Rosmon Tuazon Biography, Achievements, and Some Of His Works

Who is Rosmon Tuazon and here are some of his achievements.

ROSMON TUAZON – Here are some of the things you might want to know about award-winning writer Rosmon Tuazon.

Author and award-winning writer Rosmon Tuazon is not just an outstanding poet but also the advocacy head of Maynilad. He authored Sa Pagitan ng Emerhensiya which won first prize in the Filipino poetry category in the 2005 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial awards in literature and the book Mula.

He grew up in Muntinlupa City and graduated with a degree in Legal Management from the University of Santo Tomas. He took up his MA in Creative Writing or Malikhaing Pagsulat at the University of the Philippines- Diliman.

He won 2nd prize in the 61st Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for literature for his poem “Mga Nakaw Na Linya”. He wrote poems that won him numerous campus and national awards.

His literary accomplishments and affiliations according to his LinkedIn:

Author of Mula (High Chair, 2005); currently working on his second collection of poems, Sa
Pagitan ng mga Emerhensya (Between Emergencies, tbr 2019); literary works have been published in national dailies and anthologies
Fellow for English Poetry, 2004 Silliman National Writers Workshop; and Fellow for Filipino
Poetry, 2003 UP National Writers Workshop.
Served as editor and/or officer of various UST and UP-based literary organizations; member of the Linangan sa Imahe, Retorika at Anyo (LIRA)
Multi-Palanca Award-winning Poet (Filipino Poetry, 2004, 2005, 2011)
Rector’s Literary Award (UST, 2003)
Gawad Ka Amado Para sa Tula (UPD, 2004)

Some of his works were:

Soap
Patay-Malisya
Marasmus
Monk
Memento
Vineyard
In Case I Run Out

Check out some of his poems below:

MONK

You may have not heard, but there’s a monk bathing himself
in gasoline somewhere at the intersection; and now he’s carrying
a match. It is 1963. This is Saigon.

If you’re not here then maybe you’re lost, missing
in the thicket, trading fire among the trees,
or you’re looking out the window of a hotel room, rolling

through your fingers the bullet you always keep wiped clean, thinking
of the coming parade. While the flames imitate
the lotus position of the opposition:

if it refuses to catch on, it isn’t ready,
you say, if you’re one of those standing by the side of the road,
in line with all the madness and wailing\like firetrucks circling, circling
the city, trying to get to anywhere but the fire.
But what is gained before

one of them is consumed? Quick, someone get
a pail at least, soften the flaying flames, begging,
roasting the ears of the monk with every whisper.

If you’re not here, perhaps you’re pacing
in your office, or dizzying your swivel-chair you refuse to leave.
As if you’d catch fire any moment now,

pestered by the bullet whose shrieking you feel you can end only
by shooting it. When it finds its target. But don’t worry
about that now. There is no fire, no monk, you were never there

to begin with—but there’s a mound of ash sitting
in something like the lotus position in the middle of the intersection.
This is Saigon. It is now 1963. You’re probably still alive.

MEMENTO

This is the spoon and the bitterness measured.
This is the cup and a cup of remains.

This is the veil of the widow of the world.
This is the sleeping mat with wide eyes woven in.

This is the necklace bright in the mind of the blind.
This is the bracelet of the glutton for bright things.

This is the pot filled with the finest sand.
This is the vase from a house that refuses to let light through.

This is the sword that would fit right in a chest.
This is the mask of one who looks like everyone.

This is a book of instructions in a dead language.
This is the spirit that drives visitors to our land away.

This is the postcard of a city you can never come from.
Take what you want and you will be left behind.