My uncle — my mother’s cousin — died several days ago. For those who do not know me or my family — especially people here in Australia, where one’s life is not quite as enmeshed and entangled with one’s family as it is in my home country — it may not seem like such a profound loss; were you close has been a common question. I want to tell them that it doesn’t matter, that a loss in one’s family is the same as losing a part of you, because you all belong to the same body, one that’s knit together by blood, and by more than blood — by history and the lives and sacrifices of all the people who went before you. I end up not answering the question; I end up saying, because it is true, I loved him, and will miss him very much.

Today I attended (via Zoom) a memorial service for my uncle. Several of his friends spoke of their fondest memories of him; it was an intensely emotional experience, seeing new layers of this person I had grown up seeing at family gatherings, finding in him not just uncle or relative or family member, but also fellow human being, who loved and struggled and failed just as much as I did. As much as anyone does, in the end.

I did not know my uncle as well as the others who spoke at his memorial service, but I can still remember. The distinctive smile — part mischief, part glee, wholly joy — he wore every time I saw him at family gatherings. The delight he took in his music. The way he launched into conversation: with the ebullience that emerges from a desire to help, a desire to give. When I think of him I remember his laughter — the cascade from chuckling and giggling to full-blown, boisterous sound — and his generosity. That last one, most of all.

It’s not easy being generous in this kind of world. It was especially difficult in my uncle’s circumstances, in the career he chose, in the path he walked over the years. Yet what I heard repeated over and over today — what I have seen of him in our family — was the way he gave, the constancy of his generosity. I did not know him well enough to know if he ever hesitated or doubted; there’s a generational divide that doesn’t allow elders to show weakness or failing in front of the younger generation. I do know that he gave of himself even when it was hard and thankless work. I know that he gave the truly precious things, much more than money or other currencies of capitalism — he gave of his time and his energy; he gave of his ideals and his desire to see his profession uplifted from the brokenness to which it had succumbed; he gave of his love, and he continued to do so with a steadfast persistence that hurts my heart to imagine — it is so immense, it goes so deep.

Towards the end of the service my uncle’s daughter asked if anyone wanted to speak. I stumbled my way through a message for my cousins: you’re not alone, we’re here for you. What remains after loss? What can you say to fill a void left by an irreplaceable person’s departure? There’s nothing you can really say. It is not enough; it never will be. But perhaps that’s okay. Perhaps, knowing this, you do it anyway.

You reach out. You open your hand.

I keep thinking of the lines, some of my very favourites from the Bible:

βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι᾽ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον: ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.

Through a glass, darkly— it just echoes, doesn’t it. That struggle to see truly, to understand and know fully, completely; to grasp the whole of it, instead of reaching for shadows.

And then, thinking of my uncle, I’m heartened by what follows:

νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη, τὰ τρία ταῦτα· μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη.

“…But the greatest of these is love.”

Vale, Tito Obet. Until we meet again.

And the reason? Because I need to remind myself of certain things. I am not well; I have a great many things to deal with, not least of which is the difficulty of managing my mental health during lockdown and working towards a wedding that’s meant to happen in less than two months. And yet I feel so incredibly guilty about not working harder, not pushing more, not speaking out louder. Not giving and sacrificing until there’s nothing left to bleed.

So. A reminder to myself.

Reasons I checked out of diversity discussion du jour

1. I am ill. That is, my mind roils floodwater
cloud-spewed night after Ondoy night, fingers on my temple
drumming unceasing — not wanting to cease, until the flood
carried all the bodies away, rafted whole villages of the dead,
their mouths stitched shut by water, eyes mud-sealed
against all further seeing — pulled them under bridges
that became a river that swallowed a highway, a twilight
roofed in galvanized iron, shivering children, tented frames
of bloated corpses — away, all away, under the clotted curve of the moon.

2. We visit a vineyard, my beloved and I. It is just after summer,
Shiraz vines heavy with the pride of fruit, whole bunches of grapes
branched in clusters, straining against night-dark skins
with the fullness of sweet bursting. Almost bursting. Sun
combs through my beloved’s hair. What I am swallowing right now
is standing among other lovers, my beloved and I deemed only friends.
This is smallness. I hold my beloved’s hand in mine.
Friends is not a terrible thing, I say. Our hands tremble.
I wonder if branches grow weary with the weight of holding,
waiting for a harvest that will not come.

