Writing Poetry
March - April 2025
Yellowbelle Duaqui
Poetic Ruminations: The Stories Behind Verses from the Old Pink Tree
As we celebrate World Poetry Day today (March 21, 2025), I reflect on my own poems and my creative process. After all, I just released a print edition of my first poetry book in the Philippines with 8Letters Publishing last January 2025. Titled Verses from the Old Pink Tree: A Filipino Student’s Journey in Japan, this book is a collection of poems on my Japan journey as a graduate student in Tokyo from 2008 to 2011. It also includes poems written out of nostalgia for Japan.
This book won the De La Salle University Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center Poetry Fellowship Grant in English in 2013, during my first year as a faculty member of the university. Although I have always been writing stories and poems since I was a child, I have never really considered myself as a poet. In fact, when I was in college, I became involved in two literary folios (Handumanan and TRIP) produced by the Philippine Collegian, official weekly student publication of the University of the Philippines Diliman between the years 1999 to 2000, not even as a poem contributor but as a business manager who facilitated its release. I have been mostly writing feature articles and sociological research papers at that time.
It must be the beauty of Japan and my curiosity and wanderlust as a first-time international traveler in 2008 that unleashed the poet in me. My brain started to think in terms of literary images and metaphors. And as I commit to writing the metaphors on paper or note them on my mobile phone, verses turned into stanzas and stanzas turned into full-length poems.
Apparently, the experience of traveling and immersing in nature in Japan triggered poetic ruminations in me. After witnessing sunset in Mt. Fuji along the coast of Inamuragasaki on a trip to Kamakura in the Summer of 2010, for instance, the inspiration led me to write a poem called “Sunset at Mount Fuji” after going back to the hotel. The aura of that poetic moment manifests in this stanza:
From the shores of Inamuragasaki
Mount Fuji loomed on the north
Slowly descending behind it
In a burst of colors – the sun
Portraying its drama in hysterics
Of red, gold, orange and yellow streaks
Playing hide and seek
With cotton-candy clouds
-“Sunset at Mount Fuji,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
On a trip to Mount Norikuradake (乗鞍岳) in the summer of 2009, the southernmost and third tallest major peak of the Northern Japan Alps, the breath-taking scenery inspired me to write these lines:
A tranquil pond of emerald waters
Shimmered with the reflection of soft fleece clouds
Along its banks a path of shy flowers
Where elusive animals scuttle and peep from corners
The hanabatake*** was a sight to behold;
- “The Mountain that Touched God’s Face: A Paean to Mount Norikura”, Verses from the
Old Pink Tree
But it wasn’t only encounters with nature that made me write poetry. It was also my personal encounters with Japanese people that inspired a poem. These lines, for instance, that came to me while aboard the Nankai train to Kansai International Airport, were inspired by my encounter with a kind Japanese professor in the university:
The spring wind
Blows to my direction
The warmth of your kindness
-“The Old Pink Tree,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
A nasty encounter with another Japanese professor has led me to document my experience in this poem:
The Sensei** slammed the door shut behind her
Using her body as a barrier
So that I could not enter the room
And she demanded with flashing eyes,
“Why are you late?”
I had nothing to say
Since my head was throbbing
From last night’s headache
Spinning from lack of sleep
After pulling an all-nighter
To write my term papers;
Then I heard her say again,
“So the train was not late.”
I was doomed.
She shut the door in haste
Right before my face.
-“Shinkansen Society”, Verses from the Old Pink Tree
Both pleasant and unpleasant experiences in Japan, hence, have found a place to stay in the pages of my first poetry book. The book also included poems written based on my experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.
Then the black crows came
On its heels the ancient visitor
Bringing waves higher than the built walls
Flooding the towers with sea salt
Boiling hot until it dripped with rage
Molten lava seeping through the seams
The earth was burnt to death.
-“When Sunflowers Can No Longer Heal the Earth”, Verses from the Old Pink Tree
In the end, I wrote about hope. Life might be fraught with difficulties and challenges after my return to the Philippines, but I will always look back to that time of realization in my stay in Japan that, amid life’s rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, hope springs eternally. As one of my poems from the collection suggests:
But the farther you went,
The winds became gentler
Bringing you to the serene waters
and the company of carps
Then the lotus blossom extolled:
“You have sailed.”
-“Lesson from the Lotus Blossom,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
To get a copy of the book, you can follow these links:
Lazada: https://lnkd.in/evwH7PGy
8Letters Website: https://lnkd.in/ee9c_8pz
Gumroad: https://lnkd.in/ebRkeT6q
Kindle: https://lnkd.in/gkPgHcmM