I am Joining the Mindanao Bloggers Summit

This Saturday, expect me to be busy as a bee (as if that's not my usual state), because I am attending the First Mindanao Bloggers Summit (MBS1). MBS1 is going to be held as part of the 6th Mindanao ICT Congress and 1st BIMP-EAGA ICT Conference.

It is going to be held at the NCCC Mall of Davao (located along McArthur Highway in Davao City) on October 27, 2007 from 9 am to 6 pm. Registration and participation is totally free for all bloggers. Just register HERE.

The tentative Program of MBS1 is as follows (may change):

Opening Remarks: Building a Bloggers Community by Blogie Robillo
Keynote Speech: Blogging & Participatory Governance by Hon. Pete Laviña
Blogging in Mindanao: Travel & Technology by Bob Martin
Socio-Cultural Mindset of the Mindanaoan by Fr. Albert Alejo, SJ
LUNCH
Transition from “Emo” to Niche Blogging by Kim Castillo
Blogging as a Way of Life: Problogging & New Media by Jayvee Fernandez
How to Optimize Your Wordpress Blog for Top Search Rankings by Marc Macalua
Presentation of Summit Resolutions: The Role of Bloggers in Fostering Understanding & Peace in Mindanao
Pick Their Brains Session with A-List Bloggers: Abe Olandres, Aileen Apolo, Andrew dela Serna, Bob Martin, Jayvee Fernandez

And to make things more interesting, we also have three Side Events:
Mindanao Bloggers Fellowship Night
Venue: 2/F Casa Habana, Habana Compound, Rizal St., Davao City
Time: 9:00 PM
No entrance fee!

You Got Blogged! DigitalFilipino.com / MindanaoBloggers.com Review-a-Blog Competition
Review a Mindanao blog and win cash prizes! Are you a Mindanaoan? Make sure your blog is included in the Mindanao Blog Directory.
Here's how to join. View the entries here.

Mindanao Blog Awards
Not your usual blog contest: categories include Best Advocacy Blog, Best Travel Blog, Best Bisaya Blog, Best Blog of Mindanao, and more! To be nominated, submit your blog to the Mindanao Blog Directory.
This contest will be launched during the Summit.

MBS1 is proudly organized by Davao's The Usual Suspects: Pete, Andrew, Blogie, Dom, Jun, Kim, Marc, Migs, and Ria (me).

The MBS1 is made possible through the support of the following:
Special Event Sponsors
Join the DigitalFilipino.com Club!
Dimsum Diner
Swiss Deli

Major Sponsors
Councilor Peter Laviña
NoKiAHOST.COM P5/day webhosting
Globe Broadband
ACT for Peace Programme

Minor Sponsors
Davao’s Food Huntress
Web Design Philippines
Orange County Real Estate
Web Developer Philippines
BisayaBloggers.com
Fwendz Diner
Artcom Printing Services
Cubepixels Design Studio

Donors
Lane Systems
Snap Graphic & Sign
Motorcycle Davao
Eric Clark Su

Want to be an MBS1 Sponsor? CLICK HERE.

Want to join? REGISTER NOW!!!

Poetry by Pablo Neruda

Recording by Miranda Richardson for the Lyrics and Poetry Soundtrack of Il Postino.


Poetry
by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

This poem is a simple but very powerful description of how poetry captures a poet, how it suddenly arrives without warning, and gives meaning and beauty to everything.

Long Walk to Forever by Kurt Vonnegut

Long Walk to Forever
by Kurt Vonnegut

They had grown up next door to each other, on the fringe of a city, near fields and woods and orchards, within sight of a lovely bell tower that belonged to a school for the blind.

Now they were twenty, had not seen each other for nearly a year. There had always ben playful, comfortable warmth between them, but never any talk of love.

His name was Newt. Her name was Catharine. In the early afternoon, Newt knocked on
Catharine's front door.

Catharine came to the door. She was carrying a fat, glossy magazine she had been reading. The magazine was devoted entirely to brides. "Newt!" she said. She was surprised to see him.

"Could you come for a walk?" he said. He was a shy person, even with Catharine. He
covered his shyness by speaking absently as though what really concerned him were far
away--as though he were a secret agent pausing briefly on a mission between beautiful, distant, and sinister points. This manner of speaking had always been Newt's style, even in matters that concerned him desperately.

Mikael de Lara Co: Don Carlos Palanca Awardee for Poetry

The horizon, my ancestors say,
is an eye. When it shuts
its lashes sift the sea for rafts

and turn fishermen and divers to stone,
their hands still clenched around pearls,
their blood turning crystalline and cold.

The gods were in love with the horizon.
They hung their jewels
on the night-sky and ebbed into the eye
while my people stared
at the orphaned trinkets.

The poem above is an excerpt from the the poem Archipelago by Mikael "Kael" de Lara Co. It is part of his award-winning collection "Hands for a Fistful of Sand." Other poems in the collection are Silence and Cryptic.

Hands for a Fistful of Sand won for Kael the First Prize for Poetry for this year's Don Carlos Palance Memorial Awards for Literature.

Kael was my classmate at AdMU. He was a BS Environmental Science major, but everybody knew his heart was in literature, in creatively tying up simple words and making them mean so much more.

This award is proof of his infinite genius. I believe he is going to be one of the poets of our generation who will define for us what Filipino poetry is in the second millennium.

Congratulations Kael!!!