My work, The 1920 Trilogy, is a series of poems and pictures—or overall, a collective poetic reaction to a new world brought by COVID-19. It was named after the roaring ’20s of the Lost Generation; and century after, no one knew that such modernist reactions before would resurface in a whole new light. In a more recent connection, the numbers are obvious: 19 from COVID-19; 20 from its year of havoc.

 

Moreover, this gallery reinvents how trilogy works: it doesn’t have to be a series of tripartite connection. Likewise it doesn’t have to meet a quantitative presentation. Simply, it shouldn’t be long, or traditionally begins and ends—especially if rampant modernization shapes our reception of literature. Why the excessive ekphrasis? Why such literary length? Cirilo Bautista once wrote a poem called “Talambuhay/Tulambuhay.” There is a traditional structure: a beginning developing to an end. Somehow, the form is new. It is in a poem. Who in the world would compress his whole life in one poem? Bautista then had influenced many like Egay Samar, Joselito de los Reyes, and others. The poets realized, one doesn’t need to put his whole ego in a book. A poem or more can suffice. Even Louise Gluck knew when she wrote a “biography,” a poem is strong enough. Perhaps, even stronger.  And this is what The 1920 Trilogy is trying to achieve. To show a series of three reactionary poetics in one single blow.