Ricardo M. de Ungria is a multi-awarded Filipino poet who is a recipient of numerous awards such as the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas and the National Book Award. He is an awardee of writing fellowships in the United States, Scotland, and Italy. In this poem, the persona is expressing what he/she feels when in love. The persona describes how love changes the way he/she looks at things. I find this poem meaningful since it depicts love as something that changes the person’s perceptions of things and his/her ideas.
Juan Paolo S. Bermundo
PERCUSSION
Ricardo M. de Ungria
You fill my mind
like cracked shells of melon seeds.
I turn my head this way
or that and you spill
into the blue.
Everything I look at
Rattles with the sound of you.
On the Rosetta stone
of disquieting hints
and intimations
I wait for the heart
to pound a rhythm
of the unknown
Source:
De Ungria, Ricardo M. Waking Ice Poems. Anvil Publishing, Inc. 2/F Team Pacific Building, 14 P. Antonio Street, Barrio Ugong, Pasig City, Philippines. 2000
3 comments:
From the way the poem is phrased, it seems like the persona is extremely infatuated, and is trying to feel his/ her way around to get a sense of the state of his/ her relationship with the one he/ she is infatuated with. I find this particularly lyrical, and the end rhymes sound graceful, in contrast to most contemporary poems that end in awkward lines.
Chia Roxas
i think the persona is infatuated. he can't get the person out of his mind! this poem is ideal for most teenages nowadays because they get infatuated easily and sometimes, they get confused - whether it's really love or just infatuation.
- annalou maxine l. pagador
This poem uses words that provide the readers with great and new images. One could easily imagine how the persona is so deeply “in love”. The title is very fitting as it suggests the “Percussion” of the beloved’s image in the mind of the persona. Such a sweet poem. More than anything else, I love the poem because I’ve felt what the persona in the poem feels. The poem speaks of something so real when one is “in love”.
-Richmond Valdellon-
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