March Abuyuan-Llanes

What was your favorite book as a child?

As someone so passionate about local Philippine literature, I wish my answer was something written by a Filipino. Like a lot of middle class Filipinos, though, it was a book in English written by an American: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It's this children's book about a boy who gets transported to a wonderland like Alice and learns to love reading and learning at the end. I remember reading it for the first time when I was eight or something for English class, and being completely captivated and entertained by the wit of all its silly puns and wordplay. There was a character who was a "watchdog" named "Tok," for instance, who had an actual clock on his back, and a literal bee who could spell. I know I already had a deep fascination with words during that time, but I feel that that book helped ignite something in my emerging love for poetry as a kid. I wish I could be a child again and re-read that book for the first time.

Do you remember the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I suppose this is a trick question for any writer or artist to answer, since there's never really a single reason or motivation why we end up doing creative things. Maybe it was because my mother was a writer who'd showered us three siblings in books or because I've always been a talkative person, but I was writing poetry at the age of seven and I don't think I would have had a response as to why if you asked me then. 

Like many writers or poets, it first came to me (and still does) as an instinctive impulse akin to having to smile or cry, or having something to say occur to you that you could never really say in a conversation. I suppose I simply entertained that feeling for long enough, nursing it and scribbling down whatever came to me in my school notebooks, until I realized it was poetry I wanted to read and write. Why I began writing in English as opposed to my native Tagalog, though, is a whole other question you can pose to any colonized person who writes in English. The answer there is always imperialism. 

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

Honestly, the initial answer that came to my mind would be my first few experiences with psychedelics, but those aren't really interesting stories to tell. Because I'm a shameless sap (and because of the poem I wrote in the newest issue), I'll answer instead with the first time I met up with my partner.

We first got to know each other as teenagers online: I, from the capital of Manila, and he, from Silang, a town in the Caviteño countryside in the South. It was quite a distance, and since we were young and lacked freedom, our only opening to see each other was at his friend's debut (a kind of Filipino quinceañera for 18 year old girls), which was happening in Antipolo, a city in yet another province far from both of us. 

We grew up during the pandemic, so we were nervous about commuting to such a far place we'd never really been to before. The day came, and to further stack the odds against us, so did a powerful typhoon. Somehow, we both got to our sketchy motel through all of the flooded streets and whipping trees. The first night we spent together, everything — our clothes, the floor — was wet with rainwater.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

Yes! It's funny, I'm either slouched over my laptop and hyperfocused on a line for hours, or pacing around with music in my ears and typing away with my phone in my hand, and nowhere in between. 

I suppose I do it because it gets me in the mood or high of the poem I'm trying to write. Sometimes it's a club mix I'm listening to in order to feel like I'm at the same rave I'm trying to write a memory about, or a Vivaldi concerto so I can tap into the drama I always feel with Baroque music. I'm really quite an ambulant and restless writer, which probably has something to do with my neurodivergence. One of my favorite activities is taking a Jeep or train just to listen to music and write on my phone in transit. When I was still an active member of the Ballroom scene, I would even passively vogue while writing and listening to music.