Poet Marra PL. Lanot; 82
Poet Marra PL. Lanot died on Aug. 16 at the age of 82 following a hospital confinement this month, according to posts on social media by friends and colleagues paying tribute to her passing.
Lanot, who was also an essayist, journalist, editor and teacher, comes from a family of poets and musicians, including her mother and cousin, pianists Gloria Licad Lanot and Cecile Licad, and her husband, Jose “Pete” Lacaba; her only child, Kris Lanot Lacaba; her brother-in-law, the late Emmanuel Lacaba; and her father, the late Serafin Lanot, all of them poets like Lanot herself.
Three languages
She wrote in three languages, and her poems in English, Filipino and Spanish, many of them available online, are noted, among other qualities, for their imagery, elegance and simplicity—their themes evolving from blood ties, political activism (another family endeavor), a highly visual admiration of nature and her womanhood.
“Let the hills and mountains/Roll up behind me like/The tangled past of a jungle,” goes the opening lines of “Soldier’s Song,” from her 2000 collection “Witch’s Dance,” a stanza that the poem returns to in its circular rhythm emulating music.
“Let a rose grow when/I lay down my gun/Where the desert meets the shore.”
Literary community
She found small, poignant moments in the larger than life, and the epic and dramatic even in the brief span of “Leaves,” published in the Philippines Graphic of June 18, 1990, as she saw them “fall only to grow wings” before they “ascend invisibly/Reaching for the wind/And the sun and moon/Of a remembered forgotten life/Clinging to the branches/And a new memory of green.”
Lanot was also “a positive force in the literary community,” as author Danton Remoto, posting on social media, described her influence. Her dynamic role served as an inspiration to many young writers.
In 1965, she and her future husband Pete took part as fellows in the first University of the Philippines (UP) National Writers Workshop.
She was a delegate in several international literary festivals here and abroad, and served as the only delegate from Asia at the Encuentro de Poetas del Mundo Latino in Mexico. In 2013, she was the sole delegate from the Philippines at the 23rd Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin.
She also took part in the first International Feminist Book Fair in Melbourne and the first Hong Kong International Literary Festival, where she spoke and read her works.
She was a distinguished alumna of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UP Diliman, as well as its former professorial lecturer.
Her awards include two Palancas, a second prize in 1967 for her poem “Sheaves of Things Burning,” and first prize in 1980 for her essay “Déjà Vu In America or One of the Songs.”
She was also recognized by the Catholic Mass Media Awards for her columns in Filipino and received the Gawad Balagtas for poetry and essay in English in 2020.
Ballroom enthusiast
Among her several books are the poetry collections “Passion and Compassion” (1981), “Riding the Full Moon” (2008) and “Cadena de Amor” (2017), and her collections of essays and profiles—“Dream Sketches,” “Déjà Vu” and “The Trouble with Nick and Other Profiles,” the last book led by a fond recollection of an old family friend, the late National Artist Nick Joaquin.
Lanot translated poems from English and Filipino into Spanish, while her own poems were translated into Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Dutch and Japanese.
Beyond literature, she was a ballroom enthusiast and a striking presence on the dance floor, especially when she typically wore a red dress.
“Ballroom dancing is not only about wearing the right costume or executing the right steps,” Lanot wrote in the Inquirer in 2005 about “Shall We Dance,” a popular television dance show at the time. “It is also a stress buster, an excuse to meet people, a memory jogger, a means for self-discovery and self-confidence, a form of self-expression.”
“It’s romanticism, spirituality, exuberance, breaking rules, and creativity.”
Lanot is also survived by her daughter-in-law, fictionist and academic Francezca Kwe, and her three grandchildren.
Sources: facebook.com/UPD.CAL, philippinesgraphic.com.ph, geocities.ws/palanca_awards, upd.edu.ph, festivaldepoesiademedellin.org
