TALE OF LOVE

 TALE OF LOVE 

October 16, 2020

      

    AN ANALYSIS OF 21 CENTURY LITERATURE ENTITLED

  THE BOOK OF EMBRACES

 by: GEMINO HENSON ABAD

 INTRODUCTION  

              It is a love poem, It is made with deep metaphors and imagery.In the poem the persona can't choose enough words to describe the one he love.

Author

-  Gemino Henson Abad

Authors Background

  His region and province

 Santa Ana, Manila, Commonwealth of the Philippines

  Educational and Family Background

 He studied at University of the Philippines and The University of Chicago

 His family moved to Manila when his father, Antonio Abad, was offered professorships at Far Eastern University and the University of the Philippines. He earned his B.A. English from the University of the Philippines in 1964 and Ph.

      List Of Awards and Year

  University Professorship, University of the Philippines

  Carlos P. Romulo Professorial Chair, University of the Philippines

  Henry Lee Irwin Professorial Chair in Creative Writing, Ateneo de Manila University

  Rockefeller Fellowship, University of Chicago

  Visiting Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa

  Visiting Professor, Saint Norbert College, Wisconsin

  Visiting Professor, Singapore Management University

  International Writing Program Fellowship, University of Iowa

  British Council Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford

  U.P. Outstanding Faculty Award

  U.P. Distinguished Alumnus in Literature

  Ellen F. Fajardo Foundation Grant for Excellence in Teaching

  U.P. Gawad Chancellor Best Literary Work

  Palanca Awards for Poetry

  "Philippines Free Press Awards". Archived from the original on August 31, 2004. Retrieved March 25, 2006. for Literature

  Cultural Center of the Philippines Award for Poetry

  National Book Awards from the Manila Critics' Circle

  Asian Catholic Publishers Inc. Catholic Authors Award

  Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas (UMPIL)

  Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan in Literature from the City of Manila

  Premio Feronia, Foreign Author, 2009

  List of Works and Year Published

  Fugitive Emphasis, 1973

  Poems and Parables, 1988

  In Ordinary Time: Poems, Parables, Poetics, 2004

  Poems and critical essays

  In Another Light, 1976

  The Space Between, 1985

  Father and Daughter, 1996

  Poetry and fiction (in the same book)

  A Makeshift Sun, 2001

  "Care of Light: New Poems and Found", 2010

  Fiction and essays (in the same book)

  Orion’s Belt and Other Writings, 1996

  Literary criticism

  A Formal Approach to Lyric Poetry, 1978

  Getting Real: An Introduction to the Practice of Poetry, 2004

  Creative non-fiction

  State of Play (essays), 1990

  Historical anthologies

  Man of Earth: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, 1905 to the mid-‘50s (co-edited with Ace Palermo), 2017

  A Native Clearing: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English Since the ‘50s to the Present, 1993

  A Habit of Shores: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, ‘60s to the ‘90s, 1999

  Anthology

  The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English, 1998 With Ace Palermo.

THE BOOK OF EMBRACES

I’m vexed with myself tonight 

that I, fitful tiller of words,

cannot write you a poem,

warm as your ironing-board,

well-shaped like your finest vase,

which should tell everlastingly your truth

clear like any ordinary morning

when the smog lifts to wide-open skies.

What is your truth, or what is love?

Where you move without ripple in my blood,

there the clods of deep little hurts –

oh, forgiven, nameless in memory,

and yet, without my conscious intent,

let to grow like thorny touch-me-nots

and rankly creep with tiny purple eyes

to demean me darkly in my sight.

How their bramble cut my soul

where I would not look to save myself!

Why do I struggle toward your truth?

Where words and words swirl about,

dust in my speech, without power

to trace their meaning in my blood,

I coax like a conscientious gardener

from dead clods their hurtful bloom,

then look upon my soul’s wildness

that you had loved, and strain

from our days’ erasure of worship,

syllable by syllable,

the struck bliss and dazzle

of our secret ‘book of embraces.’

ANALYSIS

A. Literary Genre

  Tone

             The tone of this text is romantic because it is clear that the author is pertaining to a person close to his heart. But realistic at the same time because it also unveils the struggles and hardships in love. This text also gives as the want to know who is the subject of the poem because of the deep metaphors.

  Images and Symbols

            The imagery we found in the text is the smog lifts to wide open skies. It is an imagery because this line creates a mental picture we can visualize the scene because of the clear description. When the bus driver stops the bus to chase after a woman he sees on the street, the people at first to cheer and then become impatient and then a passenger steps forward and becomes the bus driver.

  Theme

             Love because base on the vivid metaphors it is clear that the author is pertaining to a loved one. He also mentioned a past bond of them. It is all about love and the underlying things related to it.

  Diction

            Base on my understanding, the repeated slides here are how my sudden downpour cut my soul and then look at the wildness of my soul. Base on what I mentioned earlier, his passion has already cut his soul and here, he is having a hard time doing or writing the poem so maybe, he seems carried away by his passion. It also includes that every moment you have in yourself has its meaning or its purpose. And then I also mentioned that it is said that the courage of his soul made him realize that he need to continue the poem he started.

  Point of View

  First person, because the author is the one who is stating the poem.

  Contextual Analysis

-Linguistic Context

  Ripple means there is no ripple in his blood where small clods are painful.

Summary

The poet can’t utter a word that will define the person he is pertaining to. It seems like he is lost of words as if don’t fully know that person.

References

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-book-of-embraces/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9mino_Abad