Stories from our Writing Community: Saturnina Ysolde

 

At only 21 years old, Write the World alum Saturnina Ysolde (Philippines) runs a literary journal, conducts independent academic research, and writes prolifically. Learn more about her story and read her beautiful piece, Sans Severia, below!

 

What have you been up to outside of Write the World?

I have been preoccupied with a lot of things especially once I graduated WtW. For starters, I run a literary journal/zine with my fellow queer and Filipino friends and we plan to publish something soon. I'm also exploring mediums in art; be it digital and traditional, I'm sure to excel at it. I'm also doing independent academic research because I really love reading and studying. Finally, I plan to pick up the violin and ballet again soon once my job pays better. Wish me luck and success in all my pursuits!

 

Can you tell us a little bit about your writing?

This is a particularly hard question to answer. I've been writing since I was a child but only started recently workshopping my pieces online within certain helpful communities. I don't know where to begin when it comes to my writing other than I want to ensure that I am always vaguely specific in the language I use: that somehow, a certain niche of people will get me and the rest will condemn me for not making them in-the-know—the girls that get it, get it, basically. Sans sevieria, in a nutshell, is about longing for a home you can never go back to. It is when your home begins feeling unsafe the moment nostalgia enervates the present light out of it, hence the play on words of Sans Sevieria, borrowed from the houseplant with the same old name, which got replaced by a new name called Dracaena. 

 

Have you got anything exciting coming up?

I'm compiling my essays, art, as well as poetry for eventual publication. I plan to publish at most by 29 and sell a lot of copies of my arts and poetry booklet, so I'm saving up for a lot of fees for that as well. 

 

Do you have any book recommendations? 

I highly recommend the post-colonial and feminist theoretical analysis of the Philippines by Filipino author and feminist critic, Neferti XM. Tadiar called "Fantasy-Production" (2004) and a series of essays and critiques of Hegelian rationalism and Western ideas of Enlightenment called "Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears" (2008) by Hungarian culture critic and essayist, László F. Földényi.

Saturnina's Work

sans sevieria. 

usa.

ebony-nabbed twists of your

praline-sunken hair; sweltered 

vanilla, samar sweater. camel wool

and camel cigs. a little jagged—

a little gapas inherent 

to your yellow-toothed paradise.

‘kaw an usa ka aragwáy:

love letter to little violences

between heat-torn limbs. you are:

green-boned falconet, 

dragonfly-swallower.

ginharokan ko pa ngani 

an imo usa ka yukot nga tul-an 

ha ilarom han mga bitoon.

appeal of preyed-upon wings 

lies on luminous translucence—

on interweaving allowances

for summer fever dreams.

home is not belonging;

it is severing trifasciata 

wound from the throats

of grandmother clocks.

duha.

how many tutubi deaths 

have you internalized to the 

point of shaved brows and

uninhabitable siestas? 

you run through the visages 

of backwater July ‘til the mylar 

forms a worry-line between your eyes.

perhaps we’ll invest in something 

that delegitimizes itself

until even the silver lining

fades. but i don’t want it, not when

my shih tzu’s lumot-bones are 

beneath the shadowed kangkong that 

failed to save him. aniya, “waray 

espasyo sa akong adlaw para sa

sumsumang kasingkasing.” 

there is no space in my day

for marrow-hearted things. 

away!—to your white-toothed exodus;

an uppercut to the mouth.

(no one to wipe the blood off your chest).

tulo.

star-strangled wingbite 

‘til the night sky perforates 

and breathes through a 

clean yet final lung. whistle 

through the exit wounds 

and listen to the falconet wheeze 

through the dragonfly’s eaten

shimmer. pagsisid ko: 

i sink into your domestic promise 

of tomorrow, dissonance

of grandmother pendulum—

pagsisid ko: i sink into your boneless, 

spit-soaked baby mutt, buried 

beneath a patch of failed kangkong, 

still wagging in some afterdream—

pagsisid ko: i sink into you, 

not quite asleep, not yet awake, 

half-cradled in the curve 

between forgetting and

returning.

you loved long enough 

to hear feathers singing 

between the cracks; still, you 

pressed them down and sent them

to kasisidman’s sunken mouth.

home is never belonging;

it is the aching trifasciata 

wound from the throats

of grandmother clocks.