Life and Works of Jose Garcia Villa

During Filipino American History Month, it is crucial to honor Jose Garcia Villa, a
Filipino poet, critic, short story writer, and painter. Born in the Philippine Islands in 1907,
Villa. Early on, poetry was not a part of his life. Instead, he enrolled in the University of the
Philippines' pre-medical program and later switched to pre-law. After some time, Villa
realized that writing was his genuine calling and that the arts were his true passion.

He released Man Songs, a book of sensual poetry, in 1929. There was substantial
controversy about this collection. But in the same year, the Philippine Free Press magazine
chose his story, Mir-l-Nisa, as the Best Story of the Year. Villa transferred from the university
in the Philippines to attend the University of New Mexico where he went on to start Clay, a
“mimeograph literary magazine.” After obtaining his BA there, he moved to Columbia
University for his post-graduate education.

Along with publishing numerous collections of poetry, Villa made contributions to the
world of poetic style by developing a new rhyme scheme known as "reversed consonance,"
in which the final consonants of the final syllable or the final principal consonant of a word
are switched around for the corresponding rhyme. Run or rain, green, reign are two rhymes
for nearby.

Villa also created what he referred to as "comma poetry," which had commas placed
after each word. "The commas are an inherent and important aspect of the medium," he
wrote in the preface to Volume Two, "controlling the poem's verbal density and time
movement, enabling each word to gain a deeper tonal value, and the line movement to
become more measured."

In 1973, Villa received the National Artist of the Philippines for Literature award,
among other honors. His poetry and work questioning conventional poetic form continue to
have an impact on contemporary poetry, both for poets and other Asian American writers.