Legend Sondayo (Civil Defense Pocketbook)

History is written in the Body. But how does the Body know this, if the History that is learned is a denial or refusal of the truths that the Body remembers? The Legend of Sondayo is a remembered Filipino story that is told today in fragments. We will never know fully the richness and complexity, the meaning of layers, the beauty and sensuousness of the oral culture from where it emerged and once kept the village alive. The village of our indigenous memory was ravaged and pillaged by History s imperial narrative. But the Body doesn t forget. The past insists on being remembered. The Body that longs to be remembered calls upon this same History (of violence) in order to find its other face of healing, beauty, creativity. Leny Mendoza Strobel, from the introduction Cover to cover this book is magic. The poetry lifts from the page and shapeshifts into a thousand moving pictures that dance and sing and move seamlessly through time, place, and gender. Maiana Minahal has taken a little-known Filipino folktale, spun it on its queer ear and made a most beautiful retelling. Sharon Bridgforth, author of love conjure/blues