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‘The Haiyan

looking for the moon washed out


in a tumult of water that melted their
bodies

Dead’ — A they are looking for their bodies that


once
moved to the dance to play
poem to the rhythms of love moved
in the simple ways--before wind
Published January 6, 2014 6:00pm lifted sea and smashed it on the
By MERLIE ALUNAN
land--
of breath talk words shaping
do not sleep. in their throats lips tongues
They walk our streets the Haiyan dead are looking
climb stairs of roofless houses for a song they used to love a
latchless windows blown-off doors poem
they are looking for the bed by the a prayer they had raised that sea
window had
cocks crowing at dawn lizards in the swallowed before it could be said
eaves the Haiyan dead are looking for
they are looking for the men the eyes of God suddenly blinded
who loved them at night the in the sudden murk white wind
women seething
who made them crawl like water salt sand black silt--and that
puppies is why
to their breasts babes they held in the Haiyan dead will walk among us
arms endlessly sleepless--
the boy who climbed trees the
Haiyan dead
are looking in the rubble for the January 4, 2014, Batinguel,
child Dumaguete City — KDM, GMA
they once were the youth they once News
were
the bride with flowers in her hair Merlie Alunan is Professor Emeritus
red-lipped perfumed women at the University of the Philippines,
white-haired father gap-toothed
Tacloban and the author of the
crone
selling peanuts by the church door poetry collection "Amina Among
the drunk by a street lamp waiting the Angels." This poem originally
for his house to come by the girl appeared on her Facebook page on
dreaming January 4 and we are reposting it
under the moon the Haiyan dead here with her permission.
are
Merlie M. Alunan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merlie M. Alunan (born December 14, 1943, in Dingle, Iloilo) is a Filipina poet.

Life
She graduated in Silliman University with an MA in Creative Writing in 1974. She teaches at the
Creative Writing Center,[1] University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College.[2]She lives
in Tacloban City.

Awards

 Lillian Jerome Thornton Award for Nonfiction


 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature
 National Book Award
 Sunthorn Phu Literary Awards
 Ani ng Dangal

Works

 Heartstone, Sacred Tree, Anvil, 1993, ISBN 978-971-27-0301-0


 Amina among the angels, University of the Philippines Press, 1997, ISBN 978-971-542-150-8
 Selected poems, University of the Philippines Press, 2004, ISBN 978-971-542-443-1
Non-fiction

 Kabilin: 100 Years of Negros Oriental, Negros Oriental Centennial Foundation, 1993
Edited

 Fern Garden: An Anthology of Women Writing in the South, Committee on Literature, National
Commission on Culture and the Arts, 1998, ISBN 978-971-91500-6-0
Anthologies

 Songs of ourselves: writings by Filipino women in English, Editor Edna Zapanta-Manlapaz, Anvil
Publishing, 1994, ISBN 978-971-27-0356-0
2. DESCRIBE THE EFFECTS OF HAIYAN UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME

 There are people who still have no permanent homes after the destructive typhoon left them homeless

 There are missing funds given to us by both private and public institutions inside and outside our
country

 The trauma brought by the typhoon to the people affected who lost their loved ones and their
livelihoods

 The typhoon opened the eyes of the Filipino people to the serious effects of storm surge and level 4
typhoons

 It helped the Filipinos show unity amidst the crisis, hence proving that Filipinos still practice bayanihan
in the modern times

3. WHAT ARE THE FORMAL ELEMTS

- figures of speech that can be found / used:

 Simile: “the women who made them crawl like puppies”


 Personification: “the haiyan dead are looking” , “the haiyan dead will walk among us”
 Hyperbole: they are looking for their bodies that once

moved to the dance to play


to the rhythms of love moved
in the simple ways--before wind
lifted sea and smashed it on the land--
of breath talk words shaping
in their throats lips tongues

 Irony
 Metaphor

1. Free verse poem, walang sinusunod na rule, di nagra-rhyme and 1 stanza lang siya.

1. Because of the figures of speech used, the playing of words evoke strong emotions from the
readers, thus, the happenings are felt more sincerely and touches the heart.
2. It’s in third point of view, that’s why it covers a larger group of people but at the same time in a
specific way. It states what there is and stays teue to what has happened.
Visual patterns

Uneven

-Rhymes

-No. Of syllables

-Stanzas

-Free verse

What visual patterns do you find in this text?

- One visual pattern we have observed in the poem is its uneven number of syllables per
line. It is also a free-verse poem since it follows no particular structure. It has no set
meter, which is the rhythm of the words. The poem also has no rhyme scheme.

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