Here’s Francisco Arcellana biography and some of his works that went famous.
FRANCISCO ARCELLANA BIOGRAPHY – This is the life and famous works of writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist, and teacher, Francisco Arcellana.
A writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist, and teacher is Francisco Arcellana who is an important progenitor of the modern Filipino short story in English. He pioneered the short story to be developed as a lyrical prose-poetic form. And for him, fiction is “that it is able to render truth, that is able to present reality”.
He is the fourth of 18 children of Jose Arcellana y Cabaneiro and Epifanio Quino. He married Emerenciana Yuvienco and they’ve had six children, one of them is Juaniyo who is an essayist, poet, and fictionist. Arcellana’s consciousness of writing came to an awakening when he attended Tondo Intermediate School. However, it was just when he entered Manila West High School that he became an active writer of The Torres Torch, the school organ.
Arcellana went to the University of the Philippines (UP) took up a pre-medicine course in 1932 and had a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1939. During his junior year, his “trilogy of the turtles” in the Literary Apprentice got him an invitation to join the UP Writers Club from Manuel Arguilla. He also edited and published Expression, experimental writing which gained the attention of Jose Garcia Villa.
After his pre-med, he attended medical school juggling his job at Herald Midweek Magazine where his column “Art and Life” was published weekly. However, the war happened and it made him stop going to school. He joined media and publishing and became the manager of the International News Service and the editor of This Week.
He also became a part of the UP Department of English and Comparative Literature and served as adviser of the Philippine Collegian and director of the UP Creative Writing Center from 1979 to 1982.
“The Man Who Could Be Poe” is his first published story while he was still at Torres High School. The following year, his short stories, “Death is a Factory” and “Lina” got into Jose Garcia Villa’s honor roll.
Some of his short stories are Frankie, The Man Who Would Be Poe, Death in a Factory, Lina, A Clown Remembers, Divided by Two, The Mats, and his poems being The Other Woman, This Being the Third Poem This Poem is for Mathilda, To Touch You and I Touched Her, among others.
Read his poem entitled The Other Woman here:
I have watched her in stillness,
how still and white and long.
I have followed her about with my eyes,
how silent and swift and strong.
When she is still, it is musical.
When she moves, it is a song.
I have looked at her fearlessly,
openly, and without shame:
it is quite true that I desire you,
it is quite true that lust is my name.
I know, I always know where she is,
when she is around and about:
it is in my body like a shout.
soft hair, white brow, eyes young
nose fine, sweet lips, sweet mouth, tongue
proud chin, neck white, graceful, long
downy nape, smooth, shoulders strong
under the arms soft, arms long
sweet and exquisite, white and strong
wrist small and supple
hands neat, exquisite
fingers – petals of the lotus
breasts like apples
white body shining, sweet and long
hips broad and ample, wide and strong
thighs like pillars, white and long
legs like cedars, firm and strong
feet that are sweet
toes like the rose
I know her name, I have called to her
but she does not hear, she will not listen.
I call to her but she does not come.
The Lord is my shepherd but I want.
READ ALSO:
- Has, Had, Have Usage and Difference with Sample Sentences
- Sandosenang Sapatos Buod, Tauhan, At Pagsusuri Ng Kwento
What can you say about this? Let us know!
For more news and updates, follow us on Twitter:@philnews_ph Facebook:@PhilNews and; YouTube channel Philnews Ph.