JOSE GARCIA VILLA

Born
in Singalong, Manila, Philippines
August 05, 1908
Died
February 07, 1997
Genre
Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Children's Books

Jose Garcia Villa was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the
National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative
writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed consonance rime scheme" in writing poetry,
as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet.
He used the penname Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the characters he derived from
himself. These animals were also explored by another poet e.e. cummings in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a
poem dedicated to Villa.

Although José Garcia Villa (1914–1997) is largely known as a Filipino poet, he spent 67 years of his life in
the United States. His work has been praised as innovative and talented. A contributor to the Dictionary of Oriental
Literature observed of Villa that "His craftsmanship and skill remains unchallenged among Filipino poets."Born in
Manila, Philippines, on August 5, 1914, Villa was the son of Simeon Villa, a doctor who was Army chief-of-staff
during the Philippine revolution against Spain, as well as personal physician to revolutionary leader Emilio
Aguinaldo; his mother was Guia Garcia, a wealthy landowner. Villa attended the University of the Philippines in
1929. He first studied medicine, and then switched to law, but he was always interested in writing, and as a law
student he wrote short stories and poetry. Some of his writing, notably a series of erotic verse titled "Man Poems,"
was so controversial that the authorities at the University of the Philippines expelled him. In that same year,
however, Villa won a prize from the Philippines Free Press for the best short story of the year.

Resil Mojares, National Artist for Literature

Mojares is a multi-awarded writer, historian, and literary critic. His works include Origins and Rise of the
Filipino Novel, The War Against the Americans, and books about eminent Filipinos, such as Vicente Sotto, Pedro
Paterno, Isabelo delos Reyes, and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera. He has won several National Book Awards from the
Manila Critics Circle and founded the Cebuano Studies Center, a library and research center dedicated to Cebuano
culture and history.

Ramon Muzones, National Artist for Literature

Muzones is the preeminent name in West Visayan fiction. He is best known for his Hiligaynon novel Margosatubig:
The Story of Salagunting, about a fictional Muslim state in Mindanao and the struggles of its hero, Salagunting, to
wrest it from the clutches of usurpers. A tale that combines intrigue, romance, pre-colonial lore, fantasy, and
adventure, it unfolded as a series in the Hiligaynon magazine Yuhum. In 1989, he received the Gawad CCP para sa
Sining, an award given every 3 years to artists whose works have enriched their art form. His proclamation as
National Artist is posthumous as Muzones died in 1992.