Sunday, January 23, 2005

The Closed Heart

Angela Manalang Gloria (1915 – 1996) is a lyric poet, pianist, and editor who hails from Guagua, Pampanga. She graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy and liberal arts from the University of the Philippines in 1929. She was once a literary editor of the Philippine Collegian and the editor of the Herald Mid-Week Magazine. In this poem, the persona speaks of how she wishes for her lover to flee for she has already chosen to close her heart. We, however, find how this plea may not be true to what the persona feels for she, in the end, also seeks her lover, asking if he is "still there". This poem is particularly meaningful to me since it reveals how the heart is often unable to deny itself of its own desires in spite of the mind’s definitive decisions.

Melissa Santiago

THE CLOSED HEART
Angela Manalang Gloria

Call not . . .

Sharp brambles cast

Deep shadows on the stone door

Of my hall . . . O strange one, why linger

Still there?

Source: http://www.oovrag.com/laptop/editor2001-5.shtml
http://pinoylit.webmanila.com/filipinowriters/amgloria.htm

3 comments:

Jessica Lace said...

Five beautiful lines that shows how the heart can never be totally closed. Even though the persona is telling her beloved that there is no more love in her, in the end, she still looks for him and asks if he is still there. Most of the time people say things that they do not really mean; they try to cover up their feelings with words that are not true. I still cannot understand why people have to act in such a way; one should always be honest with his/her feelings. -Jessica Evangelista

Anonymous said...

I like this poem. So simple, so beatiful. You can never close your heart to love. No matter what you do, no matter how much you deny it, the truth is, it's still there. Love will always be there.
-Ceferino Luta III

Anonymous said...

Another poem that exemplifies the classic struggle between heart and mind. The mind says that the persona should no longer love, but the heart says otherwise

-Joeffrey Barrios Jr.