Angela Manalang Gloria
(ca. 1915 - 1996)
"Lyric poet, pianist, and editor, had her roots in Guagua, Pampanga, but her ancestors went to Albay and prospered. When she was about eight years old, she became fascinated with books, read avidly, and in consequence her eyesight was seriously impaired. She loved music (played the piano very well), nature and things dainty and beautiful.
She started her early schooling with the Benedictine Sisters in Albay, and in Manila continued under the tutelage of the same religious order. She then transferred to another girls' school, Sta. Scholastica, and graduated salutatorian in 1925. In school she continued pursuing her interest in music in hopes of becoming a great pianist. After graduation from high school she proceeded to UP and started taking pre-law subjects, at the same time going into painting. C. V. Vicker, a member of the UP faculty, noticed her creative work and advised her to change her program of study. She shifted her course to the liberal arts and graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy in 1929.
In UP she worked with the Philippine Collegian as a literary editor, with Celedonio P. Gloria as editor-in-chief. Their friendship culminated in marriage. Subsequently, her husband, who finished the LL.B. in UP, went into law practice. She became editor of the Herald Mid-Week Magazine but had to resign six months later because of poor health. WWII came and her husband died. Her creative writing gradually diminished.
From the idealist that she was when younger, she emerged a pragmatist, a practical woman reshaped by the realities of life. She had found that life is not all love, that love is not the only way to one's goal. She realized that this world is "circumferenced with lucre/ within a coin of brass." She plunged into business and traveled and prospered. But Philippine literature lost her.
Poems (1940) was, in 1987, the only partial collection of her notable poems. She is essentially a lyric poet voicing her moods and desires in musical, singing stanzas. She finds standard rime and rhythm adequate to her needs. The music in her sonnets is "sweeter and more tender [and more melodious] than Tarrosa's" (Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido), wrote a commentator, but the two lack the verve and exuberance and vitality of that love in the sonnets of Torribia Maño."
Filipino Writers in English by Florentino B. Valeros and Estrellita V. Gruenberg, New Day Publishers, Quezon City, 1987. JANUARY 14, 2009
http://pinoylit.webmanila.com/filipinowriters/amgloria.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment