By Yeow Kai Chai

Born in March 1969, Jim Pascual Agustin grew up in the shadow of the Marcos dictatorship in "a rural area on the outskirts of Manila with rice fields and small vegetable farms by the river," as he recalled in a 2022 essay titled 'Various Histories' for The Johannesburg Review of Books.

In October 1994, his life took a dramatic turn when the then-25-year-old moved to Cape Town to join a South African woman he had met a year earlier on top of a bus on the way to the northern mountainous region of the Philippines.

Little did he know that Cape Town would become his home. In his adopted country, where he has spent more than half his life, he recounted instances of strangers approaching him, "often not in a friendly way," assuming he was "from somewhere else."

The émigré's ambivalent experience has richly informed his pursuit as a poet, writer and translator. Writing in both Filipino and English, he has published about a dozen books of poetry primarily in the Philippines and in the United Kingdom. His first South African title, Bloodred Dragonflies, was published last year (2022) by Deep South, and a South African edition of an earlier collection, Sound Before Water, is forthcoming from Minimal Press.

He has recently returned from Seattle where he attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in March 2023 and launched his first American title, Waking Up to the Pattern Left by a Snail Overnight (Gaudy Boy).

As a judge for the 2022 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize, I had selected it from an estimable shortlist to be the worthy winner. With range and depth, it has an exquisite sensibility which enlivens entirely believable scenarios filled with people and creatures finding themselves in everyday moments and extraordinary circumstances.

Comprising 16 poems addressing the Martial Law period in The Philippines, the rest of the 55-poem collection contains references to "the Duterte fake drug war, Jacob Zuma, Maria Ressa, Mad Max, Björk, and Taylor Swift, among others," as Agustin has described in his blog.

1. What are you reading right now?
It seems I've gone back to John Berger again after taking a break from his writing for a few years. I'm reading Portraits and here is where we meet. The very first book of his I read was Lilac and Flag, which I borrowed a number of times from the British Council in Manila when I was at university. After that I tried to get hold of everything he wrote.

I'm also in the middle of reading the Collected Poems of Paul Auster. Dark, exhausting poetry. Disturbing and brilliant most times, definitely worth it in bits instead of one full go.

I've also started reading the first books by Zosimo Quibilan (Pagluwas) and Marianne Chan (All Heathens).

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
I don't know how many people know the Martian in the poem by Craig Raine, 'A Martian Sends a Postcard Home.' To be honest, I didn't understand it fully then, but I loved it the moment I read it when I was still a student in Manila. In a way I guess I've always felt like an alien, not necessarily a Martian though. A character that accidentally sounds comic while being curious, even as he feels totally out of place, that's me most days.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
I have no idea. I think that says that I don't care much what people think of me. If I were to guess, it might be that either I'm too quiet or too loud – never in between. But the truth is I'm always both – always trying to fight my own silence with noise, and vice versa.

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
Dead writer would have to be John Berger, because even when I try to not agree with him about the things he writes, he always wins me over in some way. I admire his sense of commitment to socialist ideals. His unique perspectives match his seemingly quiet yet commanding voice. He challenges his readers while keeping a calm appearance.

Living writer I would have said – until a few days ago – the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski. I was a bit shocked the other day when I found out that he had died in 2021! I thought I would still have a chance to actually meet him one of these days. So for a living writer then (though he is more in documentaries, but I've read his books, too) it would have to be David Attenborough. His eye for detail, for what makes up the whole, for how fragile things are, resonate with my own work. His influence on how I view the world is enormous.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
I don't believe in writer's block. But there are times I struggle to write because of everyday matters that need to be dealt with. I find that eventually I break myself out of those moments almost as a kind of rebellion for "not being allowed" the space and time to write. I steal time in between to write even on my phone or a piece of paper wherever I may be.

Even when I was still a student I would find time to write in a cramped and crowded jeepney while stuck in epic Manila traffic. I don't remember ever getting writer's block.

6.  What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Humility. Knowing you can never be everything for everyone, and that perfection is elusive and relative. All one can do is try. Those writers who feel fully accomplished are fooling themselves or have reached the end of the line but just don't know it.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Some writers are condescending to their readers who they think are uneducated and stupid. They show so little respect to their readers.

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
"Trust me, I'm telling you stories. ... I can change the story. I am the story." ― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
…like to pretend to sing, when I'm alone mostly, meaningless words that mimic the singing of Djivan Gasparyan and Stephan Micus.

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
That would be neither of those. On my own I tend to go for horror/sci-fi movies. I guess it's a way of telling myself the possibility of worse monsters out there than the ones we face in the world. Fictional monsters that can be killed or brought down, at least by the end of the movie, that is until the producers find a way to make a stupid sequel or origin story.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
Ricochet – It's elegant and visually enticing. I just wish it didn't have to be associated with bullets.

Phlegm – Just the spelling alone, even if you didn't know what it was, is awful. Then throw in onomatopoeia and the actual thing. Yuck.

12. Please compose a rhyming couplet with the following words: cocoon, bobotie, saudade.
The Taste of Saudade in My First Bobotie in Cape Town  

Sweet-sour spices in the bobotie's layers of mince,
a warm and soft cocoon, saudade, with legs thin as pins.  

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
White noise. Or visual noise. Stuff that tries to distract me but fails – a movie or video, clutter, something else going on in the background.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
These days... before anyone notices I'm writing – just before dawn or when everyone has gone to sleep. Or lunch break – I eat fast so I can write something.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Bienvenido Lumbera, Filipino poet and critic who was my mentor when I was still in the Philippines. I'd like a chance to mend fences with him and apologise for letting disagreements come between us.

Elizabeth Bartlett, British poet who became a long-distance friend while I was a student in Manila. She sent me her books as they were published, but we lost touch when I came to South Africa. I only learned of her passing two years after it happened. I'd like to ask her what she meant when she included my name in a poem she wrote.

Jeanette Winterson, just to know a bit about her in person, see if she's as exciting as her early writing (I haven't read her later books). I'll introduce her to Bien and Elizabeth. If I she declines, I'll invite John Berger.

16. As someone who writes from a binational and bilingual space, has distance – time and space – from your birth country the Philippines clarified your views on events and people you know from your earlier life? And how have your nearly three decades in your adopted country South Africa changed you and your writing?
Distance – time and space – has definitely allowed me to see things in a different light, from different perspectives, on almost everything, not just my country of birth. It was only when I left did I see how restrictive and stifling so many things were, things I just accepted as normal – from the maddening traffic to the literary landscape that tends to function as almost feudal, and all else in between.

I saw that I didn't have to bow to anyone to be considered worthy of an open door. In South Africa, for example, when they say blind judging in a literary competition they usually mean it (until perhaps the final round sometimes, in certain cases). It's a smaller market than the Philippines, but there is a genuine openness and acceptance to my writing.

My only regret is that because no one speaks Filipino to me here in Cape Town, I have somehow ended up writing more poetry in English. I would prefer my output in both languages to be more equal. So I've told myself that I must find time to at least keep translating my own writing in English to Filipino, to "catch up" so to speak. Although for a while I did write a series of new poems in Filipino in response to the publicly shared poetry of a friend who praised the murderous Duterte regime. That friend cut all ties with me after that interaction, sadly.

Some readers have pointed out major differences in my voice and subject matter when I switch between languages. I suppose it's proof that there are really many voices inside us, stories and poems that wish to spring forth if we allow them.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
I probably won't even have a tombstone, but if I did it might say something like this:

Nothing to see here. Move on. Read my books. Any book. Get a life.

_____