Have Come, Am Here: Poems by José Garcia Villa

by José García Villa

A finalist for the 1943 Pulitzer Prize, Have Come, Am Here was the first book of poetry by this highly-regarded Filipino writer (1908-1997) to be published in the United States. This particular book, per the author's note at the end, introduced "a new method of rhyming, a method which has never been used in the history of English poetry, nor in any poetry. The principle involved is that of reversed consonance [in which] the last principal consonants of a word are reversed for the corresponding rhyme."

152 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Jose Garcia Villa was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed consonance rime scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the penname Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the characters he derived from himself. These animals were also explored by another poet e.e. cummings in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa.

(From wikipedia.org, retrieved 14 March 2011. More info here.)

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gotta find out what this guy's deal was and why he seemingly wanted to kiss kill and fuck God

[ebag · Rating 2 out of 5]

Will,not,finish.

Garcia,Villa,in,my,eyes,is,the,Raya,Martin,of,Phil.,Poetry,He,only,proved,to,an,international,audience,that,we,little,brown,brothers,could,be,radical,in,experimentation,But,I,seldom,find,anything,here,that,appeals,to,me,beyond,technique,No,image,sticks,His,articulation,amounts,to,???.,Saying,without,Meaning.

Then,again,I,am,marking,my,role,here,as,critic,and,if,that,is,the,case,I,am,staking,myself,as,enemy,to,this,poet.

Probably,years,down,the,line,I’ll,come,to,appreciate,them.

[Catherine]

“Between God’s eyelashes I look at you, / Contend with the Lord to love you.”

“The shadow of a great man / Is always Christ.”

So weird. So Catholic. I’m withholding a value judgment because I was inevitably having such a good time.

[Cyril Al]

its a great poem of history for me