A Sillimanian poet is set to receive her seventh Palanca win. Merlie Alunan won First Prize for Poetry in English for her collection entitled “Tales of the Spider Woman.” {{more}}
Alunan, who received her M.A. in Creative Writing from Silliman University in 1975, is a professor at the University of the Philippines in Tacloban, where she resides. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Lillian Jerome Thornton Award for Nonfiction, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, and the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. Her books of poetry include Hearthstone, Sacred Tree (Anvil, 1993) and Amina among the Angels (UP Press, 1997). Her other works also include Kabilin: 100 Years of Negros Oriental and the anthology Fern Garden: An Anthology of Women Writing in the South.
“My collections is a little too hard to describe,” Alunan says of her winning poetry. “’Tale of the Spider Woman’ is a weird love poem. [But I’m] feeling good about this win, because I had a mind that I’m not writing poetry that’s like the poetry coming out today, like a bit out of date. So it’s good to win.”
She will receive the prize on 1 September 2010 in ceremonies to honor this year’s roster of literary winners in Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati.
The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature is the Philippines’ most prestigious and longest-running literary award. Established in 1950, the prize has also been awarded to other Sillimanian writers, including National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo, Edilberto Tiempo, Rowena Torrevillas, Leoncio Derriada, Marjorie Evasco, Anthony Tan, Jaime An Lim, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Bobby Flores Villasis, Lakambini Sitoy, Timothy Montes, and Ian Rosales Casocot. (SUCAC)
