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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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The people’s poet
TODAY is the 198th day of the year. This fact comes easy to me because I am a sunset tracker. Yesterday, I took the 197th sunset of 2017.
If you haven’t already, visit my Instagram account (@petersolisnery), and follow me to see my daily posts of all the sunsets of 2017.
If I’ve already followed the first 197 sunsets of the year, what do you think will stop me from tracking all 365 of them this 2017?
I am a commitment person. I follow through everything I say. And everything I have set out to do.
My biggest psychological illness is that I say things, I make claims, and I try so hard to substantiate them.
For example, I never really called myself a writer for the longest time. Because I thought I was not good enough. But once I decided to call myself a writer, I never really stopped writing.
When I finally accepted the label as “the multi-awarded Filipino author” in 2012, I have endeavored to win some Palanca Awards for categories I haven’t even dreamed of when I started competing in the Palanca in 1998.
Imagine me winning such Filipino categories as Tulang Pambata, Dulang May Isang Yugto, and Dulang Ganap ang Haba, in addition to the English categories Poetry for Children, One-Act Play, and Full-length Play.
So yeah, I have 18 Palanca awards to date, including the Hall of Fame. And all those, despite the fact that, back in 1998, and until 2008, I thought I could only win in Hiligaynon Short Story category.
Since I returned to Panay News in September and joined Panay Balita in October last year, I have labored writing for these newspapers six times a week: M-W-F for Panay News, and T-Th-S/S for Panay Balita. I think that pretty much shows my commitment.
For Panay Balita, I have already written 1, 266 poems (my three-liners) that I started writing in mid-December.
For Panay News, I have already written a total of 901 of these three-liners. And so far, there have never been translations from the Hiligaynon versions. Or vice versa. Poems #887-#901 were published last Friday.
I started the English short poems in February, and they come out now on Wednesdays and Fridays. You get my prose and essays like this article on Mondays.
It is a big commitment to write for a newspaper. I write for two.
It is a big commitment to write for two newspapers. And an even bigger commitment to write six days a week for them.
No, I am not expecting to be given an award for my efforts. I’m just saying, I am a writer, and I am committed to it.
And somehow I believe I deserve to be called the truest, the writing-est writer of my generation.
There is one more title or label that you can bestow on me though.
Well, what the heck? I can just claim it. And then, substantiate it.
I want you to call me “the people’s poet”, a.k.a. “the poet of the masses”.
Well, why not?
If Panay News is the biggest regional newspaper in the Philippines, and Panay Balita is the only Hiligaynon newspaper in the country, and they are still in circulation, you can pretty well deduce that I am rather pretty much read by its subscribers, and hand-me-down readers.
I mean, further, that when I told my editors and publisher that I wanted to stop writing my columns in March, they begged me to continue, because, and these are their words, “your followers will wonder and ask for you.”
Proof that my publisher and editors believe that I have real followers and readership? Well, just look at the things I write. Don’t you feel I have some blanket authority over how my columns should run?
I mean, whoever publishes poetry in his newspaper columns in the Philippines? In the whole wide world?
Let me ask again. Who among our great Ilonggo poets get to have their poems published in wide circulation newspapers in the last 10 years? In the last five years? In the last two years?
I know. I could hardly think of anyone except Peter Solis Nery at Panay News, and Panay Balita.
Now, if Panay News and Panay Balita are the newspaper of the masses, and the poet Peter Solis Nery publishes poetry in these newspapers, who then, is the poet of the people? Who then publishes his poetry and makes them accessible to the masses? Who is clearly the people’s poet of this generation?
I mean, how can anybody else claim to be the poet of the masses if his or her poetry is enjoyed only by his or her five best friends?
Sure, sure, sure. My poetry may not be the best in the world. What can I say? I am unschooled in poetry!
But I am most read by the common people. My poetry is familiar to ordinary people, the masses. They like it. They continue to patronize it. (If they don’t, they would have already called my publisher.)
It is for these ordinary folks, the masses, that I write. They inspire me to write, and to write for their enjoyment. I would like to be their poet. I am their poet!
True, most of my poems are not studied in colleges and universities. But I’m not fighting for the crown of “poet of the elite”, or even “poet of the highly literate”. I don’t want to be a university-read only poet. I’m gunning for the title “people’s poet”, the “poet of the masses”.
Look again: consistency, competence, commitment. I think I got those covered as a poet.
Is Peter Solis Nery a capable and competent poet? Five Palanca awards for children’s poetry and tulang pambata should establish that. Fourteen books of poetry could verify that.
Is Peter Solis Nery a consistent poet? The awards and the books would cover that. The more than 2,000 published poems in Panay News and Panay Balita readily reveal that.
Is Peter Solis Nery committed to become the people’s poet, the poet of the masses? Well, I have started becoming it in the newspapers since December, and I’m still here, am I not?
I am a commitment guy. I am a follow through guy. I say it, I claim it, I substantiate it.
So yeah, I’m pretty much the people’s poet! (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
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