Vince Agcaoili: I explore the thread of loss in the personal, political, and spiritual domains.

Poetry bears a life that we recognize as our own. -Vince Agcaolli

Poetry is like a good friend who asks us to put down our baggage, have a seat, offers us a glass of water. - Vince Agcaoili

Naalala ni Vim Nadera sa “carrying” ang aksiyon “pagbalot”. Pinansin niya kung papaanong ang imahen ng kamay at mga gawain nito ay nananalaytay sa koleksiyon.

Isidoro Cruz: With this obsession with language, this pleasure in the language– is this “delicious” language appropriate for grief?

J. Neil Garcia responds to Sid Cruz's question by saying the grief becomes more memorable because of beautiful language. Beauty doesn't negate grief.

Rosalinda Pineda Ofreneo: The power of the poems is in the universality of the human condition of grief and loss. I found an inspiring seriousness in craft in his poetry.

Errol Merquita: The first and last lines are impeccable.

Isa Lorenzo: You thought very carefully of line cuts. The first and last lines are indeed impeccable but think of the consistency of the rest of the lines. There’s an abstraction and sublimation of grief in the poems that I appreciate.

Luna Sicat-Cleto: Aren’t you suspicious of lyricism as a mode in your poems?

Vince Agcaoili, re: the interface of rock’n’roll and poetry: I like heavy music but I haven’t tried to integrate that heaviness in my poetry.

Vince Agcaoili, re: suspicion over lyricism: I believe that there is an ethics and politics anchored to the lyric form. Ganoon ko siya pinag-iisipan.

Michael Balili: Let your hair down. There are no big movements in his poetry, it’s very still. Go beyond pretty. Maybe consider doing fragments.

Zeny May Recidoro: May pakiramdam na magkakamukha ang mga poems. There’s something very urban about the poems. Maybe that can be explored: how spaces manifest into collective grief.

Bomen Guillermo: Hindi ko sigurado kung sino ang kinakausap mo sa 2nd-person. Pero ang “you” na ito ang magbibigay sa iyo ng pagkakataon na kausapin ang mga wala na rito.

Bomen Guillermo: I’d like to add something about what Adorno said that writing after Auschwitz is barbaric and impossible. In my understanding, it is the perpetrators who he was talking about. You can’t tell a victim to shut up.

J. Neil Garcia: Use the English words we use. Pepper it with our words. It will change the poems. It’s wrong to think that you need to make personae generic to make them relatable. It is actually particularization that makes the personae powerful.

Pauline Arnould: I think you need to contend with the English language and your relationship with it as a practitioner and as a Filipino. Also, beyond the lyric, maybe you can choose something more rock’n’roll.

Eugene Evasco: Sana ay paksain pa ang iba pang tipo ng pagluluksa sa lipunan. Kasabay nito, paano mas magiging accessible pa ang mga tula?

Vince Agcaoili: Masaya po ako sa naging reception ng lahat. The whole week sobrang kabado ako. One of my biggest regrets is hindi naisima ang recent poetry. Nag-iba ang boses ko sa palagay ko in the past months. Maraming salamat sa pagbabasa.