Saturday, March 16, 2024

Karlo Sevilla Books & Stuff‍

This blog post now serves as the official address of my personal Ecwid store, "Karlo Sevilla Books & Stuff." My initial offering is my newly published chapbook, "Figuratively: A Chapbook of Shape Poems" (publication sponsored by Gorilla Printing, 2024; a long but obviously pleasant story and exclusive agreement for yours truly). If you click on the image below, you'll find the product details, so I won't write them here anymore. So just keep clicking and pushing those pads until you successfully make a purchase. Thanks in advance!

And soon, I'll be selling signed copies of my penultimate poetry chapbook, Recumbent (8Letters Bookstore and Publishing). Each copy is signed and will come with a free poetry microchap (also signed), so it will sell at a slightly higher price than the publisher's. And there's really no issue as  the copies I'll sell will be purchased from them anyway. Will keep you posted. 👍



Thursday, February 1, 2024

Muhammad Ali: A hero and legend

Note: As a former journalist, I was assigned in 2016 by my editor in the now-defunct The Philippine Online Chronicles to write about the then recently-departed boxing legend, Muhammad Ali. Unfortunately, the news website soon folded up and this article didn't see the light of day. Today, after almost eight years, I'm sharing what I wrote here in my blog.

(World Journal Tribune photo by Ira Rosenberg.)

While still bearing his birth name Cassius Clay, only once did the teenaged Muhammad Ali get into trouble at Louisville’s Central High School. It was when he also showed accuracy with a snowball, hitting a teacher with it and getting summoned by the disciplinary board. After expressing his sincere apology, he calmly declared to the three-man board that he was on his way to becoming boxing’s heavyweight champion of the world. He might as well have prophesied then that he would be esteemed as The Greatest.

Born January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky and named Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. after his father, Ali’s life in boxing began 12 years later when his bicycle was stolen. The adolescent momentarily left his Schwinn bike at a street corner in Louisville, Kentucky to indulge on free popcorn offered by the yearly Home Show. When he came back, his ride was gone.

Upon learning that there was a police officer at a nearby gym, the distraught black boy ran toward it and was enthralled by the sight of boys – black and white – training in boxing. It turned out that the police officer was off-duty, a white man named Joe Martin who also coached in boxing.

An infuriated Ali reported, “Somebody stole my bike…when I find him, I’m gonna whup him, I’m gonna.” Martin asked, “Do you know how to box?”

Ali never recovered his bike, but he discovered a sport. Under Martin, his journey in mastering and innovating boxing, and becoming the world’s unparalleled icon of the sport, began.

For much of the second half of the 20th century until his passing last June 3, 2016 at age 74, people all over the world knew and revered two living Alis: the courageous and talented fighter inside the ring, and the loud, witty and handsome spokesperson against social injustice and inequality outside of it.

The following are the most significant highlights, the wins and losses, of The Greatest -- within and without the ring:

Olympic gold. Muhammad Ali won the gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics as athlete of the US Olympic boxing team, beating  Zbigniew Pietrzkowski of Poland for the championship.

Twin victories over the fearsome Sonny Liston. After breezing through 17 professional fights, Ali finally signed the dotted line to challenge for the heavy-hitting reigning champion Liston. The odds were 7-1 in favor of the champ. With his superior hand speed and footwork, Ali battered Liston into submission, who refused to rise from his stool for the seventh round. Thus, the 22-year-old Ali was officially crowned as the new heavyweight king.

Fifteen months later, Ali defended his title in quicker and more decisive fashion, disposing of the man he wrested the belt from in less than two minutes via the famous (or infamous) “phantom punch”.

Stopping former champ Floyd Patterson. For the scheduled 15-round match, Ali effectively landed his jabs on the game but devastatingly overmatched Patterson, until the referee mercifully stopped the carnage in the 12th. (He beat Patterson again, via knockout, in a rematch years later.)

The Trilogy versus Smokin’ Joe Frazier, culminating in the Thrilla in Manila. Regaining his boxing license in 1970 – three-and-a-half (athletically) inactive years after losing it along with his belt as punishments for his controversial refusal to be conscripted in the US military during the War in Vietnam – Ali was set to face Frazier, who was then his successor as the heavyweight champion.

Abandoning his erstwhile signature fleet-footed style, Ali chose to square and bang with the formidable banger Frazier. In the 15th round of the grueling and gruesome affair, the defending champion knocked Ali down, who got up and lost via unanimous decision.

In the rematch, Ali turned the tables on Frazier; this time, he won the 12-round unanimous decision.

Finally, the 1975 Thrilla in Manila: regarded as one of the best fights of all time. It was a hard-fought 14 rounds of give-and-take, with Frazier’s trainer Eddie Futch ultimately waiving off his battered boxer from fighting for the 15th and ultimate round. The likewise severely-punished Ali, after emerging victorious, claimed that he himself was on the verge of quitting, and that going through that fight was the closest thing to death.

Rumble in the Jungle versus Big George Foreman. In 1974, a year before his third and final fight versus Frazier, Ali was again the underdog.  This time, he was pitted against the man who was generally considered as his most formidable opponent: the unstoppable reigning champion Foreman who previously knocked down another juggernaut in Frazier -- six times until their match was stopped in the second round, grabbing the latter’s title.

Using the “rope-a-dope strategy” – leaning against the ropes while covering and defending with his flexed arms, frustrating and wearying Foreman who eventually outpunched himself – he finally knocked out the heavy favorite with five consecutive unanswered bombs in the eighth.

His last losses. Ali lost his title to Leon Spinks in 1978, in what was then popularly deemed as an upset by boxing fans. Ali regained his title seven months later, which made him the first to win the heavyweight belt three times. Hence, the obviously fading boxing great “retired” for the first time.

Tragically, and allegedly largely due to promoter Don King’s self-serving pecuniary machinations, an undeniably withered Ali donned his gloves two more times, and lost to Larry Holmes (1980) then to Trevor Berbick (1981) in consecutive sorry displays of lost power and virtuosity inside the ring.

The Greatest ended his pugilistic career with a 56-5 win-loss record, including his defeat to Ken Norton in 1973, who dealt him a broken jaw. (Ali faced Norton two more times, winning both rematches.)

Ali vis-à-vis the burning issues of the US-Vietnam War, race, and religion.

“I ain’t got nothing against them Viet Cong.” Ali’s powerful statement on his refusal to be drafted to serve the US armed forces in the US-Vietnam war was part principled defiance based on his religious beliefs as a Muslim along with his opposition to what that war stood for, and part exasperation after being grilled non-stop by reporters on the issue.

According to Robert Lipsyte in his cover article on Ali (for the June 20, 2016 commemorative issue of TIME Magazine), on that particular day, news truck after news truck arrived at Ali’s rented bungalow in Miami from afternoon to dusk. And, reporter after reporter, every newcomer, pressed the champion for his thoughts “about the Viet Cong.” The nth and final time he was asked, he finally snapped with that immortal line of protest.

On another occasion, Ali asked, “What can you give me, America, for turning down my religion? You want me to do what the white man says and go fight a war against some people I don’t know nothing about, get some freedom for some other people when my own can’t get theirs here?” (Seven years earlier, immediately after winning Olympic gold, a segregated restaurant in his very hometown refused to serve him.)  

In 1967, as a consequence of his draft refusal, boxing commissioners stripped him of his championship belt and denied him his license to fight. Then, a jury hastily convicted him of draft evasion.

His conversion to Islam came the morning after beating Liston in their first encounter in 1964. Exercising his religious freedom, Ali confirmed membership in the Nation of Islam.

Ali, writes Lipsyte in his abovementioned piece, “was turning his back on mainstream religion, politics and commerce. He was making a powerful statement in the turbulent 1960s as race riots swept cities, voter-registration workers were attacked and murdered … and the Vietnam War was expanding … Ali was now seen as an outspoken agent of change.”

In 1970, a federal court ordered the New York State Athletic Commission to give Ali his license to fight. And, the following year, the US Supreme Court reversed his conviction.

Ali and Parkinson’s disease.

