Balat ng Dagat.
By Noel del Prado.
Salimbayan Books, 1998.

      Most poems usually begin with a background, an incident, or a succession of images; then, they work their way towards closure and insight by building on what has come before as a base. Just as the foundations of our ability to run have been built by years of lying down, crawling and walking; so, too, do poets often have to build the poem by laying word upon word, image upon image, or incident upon incident. This is perhaps the most natural way to write poems. This is also the safest way to write a poem, because the poet is approaching the poem, whether consciously or unconsciously, in a linear, step-by-step manner. Any problems that arise from within the poem, therefore, are more easily remedied, because in theory one can take a step back and see where the poem took a wrong turn.
      It is not that there are no such poems in Noel del Prado's first collection, Balat ng Dagat. On the contrary, there are quite a few, and effective ones at that, such as "Kay Evangelina," a simple, imagistic reflection on the falling of leaves; and "Pusa", arguably del Prado's ars poetica.
      Still, the strongest evidence of del Prado's clarity of vision is the presence of several poems that adopt a less common strategy, which is to begin the poem with the assertion or insight we are accustomed to seeing at the end. Rather than writing the poem in a linear fashion, del Prado adopts a more organic and associative approach, where images and statements rise up—or "leap" as Robert Bly would put it—to support and enrich the initial assertion. Instead of building a house, del Prado plants for us a garden. Hence, it is not surprising that his poems are filled with paradox and have a lot of associations with the sky and sea, two entities that have no beginning nor end.
      Often we find that his stanzas are related not so much by temporal succession or spatial proximity, as by intuitional links. Take, for example, "Bamboo":

            I will always remember your fingers on my face.

            And how they summon
            images of bamboo leaves spinning
            in the unhurried dance of free fall.

            Your fingers have given my face
            what, in speech, would be called a name
            and what the mind would call a memory

            And such memory reveals the wisdom of making room.

      The leap from fingers to bamboo leaves dancing in the wind to the acts of naming and remembering is an impressive and insightful act of the imagination seldom seen in our own literature. His lines walk the delicate balance between wildness and lyricism.
      When del Prado decides to adopt this associative strategy, he usually begins the poem with one line that stands on its own, as if it had enough power to hold itself together as a stanza. For instance, in "All About the Sea," he begins by claiming: "There is nothing here written about you." And in "Nakatalikod sa Liwanag" he writes: "Naglalakad sa latag ng dapithapon ang pamamanglaw."
      An example of this associative strategy, and one of the strongest poems in the book, is "Ang Pananakop". Here, rather than begin with a statement, del Prado asks a question, as he does with some of the other poems: "Paano ba nasasakop ang alaala?" These are not simple questions, yet one has the feeling that he already has an inkling of the answers. Such poems recall the way Rilke confidently begins his Duino Elegies:

            Who, if I cried out, would hear me
            among the angels' hierarchies?
            (Rainer Maria Rilke, "The First Duino Elegy")

      Del Prado begins his attempt to tackle the question of "Ang Pananakop" by giving memory, an abstract concept, physical nature by calling it a sacred land, at the same time introducing a gentle paradox: "Banal ang lupaing iyon, / pasukin ma'y hindi mararating." Then, just as we expect him to expound on this paradox, the poem veers off in another direction: "Ako ay mandirigmang / walang sariling bayan."
      The act of conquering memory implies a conqueror, in this case, a persona who, ironically, shows reverence and even humility towards his goal ("Banal ang lupaing iyon"), unlike most. It is almost as if the persona is not really out to seize land, but to seek shelter.

            Paano mo mapapakinggan
            ang tinig kong walang kulay,
            walang himig?

            Ang hangin sa bayan mo'y
            nababalot ng tinig
            ng isang binata.

      Instead of proclaiming his bravery and aggression, the persona quietly addresses an inhabitant of the land of memory. In doing so, he allows us a glimpse of the poverty of his voice by contrasting it with the wind in that sacred land. There is seemingly nothing that naturally connects voice and wind with land and memory, yet del Prado still manages to make the leap. "Ang tinig kong walang kulay / walang himig," thus, takes on a quality beyond the auditory: it is an expression of the inner desolation of the persona, who longs for something childlike in the wind. More accurately, the persona would like to return to that state of being a child, perhaps out of regret. Del Prado continues:

            Nakatuntong ka, dalaga, sa bayang lipas
            ngunit sa pagiging dati
            naging laging wagas.

      The addressee is now revealed to be a young girl, treading on the ancient land of memory. The contrast between the two heightens the paradox of memory: though a memory is, by necessity, a memory of something in the past, there is something active about it that makes its subject always present.

            At doo'y wala ako,
            ligaw at hindi makauwi.

      The persona looks at the pure, perfect land of the girl, longing to return home, and finds that he can't, because he has lost his way. The conqueror, thus, becomes an exile. Del Prado ends the poem with the following paradox:

            Mabigat ang aking mga paa
            at hindi kita masundan
            sapagkat sa iyong bayan, O dalaga

            Iisa ang mananakop.

            At lahat ng mandirigma
            ay taga-masid.

      The charm of this ending is that it brings us right back to the rhetorical question at the beginning of the poem, "Paano ba nasasakop ang alaala?" Del Prado knows the answer from the start: You cannot conquer memory. You can only "conquer" it in hindsight, by changing our past actions, which, by definition, are unchangeable; or by looking at "what could have been," at the land of the young girl. But these longings can never truly become one's memory. The beauty of this poem is that although nothing "happens"—the act of conquest that we were expecting turns out to be an act of watching—del Prado is able to sustain the poem through sheer lyricism, and his use of association and paradox.
      Del Prado is not always successful with his associations. For example, in "Sa Pulang Salagubang", he writes:

            sabi ni Inang
            kinakain daw ang tulad mo

            sa palengke, batya-
            batya raw kung kayo'y ipakilo
            maaring isangag o iadobo

            basta sa akin,
            ang pula mo'y dugo
            ng mandirigmang bihag
            ng aking garapon-

            bantay ng mga tangkay,
            ng sariwa at tuyong dahon

      While one can argue that likening the salagubang to a warrior is quite novel, this comparison was not fully prepared for. The persona seems to want to save the insect from some form of collective victimization ("batya- / batya raw kung kayo'y ipakilo") by foregrounding the insect's individuality. The persona's alternative, however, is still a form of victimization. Although del Prado seems to want to give the salagubang the respect due a warrior, there is little justification in the poem for this respect, since the persona and the insect are not equals to begin with. In any battle between the two, the persona will always win. In this particular poem, unfortunately, one cannot just say, "basta sa akin", and allow the images to fall into place. The end result, therefore, is rather grotesque: in this "war", the persona is simply substituting genocide for imprisonment. Since del Prado opts for a linear, spatially oriented strategy from the start (as opposed to the associative structure outlined above), he is thus constrained by the need to work within the parameters of the form and to pay more attention to the development of the images.
      Notwithstanding these weaknesses, which are few and far between, del Prado must be congratulated for what he has accomplished in this book. His poems, particularly the ones where he has shown the willingness to take risks with his associations, are the more difficult kinds of poems to write. The poet who takes this path must have strong faith in his insight. Since he has made a claim right from the beginning, there can be no turning back. Every line that follows must quickly rise to support the initial assertion; otherwise, the poem quickly unravels. There is also the greater chance, since this form is more open and unstructured, that extraneous elements will be brought into the poem. This is the riskier strategy. It is also the mark of a poet sure of his own voice. It is in these poems where del Prado shows his originality. For this reason, Balat ng Dagat must be considered one of the most important books of poetry to come out in 1998, perhaps in recent memory.&