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elsewhere held and lingered
elsewhere held and lingered is Conchitina Cruz’s third book, following Disappear (High Chair, 2004), and Dark Hours (UP Press, 2005), which won the National Book Award for Poetry. A recipient of Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation grants, Cruz teaches creative writing and literature at UP Diliman.
- GenresPoetry
81 pages
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Conchitina R. Cruz
9 books62 followersConchitina R. Cruz is Professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman. She received her PhD in English from State University of New York (SUNY) Albany.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
November 13, 2021
overall, from the construction of every poem down to its theme, this book gracefully set the tone of grief and betrayal. it's not explicit; it's not like a full-blown poetry book that simply narrates heartbreak. every line has some semblance of longing, of affection. it's so vulnerable in a subtlest way possible, as though the narrator is so far out in the reality, that the poems are twinned with such detachment.
when i was reading the second half of the book, i was at first confused as to why the poems are written on the footnotes, until i realized the writer is making these experiences her point of reference. the first two parts tells us that there is an affair going on, the second is accepting the fact that the relationship is bound to meet its due, the last is living in an echo—reeling from the separation, living out the process of starting again—although that is also to say that there's also the hesitancy present in all those parts—a stubbornness to hold onto the relationship, making excuses to accept the situation, as if cheating can be saved by submitting to the fact that at least, he comes home to you. at least you know.
like i said, the mood of this book has been set from the beginning like you are already grieving. like you are just walking in a memory lane, remembering what have transpired.
at least that's how interpret this.
when i was reading the second half of the book, i was at first confused as to why the poems are written on the footnotes, until i realized the writer is making these experiences her point of reference. the first two parts tells us that there is an affair going on, the second is accepting the fact that the relationship is bound to meet its due, the last is living in an echo—reeling from the separation, living out the process of starting again—although that is also to say that there's also the hesitancy present in all those parts—a stubbornness to hold onto the relationship, making excuses to accept the situation, as if cheating can be saved by submitting to the fact that at least, he comes home to you. at least you know.
like i said, the mood of this book has been set from the beginning like you are already grieving. like you are just walking in a memory lane, remembering what have transpired.
at least that's how interpret this.
January 5, 2020
Cruz's gorgeous words and lyricism, and her singular way of writing her poetry were the two remarkable qualities of this book. But it's the theme and story of 'elsewhere held and lingered' that made me gasp, squirm on my seat, and utterly scandalized. It also made this unforgettable. How could she write so beautifully about something bordering on immoral?
August 25, 2025
Conchitina Cruz’s elsewhere held and lingered is a practice in reserved vulnerability. How much can you confess without saying anything identifiable at all? The answer is a loosely-connected series of poems that charts the lifecycle of an affair.
Many of the poems are about peripheral objects existing around the central relationships. Most definitely, there is The Marriage, (perhaps the most certain thing, considering its privilege of being the first poem). With concrete elements already feeling distant, the gap becomes multiplied by the largeness of space. Space splashing variably among the stanzas: the rhythmic indentations, the confusing enjambments, the multi-page centered blankness. Both Points and Spaces stand to represent the affair, collectively addressed once as a ‘constellation’ in Inventory of a year:
More interestingly to me, there are the things that show themselves as concepts in words and eventually take shape in structure of those words (margins as said in Inventory of a Year, then as used Marginalia), or vice versa (multiple choice questions as used in Multiple choice, then as said in Inventory of a Year). These instances echoing at each other across the book holds the collection together. Their understated quality inadvertently is the feature that stands out.
This poetry book is an artifact of the speaker’s affair. And like its other artifacts, the poems’ vaporous and insubstantial renders is an imposition by its illicit nature:
As we pace through the poems and the speaker’s journey, we can see that there is a private, internal vocabulary between the speaker and her lover that the reader can never be fully privy to. (pg 39, this hand). Titles like “versions of elsewhere” and “versions of delays” (where are these other versions). And the last poem being a directory of last sentences with page counts to a book we don’t know where from. At first, it's frustrating. Why sit me down about this when you’re just going to box me out?
But again, that is the paradox of the relationship.
With this limitation, the speaker’s desire to relive this love works with points around the relationship, trying to capture its essence by triangulation:
Admiring the affair’s impact on elsewhere held and lingered’s physiology—specifically, for being an extraordinarily potent case of content shaping form—came second to my enjoyment of the poetry itself.
The highs and lows of forbidden desire and marital betrayal opens up a lot of titillating material, and Cruz’s poetry really lets you roll around in it. The thrill of elaborate rituals for clandestine meet ups, the drama of catholic guilt, the pain of regular guilt, the paradoxical jealousy and the comfort of routine are just some of the various high-octane emotions that elsewhere held and lingered explores. While the affair’s illicit nature still maintains its chokehold on the speaker when she narrates this journey, what little detail comes through still gives a strong sense of a real mess. And the instances wherein we are allowed a full look—the moments drawn with prose, or the thrills and highs wholly captured in verse—are still skeletal, but become forceful in this quiet.
I also really like those moments of emotional rawness that come through. The bursts of coarse language (the affectionately nicknamed bullshitters), the consistently indulgent recollections of sex, the shuddering mention of smashed cockroaches. These risqué tendencies of Cruz’s speaker gives some edge to the otherwise poised flow of her talking in elegant circles around infidelity.
Final Thoughts
elsewhere held and lingered’s allure comes from a gifted poet’s precise handiwork in externalizing the raw, paradoxical, overwhelming emotional curents of illicit affairs. Despite being a story heard through echoes of echoes, I felt arrested by these troubled scenes of intimacy, passion and companionship. The great poets often prove themselves in creating testaments to love, and Conchitina Cruz’s complicatedly felt and complicatedly said inventory of a year, of one city seeping, seeping through, puts herself up there.
Many of the poems are about peripheral objects existing around the central relationships. Most definitely, there is The Marriage, (perhaps the most certain thing, considering its privilege of being the first poem). With concrete elements already feeling distant, the gap becomes multiplied by the largeness of space. Space splashing variably among the stanzas: the rhythmic indentations, the confusing enjambments, the multi-page centered blankness. Both Points and Spaces stand to represent the affair, collectively addressed once as a ‘constellation’ in Inventory of a year:
"The city could also be drawn as the simplest of constellations: one room, one bar, one newspaper stand, one dreary theatre. In other, more primal words: fuck, drink, smoke, watch." (pg 46)
More interestingly to me, there are the things that show themselves as concepts in words and eventually take shape in structure of those words (margins as said in Inventory of a Year, then as used Marginalia), or vice versa (multiple choice questions as used in Multiple choice, then as said in Inventory of a Year). These instances echoing at each other across the book holds the collection together. Their understated quality inadvertently is the feature that stands out.
This poetry book is an artifact of the speaker’s affair. And like its other artifacts, the poems’ vaporous and insubstantial renders is an imposition by its illicit nature:
“It goes without saying that a secret thrives in the absence of record."(pg. 49)
“Say document, proof and signpost."(pg 73)
As we pace through the poems and the speaker’s journey, we can see that there is a private, internal vocabulary between the speaker and her lover that the reader can never be fully privy to. (pg 39, this hand). Titles like “versions of elsewhere” and “versions of delays” (where are these other versions). And the last poem being a directory of last sentences with page counts to a book we don’t know where from. At first, it's frustrating. Why sit me down about this when you’re just going to box me out?
But again, that is the paradox of the relationship.
With this limitation, the speaker’s desire to relive this love works with points around the relationship, trying to capture its essence by triangulation:
“Says the painter, in her clumsy script, a point enlivens the white space around it.”
Admiring the affair’s impact on elsewhere held and lingered’s physiology—specifically, for being an extraordinarily potent case of content shaping form—came second to my enjoyment of the poetry itself.
