Memoir

Alvin Pang

I met Marj in late 2002, at the University of Iowa’s legendary International Writing Program. We were both resident Fellows, and being among the very few from Southeast Asia, were drawn to one another as kindred spirits. Over the ten or so weeks of the residency, a group of writers from Asia, including Marj, myself, Charlson Ong the fiction writer from the Philippines and the Japanese novelist Nori Nakagami, began to spend many hours together. Hankering after proper communal Asian dining in the tiny midwestern enclave of Iowa City, we acquired a stove and other cooking implements and started taking turns to cook and share meals together, finding what space we could in the halls of Iowa House Hotel for our makeshift kitchen. We became for that time a commune, a kind of family. And as families (and writers) do, particularly when far from home, we talked, swapped stories, traded gossip, secrets, dreams, songs. And once the sudden sharp winds of an alien October drove the familiar heat of summer away, this sense of a hearth away from home kept us warm.

This is how a lonely poet from Singapore found a sister.

A sister-poet such as I have not had in my life: whose finespun compositions are woven from the elements of her life and land—air, fire and water; dream, desire and the wisdom of equanimity—yet grounded in a fierce conviction, in the virtues of craft and care; in heritage; in love and blood and the rightdoing will. I remember Marj organizing a writer-led reading outside the bounds of the IWP’s anointed schedule, standing firm against administrative displeasure. Silk masted by metal. A flag held high in the face of the world’s caprice.

To me, Marj is someone who frames time and space to make shelter for others. Who invites and enfolds. Visiting a friend/fan who invited her to stay in Brooklyn, she brought some of us, her IWP kin, along. I have witnessed the care and commitment she has devoted to a younger generation of writers as a teacher, as a director of IYAS, as a mentor and friend—regardless of whether such devotion is requited. Watching her has taught me that this is what a commitment to the craft calls us to do.

Marj is also someone who feeds body and spirit. As a guest to her native Bohol on several special occasions, I have been treated to the most astonishing fare: culinary, cultural, historical, spiritual, affective, effective. Knowing that I would be spending my birthday working hard as a panelist at the Silliman Writers Workshop, she arranged for a dinner in my honor, featuring my favorite Cebuano lechon along with a million other delicacies. Somehow, we devoured it all before daybreak. Caught unexpected between flights in Manila once, I found myself at a table with Marj once again, feasting and laughing; feasting on laughter; aglow.

Like every invitation from Marj, each Marjorie Evasco poem is an event. One that is well-paced and painstakingly crafted. Has healing properties. I have found myself asking for her words from time to time. Once, at a fraught juncture of early parenthood, I came across a photograph of a bird perched lightly on Marj’s succoring arm. The image punctured my despair and brought forth a poem—the one included in this volume. It has since become a mutual favourite of ours and a reminder of the bewitching mystery at work in our kinship over the years, that stems from more than being each other’s company.

I hope in turn that I have been a good brother and fellow poet, comrade, colleague, kin to her. I know it has not been as easy to stay constantly in touch as we would have liked. I would like to think that the weave remains intact and binds us in ways we do not always see or realize at the time. At Wordfeast 2004, a poetry festival I organized in 2004 and to which Marj was my first invitee, the poets sang and recited by the sea, even after the official festival had closed. Marj’s bejeweled words amidst the embroidered grandeur of a vintage Peranakan townhouse home. Sharing a beer on a river cruise in Bohol, Marj holding a beer with her hair let down, beaming. Dolphins in the bay off Dumaguete. Setting off for a meal in London’s Soho after representing our countries at the Poetry Parnassus Olympic event in 2012, and then having to brave the World Cup mob to get back afterward. Her hand clutched tightly to mine. The crimson sunrise at her 60th birthday celebration at Bohol Bee Farm. The moonstruck sheen of her face and hair over Zoom, during a 2022 meeting for the WrICE international research advisory group I chair, and which she so kindly agreed to be part of. Our shared dream of building a community of poets and writers across the Southeast Asian archipelagos, bringing our peoples together as the kin they are, to celebrate life and words. Life through words and what binds us beyond words. The glint in her eye, and the promise of another escapade.

My dear sister, there is time and it is time for our next adventure!

Alvin Pang
Singapore