|
Allow me to digress a little. Strell was one of the few friends I have. By friends, I use the concept written by Henry Miller (author of Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer ): "When I say friends, I mean friends . Not anybody and everybody can be your friend. It must be someone as close to you as your skin, some who imparts colour, drama, meaning to your life. . . A life without friends is no life, however snug and secure it may be."I have known Strell since the tumultous days of student activism at the University of the Philippines of the 1970s - from the day I remember seeing her preparing several bottles of Molotov bombs during the Diliman Commune (1971) to her stint as actor in a revolutionary drama group, Panday Sining , her several months incarceration in 1973 at the Ipil Reception Center , ( a misnomer because in reality it was a detention center ) in Fort Bonifacio, her continuing participation in the revolutionary movement - until she succumbed to breast cancer a few years ago. Among the legacy she left behind was a collection of her poems, some of which were published by Kalayaan Kansai , a Japanese solidarity group. I am reprinting some of her poems here.
|