The highs and lows of forbidden desire and marital betrayal opens up a lot of titillating material, and Cruz’s poetry really lets you roll around in it. The thrill of elaborate rituals for clandestine meet ups, the drama of catholic guilt, the pain of regular guilt, the paradoxical jealousy and the comfort of routine are just some of the various high-octane emotions that elsewhere held and lingered explores. While the affair’s illicit nature still maintains its chokehold on the speaker when she narrates this journey, what little detail comes through still gives a strong sense of a real mess. And the instances wherein we are allowed a full look—the moments drawn with prose, or the thrills and highs wholly captured in verse—are still skeletal, but become forceful in this quiet.
I also really like those moments of emotional rawness that come through. The bursts of coarse language (the affectionately nicknamed bullshitters), the consistently indulgent recollections of sex, the shuddering mention of smashed cockroaches. These risqué tendencies of Cruz’s speaker gives some edge to the otherwise poised flow of her talking in elegant circles around infidelity.
Final Thoughts
elsewhere held and lingered’s allure comes from a gifted poet’s precise handiwork in externalizing the raw, paradoxical, overwhelming emotional curents of illicit affairs. Despite being a story heard through echoes of echoes, I felt arrested by these troubled scenes of intimacy, passion and companionship. The great poets often prove themselves in creating testaments to love, and Conchitina Cruz’s complicatedly felt and complicatedly said inventory of a year, of one city seeping, seeping through, puts herself up there.
January 13, 2025
there’s still something inherently filipino in english-written filipino literature. while the words are in english, the dna of the sentences is undeniably ours. the scenes masterfully depicted, the structure of each poem including its visual representation intentional and necessary to the narrative—some of my favorite poems are from here. the cutting language, the tenderness by which psyche and emotion are explored. the chapters situated in the present feel like slender fingers in a dimly-lit room writing with a fountain pen in exacting, delicate movements of the wrist. the flashbacks to their young adulthood feel like reckless, visceral tapping on a typewriter in a college dorm room reeking of smoke, sex, and cheap beer. it is all very visceral—the elegant restrained way some poems are written and the unapologetically crude but beautiful way others are.
i long to read more like this. i fear western poetry will never resonate with me like this did. non-filipino authors will never capture the exact feeling of prowling dim and damp eskinitas, stallion or pilsen in hand, pseudointellectually discussing prose and literature while vomiting on bushes in the early morning.
i long to read more like this. i fear western poetry will never resonate with me like this did. non-filipino authors will never capture the exact feeling of prowling dim and damp eskinitas, stallion or pilsen in hand, pseudointellectually discussing prose and literature while vomiting on bushes in the early morning.
December 5, 2020
REREAD (JAN 10 2025): hi hello this made me fall to my knees upon rereading I need to be held and rocked back and forth actually pls thank you
ORIGINAL (DEC 6 2020):
A lovely collection. Ms. Chingbee's words are lilting and melodic, even when they speak of unsavory things. It's easy to get lost in them.
ORIGINAL (DEC 6 2020):
A lovely collection. Ms. Chingbee's words are lilting and melodic, even when they speak of unsavory things. It's easy to get lost in them.
December 21, 2023
4.5 stars if i could but also i love chingbee anyway so I'm biased LMAO
January 2, 2024
I read the new edition by Paper Trail Projects. (Somebody add it here on Goodreads so I can log it instead.)
I believe Conchitina Cruz’s lyricism thrives in prose poems more than in the typical poems with enjambment. Although I enjoyed the images of still life, infidelity, and desire in this follow-up to Dark Hours, the prose poems in her debut conjure a certain kind of magic that this second collection lacks. I, nevertheless, am amused with the manner in which the city influences once again Cruz’s writing, as if the city isn’t mere inspiration but a firm informant of her poetry and confessions.
“Send me to the moon,” a four-page poem in which the persona begs for the love of a man, is my absolute favorite.
I believe Conchitina Cruz’s lyricism thrives in prose poems more than in the typical poems with enjambment. Although I enjoyed the images of still life, infidelity, and desire in this follow-up to Dark Hours, the prose poems in her debut conjure a certain kind of magic that this second collection lacks. I, nevertheless, am amused with the manner in which the city influences once again Cruz’s writing, as if the city isn’t mere inspiration but a firm informant of her poetry and confessions.
“Send me to the moon,” a four-page poem in which the persona begs for the love of a man, is my absolute favorite.
April 4, 2024
"Pray for this sinner, pleading, teeming,
pray for me, seething, stalling, scheming,
not hail, not full, not grace, not blessed
not fruit for picking, not cleansed by the leap from one bead to the next,
not converted upon every hour's death."
I am preparing to be castigated for my opinions but I Did Not Like This. Extremely contrarian for someone half-immersed in UPD CAL, but it is what it is. This is not the heartbreaking fragile gay grown-up Catholic school girl cult collection of poetry I thought it was. This is an exercise in patience. It is intentionally repetitive for formal and thematic tightness, I suppose. That, coupled with unremarkable lyricism (with respect to MY preference), simply bored me. Cruz only writes about the complexity of infidelity: the poetics of its inevitable end and clandestine nature. Her poetry is sleepy, weary, but sharp, armed with the bland imagery of psuedo-domestic bliss in Metro Manila. I appreciate it but it gets extremely tiring and annoying after a couple poems of nothing new and nothing good. There are some standout poems and lines, however, which bumped it up to two stars.
Favorite poems: Send me to the moon, Finger exercise (the rosary poem)
Quotes, without proper spacing and indentation:
"What if she could turn to him/ and not wait/ to be touched? and leave the instance/ unhinged--/ Even/ eternity is in love with the productions of time, the plot of/ the lasting, the sleep of nostalgia, the romantic mechanism/ of tense."
"It should be enough to wake/ from the dream and find/ the doors still opening/ into the wrong rooms,"
"Through the gaps in the bushes--certainly,/ light--probably, stone, rising / from the ground in the shape/ of a lion about to pounce/ on its prey"
"converting the night/ into a replica of true,"
"the ritual/ a street stretched out/ before you like any other street that promises/ to ruin you but won't or doesn't bother."
"And me,/ make the bus, each day,/ looking up--strange habit--/ the moment there is nothing to see."
"I have no time for seeming,/ said the poet to his mistress, in summer heat,/ in distress, on his knees, to impress,"
"this hear/ sought and bought, this mind blundered/and plundered of reason."
"let me say/ steer clear of those women, proud in their heels,/ their stor-bought feminism, and love me/ instead, mousy-haired and well-read,/ able to read genre for your sake,/ able to take slasher in your company."
"Where are my fangs?/ Where are my pangs of guilt for my sins,"
"b. of course, according to the poet's rich vocabulary for certainty"
"b. with the mechanism that let me dream you alive/ c. with my aversion to hints of faith in horoscopes"
"a. despite that, look at how the stiched heart--/ b. because of, look at how the cowering heart--/ c. why never, why ever--what heart--"
"if you/ are gesture without guilt if you are/ message without residence"
"On your neck, the litany of quick breaths."
"Hail Mary, full of grace, let me trace/ from this bead to the next a leap back/ to my girlhood grace,"
"Discard the fingers that elsewhere/ held and lingered,"
"At times it [is] necessary to grant the name of love to something less than love."