When Ali died, he had long been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The disease rendered his once voluble speech barely audible, and shaking involuntarily as with the rest of his once agile body. This debilitating condition had already shown its signs in the legend even before his last fight in 1981. (No conclusive findings showed that Ali developed the disease due to getting repeatedly struck in the head, though there is data that repeated brain trauma makes one more likely to suffer from Parkinson’s.)

The legacy of The Greatest.

Unlike the Filipino loving legend Manny Pacquiao, Ali didn’t seek any elective political office, though in 1979 he played the role of a senator in post-Civil War USA in a TV miniseries. He didn’t become a congressman, but his influence led to the enactment of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, a federal law that primarily seeks to protect the rights and welfare of boxers.

To quote his fellow Muslim and black sports legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “Out of the ring, he was a champion of justice. Had Muhammad allowed himself to be drafted, he would have never faced combat and would have still earned his millions. Instead, he would face the punishment for his convictions alone. He willingly stood up for us (African Americans) whenever and wherever bigotry or injustice arose, without regard for the personal cost. I and millions of Americans black and white…have been better off because of him.”

Indeed, the USA and the rest of the world are better off because of the struggles and sacrifices of heroes like Muhammad Ali.

*Note: All quotes are originally from the TIME Magazine commemorative issue of June 20, 2016, from the articles “Muhammad Ali became a big brother to me – and to all African Americans” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and “Ali: Champion. Outcast. Hero. Legend.” By Robert Lipsyte.

 

 



Friday, January 19, 2024

Ang Hinaing ng Nanalo sa Lotto

 


"Ano ngayon kung wala akong anino?! Pilipino pa rin ako! Kahit silipin niyo pa ang birth certificate at voter's ID ko! May karapatan din akong yumaman at manalo nito!" giit niya. At pagkatapos niyang kamayan ang opisyal sabay klik ng kamera ng photographer, daglian siyang nag-anyong pusa at lumundag palabas ng bintana ng opisinang dinayo niya, kagat-kagat ang tseke.



Thursday, January 11, 2024

Paggamit ng Landline Vs. Cellphone sa Larangan ng Pag-ibig

Mas maraming kabataan ngayon na may karelasyon o nanliligaw o nililigawan ang napupuyat – lalo na yung may mga sariling kwarto sa bahay.

Gamit ang cellphone sa kama, kahit hanggang madaling araw pwedeng makipag-usap o PM o text sa iniibig o mangingibig – nang di nasasaway ng magulang.
Eh noong panahon namin, sa tingin niyo ba pwede naming bitbitin hanggang kwarto yung landline na kadalasan nasa sala at nakakonekta ang kable sa dingding? At magtext?
Bale nakaupo ka lang sa sala para magtelebabad. At awkward mag-sweet nothings nang may ibang nakakarinig kaya pabulong ka lang. Tapos pag-ayaw ng magulang mo sa kausap mo, bubulyawan ka pa ng, “Sino na naman iyang kausap mo?! Si Pedro na naman iyan, ano?! Ibaba mo na iyang telepono at matulog ka na!”
Kaya bubulungan mo ang kausap mo, “Andito na si tatay. Bye.” At pagbaba ng receiver, sasabihin mo sa tatay mo, “Kaklase ko lang po. May school project kami.” (Pwede mo ring sabihin na, “Wrong number po,” kahit tatlong oras mo nang kausap.)
At dahil nga ayaw ng mga magulang mo, sasamantalahin mo kung kelan nasa trabaho sila. Eh minsan ginagamit pa ng party line . . .
Pero may isang bentahe ang landline sa smartphone: Pag galit kami sa kausap namin (kunwari dahil sa selos, ahem) pwede namin siyang murahin tapos babagsakan ng telepono. Ibig sabihin, ihahampas namin yung receiver sa plunger! Ngayon, sige nga, kaya niyong ihampas yung smartphone niyo sa galit? Eh kung iPhone?


(Ang nilalaman ng post na ito ay unang kong ibinahagi dito sa Facebook.)


