Carlos A. Angeles was born in Tacloban City. Leyte on May 25. 1921. He finished high school in Rizal High during the twelvemonth 1938 and proceeded to college. traveling to assorted universities such as Ateneo de Manila. University of the Philippines ( where he became a member of the UP Writers’ Club ) . and Central Luzon Colleges. He. nevertheless. stopped and did non return to school after World War II. Despite this. he had a noteworthy calling. working at assorted establishments. He foremost worked at the Philippine Bureau of International News Service from 1950 to 1958. He went on as a invitee of the US State Department on a Smith-Mund¬t leader grant. He besides worked as a imperativeness helper under the Garcia disposal and as a Public Relations Manager of PanAm Airlines. All these were from 1958 to 1980. He subsequently on besides served in the Board of Directors of the Philippine Chapter of International PEN.
During 1964. when poesy was. for the first clip. included in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. Angeles’ A Stun of Jewels. which was a aggregation of 47 verse forms he wrote. chiefly dedicated to his married woman. received first award in this honored competition. The aggregation besides won the Republic Cultural Heritage Award for Literature.
He has been shacking in the United States of America since 1978. Married to Concepcion Reynoso. he has seven kids and 18 grandchildren. all of which are besides shacking in the United States of America.
“Gabu” is an existent topographic point along the coastline of Ilocos Norte. located in the northern parts of the Philippines. The Philippines is known to the universe as one of the most unsafe topographic points to populate in due to the fact that the state plays host to multiple typhoons every twelvemonth. The seashore of Gabu is no exclusion to these calamities. It is one of those countries which are often visited by the said typhoons. Every clip a typhoon hits. most of the local vegetations and fauna gets ravaged. Possibly this is the ground why the verse form has a general tone of unhappiness. brought about by the “havocs” of Mother Earth. This will be discussed farther on as we move through the new critical / formalist reading of the verse form.
Now that the general background information about the verse form and its writer has been established. it is possibly best to travel on to the analysis and the reading of the verse form itself. The verse form will be read in a mode which presents assorted sarcasms. paradoxes. tensenesss and ambiguities. These force per unit areas in a verse form are the Markss of a new critical / formalist reading. tensenesss that when read closely. really account for the poem’s stableness. and non needfully for its devastation.
The verse form starts off on the first stanza with a general attitude towards depicting the desolations brought approximately by the “battering restlessness of the sea” . The sea. as we know it. is a common imagination of life. However. it is represented as something that “insists a tidal rage upon the beach” . Wordss such as “sea” . and “beach” . denote life. and felicity. and a general tone of positiveness. When one thinks of the sea. and the beach. usually. it is accompanied by ideas about the beautiful sundown. while we’re peacefully reading a book or imbibing vino with a loved one. holding meaningful conversations that give us some clip off from the barbarous worlds of life. However. all those lovely ideas about the sea and the beach are wholly reversed by the verse form right from the beginning.
The character talked about a “wasteland” . most likely mentioning to a foul shore. Possibly the shore that the character is speaking about in this verse form is non something which resembles lovely beaches like Boracay. Possibly. it is a shore full of refuse that people have thrown. along with all the soil and dirt accumulated by the moving ridges. mixed up with all the moss. Harmonizing to the verse form. this barren is being “havocked” . Another noteworthy sarcasm nowadays in the first stanza is the evident restlessness of the sea while at the same clip holding a pure consistence. Although the sea restlessly hitters and wreaks havoc on the shore. it at the same clip has a pure consistence which possibly refers to its endless and uninterrupted tides towards the barren.
Traveling on to the 2nd stanza. we still see the same tone. The sea is still ferocious. as its Black Marias “bashes” “brutally” for a daylong. It is described to be socking against the seascape – once more. an imagination of something beautiful being ravaged by the sea. Lines 7 and 8 introduce us to a new sort of feeling and esthesis. Whereas the predating lines talk largely about ferociousnesss and devastation. these two lines give us the esthesiss. feelings. and emotions that are associated with and brought approximately by such atrociousnesss. It describes rock-stones separating because of the ceaseless devastation of the sea. The character here paints a image of stones interrupting. falling apart as the sea hits them continuously with monolithic sums of force. They so fall into the “elemental wound” . By this. he refers to the deep deepnesss of the seas where the stone fragments finally settle. What have been standing lasting and robust ( the stones ) for a really long clip have been wrecked by the seas. doing them to fall easy. and easy be forgotten into the deep deepnesss of the oceans. This kind of imagination makes the reader experience an emotion of unhappiness and desperation.
