The Guerrilla Is Like a Poet / Ang Gerilya Ay Tulad ng Makata

by Jose Maria Sison, Jonas Staal (Foreword)

This book is titled after the world-renowned poem of Jose Maria Sison, "The Guerrilla Is Like a Poet," which celebrates with natural imagery and in a lyrical way the Filipino people's revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy against foreign and feudal oppression and exploitation. The book contains poems from Sison's Prison and Beyond, which won the Southeast Asia WRITE Award, as well as new poems that further develop the theme of struggle for national and social liberation as well as exile. It also carries articles of creative writers on the significance and relevance of his poetry. Sison is a Filipino revolutionary with extensive guerrilla experience and has been a recognized poet since his student days at the University of the Philippines. The publication of this book has been sparked by the effort of the Academy for Cultural Activism of the New World Summit to present the people's culture in the national democratic struggle in the Philippines.

Genres: Poetry

296 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2013

About the author

Prof. Jose Maria Sison is a Filipino patriot, a proletarian revolutionary and internationalist.

He is a Filipino statesman, known for his experience in and knowledge of the people's democratic government and revolutionary forces in the Philippines. He is sometimes consulted by high officials of foreign governments and by presidents, senators, congressmen and local officials of the Philippine reactionary government concerning peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and related matters.

He is recognized as the leader of the Filipino people's movement for national liberation and democracy in the last 50 years. The celebration of this coincides with that of the 40th anniversaries of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army (NPA).

After the destruction of the armed revolutionary movement in the early 1950s in the Philippines, he was chiefly responsible for the resurgence of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal mass movement in the Philippines since 1959. He was the founding Chairman of the Central Committee of the CPP, 1968-77. He is one of the world's leading authorities on the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, on revolutionary movements in Asia and on the international communist movement. He has been a recognized poet since 1962 and awardee of the Southeast Asia WRITE Award for poetry, 1986.

Reviews

[Amrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

the preface, foreword, and commentaries were really helpful in pointing out the nuances of revolutionary aesthetics in Joma's poetry and what makes this monumental. truthfully, mas prefer kong basahin yung filipino translations.

[Ivan Labayne]

https://actforum-online.medium.com/jo...

From Joma’s “My Pen and My Tongue”: The only weapons I have/Are my pen and my tongue/To protest greed and terror/And call for people’s resistance/In my Motherland and in the world.

Mula sa “Aking Panulat at Dila”: Ang tangi kong mga sandata/Ay aking panulat at ang aking dila/Upang tutulan ang kasakiman at lagim/At ipanawagan ang paglaban ng mga mamamayan/Sa aking Inangbayan at sa daigdig.

[Kylle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something to go back to, especially for those last stretches that talk about the roles of art and revolution in each other. Those parts mention relevant chunks in the country's literary scene with regard to artists who create for the Filipino people. Very interesting read; my brain is just fried at the moment haha.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped some parts of the books.

Beautifully written and translated.

Laban para sa mga gerilya!

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I do love the poems (most of my favorites were in the first part, I just love the way nature is linked with the revolution) I think the very meat of this book are the literary commentaries towards the end. Those essays about Joma’s shifting approach to protest poetry and the role of literature—well, art in general, really—in the people’s war were something else entirely. I especially loved Salanga’s “Politics and Faith,” Daroy’s “From Literature to Revolution,” and Ordoñez’ “The Legacy of Mao and Sison in People’s Literature.”


(artista ng bayan, ngayon ay lumalaban!)