Saturday, November 11, 2023

Ericson Acosta: Mga Pira-Pirasong Alaalang Nakakatawa’t Nakakatuwa Noong Dekada Nobenta

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(Ang makata at aktibista na si Ericson Acosta, pinaslang noong ika-30 ng Nobyembre, Araw ni Bonifacio, 2022, edad 50.)

  1. May rally sa Elliptical Road, unang bahagi ng dekada nobenta. Maglalakad kami, tatakbo . . . at ang kanyang chant (in swardspeak): “Jogging, jogging, bayan ko! Jogging ngayon ang laban mo!”
  2. Gabi, konsiyerto para sa UP Fair sa Sunken Garden. Pwede pang uminom noon ng beer at alak. Ang stage ay malapit sa Grandstand. Kami naman ay malayo-layo, sa bandang malapit na sa Main Library. Tisoy ang bokalista ng bandang noo’y tumutugtog. Aniya ni Ericson, “Atenista ‘yan, eh. Atenista . . .”
  3. Sa tambayan ng Amnesty International, hawak ni Ericson ang pinakabagong kopya ng Kule na kung saan siya may sinulat na artikulo tungkol sa sining biswal. May kuro-kuro siya patungkol kay Roberto "Bobby" Rodríguez Chabet, na tinuturing “father of Philippine conceptual art” at noo’y nagtuturo sa College of Fine Arts. Pasimula ni Ericson, “May iconoclast dyan sa Fine Arts, eh . . .” (Eniweys, di niya trip si Chabet at/o ang mga ideya nito.)
  4. "Lagi akong napagkakamalang Koreano!"
  5. Nakasabay namin ng kaibigan ko si Ericson sa dyip na biyaheng Katipunan pabalik ng UP, pagkagaling namin sa National Bookstore. Naupo siya sa dulo sa bandang labasan ng dyip. Balisa siya. Sa parte ng kalsada sa harap ng Miriam College, sabi niya, late na raw siya sa rehearsal sa teatro. Medyo trapik, tapos lumiko pa ang dyip pakanan papasok sa gasolinahan ng Petron. Napamura si Ericson, “Putang-ina! Magpapa-gas pa! Magta-taxi na ako!” Tumalon siya sa dyip at sa Katipunan, kinukumpas ang kamay sa pagtawag ng taxi.

    6. Ito kuwento ng photographer at co-staffer ni Ericson sa Kule (na nakalimutan ko na ang pangalan):

Ericson: Hirap na hirap na ako maging pogi. 

Isang kasama nila: Naiintindihan kita.

Ericson: Hinde! Hindi mo ako naiintindihan! Maiintindihan mo lang ako kung tunay ka ring pogi!

      7. Cultural Night at nakapalibot sa may hardin sa harapan ng Faculty Center ang mga kasalo.                       Nakaupo si Ericson sa damo at kumakanta’t naggigitara. Parang hinaharanahan niya ang isang      babaeng co-staffer niya sa Kule habang nanonood ang boypren nito na napapangiti na lang.

      8. Nakaupo sa ugat ng puno ng akasya sa Sunken Garden, sa bahaging malapit sa Vinzons at Eduk.            Tinanong niya kami sa modulated na boses, “Naranasan niyo na bang (dramatic pause) . . .                      umibig”?

      9. Huling bahagi ng dekada nobenta, gabi ng UP Fair ulit. May booth ang organisasyon na tinatag              ko: nagbebenta ng mga t-shirt at kung ano-ano pang mga paraphernalia. May t-shirt ni Che                      Guevarra at Mao Zedong, atbp. (kahit na hindi Maoista ang grupo namin). Para sa pagkalap ng                pondo. Napadaan si Ericson, at bumili ng isang Mao t-shirt. Kalahati lang muna ang binayaran.            (P150 ata sa presyong P300.) Hindi na rin nasingil ang balanse, pero lubusang higit pa ang binayad           mo, Ericson, sa pagbuwis mo ng buhay para sa bayan – sang-ayon man ako o hindi sa iyong                  napiling paraan para sa progresibong pagbabago ng ating lipunan. (Sana nga “jogging” lang ang              laban ng ating abang bayan.)

Maraming salamat sa mga alaala, Ericson. At maaaring magkampeon ang parehong koponan ng basketbol ng UP Fighting Maroons, men’s and women’s, nitong UAAP Season 86! Sakaling may bonfire, pipilitin kong dumalo. Pipilitin maging kasing-saya ng kasalukuyang henerasyon ng mga Isko’t Iska sa isa na namang gabi sa Sunken Garden.



(Photo credits:

First photo, of Petron Katipunan Square, from Eric Martinez PHSecond and last photo, of Sunken Garden, from Jules Bañgate.)

 


Sunday, August 13, 2023

"Recumbent," my new poetry collection from 8Letters Bookstore and Publishing, is now available!


From Bob MacKenzie, author of unbroken and on edge:

The poems in Karlo Sevilla’s Recumbent can seem an arbitrary selection without a particular theme.  Here we can find vignettes of family life, dreamlike sequences, vivid images of street violence and political murder, even fully surreal poems and surreal images secreted in others.  A surface reading cannot adequately reveal a consistent theme which may run through these poems.  There’s something else going on here, a barely hidden backdrop to the tales Sevilla brings to the table.  The poet suggests a deeper and darker theme when he writes “I’m here fallen / where even shadows / dare not fall.”

This collection of poems is an illusion, a trick of the eye and the heart by a clever magician.  At surface, the poems here may appear to tell simple tales of home life and family, uncomplicated slices of the poet’s personal life.  But something else is here, just below the surface.  Karlo Sevilla hints at this subtext in his epigraph, a self-written type of subtitle: these are, he says, “poems about and from the body laid or lying on any surface–steady or unsteady, dead or alive.”  This theme is repeated and enhanced in poems throughout this collection.  Sevilla’s poems are less about the hard-copy world we inhabit than a sense of the absolute Silence through which we all move from birth to death.  In a poem describing a man tortured and dying, the poet writes that the man “ never squealed; / not another’s whereabouts compromised / nor a single real name revealed.”  In his poetry, Karlo Sevilla walks a thin line between our mundane lives and another, darker place where, his narrator says, “it’s  the light that makes the shadows” but his young daughter “shakes her head, ‘It’s the dark.’”  It’s along this subtle line that we will see the magic in Sevilla’s poetry.  In the world Karlo Sevilla describes in his poems, each of our lives includes a place of shadows where our secrets hide in the Silence.

 

(Image from the publisher's Facebook post.)

August 25, 2023 UPDATE: I am sad to share that Bob Mackenzie passed away about two days ago. He has been a peer of mine in Rat's Ass Review's online poetry workshop, and has been one of the most exacting and helpful in giving valuable feedback to the poems forged in that crucible. We'll miss him badly. And I also deeply appreciate that my book's publisher, just this morning, kindly decided to reedit its manuscript to make Bob's review as the introduction to my book. Rest in peace, Bob. This one's for you.

International orders here: https://m.facebook.com/8lettersbooks?mibextid=ZbWKwL. (If you have any questions about ordering, please send a private message to the administrator.)






 


 

Monday, July 31, 2023

One-Minute Hirit 24: Pinagtataguan Kayo Ngayon ni BBM?! Eh Matagal Nang ...


Mula sa description box:
Sa totoo lang, maliban sa mga atraso ng mga Marcos sa kasaysayan ng ating bayan hanggang sa kasalukuyan, yung mismong pag-iwas ni BBM sa mga debate noong kampanya ay RED FLAG na! Isipin mo, tumatakbong pagka-presidente tapos umiiwas sa mga debate! Masamang precedent at ehemplo! Ni di na nga ako magtataka kung may mga bata sa elementarya na tatakbo para sa student council nila, tapos iiwas sa debate at idadahilan, “Eh presidente nga ng ating bayan, umiwas sa debate, ako pa kaya?” (Mabuti pa si Ka Leody de Guzman, nagpakita at nakipagtagisan ng talino sa lahat ng debate noon . . . Ang imahe sa thumbnail ay mula sa balita ng Philippine Daily Inquirer, "Bongbong Marcos shuns Comelec debates, cites 'preferred mode of communication with people," ni Neil Arwin Mercado, ika-14 ng Marso, 2022.)