Philippine E-Journals

Visceral Blend of the Physical and Spiritual: Marjorie Evasco’s Ochre Tones: Poems in English and Cebuano

Wong Ming Yook

Discipline: Literature

 

Abstract:

Ochre Tones: Poems in English and Cebuano

Marjorie M. Evasco

Salimbayan Books. 1999

118 pages

 

Ochre Tones is Marjorie Evasco's second collection of poems, the first being Dreamweavers (1986), which she calls a "book of origins." That being so, Ochre Tones is a "book of changes." for in it, Evasco finds herself longing to write in her native tongue, Bisaya. The desire for change came as a result of a writing residency in Scotland, four years after the publication of Dreamweavers. The poet-in-exile deals with her exile from her mother tongue. The journey that she takes which leads her finally to such an attempt begins at that point in Scotland, and reaches across half a world to the borders of the seaside town of Boljoon, Cebu. It is there at a Writers' Workshop that Evasco finds the creative link and atmosphere to write in Binisayi.