ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Angela Gabrielle Fabunan is a writer from the Philippines. She has authored the poetry collections Young Enough to Play (University of the Philippines Press, 2022) and The Sea That Beckoned (Platypus Press, 2019), and the collection of creative nonfiction Migratory Notes (Vibal Publishing, 2026). Her work has been recognized by the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Poetry, 2016) and the Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio Literary Award (Poetry, 2018). Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Lunch Ticket, Salt Hill Journal, Cordite Poetry and Atlanta Review. At present she teaches creative writing and literature at the Department of English and Literature at Silliman University.
Also by Angela Gabrielle Fabunan:
Migratory Notes
Young Enough to Play
Dedication for the Academic Filipina (Circa 1930s)
August 19, 2026
No Rain But Today
after Julia Alvarez
for Addie de los Santos
I once said drying in the sun
is a fixed destination.
Rethought now to say
it's of a manmade process.
The smoke out north would be black
in this inferno.
The tides, as I adjust the viewfinder,
still do churn.
The photograph arrives:
old boardwalk, young face;
sticky-sweet smell;
sun and sea on metal signposts;
a soot-covered wall;
all the steel hills in silver mills,
your melted sandwich,
and your elementary school.
Inside, the table is set for two
but accommodates four.
I shut my camera off, decide,
nothing here to capture
in this familiar restaurant,
in books that taste of dirt.
But good timing,
the water no one has kissed lately.
As if sun-dried means wine-red,
as if it can be simple.
As if this poem is blue lips
in an old, familiar, famine.
This poem recounts a childhood in central Philippines, in the town of Bacolod City, known for its sugar mills. It is a take on the “other side” of the island of Negros, which divides, through a mountain range, two provinces: the sprawling lands of the northern side, Occidental, and the rocky beaches of the southern side, Oriental, where I now reside. It takes inspiration from “Heroics” by Julia Alvarez, with both poems centered on capturing the precise language of loss.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
