Ralph Semino Galan Biography, Famous Works, and Achievements

Here are some things to know about Ralph Semino Galan, a famous poet.

RALPH SEMINO GALAN – A poet, literary critic, and translator is Ralph Semino Galan, and here are some of his famous works and achievements.

The poet, literary critic, and translator Ralph Semino Galan is also a teacher. He teaches at the University of Santo Tomas teaching literature, humanities, and writing subjects. He is a graduate of Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology. He graduated magna cum laude with a degree in AB English (major in Literature).

He has a master’s in English Studies (major in Creative Writing) from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He was the Workshop Coordinator of the UP National Writers’ Workshop from 1999 to 2002 but was a member of the said organization since 1997. His first book of his poetries is called The Southern Cross and Other Poems published in December 2005. It was launched by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts as part of its UBOD New Authors Series.

As a writer, he writes book reviews for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He is now the Assistant Director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies and an Associate Professor of Literature, the Humanities and Creative Writing in the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters and the UST Graduate School.

He authored the following books:

Discernments: Literary Essays, Cultural Critiques, and Book Reviews (2013)
From the Major Arcana (2014)
Sa mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba pang Pagtutulay (2018)

Some of the things you might want to know about him:

Juror of Gawad Buhay! the PHILSTAGE Awards for the Performing Arts since inaugural
Council of Department Chairs of English (CDCE) lifetime member
College English Teachers Association (CETA) lifetime member
Philippine Association of Language Teachers (PALT) lifetime member
Mindanao Creative Writers Group, Inc. board member
Philippine Center of International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) active member
UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas) active member

Read his poem “Lamentation”, a poem he wrote for World Poetry Day:

LAMENTATION
by Ralph Semino Galán

There are too many poets in my tropical
country. Metaphors compete with one another
thickening the polluted air with imagery.

Things are transformed into symbols, events
are interpreted as signs. Look, that lone
coconut tree withering in the midsummer sun

is the personification of grief, or survival.
The periodic hissing of a passing elevated train
provides rhythm to the daily commuter,

the revving of engines rhyming with the honking
of horns. How can one manage in the metro
where food costs an arm and a leg, and each life

worthless as a cliché? How can we redeem
the mangled parts of a body riddled with bullets
but through the howling implicit in an elegy?

Here are some things to know about Ralph Semino Galan, a famous poet.

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