3. On maps, Pilipinas is land threaded through by water.
An old man with a cane, we say. Doubled over the pain
in his belly, having eaten his fill of dusty dynasties,
the leavings of our conquerors; and after, poisoned rivers. Flood.
When I say I am from the Philippines there are no ways
to translate the salt-sun broken on my tongue
into the language of Twitter and Tumblr. Our histories
must all merge, the struggle of white women must tell
the entirety of my grandmother’s flight through rice fields,
cane sugar rusting in my mother’s mouth, the drowning
of memories that we say is another word for rest. Sleep.
Centuries of iron, and we jeer at the child spitting out
“pridom” for “freedom”. There are no ways to translate debris
into pith, twisted institutions into retweets or Medium posts.
To send my maps, my pointing finger, to people’s screens
and say, look, Pilipinas is an old woman, here is my lola,
leaning on her sword, here we are, the clods of earth
the sky and sea tossed up in battle, we exist in this story
cocoon-captured in this claw-claim web they
(we, they’d say) have made of the world.

3. Ano ako, panakip-butas?

3. It will not change. The chants find new rhythms
but draw from old blood. Diversity, today’s chant says, but
I do not understand how this should mean more than rallying cries
on invisible fronts, when power speaks to shatter all sound
and he is trying must be enough. There’s representation.
They talk to your people. Indeed, and I must scan these my lines
for comprehension to empire’s eyes. This English, yes
it’s grammatically correct, but its use of syntax is suspect,
requires sanitation in case of vermin, nuno, snakes.
Diversity: what a strange and bloodless word, rinsed clean of the gore
birthed in war and struggle and the breaking of bones, cracking teeth,
the slice to open veins: to speak, write, survive. Representation: here
existence is violence. People learn from us, transform us.
We become texts, hashtags. Still things, to be spoken to. Yes, represent:
I am ill, and in my head: black on red on black, the abyss,
the silence, the sick knowledge: none of this will heal monsters.
Tomorrow, the same day. Tomorrow, the same day.

3. The back of my throat hurts. I can only give blood
once every three months, and even then it takes a while
to find a vein. What I’m trying to say is,
I don’t have an agenda. I just want to live.
What I’m trying to say is, listen to us,
but it will never happen until someone who matters
says it first. Did we know that screaming in anger
never changed anyone’s mind? Did we know
we must only mourn what is deemed justly tragic,
not this mirrorless windowless world, not unnumbered
torn veils or terror’s prayers. What I’m trying to say is,
let’s talk about worth and artistic merit,
let’s debate agendas and quotas, let’s
hold polite industry panels so we can paper over
the wrongs of publishing with earnest books
free of agenda or jobs for books or overly literal color, what I’m saying is,
I’m bleeding out, I’m bleeding out.

3. Hayaan mo na. Oo, hahayaan ko naman
kung kaya ko eh. Pero:
ang daming mali
sa mundo. At ano ngayon? Wala kang magagawa.
Iisa ka lang. Oo. Oo. Pahinga muna.

3. And this is just ranting, of course, because I’m afraid
and unwilling to engage, won’t give people a chance
to prove the rightness of their positions, the purity of their intent.
Besides, this haze of getting by, forgetting and being forgotten,
shambling around in a semblance of painlessness: fog,
waiting for trains, shaping courtesies out of bitter ashes,
my grandmother’s bones– Pinaghirapan ko ‘to. This facsimile
of smiling survival. And what does it even matter,
when we will be grateful anyway, in the end? For whatever scraps
we’ll be given, each moment we can hold our lover’s hand
without shuddering for safety, each day a child’s bright eyes
answer a doorway’s fears. Our faces are needless,
like sparrows, unnecessary and brown, darting through streets
to gobble up sunlight, jagged pieces of air. Just enough
to keep breathing. I’m grabbing at my mouth; it writhes away,
a red wet thing. I’m starving, I say. Only people in the center
have souls. My knees hit the floor. Oh yes:
salamat po.

