Culture and Arts Notebook

On humanism and spirituality     As a student in an all-girls Catholic school, we all went to Mass every Friday. After communion, the priest encouraged us to pray for our intentions before ending the mass with a “going away…

Fil-Hispanic Literature     Hola Karinita, I finished an article in Spanish for Revista Filipina—a digital journal on Hispanic Filipino literature, culture with an academic bent.  It’s on Adelina Gurrea’s book of short stories that are marvelous, Cuentos de Juana. …

A Poem and a Backstory       When the duende awakens, Sends a signal from deep within, From faraway.   When the duende arises, Sings a melody– crisp and clear, From high above.   When the duende alights, Swells…

POEM     It is midnight. Inside an Igorot hut.   Round and dark and empty Just a platform suspended above.   We climb up and lay down.   You and I, side by side, supine. Suspended in midair. Eyes…

MEDIA       Geneva/Guwahati: Expressing serious concerns over the latest crisis faced by the people of Myanmar (formerly Burma) due to the Covid-19 pandemic under a military regime in NayPieTaw, the Switzerland based global media rights body ‘Press Emblem…

POEM     The sun will rise and set this day The sap will flow unseen to clothe the coffee bark of stark and wintry trees anew a primorous virgin green And I shall flow with morning, afternoon and twilight…

BOOK REVIEW     The world is on fire like never before: “Wildfires Have Erupted Across the Globe Scorching Places That Rarely Burned Before” (CNN headlines July 22, 2021) but not only is fire raging, Biblical floods are destroying entire…

TELEVISION FICTION/BROADCAST MEDIA       by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury In 1939, the Nazi regime in Germany under the command of nefarious Adolf Hitler carried out a program called the T4, euthanizing hundreds of thousands of people with autism,…

POEM       Wax and wane days weeks whoosh by I am seasons a door ajar   last year’s grass cut soon overgrown my young cats here a decade old   birdsong evening blooms   incense wafts Oropel by…

ESSAY       By Mona Gonzalez We must safeguard the web of life and care about the other living species that we share this planet with. Pygmy tarsiers eat and host bugs that we’ve seen at home — insects,…