"she is grateful for the courtesy, for the evening/ that felt like the city/ fell off the map or the room/ fell out of the city, the reckless affection, the spell of/ devotion, grateful to be/ put back in place now that time/is up"
"Here's to you and me/ and what we've become,/ to the year of nothing broken and nothing undone--"
"the riddle an epigram, an epigraph, an epithet, an epitaph,"
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 13, 2018
It is through art can we express the seat of human desires, one's vulnerabilities and his/her aspiration for strength and fullness. Chingbee Cruz, whose compelling collection Dark Hours I had the chance to read and enjoy, has without reservation poeticized one's perspectives on seduction, fidelity, marriage, and recovery from the wounds of letting go in Elsewhere Held and Lingered (High Chair, 2010). Whether the persona is the author articulating personal experiences or she formed a plethora of women's voices within a singular voice resonating in all the poems, she succinctly captured the essence of what it means to be strong when weakness "haunts rather than invades" and to be meditative when the fragility of heart "tries to break open and bleeds of withered daffodils". Not to mention the effortlessness in enjambments and delineations in order to arrive at what intends to narrate and illustrate, this book testifies to the impetus of anyone who's bound by the spell of poetry: the after, the aftertaste and the afterthought of words which last and linger in the mouth, in memory. And for this chance of savoring great poetry, like in this one, I will ever be thankful. (Personal favorites among the poems are "Index of last lines", "Marginalia" and "One for the baby, and one more for the road".)
December 25, 2019
Gorgeous collection with interestingly structured poems using footnotes and marginalia, multiple choice tests, and even the index of last lines.
The forms reminded me of Jose Garcia Villa but I much prefer the way Cruz plays with the absences in the text. I liked the complexity of the relationships depicted. The poems feel like intimate glimpses into these people’s lives.
I bookmarked a number of them but my favourite is “Where were you all this time?”
The forms reminded me of Jose Garcia Villa but I much prefer the way Cruz plays with the absences in the text. I liked the complexity of the relationships depicted. The poems feel like intimate glimpses into these people’s lives.
I bookmarked a number of them but my favourite is “Where were you all this time?”
March 31, 2025
For the most cruel march - Summer breeze felt colder than the winter of asakusa. I held on each page like the false promise of a lover, alternating between fantasies of time travel and the soothing lull of a long, sweet slumber. Twas a dreamy experience, thank you conchitina. Hope is a delicious lie, but before the month ends, the kitten oranges were peeled and I realized this isn't the last book I'll read from her.
March 27, 2018
Not as good as Dark Hours and THERE IS NO EMERGENCY, I think, but still good nonetheless. First time going into this I had no idea that it was about infidelity, and it gets tiring after a while reading about the whole thing again and again, but there are moments where it catches you off guard and then the pain smears against your mouth.
May 30, 2018
Pain is beautiful; same as you
August 5, 2020
if you're into allusions and idiosyncrasies, then read it
August 13, 2020
I love this book so much. Some of my favorite poems are "It's good to see you out in the sun," "send me to the moon," and "one for my baby, and one more for the road."
April 3, 2021
Thank God for poetry
April 17, 2022
will reread very very soon
May 23, 2022
Wala akong mapaglagyan ng bighani dito sa Elsewhere. Napakaganda at nakatulong talaga.
December 19, 2022
No thoughts. Head empty. Ang sAkit lang talaga 🥹
January 7, 2023
if cheating bad then why hold and linger?
#kabetcore
#kabetcore
April 24, 2023
my new favorite poetry collection
July 20, 2023
gorgeous gorgeous writing
October 15, 2023
I get poetry now. (1)
Read
December 17, 2023yearning dot com 😩
favs:
the marriage
what now, my love?
send me to the moon
multiple choice
fiction
this hand
index of last lines
favs:
the marriage
what now, my love?
send me to the moon
multiple choice
fiction
this hand
index of last lines
March 27, 2024
read this one morning before work. it’s like i didn’t even try to have a good day.
April 5, 2024
To make an art out of grief & rhymes out of pain—I never knew a cut could sting ever so beautifully.
October 4, 2024
Gago??!?
January 26, 2025
WOW. Where do I even start...
Can I get back here when my brain is not too fried to write a comprehensive sentence, at least? Okay, thank you. BRB.
Can I get back here when my brain is not too fried to write a comprehensive sentence, at least? Okay, thank you. BRB.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews