Authorial Magazine - Manila Edition
The Manila International Book Fair is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The book fair, one of the biggest, most prestigious, and longest running events in the Philippines, is a great avenue amongst professionals in the publishing and academic world to collaborate and exchange ideas. It’s our first time to participate in this event and rally with literary giants and emerging voices from the world of books. In this issue, we start off with Virginia Paulette C. Hammack, author of the books The Hiding Place and Whisperings in the Wings. Hammack talks about her life, her two books, and her struggles as a writer. We also talked to Raju Ramanathan, world renowned enlightenment guru and author of Souls from Mercury. Ramanathan shares what inspired him to write and offers advice to aspiring authors. We still receive and get tons of contributions from talented and renowned writers, and in this issue, we’re featuring the works of Adriana Pernetz, Ted Torgersen, Donald Ray Schwartz, Gary Alan Rothhaar, Ivor Kovac, Diane Davies, and Elizabeth Len Wai. Lastly, beautiful spots and fascinating experiences await beyond the bright lights of the city when you read “The Charming City of Manila,” in our lifestyle section. We all love stories that resonate with our own, especially those that bring us to greater heights in mood and in thought. We hope you’ll enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed piecing it together.
The Manila International Book Fair is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The book fair, one of the biggest, most prestigious, and longest running events in the Philippines, is a great avenue amongst professionals in the publishing and academic world to collaborate and exchange ideas.
It’s our first time to participate in this event and rally with literary giants and emerging voices from the world of books. In this issue, we start off with Virginia Paulette C. Hammack, author of the books The Hiding Place and Whisperings in the Wings. Hammack talks about her life, her two books, and her struggles as a writer.
We also talked to Raju Ramanathan, world renowned enlightenment guru and author of Souls from Mercury. Ramanathan shares what inspired him to write and offers advice to aspiring authors.
We still receive and get tons of contributions from talented and renowned writers, and in this issue, we’re featuring the works of Adriana Pernetz, Ted Torgersen, Donald Ray Schwartz, Gary Alan Rothhaar, Ivor Kovac, Diane Davies, and Elizabeth Len Wai.
Lastly, beautiful spots and fascinating experiences await beyond the bright lights of the city when you read “The Charming City of Manila,” in our lifestyle section.
We all love stories that resonate with our own, especially those that bring us to greater heights in mood and in thought. We hope you’ll enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed piecing it together.
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The Wind and the Goats<br />
Some days are so windy<br />
that I wish some goats would come<br />
and calm things down.<br />
Ever see a goat on a windy day?<br />
Something about them makes the wind stay away.<br />
They are a force, like gravity,<br />
that keeps the wind at bay.<br />
Promising to blow tomorrow,<br />
but staying calm today.<br />
Maybe it’s the way they smell,<br />
so strong and rank and, well, goatey,<br />
that keeps the wind from trying<br />
to ruffle their hair, knowing it’ll never<br />
get through all that powerful goatodor.<br />
So it goes and blows itself away,<br />
meaning to come back again, some day<br />
when there aren’t so many goats in the way.<br />
They are a force of nature, going not<br />
so much toward something, or away, as at it.<br />
Perhaps that’s why they’re called goats, ‘cause they go at.<br />
Have you ever seen many goats?<br />
This country is really short on goats, I find,<br />
just like it’s short on poets.<br />
Maybe it’s a conspiracy<br />
of Western archetypes,<br />
cattlemen and sheep-men,<br />
but no goat-men, except one with balloons.<br />
Maybe he borrowed their feet to keep the wind<br />
from messing with his strings,<br />
or maybe the goats are here, and no one notices.<br />
Like no one can tell a poet, anywhere, anytime,<br />
without a program, and even then can’t tell him<br />
much.<br />
Imagine John Wayne on the silver screen,<br />
surrounded by a herd of goats, if you can.<br />
History would really look different, then,<br />
if anyone noticed.<br />
Maybe then the weather channel<br />
would use goats to predict wind patterns,<br />
and we could all be lucky on the eights,<br />
instead of the way we are now, without goats.<br />
But the world’s in no danger, no…<br />
there are plenty of goats<br />
in enough places to keep the wind at bay,<br />
so the place don’t just blow away<br />
in a cross country goat race, except,<br />
how do you keep them running?<br />
Goats don’t stampede, they exude, or recede,<br />
going not away, but at what they perceive.<br />
It could be just a phase,<br />
like childhood, or the hula-hoop,<br />
and after years of struggle,<br />
mankind could finally find itself<br />
surrounded by goats,<br />
becalmed on a hillside, far away<br />
from the false winds<br />
of changeable history.<br />
AUTHORS PRESS<br />
authorial magazine | 47
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