Lumbera, who was called Beny when he was a young boy, was born in Lipa, Batangas on April

11, 1932. His parents had passed away before he turned five.
Beny and his older sister were raised by Eusebia Teru, their paternal grandmother.
When Eusebia died, Beny came to live with his godparents, Enrique and Amanda Lumbera.
Beny showed natural aptitude for English. In sixth grade, his writing impressed his teacher so
much that she once asked him, in an accusatory tone, if he did write his composition himself. In
his third year in high school, his teacher gave him difficult works of literature to read.
Lumbera took a degree in journalism at the University of Santo Tomas in 1950 and graduated cum
laude in 1954. A year before his graduation, his first published work, the poem “Frigid Moon,”
appeared in the Sunday magazine of the Manila Chronicle.
On a full scholarship granted by the Fulbright Committee, Lumbera obtained his masters and
doctorate degrees at Indiana University.

Background
Lumbera writes in English and Filipino. Below are some of his works.

Poetry Collections
Likhang Dila, Likhang Diwa (1993)
Balaybay: Mga Tulang Lunot at Manibalang (2002)

Critical Works
Abot Tanaw: Sulyap at Suri sa Nagbabagong Kultura at Lipunan (1987)
Writing the Nation/Pag-Akda ng Bansa (2000)
Tagalog Poetry, 1570–1898: Tradition and Influences in Its Development (2001)

Librettos
Tales of the Manuvu (1977)
Rama Hari (1980)
Sa Sariling Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika (2003)

Lumbera is a strong advocate of the Filipino language. According to him, the gap between the
well-educated Filipinos and the majority cannot be bridged until Filipino becomes their true lingua
franca.
Lumbera has received numerous awards for his work. The most notable ones were the Special
Prize from the Palanca Awards for his poetry collection Sunog sa Lipa at Iba Pang Tula in 1975,
the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts in
1993, and the Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for Drama in 1998.
Lumbera received the title of National Artist for Literature in 2006

A Eulogy of Roaches
by Bienvenido Lumbera

Blessed are the cockroaches.

In this country they are
the citizens who last.
They need no police
to promulgate their peace
because they tolerate
each other’s smell or greed.

Friends to dark and filth,

they do not choose their meat.
Although they neither sow
nor reap, a daily feast
is laid for them in rooms
and kitchens of their pick.

The roaches do not spin,

and neither do they weave.
But note the russet coat
the sluggards wear: clothed
at birth, roaches require
no roachy charity.

They settle where they wish

and have no rent to pay.
Eviction is a word
quite meaningless to them
who do not have to own
their dingy crack of wall.

Not knowing dearth or taxes,

they increase and multiply.
Survival is assured
even the jobless roach;
his opportunities
pile up where garbage grows.

Dying is brief and cheap

and thus cannot affright.
A whiff of toxic mist,
an agile heel, a stick
—the swift descent of pain
is also final death.

Their annals may be short,

but when the simple poor
have starved to simple death,
roaches still circulate
in cupboards of the rich,

the strong, the wise, the dead.

(Reproduced by permission of National Artist, Dr. Bienvenido S. Lumbera.)

Poem
Published in 1965, “A Eulogy of Roaches” is a piece of Bagay poetry. Its subject, the roaches,
represents a deeper meaning. However, the poet merely focuses on giving precise visual images of
the subject and not on explicitly stating its representations.

The poet uses imagery, a literary technique in which figurative language is used to appeal to the
reader’s physical senses. An example is the poet’s description of roaches as “friends to dark and
filth.”

Also, the poet uses juxtaposition, a literary technique in which two (or more) ideas are placed side
by side for comparison and contrast. In the last two stanzas, the poet draws both a comparison and
a distinction between the roaches’ life and the life of the poor: that the poor die simply of
starvation, but the roaches still go on living their short lives in the “cupboards of the rich, the
strong, the wise, the dead.”

Bienvenido S. Lumbera is a poet, critic, and librettist. He has made valuable contributions in the
development of Philippine literature especially in the vernacular language. He has published
works in English and Filipino and received numerous awards including the National Artist for
Literature title in 2006.