THE CONVERSION o Misterios and Other Poems (2005).

J. NEIL GARCIA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  groundbreaking study, Philippine Gay
J. NEIL GARCIA was/is
Culture: The Last Thirty Years (1996),
 earned his A.B. Journalism, magna cum laude,
 awarded a National Book Award by the
from the University of Santo Tomas in 1990;
Manila Critics Circle in 1996.
 M.A. in Comparative Literature in 1995,
 editor of the famous Ladlad series

 Ph.D. in English Studies: Creative Writing in of Filipino gay writing,

2003 from the University of the Philippines
 edited for the Likhaan, the following
Diliman.
anthologies: The Likhaan Book of Philippine
 currently a Professor of English, Creative Criticism (1992-1997) and The Likhaan Book

Writing and Comparative Literature at of Poetry and Fiction (1998 and 2000).

the College of Arts and Letters, University of

 latest critical work, Postcolonialism and
the Philippines Diliman,
Filipino Poetics: Essays and Critiques, is a
 serves as an Associate for Poetry at the revised version of his very provocative Ph.

Likhaan: U.P. Institute of Creative Writing. D dissertation. The book examined Filipino
poetics from the perspective of post-
 author of numerous poetry collections and colonialism consisting of the author’s own
works in literary and cultural criticism: critical and personal reflections on poetry-
both as he “reads” and “writes” it.
o Our Lady of the Carnival (1996),
 sought to answer a specific and difficult
o The Sorrows of Water (2000),
question: just how do the dominant poetic
theories in the Philippines address the
o Kaluluwa (2001),
problems and debates of postcolonialism
o Slip/pages: Essays in Philippine Gay
 led Garcia to confront the issue of
Criticism (1998),
Filipino nationalism. Garcia
o Performing the Self: Occasional
 addressed the assumptions and consequences
Prose (2003),
of Filipino nationalism
o The Garden of Wordlessness (2005),

 engaged with the poetics of National Artist Virgilio Almario and eminent poet- critic
 Gemino Abad, whom Garcia referred to as That loved me. The water
“the foremost commentators on Filipino Had been saved just for it, that day.
The laundry lay caked and smelly
poetics.” In the flower-shaped basins.
Dishes soiled with fat and swill
 currently working on a full-length book, a Pilled high in the sink, and grew flies.
My cousins did not get washed that morning.
post-colonial survey and analysis Lost in masks of snot and dust,
of Philippine poetry in English. Their faces looked tired and resigned
To the dirty lot of children.
All the neighbors gathered around our
 won several literary awards including open-aired bathroom. Wives peered out
the Palanca and the National Book from the upper floor of their houses
into our yard. Father had arrived booming
Award from the Manila Critics Circle. He with cousins, my uncles.
They were big, strong men, my uncles.
They turned the house inside-out
 has also received grants and fellowships to
Looking for me. Curled up in the deepest corner
deliver lectures Of my dead mother’s cabinet, father found me.
He dragged me down the stairs by the hair
in Taipei, Hawaii, Berkeley, Manchester, Ca
Into the waiting arms of my uncles.
mbridge, Leiden and Bangkok. Because of modesty, I merely screamed and
cried. Their hands, swollen and black with hair,
 6’11’’ bore me Up in the air, and touched me. Into the
 legitimized homo cold
 “The Bearded Lady” Of the drum I slipped, the tingling
Too much to bear at times my knees
Felt like they had turned into water.
Waves swirled up and down around me, my head
INTRO: Bobbing up and down. Father kept booming,
 GENDERS: Girl or boy. I thought about it and squealed,
o male Girl. Water curled under my nose.
o female When I rose the same two words from father.
o lesbian The same girl kept sinking deeper,
o gay Breathing deeper in the churning void.
o transvestite In the end I had to say what they all
 gender fuck Wanted me to say. I had to bring down this
 gender bend diversion
 u don’t need to be opposite To its happy end, if only for the pot of rice
o transsexual Left burning in the kitchen. I had to stop
 knife Wearing my dead mother’s clothes. In the mirror
I watched the holes on my ears grow smaller,
o transgender
Until they looked as if they had never heard
 girly clothes
Of rhinestones, nor felt their glassy weight.

POEM: I should feel happy that I’m now

It happened in a metal drum.
Redeemed. And I do. Father died within five years
They put me there, my family
I got my wife pregnant with the next.
Our four children, all boys,
Are the joy of my manhood, my proof.
Cousins who never shed their masks Play them for all their snot and grime.
Another child is on the way. Who drowned somewhere in a dream many dreams
I have stopped caring what it will be. ago.
Water is still a problem and the drum I see her at night with bubbles
Is still there, deep and rusty. Springing like flowers from her nose.
The bathroom has been roofed over with plastic. She is dying and before she sinks I try to touch
Scrubbed and clean, my wife knows I like things. Her open face. But the water learns
She follows, though sometimes a pighead she is. To heal itself and closes around her like a wound.
It does not hurt to show who is the man. I should feel sorry but I drown myself in gin before
A woman needs some talking sense into. If not, I can. Better off dead, I say to myself
I hit her in the mouth to learn her. And my family that loves me for my bitter breath.
Every time, swill drips from her shredded lips. We die to rise to a better life.
I drink with my uncles who all agree.
ANALYSIS:
They should because tonight I own their souls
 Why “CONVERSION”?
And the bottles they nuzzle like their prides. o Dahil dun sa tubig= baptized
While they boom and boom flies whirr  Lots of allusion-
 Bakit TUBIG SA DRUM?
Over their heads that grew them. Though nobody
o dahil daw natatanggal yong dumi sa
Remembers, I sometimes think of the girl katawan
o oldest form of torture
o sets situation