Pagsasatubuanan: Poetikang Bikolnon

Jose Jason Chancoco’s pioneering and scholarly work, Pagsasatubuanan: Poetikang Bikolnon, is a koh-i-noor in the canon of Bikol poetics and literary criticism. A rare achievement!

This 200-page book on literary criticism in Bicol language will be published this December 2008 through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

"Pagsasatubuanan – a coined term derived from the Iriganon word ‘tubuanan’ or the first sprout from a Pili tree seedling found to be a favorite delicacy of kadlagan (forest) roaming kids and much sought after during rural soirees. The term shall stand for ‘katutubo’ or native. Hence, ‘Pagsasatubuanan’ is a perspective on the direction of contemporary Bikol poetic writing, deriving aesthetic value and wisdom from indigenous poetic forms alongside foreign modalities. It is thus placed as modernism in the Bikolnon context.

In the midst of hybridism, postmodernism, neocolonialism; the book seeks to trace the ‘birtud’ of indigenous Bikol poetics while recognizing the importance of foreign aesthetic influences." -- from the Foreword of the book