once make sense out of it. Fighting a mixed bout of angst, confusion
and incredulity, and with suspended breath, he logged back into Qualia and requested
his agent to locate Hans on the Net.

Hans, are you for real? According to a news report, a Hans Acadiane died on January
1st  this year in a helicopter crash in Angola.

If you dig deeper into the files, you will also find out that a friendly missile hit the
helicopter. But that does not matter now. Things like this always happen, you have to
plow through the statistics to believe. It is what I call the Oopps Factor.

Hans, stop kidding! You are either Hans and the report is not accurate, or you are
somebody else pulling my leg all this time. I can’t believe that you could play false on
me like this.

It is really up to you to believe in what you want to believe. There is a vast, vast sea of
information out there, filled with all kinds of applets, objects, blobs, databases, bits and
pieces, writhing, pirouetting, flirting, living, dying, fading, growing, connecting,
breeding, whatever. Pick out your realities, longer, shorter, smaller, bigger, whatever,
and, after each selection, you will find out that there is really not much you can
sensibly do except make good use of them, son. Everything else, in the long run, does
not matter…

Salm instinctively felt that he could go on and on probing, questioning, quizzing and
Hans would just keep on coming back with more. Salm had read of the workings of
hackers while preparing a school term paper. He had even spent a lot of effort going
through volumes of official, sometimes newly-declassified, documents starting with that
seminal policy on defence against network war that spawned a whole industry of new-
age viral missile systems. But somehow, Salm knew he was being confronted with
something different, something more profound, and his initial queasy feeling of being
betrayed gave way to an uncertain, pendulous conciliation, much like the handshaking
between two friends after deciding to go mountain biking without first seeking the writ
of their parents or their school principal.

`
For your final task, write a short analysis on the literariness of the text “Babel Rising” by
Said Saidan Jr. Your analysis of the text should be achieved by analyzing its artistry/style,
universality, intellectual value, permanence, spiritual value and suggestiveness.

After the ‘great flood’ washed away and receded, humanity wanted to build the tower of Babel in order to reach God and
the heavens. In the story, God is befuddled by this show of hubris and ego that has united humanity together in building
this tower to reach his presence, and decides to make humanity speak different languages, and separates people into
different tribes located in different places around the world. The confusion of languages has a major impact on humanity
causing a breakdown in communication, and leading to the future certainties of conflict, violence, and overall suffering.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has created a beautiful film named after this allegorical Biblical event titled, Babel (2006),
which was released over a decade ago, and was a winner of Best Original Score at the Oscars as well as six other Academy
Award nominations. The film was released to critical acclaim and has garnered a lot of recognition for its’ themes of
globalization, cultural and language miscommunication, and the powerlessness of people to control critical events that
happen in their lives.‘Babel’ features an ensemble cast of actors from around the world, which include Brad Pitt, Cate
Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Koji Yashuko, and Adriana Barraza. ‘Babel’ is an intriguing film in that the characters and
situations in the film take place in three different parts of the world but are interrelated with each other. The sequences of
events that occur are out of order but are shown to connect with each other as the film goes on. As for the countries where
the film is set, they include Morocco, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. A lot of credit must be given to Mr. Inarritu for
weaving these three storylines together without making it too hard to follow or too farcical to be believed. The aspects that
make this film unique are the interweaving storylines, the excellent acting, and the themes and questions that ‘Babel’ poses
to its’ audience.
 Literature is any form of written text that can be classified as prose or poetry and checks
different literary standards including its beauty and weaving of words (artistry), its capacity to
stir the reader’s mind (intellectual value), its relevance in the present time (permanence), its
ability to uplift the emotion (suggestiveness), its capacity to inspire the lofty thoughts (spiritual
value); and its truth and meaning that transcends time and space (universality).

One’s literary experience can be affected by different aspects surrounding the text such as
the author/writer, the text itself, the reader himself and the time it was written.

Comma poems by Jose Garcia Villa: https://aaww.org/four-poems-jose-garcia-villa/

An Article by Said Saidan Jr.: https://www.mindanews.com/author/said-sadain-jr/

Doveglion: Collected Poems by JOSE GARCIA VILLA Introduction by Luis H. Francia, Edited
by John Edwin Cowen, Published by Penguin Classics, Jul 29, 2008 | 304 Pages | 5-1/16 x 7-3/4 |
ISBN 9780143105350

The Many Ways of Being Muslim Fiction by Muslim Filipinos, Edited by Coeli Barry, Published
by Anvil Publishing Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-971-27-1944-8

Early Philippine Literature from American Ties to 1940 (revised edition), edited by Asuncion

David Maramba, Anvil Publishing Inc, and Asuncion David Maramba, 2006 ISBN 971

27-1655-4

The many ways of being Muslim: fiction by Muslim Filipinos / Coeli Barry, editor. – Pasig City;
 Anvil Publishing. C2008.

The Philippines and the World, 21st Century Literature, Bautista, Richard, De Guia, Lani,

Frondozo, Wenifreda R., Trinitas Publishin Inc, 2017, ISBN 978-971-42-1198-8

Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/defining-literature/

Retrieved from https://english.colostate.edu/news/filipino-american-history-month-jose-garcia-

villa/

Retrieved from https://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/culture-profile/national-artists-of-the-

philippines/jose-garcia-villa/

Retrieved from https://nuworldlit.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/literary-standards/