First, A Poem Must Be Magical; By Jose Garcia Villa; First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as a seagull. It must be a brightness moving; And hold secret a bird’s flowering;

[If you are unfamiliar with Jose Garcia Villa's works and wish to learn more, you are encouraged to read THE ANCHORED ANGEL (Kaya, 1999)which I edited and features essays by Jessica Hagedorn,

Still, I think it would be a disservice to Villa if I presented his poems merely in polemical terms. Ultimately, Jose Garcia Villa believed the poem is but a song.

Known as the “Pope of Greenwich Village,” Jose Garcia Villa had a special status as the only Asian poet among a group of modern literary giants in 1940’s New York that included E.E.

And jose garcia villa s moonlight s watermelon well e is a dramatic piece in the expansive, forte phrase seems to express the effusive, ebullient declamation of the. ... Poem On Teachers

POEMS BY JOSE GARCIA VILLA ... Fragment by Jose Garcia Villa ... JOSE GARCIA VILLA: PHILIPPINES WRITER

First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as sea gull. It must be a brightness moving; And hold secret a bird’s flowering. It must be slender as a bell, And it must hold fire as well.

ANCHORED ANGEL by Jose Garcia Villa; Edited by Eileen Tabios; Kaya 1999 288 pp., $14.95; By Jean Vengua Gier ... One poem in particular struck me, from the 1942 collection, Have Come, Am Here:

Jose Garcia Villa grew up in Singalong Manila but spent most of his writing life in the U.S. He is one of the best when it comes E.E. Cummings, a famed American poet, attributed a poem for him,

Kaya is proud to present The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by Jose Garcia Villa, a collection of poetry ... Deign of the book is good, and the title poem is worth the price of admission alone.