Dec 27, 2019
Closing out this year with a sensational guest: poet, Nick Carbó! Listen to this episode and discover how Nick's Filipino American literature and poetry anthologies helped catapult Filipino-American poetics. Find out what he's been up to and listen to him read some of his poems!
http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes
You can purchase Secret Asian Man here:
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Asian-Man-Nick-Carbo/dp/1932339639
Some interesting links pertaining to Nick's work!
http://archivio.el-ghibli.org/index.php%3Fid=1&issue=01_05§ion=6&index_pos=5&inlingua=t.html
Nick on NPR:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1667164
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THE BOY IN BLUE SHORTS
The screaming woman on the other
side
Of our tall black gate
Would have thrown a rock at
me
My maid, Rosita, sheltered me from
the insults—
Something about my being
Retarded and full of
worms
The woman nudged her son
forward.
Blue shorts, clean t-shirt, rubber
slippers.
She said her little boy was the
one
Who should have been adopted, he was
healthy.
He looked about my age, four or
five.
We were both silent.
“I want to see the Mr. and the
Mrs.,
they are making a big
mistake!”
Rosita bolted the gate, took me by
the hand—
“those are bad people, don’t listen
to them!”
I felt the crisp whiteness of her
skirt all the way across
The garden back to our
house.
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The next poem was recently scrolled on the big screen in the big U2 and Bono's Joshua Tree concert in Manila in December 2019. They might use the poem in some video in the future.
DIRECTIONS TO MY IMAGINARY
CHILDHOOD
If you stand on the
corner
Of Mabini Street and Legazpi
Avenue,
Wait for an orchid colored
mini-bus
With seven oblong doors,
Open the fourth door—
An oscillating electric
fan
Will be driving, tell her to
proceed
To
the Escolta diamond district—
You will pass Maneng Virays
bar,
La isla de los ladrones book
shop,
The Frederick Funston fish sauce
factory,
And as you turn left into Calle de
los recuerdos,
You will see Breto, Bataille, and
Camus
Seated around a card table
playing
Abecedarian dominoes—
Roll down your window and
ask
Them if Mr. Florante and Miss
Laura
Are home, if the answer is
yes,
Then proceed to Noli Me Tangere
Park,
And wait for a nun named Maria
Clara—
If the answer is “je ne sais pas!”
then turn
Right into the parking lot of
Sikatuna’s
Supermarket to buy a
basketful
Of lanzones fruit, then get
back
To Calle de los Recuerdos until you
reach
The part that’s lined with
tungsten-red
Juan Tamad trees, on the right will
be
A house with an acknowledgements
page
And and index, open the door and
enter
The page and look me in the
eye.
Bio: On the day Nick Carbó (kar-boh) was born on October 10, 1964 in a village beside the sea in the Philippines, the number one song was “Oh Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. One can imagine that riff (cue in Da-na-na, na-na, da-na-na, na-na) following him the rest of his life after being born to a poor peasant family and quickly improving his lot in life when he was adopted by a well-to-do Spanish/Filipino couple at around fifteen months old. Yes, there would be pretty women walking in and out of his life with the first being his adopted mother Sophie who was half Greek and half Filipino/Spanish.