From Baao, Camarines Sur, Luis Guevara Dato was a poet, writer, politician, and educator from the Philippines. He was among the pioneers of Filipino writers and publishers of English-language books. "Day on the Farm," "Among the Hills," and "The Spouse" are a few of his poems. From 1941 to 1947, he was also Baao's municipal mayor. He was Eugenio Dato y Espalana and Barbara Guevara y Imperial's third child out of five. His brother Rodolfo was also an academic; he edited the anthology Filipino Poetry, which was first published in 1924, and held the position of dean of the University of Nueva Caceres in Naga City, in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.
His famous literary works:
‘’The Spouse’’- The poem paints a picture of the curse. The poem's third line describes the woman's love and loyalty for her husband, but she also suffers from being a prisoner and a slave. She creates a world for herself and her spouse, and in doing so, she has allowed herself to become limited to the point where she finally turns down any happiness life could have to give if she would just venture outside of her husband's and her own created world. Due to this, she exclusively looks to her husband for fulfillment, a rare exception that will inevitably result in disappointment due to the man's curse. From afar, the woman looks passionately who is described as her mind, her motion, her time and space. From where the wife stands, she suffers the curse of not being able to revel in such passion and devotion her wife pours out on him; he is too preoccupied to enjoy the beauty and luxury of his wife's love for him. He has to work, and as hard as he could he must. By doing so he doesn't just deprive himself of the extravagance of his wife's love and attention, but also deprives his wife of the very same things that he deprives himself of.
‘’Day on the Farm’’- The poem symbolizes the love of a husband for his wife, he offers her anything. All he wants perhaps is to please his wife so he is very happy to say to his wife that he found fruits that have the sweetest taste. His wife is pregnant by tradition he has to follow what his wife asks for. That is why he had gone to the hill to look for duhat fruit that his wife craves for. The husband assumed that he satisfied his wife but the crying of his wife indicates that his wife is still not happy or satisfied. And yet the husband will not allow that his wife is not satisfied, so he goes back to the hill and encounters a wild beautiful flower that he remembers her wife of.
‘’Among the Hills’’- The poem portrays love, beauty, and longing, using the natural landscape as reference for human emotions. The hills symbolize both a literal setting and a metaphor for life’s highs and lows, serenity, and permanence. They provide a contemplative space where the speaker reflects on emotions, perhaps love or longing, inspired by the beauty and solitude of the natural world. The poem likely explores the feelings of admiration or yearning that the speaker holds for another, using nature as a canvas to paint these emotions. The hills, sky, and landscape can be seen as a metaphor for the speaker’s inner emotional terrain where passion is both gentle and overwhelming, calm yet stirring.
My thoughts:
Overall the mastery of Luis G. Dato when it comes to creating literary works is definitely outstanding, the way he makes the readers think when it comes to his poems you can say that he is very skillful in doing those kinds of works. Creating different kinds of poems in different genres, will amaze anyone that will read his literary works. Luis Dato needs to be known across the world, his masterpiece and creativity will inspire every aspiring author to continue and pursue the dream of being an literary author. I cant believe that he is an underrated canonical author, his masterpiece deserves more appreciation and tribute as one of the greatest canonical authors in the Philippines. Not only is he good at making English poems, he also makes literary work in his native language which is bikol language. That's why I picked him to make a literary blog, not just because he is a great author but because he is also from the Bicol region.
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