CDN columnist wins 5th Palanca

Cebu Daily News’ Sunday essayist won his fifth accolade from the country’s top literary award-giving body.

Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. of the Regional Trial Court Branch 7 won third prize in the 61st Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for his poetry collection, “Maguindanao.”

“Maguindanao,” is also the title of one of the suite’s 10 poems, Dumdum said.

The poem, which alludes to the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre, in part reads, “But what I know of childhood, be it brief,/ And love, they have them in Maguindanao,/ But it can happen that something robs us/ Of these, and life, and what I know of grief,/ That something may again be here, that now/ Splinters speech into syllables and sobs.”

The poetry collection was Dumdum’s entry in the competition’s English poetry division, according to a list posted on the awards website and sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The grand prize went to Eliza Victoria for her poem “Maps,” while second prize went to Lourdes Marie La Viña for her collection “Stones and other poems.”

Dumdum won a Palanca poetry prize four times in the 1980s.

Dumdum was born in Balamban town, midwest Cebu.

He studied for the priesthood in Galway, Ireland, but left the seminary to take up law. After years in law practice, he was appointed judge of the Regional Trial Court. His poetry, which Dumdum has published and read overseas, has earned him several awards.

Dumdum has published seven books to date: The Gift of Sleep (poems), Third World Opera (poems), Love in the Time of the Camera (essays), Selected Poems and New (poems), My Pledge of Love Cannot be Broken (essays), Ah Wilderness: A Journey Through Sacred Time and If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly? (poems). Copy Editor Jason A. Baguia