Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Who is she?
•April 22, 1919 - August 21, 2011
•Born in Nueva Vizcaya
•Parents are Salvador Lopez and
Teresa Cutaran
•Family had to move frequently
because of father's job, auditor for
the government.
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Edith's Early Life and Education

•High school in Bayombong
•Pre-law in the University of the Philippines
•Bachelor of Science degree in Education in Siliman University
(Magna Cum Laude)
•Gained international fellowship in the State of University of Iowa
from 1947 -1950, took part in the university's creative writing
workshop
•Received scholarship grant from United Board of Christian Higher
Education in Asia and got a doctorate degree in English from the
University of Denver, Colorado in 1958.
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Edith's Personal Life and Career

•Met her husband, Edilberto Tiempo during her pre-law at UP.
•Had two children: Maldon and Rowena
•1962: With her husband, started Siliman National Writers Workshop
in Dumaguete City - patterned after State University of Iowa's
Creative Writing Workshop, country's finest writers
•Tiempos were recognized as the forerunners of literary criticism and
theory in the Philippines.
Edith's Husband
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Edith's Works
•Characterized by remarkable fusion of style and substance, of
craftsmanship and insight
•Her poems are intricate verbal transfiguration of significant
experiences
•Her works in fiction are morally profound
•.Her language has been marked as "descriptive but unburdened by
scrupulous detailing."
•One of the finest Filipino Writers in English
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Edith's Works
Novels: Short Stories:
•A Blade of Fern (1978) •Abide, Joshua, and Other
Stories (1964)
•His Native Coast (1979)
•The Corral
•The Alien Corn (1992)
•One, Tilting Leaves (1995)
•The Builder (2004)
•The Jumong (2006)
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Poetry:
Edith's Works
•The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966)
•The Charmer's Box and Other Poet (1993)
•Marginal Annotations and Other Poems
•Inside Job
•In the beginning
•Lament for the Littlest Fellow
•"Bonsai“
•The Return
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Other Writings:
Edith's Works
•Six Poetry Formats and the Transforming Image: A Monograph on
Free Verse (2008)
•A Native Clearing: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English Since the
'50s to the Present : Edith L. Tiempo to Cirilo F. Bautista (1993)
•A Passionate Patience: Ten Filipino Poets on the Writing of their
Poems (1995)
•An Edith Tiempo Reader (1999)
•Six Filipino Poets (1955)
•Six Uses of Fictional Symbols (2004)
•Marginal Annotations and Other Poems (2001)
THE

SUN SHINE Edith Tiempo

Poet, Fiction Writer, Teacher, and Literary Critic

Edith's Awards And Recognition

•National Artist Award for Literature (1999)
•Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature
•Cultural Center of the Philippines (1979, First Prize in Novel)
•Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (1988)
•Grand prize, CCP Literary Contest, 1978 for His Native Coast
•First prize, Philippine Free Press literary contest, 1959 for
“The Dimensions of Fear”
•First prize, Philippine Free Press literary contest, 1955 for
“Chamber of the Sea”
•Third prize, Poetry in English, 1951 for “The Black Monkey”
•Second prize, Short Story in English for “The Dam”
•First prize, for Tracts of Babylon and Other Poems
THE

SUN SHINE THE RETURN

BY EDITH TIEMPO

If the dead years could shake their skinny legs and run
As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,
He would go thru this door among these old friends and they would
not shun
Him and the tales he would tell, tales that would bear more than the
spare
Testimony of willed wit and his grey hairs
He would enter among them, the fatted meat about his mouth,
As he told of how he had lived on strange boats on strange waters
Of strategems with lean sly winds,
Of the times death went coughing like a sick man on the motors,
Their breaths would rise hot and pungent as the lemon
THE In their cups and sniff at the odors
Of his past like dogs at dried bones behind a hedge,
And he would live in the whispers and locked heads.
Wheeling around and around and turning back was where he started:
The turn to the pasture, a swift streak under a boy's running;
The swing, up a few times and he had all the earth he wanted;
The tower trees, and not so tall as he had imagined;
The rocking chair on the porch, you pushed it and it started rocking,
Rocking, and abrubtly stopped.
He, too, stopped in the doorway, chagrined.
He would go among them but he would not tell, he could be smart,
He, an old man cracking bones of his embarrassment apart.
Thank you
siZZZZ!
-ROVI ESTABILLO