{"id":472,"date":"2012-06-15T19:34:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-15T19:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.ryerson.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/roberto-lavidez\/"},"modified":"2024-08-12T12:31:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T16:31:03","slug":"lavidez","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/lavidez\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto Lavidez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Roberto Lavidez was born in Manila, Philippines. He moved with his family to Canada in 1992 and settled in southern Ontario. He is the senior editor for Kultura Life & Art Magazine<\/span><\/em>, an accomplished painter, and has written for the theatre, television and film. remember why<\/span>, his first book of selected poetry, may well be the first book of poetry published in English by a Filipino Canadian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

Poetry<\/h2>\n

remember why<\/h2>\n

Brampton, Ont.: Kultura Publishing, 2003.
\nPS8573 .A79 R46 2003<\/a><\/p>\n

Review by V.K. Lem<\/h4>\n

In a recently rebroadcast interview, Mordecai Richler stated that most writers really have one thing to say and that they do so in different ways in their various books. For Filipino-Canadian Roberto Lavidez, both his poetry and his painting reflect his quest \u201cfor signposts of humanism in the conundrum of historical reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember why<\/span>, the author\u2019s first book of poetry contains forty-nine poems that explore humankind\u2019s capacity for inhumanity as manifested in acts of genocide, warfare, assassination, violence and terrorism that span both the globe and the twentieth century. Black and white reproductions of five of Lavidez\u2019s oil paintings and two collages featuring several paintings complement the poems by visually posing questions like that expressed in the poem \u201cbackdoor policy\u201d:<\/p>\n

when will man outgrow
\nhis madness
\nreject the notion that
\nlasting peace could be
\nachieved through war<\/p>\n

Lavidez ponders why it is that vows to \u201cnever again\u201d permit inhuman acts of war and genocide seem impossible to keep. He takes a narrative approach to his work. As such, his poems and paintings are very accessible. While many poems including the first, \u201cThe Art of Counting\u201d are very powerful, others like \u201cRwandaBout\u201d are more blatantly didactic and less effective.<\/p>\n

In addition to posing questions and sometimes pointing fingers of blame, Lavidez also calls the reader to action. In \u201cThe Praxis of Good and Evil\u201d he writes:<\/p>\n

The teaching of goodness
\nalone
\nis not enough.
\n\u2026
\nWhile passivity,
\n(learning about evil
\nand doing nothing)
\ndemanded
\nof the bystander
\nfacilitates
\nthe praxis
\nof evil
\nand evil
\nalone.<\/p>\n

Lavidez challenges people everywhere to abandon the us versus them mindset in \u201call of you, all of me\u201d where he writes:<\/p>\n

i am human
\njust like you
\njust like them
\nman oh man
\nwhy is that so hard
\nto understand?<\/p>\n

While the historical record of humankind\u2019s inhumanity remains, Lavidez avoids cynicism and leaves the reader with hope and encouragement that in the 21st century we may yet learn a few important lessons from our past. We can live, act and dream for a better world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Links<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roberto Lavidez was born in Manila, Philippines. He moved with his family to Canada in 1992 and settled in southern Ontario. He is the senior editor for Kultura Life & Art Magazine, an accomplished painter, and has written for the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-472","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18707,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/472\/revisions\/18707"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}