The Haiyan Dead

Merlie M.
Alunan
Merlie M. Alunan is one of the more influential and respected writers in the Visayas Region. She was
born on December 14, 1943 at the humble town of Dingle, Ilo-ilo. She has lived and worked all her life in the
Philippines but not in Manila, a city she describes as a huge urban conglomeration. She was also known as the
“Mother of Waray-waray Poetry”. While she has traveled a bit around the Visayan Islands, she finally settled in
Leyte in 2000.She has a Master's Degree in English, major in Creative Writing. By the time she was 26, she had
completed her MA. She graduated in Silliman University with an MA in Creative Writing in 1974. She teaches
at the Creative Writing Center, University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College.

There, she founded Vis Write in the late 1980s, together with two literature professors and literary
critics, Victorio N. Sugbo and David Genotiva. She was also a Professor Emeritus that was granted to her upon
retirement on the year 2008. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Lillian Jerome
Thornton Award for Nonfiction, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, and the Philippines Free Press
Literary Awards. Her books of poetry include Hearthstone, Sacred Tree (Anvil, 1993) and Amina among the
Angels (UP Press, 1997). Her other works also include Kabilin: 100 Years of Negros Oriental and the anthology
Fern Garden: An Anthology of Women Writing in the South. Once she started her family of five children, she
no longer wrote. Also she had started on a Ph.D. but due to all the family pressure lost the momentum. She only
resumed writing poetry in her early forties, beleaguered as she was with raising her children alone. She brought
her five children through alone by holding down her job as teacher. In that sense, poetry gave her strength and
sanity to see all these things through. She had also released online the poem “The Haiyan Dead” which was
published in January 2014, and was subsequently translated into different Filipino languages. She is currently
residing at Caibaan Road, Tacloban City.
Read the poem “The Haiyan Dead” by Merlie M. Alunan. Study and answer the questions that follow.
The Haiyan Dead
do not sleep.
They walk our streets
climb stairs of roofless houses
latchless windows blown-off doors
they are looking for the bed by the window
cocks crowing at dawn lizards in the eaves
they are looking for the men
who loved them at night the women
who made them crawl like puppies
to their breasts babes they held in arms
the boy who climbed trees the Haiyan dead
are looking in the rubble for the child
they once were the youth they once were
the bride with flowers in her hair
red-lipped perfumed women
white-haired father gap-toothed crone
selling peanuts by the church door
the drunk by a street lamp waiting
for his house to come by the girl dreaming
under the moon the Haiyan dead are
looking for the moon washed out
in a tumult of water that melted their bodies
they are looking for their bodies that once
moved to the dance to play
to the rhythms of love moved
in the simple ways--before wind
lifted sea and smashed it on the land--
of breath talk words shaping
in their throats lips tongues
the Haiyan dead are looking
for a song they used to love a poem
a prayer they had raised that sea had
swallowed before it could be said
the Haiyan dead are looking for
the eyes of God suddenly blinded
in the sudden murk white wind seething
water salt sand black silt--and that is why
the Haiyan dead will walk among us
endlessly sleepless--

January 4, 2014, Batinguel, Dumaguete City — KDM, GMA News
An mga naanaw han Haiyan

diri nangangaturog.
naglalaroy-laroy ha kakalsadahan nasaka ha hagdanan
han mga balay waray atop mga bintana waray trangka
mga purtahan nga ginpalid an sada ginbibiling nira an higdaan
ha may dungawan an sunoy nga nanunugaok ha umagahon
tuko ha may sandayong nagbibiling hira han kalalakin-an
nga kadirig ha kagab-ihon an kababayin-an nga napakamang
ha ira baga’n katiyoan ngadto ha ira dughan mga bata
nga nagsaklang han kakahoyan ginbibiling nira ha mga sighot
an ira hadto pagkabata an mga naanaw han Haiyan namimiling
han karaslon nga may bukad ha iya buhok an babayi nga mapula
an im-im ngan nakarigo hin pahumot an tatay nga ubanon
an langday nga lagas nga namamaligya hin mani ha may portahan
han simbahan daros nga nasandig ha poste han suga naghuhulat
nga umagi an iya balay an daragita nga nagtitinanga ngadto
han bulan an mga naanaw han Haiyan nagbibiling liwat han bulan
nga gindaganas han daralwa nga tumunaw han ira mga lawas
nga hadto anay nasayaw nakigmulay nakisabay ha ritmo han gugma
nalihok ha mga kinaadlaw nga buruhaton—ha pagginhawa
pagmugna han pulong dida ha ira but-ol im-im dila an mga naanaw
han Haiyan nagbibiling liwat han awit nga ira hadto ginhigugma
siday pangadi nga ginlam-oy han dagat san-o ini mayakan
ginbibiling han mga naanaw ni Haiyan an mata han Diyos kay
tigda nabuta ha nakurahab makusog mabusag-busag nga hangin
tubig asin baras lutak nga maitom—asya nga an mga naanaw
han Haiyan maglilinakat upod ha aton magpapadayon waray
kataposan diri kahingaturog….
Paghubad ha Waray ni Voltaire Q. Oyzon
https://abliterature-philippines.com/the-haiyan-dead/
Study and answer the questions that follow. Write your answer in a 1 whole sheet of paper.
1. What is the structure of the poem? Is it written in traditional or in free verse? Explain your answer.
2. What does Haiyan mean?
3. What is the tone and mood of the poem?
4. Who is the persona in the poem?
5. What does the poem try to imply to the readers?
6. What is the theme of the poem?
7. What is/are the symbols used? Explain the meaning of each symbols used in the text.
8. If you were in the place of the author, how would you react to the situation? Explain.
9. Imagine yourself as someone witnessing the aftermath of a storm. In a short poem of five to ten lines, lift the
spirits of your neighbors. You may integrate any of the core values of your school. Consider also the different
elements of poems in your composition.

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Merlie M.

The Haiyan Dead

An mga naanaw han Haiyan

2. What does Haiyan mean?

3. What is the tone and mood of the poem?

4. Who is the persona in the poem?

5. What does the poem try to imply to the readers?

6. What is the theme of the poem?

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