Interview # 12: Karlo Sevilla

Sincerely Art: Interview Series

Sy Albright interviews Karlo Sevilla----   poet/author

His latest poetry release Metro Manila Mammal

https://www.somapublishing.com/2018/05/metro-manila-mammal.html

 

SA: I distinctly remember reviewing your incredible book “Metro Manila Mammal” a few months back and remarking how it was rare to read work from Asian males. I think in general women out number men in writing. Do you have any thoughts on why this occurs?

KS: I’m not sure what the exact ratio is between men and women writers in the Asian continent, haha! That’s also how I perceive it, though, that, “in general women outnumber men in writing” – particularly here in the Philippines. Perhaps women are generally more sensitive and have more compelling reasons to express themselves through writing. In any case, Penguin Classics recently published works by three iconic Filipino writers, who are all “incidentally” males: The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin, Doveglion by Jose Garcia Villa, and Noli Mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo by Jose Rizal.

SA: Your redemption lies buried

In one of your landfills

Perhaps among one hundred and

Fifty buried in Pavatas

 

These lines from the poem “Metro Manila Miasma” contained in your full-length poetry book “Metro Manila Mammal” published by Soma Publishing. Please give more depth to what you are explaining in this poem.

KS: I love Metro Manila, the Philippines’ National Capital Region, where I’ve always lived in. That may also be the reason why I’m deeply affected by the myriad of social, environmental, and other issues that bear down on it. This metropolis seems caught in a quagmire, and hopeless – unless radical reforms or a social revolution takes place in this country. The second to fourth lines you quoted are about a tragedy that took place years ago, when a notorious mountain of garbage in a landfill community in one of the cities in Metro Manila collapsed and buried more than a hundred people.

 

SA: Your work is powerful and provoking through brutally honest description of daily life in a large city of a major Asian country. How do you balance your emotional state with writing though never crossing into uncontrolled rage nevertheless spares no truth?

KS: Thanks again for your encouraging words on my work. I try to strike a balance, but while I don’t “cross into uncontrolled rage,” I do get depressed over the negative aspects of urban life here (along with personal issues).

SA: I found I didn’t need to be informed about life in Manila to read and review your book. But is there a certain Asian perspective or artistic sentiment that is distinctly different from that of Europe or America?

KS: Speaking about my country, ours was a former colony of Spain for three centuries, then of the USA for half a century. So our culture was under both European and American influences. Ours is quite a cultural smorgasbord: We have what we call folk Roman Catholicism, Islam in the Southern regions, our various languages sprinkled with Spanish and English words, colonial mentality which favors American culture, its “opposite” consciousness of patriotism or nationalism which emerged during our colonial eras (not to be confused with the extremist and chauvinist ultra-nationalism and fascism that arose in the West), etc. Our culture is also markedly influenced by our neighbor and long-time, pre-Spanish era trade partner, China (which currently seems poised to be our new, prospective colonizer).

To sum up what is a distinctly Filipino (and perhaps Asian, in general) “perspective or artistic sentiment” – especially for one like yours truly who writes in English – it is this:

It arises from the consciousness of a citizen from a former colony, and uses colonial, pre-colonial and post-colonial influences in his/her artistic expressions. There’s no escaping the past, and the present is always just passing by.

 

SA: You have managed the autobiographical with a semi-travel log bound by a firm framework of Art in your writings. It’s not something seen very often. Do you have a personal philosophy of Writing or Art?

KS: I graduated from high school with a Most Outstanding Student in Visual Art award. Then I studied for a bachelor’s degree in painting, followed by a bachelor’s degree in art education before finally dropping out of college in the late 90s. (I’m currently enrolled in the Certificate in Literature and Creative Writing in Filipino program of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.) Anyway, I just write as beautifully as I can. They say beauty is subjective. It’s true but I also believe that it’s more universal than “specific-culture-based” (if I may coin a term). I may attempt to write about flowers from the rubble, or about the rubble itself. It may be about something beautiful or ugly, but I’ll always attempt to express as beautifully as my personal aesthetics permits.

 

SA: I am told by some writers they keep writing in a box somewhere and don’t discuss with family and friends. While others make it a public part of their persona. Since it’s such a personal choice I don’t know what behavior is productive or not. How you do handle your writing life from the other parts of your life?

KS: I promote poetry, mine and others’, in social media for the art’s sake. And when it’s mine, it’s also, admittedly, for personal gratification and vanity. Anyone who wants to know me more will, sooner or later, realize that I’m serious about my writing – whether they’ll like what I write or not. (That is if they’ll even bother to read a single one.)

While I don’t write all the time, almost all my other non-writing activities serve as source materials for my poetry. And now that I’m enrolled in a creative writing program, it requires and inspires me to write in other genres – and squeeze in more time for my writing. (It’s difficult as I currently work the graveyard shift as a customer service representative. When I get home, I eat, write, sleep and wake up hoping to get more sleep. So I just do as I can.)

 

SA: Not being a writer myself I don’t know much about “writer’s block.” Writers like Rossi claim there is so such thing. A writer can always write. Question is what is Art and what is junk. Others believe depression plays a role in writer’s block. What are your thoughts on this divisive subject?

 

KS: I respect and believe those who claim to suffer from “writer’s block,” though, personally, I can’t relate. For me, when you sincerely try to write in any given moment, you’ll end up writing. It may not be “art” right away, until more work is done on it. And if it’s really “junk” that that you’ll just discard, it’s still a worthy writing exercise. You’ll still benefit from it, somehow. Writing being a subjective endeavor, ultimately, it’s for the individual writer himself to discern what is art or junk for him. About depression, it always makes me write more poetry. 

SA: Haven’t spoke to a writer yet who did not have an idol or influence in the writing world. Can you name a few past and present examples?

KS:  I stand corrected, as I delude myself thinking that all my poems in English lie somewhere with Pablo Neruda’s “Tonight I Can Write,” and between Sylvia Plath’s “The Moon and the Yew Tree” and Charles Bukowski’s “The Crunch.”

On present examples, let me just say that, for now, they are too many to mention.

“This is all. In the distance…”