An Interview with Genevieve Mae Aquino

D: So far we’ve published seven of your poems in Dagmay (counting “Kinase”). One of your hallmarks is to use a scientific concept as a central image, e.g., apoptosis, torsion, Moebius strip. I really like the playful yet challenging nature of these poems. (I confess I also have to look up some of the terms.) What’s the genesis of this project?

GM: It’s not so much a project as it is a reflection of my worldview. I am compelled to write poetry, and science is an inherent part of my life.

The origins of this approach to writing could probably be traced to the film Il Postino (The Postman), which we were required to watch in that creative writing elective that I mentioned. Pablo Neruda became all the rage just before 2000. My childhood friend Jeneen Garcia (also a poet who was then a member of the Heights writing organization in Ateneo de Manila University) lent me two compilations of his translated works, Odes to Common Things and Odes to Opposites.

At the back of my head, I hoped I could write odes like Neruda. Just as his fictionalized self in the film said that maybe the world is a metaphor for something else, I think that scientific concepts are metaphors waiting to be discovered. Most of my poems tend to “write themselves”, especially when I am stuck in a queue or a traffic jam.

D: Ah, the Neruda connection explains the Ode poems. I’m glad that’s sorted out.

Are we looking at a collection soon?

GM: I have been dreaming of a collection. It’s funny. I just kept submitting to calls for submissions and I didn’t realize how much of what I have written is already published. We will see. At work, the running joke is that I keep publishing poems when I should be publishing science papers. Hopefully, that collection will become a reality before I turn 40.

D: Your poems are also quite personal, typically addressed to a friend or family member. One of my favorites is “Torsion”, because it’s so... raw...in its emotion, I can feel the turmoil of Myke but also the almost helpless sympathy of the persona for Myke. It’s also a visual poem that just works. Can you tell us something about this poem?

GM: My poems are usually addressed to people because the idea behind the poem usually comes from someone else. Sometimes it begins as a joke, like in the case of the pomelo poem or even the “Ode to Garlic”. I don’t have as much life experience as most people so I draw many of my poems from the experiences of others.

Myke is one of my former students, one whom I consider to be a surrogate daughter of my heart. I originally wrote the poem as part of my application to the IYAS workshop, and it was in a very different form back then. Myke was in college and taking the same major as myself, with the same undergraduate adviser! So I was very worried about her, and I was also concerned about her other former classmates. They were struggling with puberty and undergrad academics.

I originally wanted to write about the torsional stress of supercoiled DNA, but the imagery just wasn’t working. Then I realized that the term “torsion” was also used in biology to refer to the changes that a snail goes through as it develops into an adult. Since Myke was (and still is) a very shy person, I realized that the imagery of a snail was perfect for what I wanted to say.

D: As a reader, I was approaching it from the more common definition of some type of physical stress. That’s how it worked for me.

GM: As for it being a visual poem, I have always been fascinated by concrete and visual poets, even when I was still in high school. The earliest I can remember is the “Concrete Cat” by Dorthi Charles. In college, I became fascinated with the artful line cuts of poets like Mary Oliver and Louise Glück, and I try to emulate their craft in my work.

During IYAS, I was criticized for being too “wordy” with my poems. So as a writing exercise, I now play around with the lay-out of my poems as I try to reduce the inherent “wordiness” that comes with science writing.

The final form of “Torsion” was heavily influenced by Elizabeth Arnold’s poem “How between two people”. I’m really glad it turned out the way it did.

D: Finally: “A Möbius Trip”. Aside from the obvious pun, I love its heady and dizzying exuberance, how it plays with geography. Love poem? I like think so. But I am more intrigued by the hypograph: “desde IRRI al CIMMYT” What’s the story behind this?

GM: I started thinking about writing a poem about travel because of the call for submissions to a contest for Tulaan sa Tren 2 in 2009. Back then, I was an Associate Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna. However, I was working very closely with researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (in Spanish, Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo or CIMMYT) in Texcoco, Mexico.

I couldn’t think of anything, and the deadline was fast-approaching. The date was smack in the middle of a business trip to CIMMYT. Fortunately, inspiration struck at the right time. I woke up one morning and the poem “A Möbius Trip” was born. I typed it on my trusty old Nokia phone because I didn’t have pen and paper at my bedside. I was able to submit the first draft of the poem to Tulaan sa Tren 2, but it didn’t get accepted.

However, I really liked the poem; so I added more concrete geographical locations then I sent it to Dagmay. All the places mentioned in “A Möbius Trip” are actual locations that I visited during my trips to Mexico. Including the fields of wheat and corn. The mention of rice paddies was also intentional because Los Baños has loads of them.

The first draft isn’t too different from the final form. If there ever is a “Tulaan sa Tren 3”, then I will have something to submit.

D: And the love story behind it?

GM: Well, it’s certainly NOT my love story (laughs). That part is fictional but inspired by real events. The friend who gave me the idea of Möbius strips did find his true love in Mexico. I more or less introduced them to each other, actually. They were even kind enough to invite me to the wedding.

That friend was our systems administrator, who happened to be a math major as an undergrad. In 2009, our separate visits to CIMMYT overlapped and we had to stay at the coed dormitory. During one of our after-dinner conversations, we talked about Möbius strips. In another conversation, we were talking about math in poetry, and I mentioned Wislawa Szymborska’s poem called “Pi”.

All the memories of my trips to Mexico led to the poem as it is today. I think of it as my love poem to Mexico, the country itself.

D: I’m so thankful it’s found a home in Dagmay! In the main, can you give us some insights about how you approach poetry, your ars poetica, as it were?

GM: Usually, I become fascinated with a biological concept and I eventually tie the word to an actual event in life, as in the case of “Apoptosis”. I started the poem a long time ago but only finished after my grandmother passed away. I submitted it to the Spoken Word Challenge for Women’s History Month, which was organized last year by the Facebook page of the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines. The deadline of the challenge coincided with my trip to Singapore. I didn’t win, but I got a good poem out of it.

Otherwise, something really important happens to a good friend or family member, and I am compelled to write about the event. Sometimes, I ask them for their favorite biology word and I try to integrate it into the poem as part of the writing exercise. “Hyphenated” was written for the wedding of my college buddy, a scientist who married another scientist. We once talked about hyphenating last names for scientific publications. The second type of poems are my favorites because it feels like I am somehow achieving Neruda’s “Deber del Poeta” (A Poet’s Obligation). That is, a poet is a conduit that enables the beauty in natural science to connect with the human heart and all its drama.

D: Well, thank you very much for your time and for your insights. I quite enjoyed this interview.

GM: And thank you!