Jose Marte Abueg won the University of the Philippine Centennial Prize for poetry in 2008 with his collection now printed as Bird Lands, Rivers, and other Melancholies by UP Press (2009). Mart is an editor and journalist specializing on finance and economics (he is a graduate of the UP School of Economics) with no formal training in writing. He started writing poetry in 2001 “to be a better man.”
Marian Balcos works for a telecommunications company and writes poetry and creative nonfiction as a hobby. While her training is in accountancy and business management, Marian says that she follows developments and current situations in Philippine literature. This is her second time to be published in PPB.
Sam Allam writes that he is an Ybanag from Isabela, is now living with his growing brood in Moonwalk, Parañaque, and works as an engineer in the energy industry. He says he is an abstract expressionist by heart and his contribution to PPB was his first attempt in poetry. “It was really a great way to unleash maybe some untapped creativity in me. I admire works of art that tend to remind us of the transient nature of human existence and that play a redemptive function.”
Sue Quirante recently turned twenty and says she has had “no formal training of any sort” in writing poetry. She has been writing verses since she was little, she writes, “most of them bad, a few of them ambitious. When she feels insecure about her writing, she calls her poems, verse. Just to be on the safe side. On other days, when she is superlative and awed, she dares to call paintings and other art pieces works of poetry, and thinks of poetry not as a form or a medium, but as a way of seeing.”
Maria Lourdes B. Abulencia is a writer and artist-teacher with 30 years of involvement in peace and human rights work. Through the fusion of art, spirituality and peace-building, she has embraced culture therapy as her life task. While promoting the theme of Soul Transformation for Peace she continues to conduct research in indigenous spirituality. She also strives to evolve the principles she has learned from Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli and Rudolf Steiner within the context of Filipino psychology and spirituality. Maria designs and conducts training courses on leadership and conflict transformation, biography discoveries, ritual dance and community building arts. Culture therapy practice takes her around the country where she serves various sectors like children, youth, caregivers, women, peasant organizers, former rebels and NGO workers. Maria is the author of the novel Ang Panahon sa Liwanag ng Puso, and her biography, Dear Agape; dreams, letters and poems of a woman pilgrim.
Roberto Añonuevo, who has been inducted into the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards Hall of Fame (for having won five or more first prizes), is one of the most active writers of his generation. He is a poet, critic, editor, translator, and an indefatigable blogger on his popular site, Alimbukad.Com. His poetry books are Paghipò sa Matang-Tubig (1993), Pagsiping sa Lupain (2000), and Liyab sa Alaala (2004). His other awards include the National Book Awards, Talaang Ginto, and the Southeast Asia Write Award (SEA Write) in 2002.
Marjorie Evasco has received various writing residencies, including the Rockefeller in Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, and the International Writers Retreat in Midlothian, Scotland. She has published two books of poetry and several of literary and art journalism. Dr. Marj is a full professor at the De La Salle University literature department where she has held the Julia Vargas professorial chair for Philippine literature.
Patrick Rosal is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, which won the Asian American Writers' Workshop Members' Choice Award, and most recently My American Kundiman, winner of the Book Award in poetry from the Association of Asian American Studies. His chapbook Uncommon Denominators won the Palanquin Poetry Series Award from the University of South Carolina, Aiken. His work has been honored by the annual Allen Ginsberg Awards, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Arts and Letters Prize, Best of the Net among others. Patrick is currently finishing a new collection of poems as part of his recent 6-month Fulbright Grant during which he stayed in the Philippines. He is currently based in New York.