3. Bones can only borrow
so much weight.

3. Sometimes rain pours between slats of sunlight: we say
it must be a tikbalang wedding, a ceremony unhindered
by legalities and the gates of tolerance and hearts
asking for what cannot (will not) be given. But there
are no tikbalang here. I should write home. Should say,
tell me the stories that live in my blood, so I can imagine
this slow loss away. Instead I strip in rose-gray light,
map continents on my skin: this is where a slur landed,
a bruise blossomed here as I turned, ran, hid; here
old strangleholds; here risk marks me with the burn
of forced locks, scabbed knees, all the tongues
I’ve bitten off and swallowed. Here cost and cost and cost
burns branded. How easy it must be to speak without gallows.
Still the rain will wash the blood down my throat,
I must believe this, the rain does not stop,
the rain will not stop, oh now I can taste
something other than iron, burnt sugar,
sweet rot, the caramel of dying grass
tikbalang’s wedding feast sticking to my teeth
like all the words I cannot afford to say.

3. Cervantes says, when life itself seems lunatic,
who knows where madness lies? and we go on from there.
I am sick with a sickness that sends friends links
and single lines of capslock: AAAAAAAAAAAAA.
FUCK THIS SHIT. FUCK THEM ALL. Hahamaking lahat,
I begin, and cannot continue.

3. Pretend hope is a child. It has been raining for days,
the gutters gorged with flood and drowned snakes. Hope
closes the doors. Water laps at her ankles, pools
on the floor. She climbs up onto a table
and watches rats thrashing through the river
of her house. The flood eats the table.
She climbs up onto the roof, hands slipping
over corrugated iron, knees scabbed in rust.
Hope sits there, watches the flood
swallow trees and lamp posts and walls,
taking house and street into its mud-brown belly.
She lifts her face to the sky. Rain and rain.

3. Masunod ka lamang.
To see life as it is, and not
as it should be.

3. And the floodwaters, rising, rising.

Notes:
For Example: A Flower, Arkaye Kierulf
Please Take Back the Sparrows, Suzanne Buffam

I wrote this over a month ago, but didn’t post because I felt it wasn’t polished enough. I’ve decided to go ahead and post it now, anyway, as a kind of point of reference.

If there are things here that are out-of-date I welcome updates or corrections; I haven’t been able to keep abreast of recent developments as much as I’d like, due to dealing with personal matters. But I think in general it still stands as a useful overview.

Plus, I’m still quite fond of the footnotes.

Background reading:

1. About Lin by Stuart Cooke, with publisher’s note and preface by the author, published on Verity La, retrieved via Wayback Machine. Content notes: sexual exploitation, racism, colonialist perspectives.
2. This is not a critique. This is a condemnation. by Likhain in response to About Lin, published on Djed Press.
3. Twitter thread by Eileen Chong regarding communication with Verity La on About Lin. Eileen has also posted a follow-up thread.
4. Letter to Verity La by Filipinx-Australian writers in response to About Lin. Abridged version posted to Twitter.
5. Verity La’s statement on About Lin, published on their website.
6. Stuart Cooke’s statement on About Lin, published on his personal Facebook page. (Note: comments to this post are closed except to the author’s Facebook friends.)

I have read the statements posted by both Stuart Cooke and Verity La in response to recent criticisms of Cooke’s creative nonfiction piece About Lin (as I wrote in my response, it is a racist, misogynist piece of writing that perpetuates exploitative power structures that get Filipinas killed). As a member of the community that was harmed by this piece, I do not accept these “apologies”. As a writer and a Filipina, I find these statements sorely lacking. The contexts in which these statements were posted, and the subsequent behaviour of the parties involved, especially the publisher, demonstrate that these statements were not made in good faith.

I do not believe either statement sufficiently addresses the harm done by Stuart Cooke’s piece About Lin and Verity La’s publication of it. On the contrary, I believe this is another case of furthering harm by ignoring or silencing critics, minimising the damage done, and evading accountability.

