CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Nery

Robert Nery was born in the Philippines and lives in Sydney. He has made two documentary essay-films, Black Nazarene and In 1966 The Beatles Came To Manila. His translations of poems by three modern Tagalog poets, Rolando S. Tinio, Jose F. Lacaba & Rio Alma (Vagabond Press) was published in 2013. He was briefly editor of the media art journal Photofile.

I Revolve a Skull that Knows: On José García Villa

In my teenage years, the poet José García Villa had withdrawn into legend and silence in New York, an absent god from whom only the occasional witticism was relayed to Manila. In 1973, when my adolescence was coming to an end, he was 65 and teaching at the New School for Social Research. I would have been surprised had I been told he was still working. From his first American volume, Have Come, Am Here, that made his reputation in 1942, his poems mentioned nothing specific to the Philippine milieu.

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