Reyes, Isabelita Orlina. In Transitives. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2005.
1. Reyes’ collection tackles things that are passing or that have the power to make. Exploiting enjambment and juxtaposition, Reyes’ moving and, often, erratic lines, produce energy that explores and/or creates places, spaces, and the temporal. The lines are suggestive, not dictating; profound and yet still fumbling for meaning in the void, groping in the abyss.
2. In “In Between” (7), the poem explores the space in between the rise and fall of waves or ripple, “the lift between // your footfalls”, and between “one banality to the next”. The poem concludes with another exploration of what is in between the one leaving and the one left: “I see the door // closing, the scent of you, /insinuation”.
3. In the series of poems “What a thing is made of” (9, 17, &27), sandwiched between poems in the collection, the persona explores possibilities of what might be present amidst the “hypnotic /comfort in a city of sudden starts”: the space for calibrating one’s emotion, the space between the form and the formless, lovers to sheer love, etc. is something one woudn’t want to see.
4. In “Losing the Trivial” (19), the persona considers the departure of a loved one trivial: “You leave, /like you always do, a white tuft/ like smoke, like nothing more” arising from the equally trivial experience of losing touch with other people: “like you wanted/ to keep me, but we weren’t/ listening, I had to go home”. She then concludes that the tragedy of life is not the unexpected but rather our daily concerns:
Driving to work everyday,
pretending conversation, music
of an unfamiliar generation,
the sun scorching, the death of love
for the polite exchange, the simple repast.
We wallow in our quotidian lives and there’s “nothing new or bleak”.
5. In “The Stone” (21), the persona is intimate in relating her story, tying up fragments from her and her sister’s life and the death of the latter. The lines resonate with the line after or before them so there’s coherence and organic unity. But then, the gaps between the passages are so much one can feel that the reader-expectator is left on the side. The ultimate effect is the simulation of experiencing what is between the passages, what is in transit that is in the making, and what is made is this void coated with the intimacy of the confession or the retelling.
6. In “Too Many Dreams” (29), the persona presents a series of dreams made interesting by its seemingly unmediated way of retelling. The persona is like recalling her dreams to herself and does not solicit wonder from the reader but in so doing, succeeds in narrating gross and often hilarious situations and objects.
Isabelita Orlina Reyes is also the author of Stories from the City (1998).
