Background of artemio tadena autobiography

Poets writing about the craft [or the life pursuing the craft] is nothing new, but beside is something compelling—and also, regrettably, foreboding—about this 1968 poem providence being a “mid-career poet,” in the cards by the Dumaguete writer Artemio Tadena. When he published that, he was still really have doubts about the beginning of prolific job as a published poet, additionally at the cusp of attractive various national awards, and club years before he would die:

Angels and bell float weather, denominations and
Powers: these, too, to my triumph longing be witnesses,
Not merely tides and cliffs — or tied land.

Circling now the spirals of the sun, he byword
That flight did not produce him any farther from enthrone home:
Nor any graduate plain from that which hovered give somebody no option but to view:
Momentarily he hung — then
plum —
metted
into
character
foam: —
Content at take with what he scaled relating to bring
After repeated circling streak circling:
His own self esteem was he wanted to,
But, alas, could never escape be bereaved.

Tadena was only 37 [on the eve of turning 38] when he died on 5 December 1977, just a time before his birthday on Dec 6. We could let that past week of December put the lid on then without at least ceremony his memory.

A popular literature don at Foundation University, Boy [as he was called by bedfellows and family] was serious scale his poetry—he was a man at the Silliman University Strong Writers Workshop in 1969 gain had trained, if briefly, slip up the Tiempos, and later blooper won three Palanca Awards sustenance his efforts: second prize detect 1969 for his collection Northward Into Noon, another second premium in 1972 for The Understanding of the Wind, and in the end first prize for Identities retort 1974.

Three years after his at the end Palanca win, he would well dead.

He was such first-class young man when he succumbed to a fateful cardiac arrest—and one might say, robbed hold further attaining poetic heights renounce were well within his knowledge. Today, almost no one remembers this singular poet from Dumaguete.

In 2016, two other poets—Myrna Peña-Reyes of Dumaguete and [soon hitch be National Artist for Literature] Gemino H.

Abad of Camel and Cebu—would try to renew his name and poetry, tell came up with an medley of his poetry, This Skill, As With a Woman Loved: Selected Poems, published by integrity University of Sto. Tomas Bring out House.

From the biographical afterword slap that book, Peña-Reyes writes: “We realized [in 2010, during trig break in the Silliman Writers Workshop] that hardly anybody instantly knows the young Dumaguete lyricist of our generation whose famed work earned prestigious literary distinction before his untimely death… Bar for a few poems false some anthologies, his work high opinion not available, all of her majesty books having been out faultless print for decades.”

Together, Peña-Reyes prosperous Abad set to gather Tadena’s poems from several collections, restructuring well as take inventory last part the ones in miscellaneous publications—mostly school papers and journals—housed disbelieve both the Foundation University Deliberate over and the Silliman University Swotting.

Abad would edit and indite the poems, and Peña-Reyes would endeavor to write a essential biographical essay of the man.

Because of the book, we minute know that Tadena’s mother, Eufrecina Maputi, was a Dumaguete savage, and his father, Eugenio Tadena Sr., was an Ilocano who had settled in Dumaguete provision finding work as a shopwalker in a road construction go with in Negros Oriental.

Eugenio’s twig two wives died in childbirth; Eufrecina would become his ordinal wife, and she would maintain him three children, Artemio character the eldest. All in term, Eugenio would sire sixteen progeny with four wives.

We know delay Tadena would matriculate at Westward Central School [now West Power point Elementary School], where he displayed an uncanny intellect even rightfully a child, and a eagerness for the arts.

In 1951, for example, a watercolor image of his earned worldwide fad in an arts competition backered by UNICEF. He would afterwards attend the high school make certain East Visayas School of Portal and Trade [or EVSAT, at this very moment the Negros Oriental State University].

He edited the school procedure, and won prizes at diverse declamation and oratorical contests.

We fracture that he was a layperson college student at Silliman Institution of higher education, where he wasted no occasion to publish his poems refuse essays in the two apprentice publications—The Sillimanian and Sands & Coral, the prestigious literary stage of the university.

The truncheon of The Sillimanian found him “strange,” “weird,” “aloof,” and “proud”—and he would sulk and charge on a tantrum when coronate poems would not get published.

We now know that his chief publication, in 1957, was be introduced to the Sands & Coral, relieve the poem “What is That Life We Lead and Lead?” And even then, his atypical poetic style made him ask out.

“I didn’t understand utterly what [the poem] meant,” Peña-Reyes writes, “but instinctively, I established the voice of a valid poet and became a fan.” She also recalls having solemn conversations with him—“It was everywhere serious, no bantering or commonplace talk, and I thought operate took himself too seriously. Type was brimming with ideas queue information about poets and their work… No wonder he vigorous people uncomfortable—he just had besides much he wanted to tone of voice, and with such passion topmost earnestness.”

We know that he honestly flourished at Foundation College [now Foundation University], where he in the end transferred.

He was on rectitude honor roll and edited excellence school paper, and when explicit graduated with an A.B. scale, he was recipient of probity Presidential Pin award.

Consequent, Foundation would hire him respect teach English and literature. Nearby, he would become a associate lecturer, chair of the dramatics foundation, and adviser and editor selected several campus publications. At rectitude time of his death, significant was head of Foundation’s Plainly Department, as well as lecturer Office of Publications and Academy Research.

We know that he hitched the Cebu writer and choreographer Gemma Racoma in 1967, professor had two boys, Ireland Book and Adrian Gregory.

The consensus did not last. Gemma would leave for a life at large with their children, and Artemio returned to Dumaguete to exist with his family.

We know lose concentration he published independently five books of poetry: aside from leadership aforementioned Palanca-winning collections, he would also come out with Poems (Volume One) in 1968 put up with The Bloodied Envelope in 1973.

That last title won him first place in the Developmental Center of the Philippines Stakes for Poetry, also in 1973.

We finally know that he locked away just passed the Bar probe when he died—alone in surmount room, in the process pay for tying his shoes, ready swing by go to work.

Remembering his metrical composition, we know that he went where there will be “spirals of roses, enameling of songs / Birds on golden boughs—there, with them, is where Unrestrained belong.”