I grew up with the names of writers scanned from the covers and spines of the books in our library. Like a hesitant fanatic, I would petrify when introduced to a face that matched a name in my mind’s eye. More known to me were the members of the literary group called the “Ravens”—a strange assembly of poets and prose writers brought together by the poet, and only female member of the group, Virgie Moreno—their presence during my childhood all too familiar, especially during holidays, birthdays and whatever occasion Moreno would fancy to celebrate. I was aware that their monicker was in deference to the master of suspense, Edgar Allan Poe; Andres Cristobal Cruz, noting the bird’s presence in Philippine art and literature, assigns, too, the quality of immortality to the writer/artist and announces “I’m a Raven, evermore!” But it was, I suspect, more of a tribute to Poe’s legendary state of inebriation whenever he wrote, a ritual all the male writers emulated with pleasure.

The other Ravens, prefixed with the title of “Tito” as warranted by Filipino filial affection, were Boni, Raul, Larry (also ninong), Rony, Romy, Nick, Pic, Danny and Elmer. Although all are immortal in their works, the four who still carry the flesh—Virgie, Rony, Elmer and Raul—are hopefully busy with their obras (Rony Diaz had just published the first of a remarkable trilogy) for another Raven collection.

I would later in my teens meet more writers and soon-to-be-published writers, but it was the circle of female legends—reputedly more complex characters, and sadly, fewer—that I was eager to meet. “Not every writer will be your friend” my father told me a long time ago, “but the women will always be kind.” He must have been referring to the writer’s world of his generation, because women in other fields of art can be vicious to their own gender.

I have now fixed in my heart the names of Chitang, Estrell, Liwayway and Gilda, women who stayed above the petty squabbles of literature and continued their art as well, and oftentimes better, than their male counterparts.

My misfortune, however, is that I had never gone under the famed scalpels of poet Edith Tiempo and essayist Kerima Polotan-Tuvera. They were names, and there were stories, but never a face to them. I had counted too much on serendipity and missed out on a certainty.

My first encounter with Dame Edith was through a poem by a Dumaguete workshop participant. He wrote beautifully of chocolate hills and showed me the magical air of poetry, but I wanted more of Edith. My closest encounter with Edith was during a trip to Dumaguete to visit friends; a workshop was going on and I was but a few miles away but my writer-friends never thought of inviting me to the sanctum. Ah, not every writer...I then made a promise to myself that if I had the resources and the courage, I would introduce myself to Edith and tell her that Chekhov’s admonition Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass could have well come from her lips and would she please show me how? As it is, I will have to content myself with—It’s utter sublimation/ A feat, this heart’s control/ Moment to moment/ To scale all love down/ To a cupped hand’s size—to ruminate over, and over.

While lamenting the loss, mine and of Philippine literature, I picked up Kerima’s collection of essays to reread and was reacquainted with another time in Philippine letters. I was drawn to her more acerbic essays in the collection Derelict Thoughts Between Coming and Going, chuckling at her razor-edged remarks about government officials months before the declaration of Martial Law and a year after. They are not only wonderfully executed parodies but a picture of sociopolitical culture that bears comparison with the sociopolitical culture of today. Kerima’s portrait of arrogance stems from a political culture of corruption and deception; today’s arrogance swells from a wrong sense of righteousness. Kerima’s essays are history, to say the least, that should be read and examined by any serious modern historiographer and sociologist.

The introduction to the collection is just as vivid and exacting: For Kerima, gentleness and skepticism, respectively, make the best of the world of the past and the present which she calls “civilization.” The nostalgia is healthy because it does not spare us; it gives us the ability to feel our hurt, which is the measure of how deeply (or sparsely) alive we are; it invites us to be vulnerable in order to own and recognize our landscape....”

Serendipity has shown me a face. The introduction was written by Edith.