Local poet proves her craft is ageless
Tim McDonough
Issue date: 5/6/08 Section: News
|
"I feel like I'm just getting started in a way," Balingit said. "The first poems I got published were 20 years ago, but I haven't always spent the time I could have writing with raising four kids and working. Now I feel like I'm just getting started, with more time to devote to the craft.
"It's not a pastime, it's not a hobby - it's a responsibility."
Balingit is being featured in "The Best New Poets" anthology, a collection of 50 poems chosen from literary magazines, writing programs and an open Internet competition.
While the subjects of her poetry vary, Balingit said she believes poets will always revert back to specific memories, or "obsessions."
"The real important events in your life tend to be anchors, or cornerstones," she said. "There are scenes that repeat, 'Oh gee, I'm going to try and figure out what my relationship with my father meant to me.' There are important memories that keep surfacing, obsessions that keep surfacing over again."
Balingit's family life is one of the cornerstones from where she draws inspiration. Born in Ohio to a mother of German descent and a Filipino father, Balingit's family soon moved to central Florida where she grew up.
Her Filipino heritage and her childhood are a thought-provoking subject for Balingit, she said.
"I thought about how traits and cultural characteristics get passed down being raised in a culture," Balingit said. "I have some Filipino traits without being raised there and I wonder how much of that is ingrained because of parents and genetics."
She said she specifically thinks about her Filipino heritage when discussing her father. Her father was in the Philippines when the United States annexed the country, and he was brought up as a product of the American ideal.
"My father was trained to want to be a product of American colonialism and that Americans were better," Balingit said. "He grew up during the time of the insurgency and grew up around a lot of violence. He left for America and never came back and never saw his family again. He felt a lot of pain about that."
After attending Florida State University, she attended graduate school at the University of California, Irvine and Indiana University and is now finishing her doctorate degree at the University of Delaware.
Be the first to comment on this story