On Verity La’s response and statement

I first saw people on Twitter^[1] criticising Stuart Cooke’s piece About Lin on Friday, 26 June 2020. Among the people criticising the piece were Filipinx-Australian writers Eunice Andrada and Gemma Mahadeo, as well as other Filipinx-Australian, Asian-Australian, and Australian writers and the editors/social media managers of Australian literary magazines.^[2] These criticisms were directed at Verity La, the publisher of the piece, as well as Stuart Cooke, its author. At this stage, About Lin was published on the Verity La website with a trigger warning, a statement from the Verity La board, and a preface by the author.

In response to these criticisms, Verity La did the following things:

1. On 26 June, Verity La posted a tweet from its board (archive.org: 1, 2) and removed About Lin from its website.
2. From 26 to 27 June, Verity La began deleting tweet replies from its critics and blocking several critics, including Eunice Andrada, Gemma Mahadeo, Shu-Ling Chuah, Leah Jing Mcintosh^[3] of Liminal, and Djed Press, a literary magazine run by and for people of colour.
3. During this period, Verity La also responded to several critics on Twitter in defensive and ad hominem language. In response to writer Panda Wong’s tweet, for example, Verity La wrote: “Hectically? Are you an actual writer?” Note: these tweets have since been deleted from Verity La’s Twitter.
4. Verity La’s responses to white people’s tweets were markedly more courteous than its responses to people of colour (see: its response to Alison Croggon). This pattern was pointed out by several people on Twitter (some examples: 1, 2).
5. On 27 June, Verity La posted an apology for its previous tweets and said it would post a statement on its website on Monday.
6. On 29 June, Verity La posted a statement on its website regarding About Lin and its Twitter responses to criticism.

Despite its statement of apology, I do not believe Verity La’s statement is adequate in addressing the harm it has done. It has not acknowledged the people of colour that it directly attacked or blocked on Twitter. It has not responded to my piece regarding the harm caused by About Lin nor acknowledged anything I have said. It has not addressed the accounts of Eileen Chong, who worked privately to convince Verity La to take About Lin down and was instead gaslit and asked for exhausting emotional labour^[4]. By using a general “particular writers of colour” blanket phrase, it erases the personal injury it has caused to individual writers, from the people who criticised it publicly to the people who worked to prevent it from causing harm.

Verity La’s attempt to disappear the most egregious of its faults speaks clearly of its lack of accountability. It has not named Stuart Cooke, the author who wrote About Lin, nor the piece itself; in so doing, it minimises the nature of the racism and misogyny centered in that piece. It has not named the editor who accepted the piece and, as detailed in Eileen Chong’s account, chose to keep the piece up on their website despite the concerns that people raised. It has not named the person responsible for its offensive tweets, and in so doing continues to shield a white person from the consequences of their actions. It has deleted its offensive tweets, a clear sign it would very much like to pretend that it never questioned the quality of an Asian-Australian writer’s English or talked down to people of colour as if we had no understanding of the issues at stake.

The way in which Verity La has responded to its critics is a literal enactment of white privilege and racism. It is able to make glaringly racist editorial choices and ignore (and, in fact, gaslight!) the people of colour attempting to communicate their concerns. It is able to talk over the people of colour who criticised it and make appalling insinuations about their prerogative to criticise its work. It is able to protect its staff and withdraw from public discourse without consequence. It is able to paper over the harm it has caused. I want to point out that all the while it is being funded by a government grant through Create NSW. Is this complete abrogation of responsibility what the taxpayers of New South Wales are paying for?

In the meantime, the people of colour who have spoken out against it will bear the cost of speaking out: being tarred as “Difficult To Work With” and losing opportunities and platforms; struggling to lift our voices in an industry prevalent with racism that boxes them in stereotypes and judges us more harshly than their white counterparts; continuing to deal with these aggressions both macro- and micro- while knowing that white people will never face the consequences of their racist actions.

