COMING HOME: Graphic alums grace the Philippines Graphic 95th anniversary issue!

Philippines Graphic
By Philippines Graphic

Share

Multi-awarded journalist and short story writer Amadis Ma. Guerrero was a staff writer of the Graphic from 1969 up to 1972, when Martial Law closed down all the newspapers and magazines in the country.

Now 81, Guerrero has authored some 20 books, including collections of short stories, travel essays, biographies, as well as coffee-table books on the visual and performing arts.

Ricaredo Demetillo

He returns to the Philippines Graphic to illuminate with his pen the life and works of the late poet, verse playwright, literary and art critic, essayist, author, and Art Studies (formerly Humanities) professor Ricaredo Demetillo.

Pablo Tariman was a proofreader-writer for the Graphic in 1971, covering politics, travel and entertainment. He is a poet whose poems have been included in the anthology, “The Best Asian Poetry 2021,” published by Kitaab Publishing in Singapore.

Susan Roces

Tariman delivers a memory essay on the life and works of the late Queen of Philippine movies Susan Roces, who passed away last May. His writing relives special moments, not known by many, about the woman whose beauty has been described as the “face that refreshes.”

Catch both writers and their stories in the June 2022 95th Anniversary of the Philippines Graphic.

BONUS: The Demetillo essay comes with a companion feature from the poet’s granddaughter Astarte Demetillo Abraham.

Available at all Lazada and 7-Eleven outlets!

Website

Started in 1927, the Philippines Graphic is the longest-running printed magazine of national circulation that provides relevant news and features and promotes Philippine literature.

Table of contents [hide]

Read More

Cover

Joaquin: In the nick of time

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza -
The country’s best writers and cultural institutions paid homage this year to the 100th anniversary of the late National Artist Nick Joaquin. Ironically, had Joaquin been around, he might never have allowed the tributes and accolades given in his honor. Or maybe, he would, but at great discomfort. Said writer Jose ‘Pete’ Lacaba, “Sinasabi sa amin ni Nick pag dumadalaw kami sa mga burol ‘ayaw ko ng mga tribute-tribute. Ibalot niyo na lang ako sa banig, itapon niyo ako sa Pasig River.’ Pero tinatanggap din naman niya pag binigyan siya ng award [Nick would tell us whenever we were in a wake, ‘I don’t like tributes. Just wrap me in a mat and throw me in the Pasig River. But he still would accept every time he is given an award].”
Cover

The World in the time of Nick Joaquin

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza -
Europe, the seat of everything that was grand, powerful, and prosperous, was caught in the teeth of the First World War, the year Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín was born on May 4, 1917. It was half a world away from a boy who would emerge half a century later as one of the greatest literary minds in a poor and exploited country still caught in its own, long drawn-out war of independence in 1917.
Cover

They who wrote for the Philippines Graphic

Graphic Editorial -
“Our sense ... of our country is a sustained act of imagination. From that vantage, it can be said that our writers and artists, who are men and women of imagination, create our country (italics mine). That is to say: they evoke those images of ourselves as we live life day and night, those images of ourselves which we share and by which we recognize our nativity. We are our own best interpreters of our history and culture because it is we who have lived through that history and created our own values by which we live.” —National Artist for Literature Gemino Abad
Cover

Do you still see bloodred dragonflies?

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza -
It’s a four-year-old book of poetry—a slim book, all of 90 pages, with 55 poems published in 2022, ready to be read and absorbed. And for English-proficient third-millennium Filipinos—whether aspiring for comfort or already living in ease—the images spun by 16 of the 55 poems hark back to a time beyond their consciousness. That is why Jim Pascual Agustin’s Bloodred Dragonflies can be the metaphorical blood transfusion required to pump poignant, visual, and painful cells of old memory into the veins of the unconcerned and unaware.