Another day for book-buying

unexpectedly. I bought "A Passionate Patience" from Amazon, because I've been looking for this book awhile. I almost bought another book, but it was seventy dollars, before shipping and handling and import fees and I just couldn't do it... APP is a book where Filipino poets talk about their process. I've only scanned it during grad school and I've been yearning for it ever since.

I also bought an online comic book as a present for my sister, and I got a free pdf of a poetry chapbook from someone in CYWA. Someday, I'll get thick enough skin to publish my own chapbook, with the same sort of casual arrogance and self-deprecating humor.

I didn't read it through yet and I don't know enough about contemporary Filipino poetry to judge, but I would describe the collection as exuberant. The best of the lot, however, remains those that use concrete images and vivid language; the rest uses diction that obscures rather than clarifies, and it is like a beautiful fog that slips through my fingers.

My own work feels like that sometimes. And my own life.