Tag: November 30, 2010

I WAS NOT yet a fan of poetry when I entered college, and so I got only acquainted with the name Ophelia Dimalanta when I shifted to AB Journalism in 2007.

I could not recall the first time I read her name, was it in a Varsitarian article? Or was it during my encounter with LIT102? I could hardly remember.

After being quite intrigued by her poem “Finder Loser,” I tried google-ing her name to know more about her profile (I often do such when I encounter a writer that put me in amazement, like when I chanced upon Jessica Hagedorn’s Leopard and Ronald Baytan’s poems), and so I found out that she was once a former Faculty of Arts and Letters dean.

OUT OF a whim, I sent a rather “dramatic” message to some of my blockmates via Facebook. I told them to reach me through text or e-mail and not through the social networking site, where most of the class (and personal life) updates were posted. I haven’t accessed my account for almost a week when this happened, and maybe my drama queen tendency kicked in because I haven’t been “in the know.” I ended the short note with: “I’m lonely, and Facebook only makes it worse.”

One of them immediately sent me a text message, asking me what was wrong. I replied “Wala naman,” which I followed with a tirade of how sad it is that Facebook seemed to have robbed us the human touch.

IT WAS, undoubtedly, my first and last encounter with the Lady Polyester.

While on the lookout for a credible source for my last column regarding Thomasian Palanca winners and the defunct Center for Creative Writing and Studies (CCWS), I chanced upon an abrupt interview with Dr. Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, the University’s then writer-in-residence who was affectionately called “Ma’am Ophie.”

Greeting me with a warm smile, she beckoned me to a seat next to her paperwork-laden table. Perched on top was the laudable title bestowed on her by the Rector, emblazoned on a white plaque with her name inscribed above it.

A COUPLE of weeks ago, I opened my Facebook account and received a notification containing a link from my fellow Varsitarian editor, so I went to the link and saw Carlos Celdran’s profile.

For those who were born yesterday, Celdran was the Intramuros tourist guide who interrupted a Mass at the Manila Cathedral last October 1. He brought with him a placard with “Damaso” written over it, and shouted: “Stop getting involved in politics” in reference to the Church’s staunch opposition against the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

The Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta that I met as an undergraduate in that small college that lives on in literary legend as “Philets” had a formidable reputation as a poet even then. Trying to describe it to me, a male classmate said: “Let’s put it this way, she’s UST’s answer to UP’s Virginia Moreno.”

I had wonderful literary mentors in Philets, and all of them were women: Erlinda Francia Rustia, Piedad Guinto Rosales, Josephine Bass Serrano. The best of them all I met when I entered the graduate school, Dr. Carolina Garcia.

Ophie was not as dramatic and striking as Linda Rustia, or as quick and humorous as Pity Rosales, or as motherly and effusive as Josephine Serrano. She was quiet, low-key… even reclusive.

AN AUSTRALIAN writer once wrote that in order to have words in one’s funeral, one needs life in life. For the interment of renowned poetess and mentor Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, words came easy as people who loved her dearly remembered the vivacious character that she was.

On her last “homecoming” in the University, fellow writers and teachers gathered at the UST Santisimo Rosario Parish Church to share their memories of the Love Woman, as goes the title of one of her poetry collections.

Among the writers

A MAN clad in black stepped up on the podium with his laptop in hand and began with a declaration that the other people who spoke before him couldn’t make.

“I am Al, and I am the son of Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta,” he said.

It was on a Tuesday morning when former students and colleagues, and friends, paid tribute to Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, one of the most important women writers of the country, through words and songs

“I was never more proud to say this than today,” he added.

OPHELIA Alcantara-Dimalanta’s much celebrated reputation as a poet is summed up in the Ophelia A. Dimalanta Reader: Selected Poetry (UST Publishing House, 2004). But the critical consensus on her work as a poet is contained in the second volume of the reader, Selected Prose, published in 2006, which contains prose works by her and by her critics and supporters.

In the second volume, noted poet Cirilo Bautista describes her as “without exception, the best woman poet in the country.” The acclaim is well-earned, but comes despite the fact that her poems, according to Bautista, is “difficult to like at first reading.”

THE LOVE Woman of UST serenaded her readers with her captivating poetry, taught literary aspirants to go with the flow of imagery and emotions, and mothered a great number of famous literary artists in the country.

But the root of all her poetic prowess and the occasional flirting of deep emotions were once attributed to her stay in the Varsitarian.

Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta, who passed away last November 4, once wrote for and edited UST’s student paper.

During her first year at the old Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (now Arts and Letters), she joined the esteemed publication and first became a Literary section writer in the summer of 1951.

WORDS of adulation for Ophelia Dimalanta immediately flooded the cyber space as the news on the demise of UST’s greatest woman poet came out.

According to Al Dimalanta, son of the late poetess, the number of fans in the “We Love Ophelia Dimalanta” page surged from around 300 to over 800 overnight, just as the news of his mother’s death started spreading online. The fan page now has over 1, 300 “likes.”

The page looked like a “freedom wall”, where family, friends, former students, colleagues, and other Thomasians aired their admiration and gratitude for “Ophie”.

“Thank you, Dean Ophelia A. Dimalanta for teaching us form and substance,” wrote Christian Dimaandal. “You were a shining example of both.”