‘Nature can be inspiration for writing,’ says Thomasian writer

Four-time Carlos Palanca awardee and UST alumna Merlinda Bobis said one’s experiences with life and nature can be an inspiration for writing.

“It is all of us looking, composing a story about what we see and living an imprint of story. But through writing about sufferings, witnessing, and making testimony are also taking someone else’s suffering and devastation,” Bobis said during the launching of her book last Sept. 26 at the De La Salle University in Manila.

Her contemplation on nature—from United States, to Bicol, and to her current home in Australia—inspired her poetry collection titled “Accidents of Composition.”

Human beings and the Earth should have a “give and take” relationship which requires everyone’s concern, Bobis said.

“Ecology or the interconnectedness of all beings in the planet is survival. As a specie, if you’re just [a] thinking human being… you won’t survive,” she said.

'Dare not to be indifferent'

The Australia-based writer also urged people not to be indifferent of others’ sufferings and cited the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines as an example.

“I hope that something in us will defy the darkness of the night, the coldness of the ground in outer space and here on Earth that are home-based, because we have the capacity to meet the other with the modicum of respect, civility, and humanity,” she said.

“We have the capacity to meet the stranger, the alien, those who are unlike us, even those we have adjudged as criminals, and those whom we have alleged have broken the law. [But] what do we do? EJK (extra-judicial killings),” she added.

The book includes poems titled “After the Grand Canyon,” “Lucy Afloat,” “After Reming,” “Pied Fantail,” “The Perfect Orchid,” “In our arms,” “Empathy,” “Migrations,” “Outbound”, and “Love is planetary,” which she performed during the launch.