Contributor Spotlight: Kristine Ong Muslim

Kristine Ong Muslim’s translation of Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’s poem, “Letting Go,” is part of Issue 78 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here. 

What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?

“Letting Go” is my translation of Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’s poem “Pagbitaw,” from his poetry collection Ilahás (High Chair, 2004). “Ilahás” means “wild,” but my translation of his book’s title is “feral,” as the latter term recognizes not just being in an inherently wild state but also reverting to it after a period of domestication and/or captivity. The titular poem was published in and is online at Strange Horizons.

There were interesting circumstances surrounding the original-language version of “Letting Go.” The source text was written as a response to the poem “Kilapsaw” in Rio Alma’s Memo Mulang Gimokudan: Aklat ng Tulang Tuluyan (University of the Philippines Press, 2005). Serving as tribute as well as critical revision to “Kilapsaw,” “Pagbitaw” takes off from the last line of “Kilapsaw” and builds upon its continuity of thought. The straight-up allusion, which drew from the richness of literary tradition, was lost on some Filipino poets, who should have known better than to link it to plagiarism. One name poet even texted Dr. Arguelles and asked, “Were you aware of Rio Alma’s poem when you wrote your poem?” to which he answered, “Of course.”

It’s just one of those inescapable things—the gross ignorance and lack of respect for innovation—in the often nepotistic (with occasional tokenistic entrants) ivory-tower Philippine literary scene. In 2015, a writer was even dressed down with a cease and desist for his brilliant conceptual piece that demonstrated the “fast food fiction” aspect of an anthology called Fast Food Fiction Delivery. I had a story in that book, thus my involvement in a literary project whose editors thought it was not foolish to sue for copyright violation someone who wrote centos or made collage art—as both were similar in principle to the conceptual piece they falsely claimed had gone beyond the bounds of fair use. Again, something that drew from the richness of literary tradition (in this case it was collage, erasure, and found text) was lost on some Filipino writers, who should have known better than to link it to a copyright violation. I believe all these are interesting to note in light of an utter non-issue, the banality of allusion to assist literary production.

Tell us about your writing life.

I’ve written nine books, all were collections of either short stories or poems. My first book was a poetry collection published by a British micropress in 2010, well over ten years after I first had my work published. I also wrote something sappy about clouds and two characters going meta over them, a piece published pre-2000 in Philippines Graphic. It was accepted by Nick Joaquin, and that was one of my most important early publication moments. My first book was called A Roomful of Machines. It was about “talking” objects, documenting my obsessive bond with the material world and the moral conditions that enable our coexistence with it, as well as the impossibility of isolation. My most recent book was published in December 2017. It was a short story collection called The Drone Outside, which was about, among others, finding ways to tell the Anthropocene and the absurdity of war. The Drone Outside was also published by another British micropress, and it carried on loosely and in a compartmentalized manner a “talking” objects motif, a remote scrutiny of material reality, as well as the politics, if that’s even possible, of isolation. I realized just now how I’ve been rehashing the same concerns, making different attempts to answer the same questions, like I haven’t really evolved an expansive thematic range over the years.

Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’s poetry collection, Walang Halong Biro (Dead Serious), which was published last year by the De La Salle University Publishing House, contained my translation. I’ve also been involved in the creation of several anthologies and guest-edited some issues for literary journals. With Nalo Hopkinson and other POCs, I co-edited People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction. Then with Paolo Enrico Melendez, I edited for the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Press the upcoming release, Sigwa: Climate Fiction Anthology from the Philippines.

What writing advice has stayed with you?

Tilde Acuña’s excellent take on writers’ groups: “Anyone can join any group. As long as principles are shared, methods are generated, values are negotiated, pasts are reviewed, and futures are imagined, I can co-exist with people and groups. You choose: (a) a self-absorbed fist-in-the-air call-to-arms by someone who coins […] the term “PDF revolution” as a blanket resistance, inclusive of a randomizer; or (b) a call to act by self-reflexive groups who know that they might themselves become territorial gatekeepers, hence they enable shared spaces (like Better Living Through Xeroxography), perhaps with preventive measures and progressive steps toward collectively creating dynamic reading and writing communities that foster creativity and criticality. In taking down neoliberal structures, would you opt for a bodiless swarm or a resolute crowd committed to a common cause?”

The novelist Glenn Diaz, on writing fiction: “[…] isn’t the intervention proffered by fiction enough? Fiction, after all, by its very nature, engages with notions of reality and is thus inherently in the business of raising political consciousness in some shape or form. Furthermore, by scrutinizing motivation, it cultivates empathy. By attending to details, it commands a meditative attitude. Because it relies on imagining a possibility, an alternative, whether for the self or for society, its default stance is always hope, even as its avenue is via hopelessness. These alone can be radical, especially as antidotes to things like modernity’s penchant for speed, for example, or the reign of literal-mindedness, or a broad sense of debilitating despair. But all these are impotent in the face of a nation that doesn’t read us. The fundamental material conditions for many Filipinos remain violently incompatible with the nourishment of an interior life, for many a prerequisite for the complete appreciation of literature. For Filipino writers then, I think an important truth that writing should testify to is its own inadequacy, whether in times of emergency or not.”