Some people may point to Verity La’s promise of commissioning Filipinx writers as evidence of its desire to make amends. One of the authors of the initial complaint letter to Verity La has raised the very salient point that this step was taken without consultation (or, indeed, acknowledgment) of the Filipinx-Australian writers who raised the complaint in the first place. To this I add: reparations require visible, concrete proof of accountability as well as a thorough accounting for harm done. Verity La’s promise is not credible, because Verity La itself is not credible; it has shown no understanding of the harm it has done, nor any intention of actually taking responsibility for its actions and editorial choices.

As proof, I point you to what Verity La is currently doing, which is asking people to communicate with it privately in response to their questions. This is not the behaviour of an entity that is sorry for what it is done and is committed to doing better going forward. This is the behaviour of an entity that wishes to evade accountability altogether by shying away from transparency and open, honest dialogue. Verity La committed public harm and damaged members of the community; the absolute minimum it can do now is to communicate openly with the community.

To make things even worse, Verity La has asked a writer who emailed them to discuss her concerns via phone call. This betrays a complete lack of understanding of the harm it has caused, as well as a disturbing lack of consideration for the writer’s well-being and a continuation of a pattern whereby white people require people of colour to bear the burden for the former’s own racist actions. If you are truly sorry, why continue this pattern of silencing the voices of your critics by choosing a medium where they cannot document your conversation? If you are truly sorry, why ask people of colour for more emotional labour, and why put the onus of correcting your mistakes on the people you harmed? If you are truly sorry, why all this evasion instead of focusing on your wrongdoing and the actions you can take to help mitigate and heal the damage you have caused?

If this is Verity La’s idea of “doing better”, it is not only inadequate but insulting.

This shows the true face of Verity La, and it is a hideously racist one. Perhaps to Verity La’s editors, people of colour do not have our own faces nor our own names, and therefore do not merit the dignity of individual response. Perhaps to them, our voices are as insignificant as the wind: easily ignored at their leisure, easily silenced. Perhaps to them, the nature of their wrongdoing does not matter as much as their capacity to walk away from the harm they have caused, facing no consequences and leaving us to deal with the damage.

On Stuart Cooke’s statement

Stuart Cooke posted a statement regarding the public outcry against About Lin on 30 June 2020. This statement was posted on his personal Facebook account, and while the post itself is public, commenting is disabled except for Stuart Cooke’s Facebook friends.

I am wary of the way this statement was posted. Facebook is not an easily accessible platform for many; it is easy to lose track of where posts are. Furthermore, the statement should have been posted in a space that has the same visibility as the original About Lin piece, e.g. a standalone site, or at the very least a public blog^[5]. Lastly, and most importantly, disabling public comments is a disingenuous way to control the narrative by allowing only supportive feedback and denying critics an opportunity to respond in the same forum. You will note that the only comments on the statement are positive ones praising Stuart Cooke’s apology.

While the statement acknowledges some of the ways in which Stuart Cooke’s piece caused harm, I find myself asking the following questions:

1. Why does Stuart Cooke imply that he asked Verity La to take the piece down? (Verity La has denied this.) Who is telling the truth here? If Stuart Cooke is misrepresenting events — and please don’t say that the wording was an accident; he is a writer and should know how words can be misconstrued — then doesn’t this render his entire statement untrustworthy? Isn’t his very first obligation to tell the truth?
2. Where is our clarity regarding the context in which the piece was written? As it is a “creative non-fiction” piece whose narrator is a white Australian man engaged in a sexual relationship with a Filipina woman in the Philippines, I am concerned not merely about the writing of the piece itself but Stuart Cooke’s actions during his time in Manila. Certainly one has a right to engage in sexual relationships freely, but given the unequal power dynamics involved — and Stuart Cooke’s alleged awareness of these nuances (as he argues in his author’s preface) — at best he is a hypocrite; at worst the ethical choices surrounding the writing of this piece are deeply, deeply flawed. I am also concerned about the well-being of the Filipina woman about which this piece was written.
3. Where is the acknowledgment that the piece contributes to systemic injustices that see Filipinas killed and abused by domestic partners both in Australia and in other Western countries? Where is the acknowledgment that the piece causes harm to a larger sphere outside members of the Australian literature community? Why does the statement focus only on mental and emotional harm and gloss over the real-world consequences of the stereotypes it perpetuates? For context, in Australia the homicide rate for Filipina women (who were 20-39 years old, and born in the Philippines) is almost six times the national average.^[6]
4. Why does the wording of the apology mirror the letters of complaint written about this piece? This is a pattern that others have also noticed.
5. Where is the acknowledgment of the faults in the author’s note, where Stuart Cooke clearly admits that he is aware of the “risk [of] perpetuating … [racist and sexist forms of] power” but believes that the importance of his “trying” outweighs said risk? Where is the acknowledgment that his attempt to demonstrate his goodwill and “long interest in [the Philippines]” is an extremely problematic defence that minimises the knowledge and lived experience of his Filipinx critics?
6. Where is the commitment to reparations and ensuring that he does not harm others again? We have been given that vague favourite of people who have done wrong: “I have taken the criticisms very seriously.” There is nothing to indicate that he has taken action to address the damage done. There are no concrete steps outlined to show that in addition to trying to learn from this experience, he has committed to ensure he will not repeat this mistake going forward.
7. Why does he ask the people harmed for further emotional labour? Why does he not acknowledge that his invitation for further engagement requires the people harmed to compromise their safety and well-being by interacting with him?

