Critique to Enage’s Kauswagan
February 21st, 2008 | by Fhen Macabasag |Most of the DYVL Siday have a consistent and persistent editorializing stance. Elisa Badilla Enage’s — who hails from Balangiga, Eastern Samar — siday Kauswagan (Progress) is a prime example to this type of poetry.
Composing four lines in each four stanzas with end rhymes, this siday form represents the body of literature found in the radio poetry in Waray.
In the first stanza, the ambiguous persona explicitly criticizes the legitimate action through peaceable assembly as the reason for the absence of peace in our nation. Reading its last two lines, this same persona inquires into the possible future of our people if this form of action continues.
The second stanza generates another rhetorical question. This time, the vague speaker presumes or believes that everyone aspire for peace — whatever he/she meant with the signifier ‘peace’ — and thereby seemingly create a conflict against the mobilization towards mass action. Quoting the first two lines translated in English by Chris Agner:
Let us put aside this endless bickering.
Let’s attend instead to our development.
For the third stanza, its speaker attempts to intertwine between the big concepts such as economy and education, and the effects of this demonstration or peaceable assembly. Note that the voice in the poem does not perceive any distinction between demonstration and quarreling or trouble-making. Not surprisingly, we encounter another rhetorical quarry in its last two lines.
And in the last stanza, the persona invokes the name of God, which the reader may find it perplexing because this makagarahom is not present in the first stanza of the said poem. In these lines, we experience de javu considering that few old poets in Waray write their literary crafts with moralistic tone.
As a whole, Enahe’s Kauswagan possesses a tight question and answer structure, which is common to all DYVL Siday. The poet failed to exercise patience within her poetry thus, lacking stress and drama. If she could have exerted a certain amount of prudence, her sacrifice would have been rewarded. Furthermore, this poem misses an image that would embody its thesis. And as an outcome, Kauswagan becomes a mere social commentary much like an editorial writing and less than poetry.
(For those who are interested to read the whole siday of Enage entitled Kauswagan, just click this link.)
===
Fhen Macabasag Fhen Macabasag is a well-rounded Waraynon. His art is his life.