What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? 

My most favorite short story ever is Ray Bradbury’s “The Fog Horn.” It is about waiting, about infinite loneliness and waiting for a possible end to that loneliness, although that end simply is not possible. It is about the nature of sentience and the lonely immortality of what Timothy Morton labeled as hyperobjects. It interrogates the idea of the soul, any sentient form’s unique “echo” that gets imprinted on the landscape right after physical death. That imprinting, the series of imprinted notches to hollow out a place somewhere, is what constitutes the landscape of the afterlife. “The Fog Horn” is about so many things. It is its own mythology and cultural memory. I’ve loved that story for a long, long time.

My most favorite poem is Edwin Muir’s “The Horses.” I once wrote about it for A River & Sound Review‘s literary citizen post on Facebook. Here’s what I said: “I first read it when I was thirteen, fourteen. It was in a Heath anthology. I thought “The Horses” was extraordinarily terrifying and grand. It was also heartbreaking—the first time I read it, it looked to me as if the horses were replaced by machines, which were specified as “tractors” in the poem. Then they went off stampeding, a cinematic trampling of the vengeful, until they found their new “owners.” Meanwhile, there was drama, sociopolitical pomp, searing nuclear apocalypse. The poem reads big, does not falter, does not safely skim the surface of its proposed catastrophe. It made an indelible impression of how a poem should be and what literary immortality looks like. Muir, one of the world’s most underrated literary heavyweights, also wrote a lesser-known poem called “Horses,” which is an evocation of the sinister complete with sound effects: the horses galloping with the beat of an unrelenting monosyllabic rhyme. Mr. Muir’s equine renderings have long rocked my world. And if you haven’t sampled his poems yet, please check them out, see where he takes you.”

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading the second edition of A Companion to Bioethics, edited by Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer, and I have skipped to the chapter on the (non)ethics of human and animal experimentation. I’m also formulating interview questions for Daryll Delgado, so I’m reading her first novel Remains from Ateneo de Naga University Press.

What project(s) are you working on now, or next?

I am working with four other Filipino writers on a couple of anthologies of fine Filipino works in translation. Plus I’m finishing up my manuscript consisting of linked stories about people and non-people living in the same apartment building. The first two stories, which were edited to become standalone pieces, are these two in World Literature Today and Tin House.

Anything else our readers might want to know about you?

I worked for over five years in call centers, one in Manila and the other in Cebu. The call center job I had stayed in for the longest time was manning the retention queue. The job entailed reselling something to people who had used and no longer wanted what I had to offer. Every call, more or less, was psy-war. Some turned out to be unforgettable interactions, too. Let me share two of those interactions.

After careful prodding, I once had a caller admit the real reason she wanted to cancel her internet subscription was that every day when she arrived home from work, she’d find her unemployed husband in front of the computer and he was jerking off on porn. She went off about how tired and miserable she was and couldn’t see any way out of her situation. I just let her vent, did not use “okay” as an acknowledgement, said no platitudes that did nothing but underscore the wretchedness of what she was telling me. Her tone was initially that of resignation, then it changed to what sounded like strengthened resolve. Or maybe, it was just me sincerely hoping she’d be fine. To unload on a faceless stranger over the phone might have done her a world of good. How I wished this was the case. I convinced her to downgrade her subscription so that no videos could be streamed. And yes, I told her, she could still use it for emailing. She was cool with it. The subscriber info listed the husband’s name as George, and it was one of those moments when I could have argued for the necessity of a “Select Customer Name and Electrocute” menu button on the Avaya. George of the “Select Customer Name and Electrocute” was still probably out there in this planet, his flaccid wanker wanking off futilely to “404 Not Found” on the screen.

Then there’s helicopter man, who wanted to cancel his high-speed plan. I forgot why. But I remembered zeroing in on his contact email that was a Sikorsky domain. I latched onto that discovery, found a wholesome way to connect so I could segue into how it would not benefit him to cut off his subscription. Turned out he was genuinely impressed with the fact that I knew Sikorsky was an aircraft manufacturer. He asked me which model I thought was good, something along this line of questioning, and I confidently mouthed off about Sikorsky S76, its compactness and decent lift load. It was my mention of the “lift load” that sealed the deal. Thankfully, he didn’t ask me more about the subject. And no, I don’t know anything about aircrafts. I just remembered the helicopter Renee Russo was badmouthing in The Thomas Crown Affair. I watched it far too many times. He said something to this effect: about how the company must be doing good to get well-informed people like me on its team. Many years later, here I am cringing from embarrassment.

Where can our readers connect with you online?

My website and Twitter account.

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Featured Image: “Old telephones in HDR” by Jimmy McIntyre