BUANG SA PAG-IBIG … aren’t we?

Every time I see a John Iremil Teodoro book, I am always caught by the weight of its titles.

…. Kung ang Tula ay Pwedeng Pambili ng Lalaki …

Prinsesa ng Palawan…

Kataw kang Burnham Park…

and now we have Buang sa Pag-ibig.

Now I am challenged by the fact that what gives me the right to share my thoughts about Buang sa Pag-ibig without eventually having to admit that, at one point or another, tanan kita nangin buang sa pag-ibig?

Some of us simply had the good sense not to write a poem about love, especially if it meant surviving a heartbreak. More so seventy three poems!   But John Iremil Teodoro did that exactly..

Buang sa Pag-ibig is not simply a collection about being buang sa paghigugma. It is a book about what happens when desire, loneliness, memory, sexuality, the body, place, language, humor, violence, and poetry all inhabit the same human heart.

In the first poem, “Ngayong Araw ng mga Puso,” the persona spends Valentine’s Day searching through computers, boxes, folders, and practically every corner of the house for poems written through the years for different men. Eventually, seventy-three poems emerge and these were enough, he realizes, to become a book. And after laughing at himself, there is only one title that seems possible: Buang sa Pag-ibig.

I like the poem “Pagibig ni Tunkung Langit” because I have read the folk story and it explains how the day the night and the sky came to be because of the this tragic love story. Somehow, there is something heart wrenching in this poem:

Sa labis na lungkot

nanatili na lamang sa langit

ang lalaking diyos at nagmukmok.

Sa pagtulo ng kaniyang mga luha

umuulan sa buong daigdig.

Kapag siya’y humahagulgol

at tinatawag sa Alunsina na bumalik,

kumukulog at nabubulabog

ang buong mundo.

But what makes this collection fascinating is how Sir John transforms the word buang. At first, it sounds comic, even embarrassing. But gradually, it becomes a poetic position.

To be buang sa pag-ibig is to surrender our rationality before something we cannot completely explain. Because after all, one can never explain that feeling when one is high in LOVE.

Love can be sacred.

It can be sexual.

It can be embarrassing.

It can be purchased.

It can be imagined.

It can be violent.

It can disappear.

And sometimes, apparently, daw sala pa ni Piolo Pascua nga nangin buang ka sa pag–ibig (one of the titles in the collection is actually “Kasalanan ni Piolo Pascual.”) And I find that reassuring. Because finally, Philippine literature gives us somebody to blame.

Heartbroken? Blame Piolo.

Single? Blame Piolo.

Questioning your life choices on Valentine’s Day?Apparently, Sala ni  Piolo Pascual.

But perhaps, John used this humor to make pain the pain of being buang sa pag-ibig speakable.

Now, in “Nakakaanga ang Pangungulila.” What a brutally accurate description of longing.

Because anyone who has ever waited for a message knows exactly what this means. You check your phone. Nothing. Five minutes later, you check again, as though the phone might have been keeping the message from you personally.

Even the titles warn us: Baklang Buntis, Ilog, Oda ng Puwet, Unang Pagtatalik, Hindi Kayang Bilhin ng Pagmamahal Ko.

So, if anyone entered this book expecting seventy-three wholesome Hallmark poems, you get this wrong.

Teodoro writes openly about desire, sex, arousal, bodily intimacy, prostitution, and orgasm. But what is important is that the eroticism is rarely there merely for shock.

The body is a language. It speaks pleasure. Sometimes, it speaks loneliness. Or vulnerability. Sometimes power. And sometimes exploitation.

This becomes especially significant because Buang sa Pag-ibig is unapologetically a book of love. And love can be foolish…. Buang! What survives after we have been foolish enough to love?

I think, in this book, the answer is clear. The lover may disappear. The body may be wounded. The heart may become buang again and again. But John has transformed the foolishness of love into a masterpiece of enduring literature.