Contributor Spotlight: Marne Kilates
Marne Kilates’ poem “The Traffic Poem” 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?
This is one of those poems that first linger in their crude forms in the mind with one or two lines but when one finally sits down to write the particular piece it almost writes itself down. It is about much that is happening in the Philippines today but is so intertwined with my personal experiences from Marcos’ martial law years to Duterte’s drug war, both of which I think are part of a deplorable continuum.
Tell us about your writing life.
I came to Manila to work and to write in the late 70s, spent some nine years in a PR department of government agency, then joined the advertising industry in 1989. Been writing poetry mainly ever since, usually during and after travel assignments or in between the successive deadlines of ad agency work. I’ve been semi-retired since 2007 and engage in writing projects, editing/writing coffee table books, translation, and communication consultancies. I sometimes wish I’d quit advertising earlier and worked for myself but I know it does not always work as one might wish it to. So I am more or less happy in between my own book projects which are mostly new collections of poetry.
Which non-writing aspects of your life most influence your writing?
Life itself and other forms of art.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
The best way to write is to write. So better don’t talk about it. Finish something you started because that is always a first draft.
What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? Favorite writers?
I read as many books as I can get my hands on. Poetry, stories, and non-fiction. My generation (in the Philippines, who write in English) grew up with T.S. Eliot and his generation. Right now I keep going back to W.H. Auden and Seamus Heaney, but I try to read all the leading contemporaries. W.S. Merwin has just died, so I’m reading much of him now.
What are you reading right now?
World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
I have two new collections of poetry awaiting readers’ evaluation from their publishers. One will start the book design stage soon.
Anything else our readers might want to know about you?
I have this favorite quote whose author I am note sure of. I’ve been told it’s Allen Ginsberg: “Only a fool pretends to know what might happen when a poem finds a reader.”
Where can our readers connect with you online?
Readers can sample my work at my website, https://marnek2.wixsite.com/marneskripts
MARNE KILATES has published six books of poetry. His recent book Time’s Enchantment & Other Reflections (Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2014) won that year’s National Book Award, while his latest collection is Lyrical Objects (UST Publishing House, 2015), which was a finalist for the same award. He was named the first Poet of the Year in the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards of Philippines Graphic Magazine in 2013. He has also published numerous translations from Filipino into English, including works by National Artists Virgilio Almario and Bienvenido Lumbera. Kilates has won the Palanca Awards, National Book Awards, and the SEA WRITE Award of Thailand. In 2012 he was the holder of the Henry Lee Irwin Professorial Chair for Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University. His other awards include the Bulawan na Bikolnon Award of Ateneo de Naga University, and the Outstanding Citizen of Albay in the Literary Arts. His latest recognition is the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for his poetry in English from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (Writers Union of the Philippines).
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