I think it is important to ask these questions. Other people have been asking the same things. We have not been met with answers, only silence.

I continue to wonder about how Stuart Cooke came to write that piece; I continue to wonder about how he came to my country, and how he conducted himself while he was in the Philippines. I want to believe — I truly do, so badly — that he did not come to my country as yet another white man seeking to sate his sexual appetites, or to buttress his fragile self-esteem, using my people as discardable tools to satisfy his needs.

Stuart Cooke came to the Philippines on the back of a 2012 Asialink Fellowship. He is a senior lecturer at Griffith University. When I think of these things I must ask: is this what Asialink is for, to fund white people to be tourists of our countries and our lives, to pillage our realities for their art and exploit our bodies for their entertainment? Is this the kind of expertise and knowledge that enables someone to teach the craft of writing at a respected Australian university?

What is this if not an expression of the same colonial and imperialist ethos that sees the women and children of my country as easy prey for sex trafficking and sexual tourism? What is this if not the consumption of my people for the benefit of a white man’s advancement? I want to say, he was not meant to come to my country to fuck my sisters, to exploit their bodies for accolades and stories.

I think of how I and other people of colour must behave so that we can move forward in the arts. Our work is denigrated and boxed in and prejudged. We are meant to write without mistake or fault; we are meant to satisfy the white gaze and perform according to its expectations; we are meant to explain everything and nothing while adhering to duplicitous standards of authenticity, depth, tone. Through all this we must work without complaining or making trouble for others. So much is asked of us, and we are required to put our skin on the line, again and again, proving that we deserve to write. That we deserve to be here.

And in the meantime Stuart Cooke travels to the Philippines, gains enough “expertise” in Philippine literature to write about Filipino poets in the same breath as his admission of ignorance prior to his stay in our country^[7], and is lauded for his work. In the meantime he writes about his experiences with Filipina women in the “hideous night of neon and diesel” that is my city. As if entire histories of colonialism and the bloody abuse of power, as if the yawning chasm between the experiences of a white male Australian academic and a disadvantaged Filipino woman struggling to make ends meet, can be bridged with mediocre, disingenuous prose.

I wonder.

[1] I know there has been criticism on Facebook, but I’m focusing on Twitter because that is where I participated in the discussion. I haven’t read much of the criticism on Facebook because I keep my social media activity separate for different spheres.

[2] These criticisms may be found by searching for the Twitter usernames of the users involved, and following the threads. I don’t have the capacity to document all these tweets, but searching Twitter for @VerityLa is a good starting point.

[3] As of this writing, Leah has closed her Twitter account, but you can read Melbourne City of Literature’s tweet for context.

[4] In contrast, note that Eileen raised concerns with another piece in March, and her concerns were heard and taken seriously. I would also like to point you to what an unnamed editor said to Eileen regarding her concerns about Stuart Cooke’s piece. I would like you to compare the difference in these reactions, and consider what may be responsible for this difference.

