Luisa A. Igloria is a Filipina American poet and author of various award-winning collections. Originally from Baguio, Luisa A. Igloria is now with the faculty of the English Department and the Institute for the Study of Minority Issues at the Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of the Philippines, Baguio in 1980 (B.A. Humanities - Cum Laude - major in Comparative Literature, minor in English, cognate in Philosophy), and the M.A. in Literature at Ateneo de Manila University at Manila, Philippines in 1988 as a Robert Southwell Fellow. She received a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago in July 1995, where she was a Fulbright Fellow.
While in Chicago, Igloria was an active member of PINTIG, a Filipino-American cultural and theatre group. She was a member of PINTIG's cultural and education committee and co-wrote some scenes for Chris Millado's stage play, Scenes from an Unfinished Country: 1905-1995. She was a Visiting Humanities Scholar in 1996 at the Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She also taught briefly at De La Salle University where she became the Graduate Programs Coordinator and Senior Associate for Poetry at the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center at De La Salle University.
She has published five books under the pseudonym Maria Luisa A. Carino, and received eleven Palanca Awards since 1984, including its prestigious Hall of Fame distinction. She has been a recipient of numerous grants and honors, among others the 1998 George Kent Prize for Poetry (donated by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks) and the 1998 Illinois Arts Council Award.
Regarding History
by Luisa Igloria
A pair of trees on one side of the walk, leaning
now into the wind in a stance we’d call involuntary—
I can see them from the kitchen window, as I take meat
out of the oven and hold my palms above the crust, darkened
with burnt sugar. Nailed with cloves, small earth of flesh
still smoldering from its furnace. In truth I want to take it
into the garden and bury it in soil. There are times
I grow weary of coaxing music from silence, silence
from the circularity of logic, logic from the artifact.
Then, the possibilities of sunlight are less attractive
than baying at the moon. I want to take your face
in my hands, grow sweet from what it tells, tend
how it leans and turns, trellis or vine of morning-glory.
I wish for limbs pared to muscle, to climb away from
chance and all its missed appointments, its half-drunk
cups of coffee. Tell me what I’ll find, in this
early period at the beginning of a century.
Tell me what I’ll find, stumbling into a boat
and pushing off into the year’s last dark hours.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of the Philippines, Baguio in 1980 (B.A. Humanities - Cum Laude - major in Comparative Literature, minor in English, cognate in Philosophy), and the M.A. in Literature at Ateneo de Manila University at Manila, Philippines in 1988 as a Robert Southwell Fellow. She received a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago in July 1995, where she was a Fulbright Fellow.
While in Chicago, Igloria was an active member of PINTIG, a Filipino-American cultural and theatre group. She was a member of PINTIG's cultural and education committee and co-wrote some scenes for Chris Millado's stage play, Scenes from an Unfinished Country: 1905-1995. She was a Visiting Humanities Scholar in 1996 at the Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She also taught briefly at De La Salle University where she became the Graduate Programs Coordinator and Senior Associate for Poetry at the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center at De La Salle University.
She has published five books under the pseudonym Maria Luisa A. Carino, and received eleven Palanca Awards since 1984, including its prestigious Hall of Fame distinction. She has been a recipient of numerous grants and honors, among others the 1998 George Kent Prize for Poetry (donated by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks) and the 1998 Illinois Arts Council Award.
Regarding History
by Luisa Igloria
A pair of trees on one side of the walk, leaning
now into the wind in a stance we’d call involuntary—
I can see them from the kitchen window, as I take meat
out of the oven and hold my palms above the crust, darkened
with burnt sugar. Nailed with cloves, small earth of flesh
still smoldering from its furnace. In truth I want to take it
into the garden and bury it in soil. There are times
I grow weary of coaxing music from silence, silence
from the circularity of logic, logic from the artifact.
Then, the possibilities of sunlight are less attractive
than baying at the moon. I want to take your face
in my hands, grow sweet from what it tells, tend
how it leans and turns, trellis or vine of morning-glory.
I wish for limbs pared to muscle, to climb away from
chance and all its missed appointments, its half-drunk
cups of coffee. Tell me what I’ll find, in this
early period at the beginning of a century.
Tell me what I’ll find, stumbling into a boat
and pushing off into the year’s last dark hours.
-Donna ;]
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