The title of the poem is ‘Grammar Software: In Case of Self’. Now, I’m not very good at titling my poems. In effect, the poem is a self-portrait. Too bad I will always defer the self into arriving at coherence. Coherence is not the point in this particular suite. Coherence is the controlling factor I refuse. I create my language, my narrative, my understanding, my self. The poem is a precarious mix of English, Hiligaynon grammar and how it appends its prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, and a sprinkle of Swardspeak. Parts of the poem are taken in real life as well. Take for example the line ‘Does this can mean possibly.’ I saw this phrase in a Facebook comment and put it in the poem. My only revision was to end it with a quotation mark that doesn’t close anything. For ‘Misheard = senesentencing name of long ago-ness,’ the prefix sene-, pronounced sea-knee, denotes the present continuous with the -ing suffix insisting on its present-ness. I wanted the act of making a sentence as active and as it can be, a performative that loops and loops. Then the ago-ness is just the word ago with the suffix -ness because it sounds more playful and it doubles down on the state of being. The word byutiful is simply the phonetic spelling of beautiful. For ‘can-have-free now if not there-exists,’ words that are connected together are exact and unchanged translations, sometimes from real words, sometimes from made-up words. It doesn’t matter which ones are real or not. I put charot in the poem as a straightforward word from Swardspeak. It has transcended queer spaces into the public space. Everyone, especially the younger generations, uses it whether they’re straight or queer. Charot means just kidding. It can also punctuate an utterance, diffusing the tension. It’s making light of the moment but also emphasising it.
In my writing, I pay close attention to sound. My first language has a songlike quality when spoken, and that reflects on my poetry. ‘Clo-othesing color of, ino-others code in lost thru last turning to sound,’ is an obvious example. Sounds repeat themselves through this line. And in the poem, sounds appear and reappear like apparitions.
My grammar software poems are a culmination of my different preoccupations of the last 5 years: queerness, language, labor. But the horizon is still there. I open myself to more potential.
Charot!
