Queer poetry as exploration of desire and identity

IT IS vital to explore the queer experience, no matter how intimate, according to filmmaker, film historian, and author Nick Deocampo. In 1983, his pioneering documentary, Oliver, captured the reality of a gay nightclub performer — and now his brand-new poetry books come full circle to expound on the nuances of queer identity.

The four-volume poetry collection, Shards of Desire, gives a rounded view of Mr. Deocampo’s own experiences growing up gay and coming to terms with the complexities of it over the decades. Each volume was written with different themes and poetic styles in mind, every poem paired with a photograph.

At the March 23 launch of the books, Cine Adarna’s outdoor lobby at the University of the Philippines Diliman was filled with students, teachers, lovers of film, and members of the queer community, and it was to them that Mr. Deocampo dedicated his work.

“I was an adolescent growing up in Catholic Iloilo, in what I would like to think was a harsh environment for somebody who was growing up as a homosexual,” he said in his speech. “I had as my companions the likes of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Gerald Manley Hopkins — many sensibilities that ended up shaping a queer sensibility.

“So much harshness happened in the surroundings, and I only quietly wrote this for 50 years. I hope these volumes can be your companions as well,” he explained.

Out of 150 poems, 80 were chosen to be published in the four-volume collection. Distinct from Mr. Deocampo’s academic writing, its contents reveal his thoughts at their most personal and intimate.

EXPERIMENTATION
Shards of Desire is divided into four, drawing from different influences and styles.

The first, Ariel and the Grand Design of the Universe, is a collection of poems that go all the way back to the author’s young adulthood in 1974 in Iloilo and then in 1977 in his move to Manila. There, he met a man named Ariel, a relationship he writes about in stark detail through the poems.

The second volume, The Night at Rue du Dragon, covers his lifestyle in the 1980s in Paris, where Mr. Deocampo studied film and fell in love with a young Black man whom he met inside a movie house.

The third volume, Phaedrus Poems, is the most experimental, he said. “It’s based on classic Greek literature combined with the Japanese haiku syllabic structure,” he said. “I wrote it to show a love affair between two males.”

The final one is The Icarus Complex, which talks about the relationship between Daedalus and Icarus.

Jose Paolo Sibal, president of the collection’s publisher, CentralBooks, Inc., said in a statement read out at the launch that the poetry is powerful due to its “honesty and courage.”

“In Shards of Desire, Professor Deocampo turns to poetry, to explore deeply personal and resonant truths. This collection becomes a space where fragments of being queer and expressing it with honesty and courage give voice to experiences that are at once intimate and universal,” he said.

Each volume is priced at P580. To place an order, visit CentralBooks’ website and social media pages. — Brontë H. Lacsamana