These emotions of sadness linger as we progress through the stanzas. On the 3rd stanza. the character begins by speaking about “waste of centuries Greies and dead” . Remember that in the first stanza. he refers to the shore as a “wasteland” . Now in line 9. when he talks about the “waste of the centuries” . he must be mentioning to the centuries of the sea’s rhythm of rinsing off its “brine” and “spilt salt” against the shore. We see here an allusion to the yesteryear. It was said that the sea becomes “neutral” as it reaches the shore. This gives the reader an imagination about retrieving past memories whenever one looks at the shore. However. this imagination of the yesteryear is depicted in a mode which is similar to the first two stanzas. a feeling of unhappiness. Merely as the sea has been harrying the shore for a really long clip now. centuries worth of waste has been washed off to the sea where they lie “grey” and “dead” . Grey is a colour which normally represents sorrow and unhappiness. It is a colour normally associated with depression and emptiness. On the shore. it is mentioned that the “spilt salt” . which represents memories from the past washed off on the shore. lie spread among the “dark clothings of Time” .
“Habiliment” is synonymous to vesture. attire. or frock. Line 12 is seeking to direct a message that all the memories of the yesteryear have been passed on and on from the sea to the shore. in its uninterrupted rhythm. Time has served as a vesture to embrace all these memories that have been washed off towards the shore. However. merely as these imaginations and allusions to the past seem to be represented in a sorrowful mode. there is besides something beautiful. something loosen uping in the manner they are told. Up until this point. the verse form has presented an everlasting relationship between the sea and the shore – a relationship that although harsh. is besides beautiful and ageless. The first few stanzas. as mentioned earlier. give imaginations about the barbarous moving ridges eliminating everything on the beach. It dwells on the power of the sea and its potency of harrying anything on the “wasteland” shore. Despite this. there is besides some beauty in the moving ridges. Merely as the moving ridges take off. and merely as they make about everything on the shore disappear. the memory of the yesteryear still lingers on the shore. When the “sea has beached its brine” . it becomes “neutral” .
Aside from this being an allusion to the past as mentioned earlier. it can besides give an imagination of the sea quieting down ( going neutral ) after it has ravaged the shore. The beaching of its seawater gives an imagination of the moving ridges easy rustling off from the shore after it has given it a powerful whipping. Despite being a scaring force of nature. it can besides fondle the shore with its soft moving ridges. The 3rd stanza provides words such as “grey” . “dead” . and “neutral” . These words represent imaginations of the shore that has lost its past impressiveness. This has been carried on to the 4th stanza. In the 4th stanza. it is explicitly stated how the “vital luster misses” . The “vital splendor” . which refers to the past glorification that was one time on the beach. is now gone. “All things forfeited are most loved and beloved. ” Again. this negotiations about the sea’s power to take away the things that we love the most. This presents to us a paradox of destructing something that is loved. Everything that has of all time been most loved and beloved has been and will be taken off by the harrying sea. The verse form goes on to province the ground for this – “the ageless tide” which “recurs” . This describes the behaviour of the sea and the shore. something every bit old as clip.
It being “ageless” . the character states that it has been traveling of all time since the really old times. and it is still traveling on until now. and would likely travel on for a much longer period of clip in the hereafter. This imagination goes on to the last line of the verse form where it has been stated that “it is the sea pursues a wont of shores” . Again. this negotiations about the eternity and ne’er stoping rhythm of wrath and composure. These two sides to a coin represented in the sea and the shore strengthens even more the beauty of its relationship. It follows the relationship of the shore and the sea as a ceaseless rhythm of raggedness and gradualness. This shows us that the catastrophes are ceaseless. However. merely every bit ceaseless as the catastrophes. are the unagitated caresses of the moving ridges towards the shore that represents something loosen uping and beautiful. Therefore. the verse form concludes with the sea prosecuting a wont of shores. An allusion to human life. we see how the moving ridges keep on traveling and traveling until it eventually reaches the shore. Similarly. life would maintain on traveling and traveling until it reaches its terminal ( decease ) . The persona negotiations about a wont. something continuously done. once more mentioning to the eternity of the rhythm of the calamities brought by the sea. followed by the composure. Life excessively. though bounded by clip. imitates this rhythm. What we all desire is an ageless stoping when we would eventually rest in peace. Although life nowadayss many jobs and rough minutes. merely as the sea finds its composure and stableness one time it reaches the shore. so can we.