[5] The statement notes that Stuart Cooke has asked Verity La to post the statement on their website as well. I don’t have proof that this note was absent from the first version of it I saw, and not taking a screenshot is my negligence. Nevertheless, I believe my point regarding visibility and accessibility still stands. I also note that we only have Stuart Cooke’s word that he made this request to Verity La. Given the inconsistency in these parties’ accounts of whether Stuart Cooke insisted on keeping the piece up or not, I find this assertion highly suspect.

[6] The rate of homicide for Filipino women in Australia is 5.6 times higher than the national average, per research in Migration, Political Economy and Violence Against Women: The Post Immigration Experiences of Filipino Women in Australia by Chris Cunneen and Julie Stubbs. Also see: Violence Against Filipino Women in Australia: Race, Class, and Gender by Cunneen and Stubbs.

[7] “I’m ashamed to say that prior to my Asialink residency I knew next to nothing about the Philippines, let alone Filipino poetry. I had some extraneous ideas floating around to anchor my imagination…” — from Stuart Cooke’s feature article on Cordite Poetry Review.

I recently got a bit of money from a class-action lawsuit where I was a plaintiff. Originally I was going to put it into savings. In an act I can only describe as impulse/anger/screaming in my head after all the hurts of the past weeks, I decided I would use some of it to buy books.

I want to explain: I have always loved books. Growing up, we were the opposite of rich, but my mother found ways to buy us books. I remember reading in my room until the sun rose; I remember having trouble finding room to lie on my bed because the surface was piled high with books. All the money I made from art commissions, from when I was still very amateur and new, I used to buy books. When I migrated, my greatest loss was my library: hundreds of books I had collected, each one read multiple times.

It has taken me years to come to the realisation that I could have books, here, too. But listen, we have been struggling for so many years, our finances have been terrible. So it is not something I have allowed myself to do often, this book-buying. I have been lucky to have friends, both authors and readers, who have sent me books. They have been like oxygen for my mind, throughout years of steady asphyxiation.

I posted about wanting to buy books, and I said, “Consumption is not revolutionary, but saying I deserve to read is.” In response, a friend said, “Reading is revolutionary.”

Anyway. Here is the list of books I am going to get. I may tweak this list later. I have a rule that I cannot buy anything without taking a few hours to think about it first.

1. Your Silence Will Not Protect You, Audre Lorde
2. Mouth Full of Blood, Toni Morrison
3. Motherless Tongues, Vicente L Rafael
4. Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon
5. Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry, Maya Angelou
6. State of War, Ninotchka Rosca
7. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho
8. Exhalation, Ted Chiang
9. This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
10. The Year’s Best Science Fiction 2020, ed. Jonathan Strahan
11. The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco
12. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, ed. Anita Heiss
13. Flood Damages, Eunice Andrada
14. The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie
15. The Broken Earth Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin

Some of these I have read before; some of these I already have, just in ebook form. But it will be such a comfort to have them as touchstones. Shelter. Comfort. Tethers to remind me: there are still things worth staying for.

The Great Khan’s atlas contains also the maps of the promised lands visited in thought but not yet discovered or founded: New Atlantis, Utopia, the City of the Sun, Oceana, Tamoé, New Harmony, New Lanark, Icaria.

Kublai asked Marco: “You, who go about exploring and who see signs, can tell me toward which of these futures the favoring winds are driving us.”

“For these ports I could not draw a route on the map or set a date for the landing. At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of light in the fog, the dialogue of two passersby meeting in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city, made of fragments mixed with the rest, of instants separated by intervals, of signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them. If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time, now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop. Perhaps while we speak, it is rising, scattered, within the confines of your empire; you can hunt for it, but only in the way I have said.”

Already the Great Khan was leafing through his atlas, over the maps of the cities that menace in nightmares and maledictions: Enoch, Babylon, Yahooland, Butua, Brave New World.

He said: “It is all useless, if the last landing place can only be the infernal city, and it is there that, in ever-narrowing circles, the current is drawing us.”

And Polo said: “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”