Hollow

Regarded as one of the most prolific Filipino poets in the twenty-first century with eighteen volumes of poetry under his belt, Hollow represents the many conceits present in both Arguelles’s past and succeeding works. While older Filipino critics tend to describe Arguelles’s work as a welcome departure from the weary lyrical and symbolist tradition, doing so does not really do much justice to what his works have to offer. For instance, the poems Your Life Will Always Fail (Ang Iyong Buhay ay Laging Mabibigo) and Vocabulary (Bokabularyo) can be seen as more relaxed, refined, and chiseled versions of Arguelles’s surface poetry and non-lyrical pieces in Menos Kuwarto (Pithaya Press, 2002) and Ilahas (High Chair, 2004). Exercises in Futility (Pagsasanay sa Walang Saysay), on the other hand, reads like a sequel to his first book-length erasure project in Alingaw (High Chair, 2010) and a prequel to the same project featured in Pesoa (Balangay, 2014). Then there are, of course, pieces that showcase the deceptive simplicity of Arguelles’s language and how they lend themselves to translation in different ways.