Gottfried Helnwein (b. October 8, 1948, Vienna), an acclaimed modern master, is an Austrian-Irish fine artist, painter, photographer, installation and performance artist. He is best known for his Epiphany, The Adorations of the Magi (our cover), which belongs to the collection of the Denver Art Museum. According to Wikipedia, he studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna (German: Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien), where he was awarded the Master-class prize (Meisterschulpreis), the Kardinal-König prize and the Theodor-Körner prize. He has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation- and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media. His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances—often with children—in public spaces. Helnwein is concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.
Luisa Igloria emailed us her newest poem, “written only yesterday,” (Dec. 19 in Norfolk, VA, where she is based), as part of her Christmas greetings. Poet and writer of numerous books, the latest of which is Trill & Mordent, Luisa is an associate professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program of Old Dominion University. Her work has appeared or will be forthcoming in various anthologies and journals including Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, The Missouri Review, Indiana Review, to name a few, and her latest award is the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize for Juan Luna’s Revolver (which was forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press in November 2008. This makes it her latest book).
Francis Macansantos, poet, writer, cultural worker, teacher of writing and former professor of literature based in Baguio City, recently launched his 4,ooo-line epic, Womb of Water, Breasts of Earth, the winner of 2003 NCCA Writers Prize. A four-time Palanca winnner and fellow of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC), Butch has an MA in Creative Writing from Silliman University and took his English undergraduate course in Mindanao State and Ateneo de Davao universities. He has taught literature at Mindanao State, Silliman, and UP Baguio. He has served in the panel of the Dumaguete Workshop and was the Local Fellow for Poetry at the UP ICW in 1999. poet’sPicturebook will soon publish an excerpt from his epic.
Kristian Cordero, a bilingual Bicolano poet, readily sent us “Herodès,” a poem in the Filipino language, when we emailed him at short notice for this special Christmas issue. He is the 2008 winner of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writers Prize for Poetry. A literature teacher at the Ateneo de Naga University who writes his poetry both in Filipino and the Bikol language, Kristian is one of the young poets leading the recent revival in Bikol writing and literature. The author of three award-winning books of poetry, he has attended the University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop and has won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards and the Premio Tomas Arejola for Bikol Literature, among many others.
Victor Peñaranda continues to send us poems that serve both as postcards from and meditations on the many places he visits in the Philippines in his development work, and the other places of his international assigments in the recent past, including Bhutan, Macedonia and the other places in Europe and Asia. Last we heard, he was workshopping soldiers on the intricacies of peace. He is also currently preparing his second collection of poetry, to be published by Anvil, some of which first appeared online in poet’Picturebook.
Dap-ay Sapata (a nom-de-guerre) sends the photo of the Sagada dawn from somewhere in the Cordilleras.
Mario Mercado, when we asked for his curriculum vitae, writes us: “My early life was vertiginously steeped in adventures of physical, spiritual (distinct from 'religious'), intellectual, emotional and romantic nature. There is no one way of describing me who I was. Much of my past is better left where I left it, unless someone is around who had openly connected me to circumstances I can no longer deny.” My friend from the Banggaan artists, writers, and photographers e-group is a professional photographer and artist (fine and digital), who went to the prestigious artist run school, the Art Students League of New York, operates a full-complement photography and computerized graphics studio in Putnam (previously in Manhattan), has been managing editor of the Philippine-American News, has done studio and location photography all over the world, apart from the various creative engagements that populate his rich resume.
Marne Kilates edits this magazine and sends the readers of poet’sPicturebook all the best of the Season.
