Poetry By Paoz
I’ve been listening to a lot of Pinoy gangsta rap over the past few days, and I must say I’m very impressed.
There’s a certain musical quality to a poem; the reason why it is often recited, sang, or performed is that the written verse cannot be separated from its sound, the aural nature of it. When you gather a bunch of poets together to debate and discourse on the “beauty of poetry” – pretenses of poesis and the decentering of the poetic subject (whatever that means) aside – you’ll probably come into an agreement that a good chunk of poetry is about sound. There really is no difference, at least to me, between poetry readings in swanky cafés and bistros that contrive the whole concept of the “artful,” and freestyle rapping in inner-city sari-sari storefronts that do descend into violence.
Give a starving artist a quill, he’ll write the great Filipino novel. Give him anger, and you got the great Filipino rapper.
Here is the world according to Willie Revillame.
The foot of space that exists between me and my computer monitor is made completely out of politics. The screen radiates politics: I am compelled to read news websites all day to keep myself abreast of really important issues. My very soul exudes politics: I have no living calling other than to be a shepherd to the ignorant, apolitical flock. My genius is underappreciated by petulant, passive, observers of no consequence to the grand scheme of the political and the social.