Antisipasyón, 2nd Ed now out

Antisipasyón asín Ibá pang mga Rawitdáwit sa Bikol asín Inglés

(Anticipation and Other Poems in Bikol and English)

Second Edition, Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2012

The poems in Antisipasyón happen in the ambiguity that sprawls numinous between the terminals of departure and arrival. This is the contact or liminal zone where the freight of meanings and the languages that ferry them are kept in perpetual abeyance—prayed for, expected, glimpsed at, and yet never quite shapely or certain enough to be known or grasped by even the most eager of interpretive hands. The wonder of it all is that in the company of Nierva’s fastidious and implacably situated imagination, this transitivity across languages and worlds becomes not an experience of pathological and pointless delay, but rather itself a passionate journey over the unforgettable landscapes and through the inscapes of earth-bound thought and ascendant feeling. Because they resolutely accentuate the event, materiality, and specificity of their Bicolano provenance and ground, Nierva’s poems never quite leave the place of their nativity even as they transfigure it into the universal of all true Art.

— J. Neil C. Garcia

At its best, Vic Nierva’s poetry is fraught with waiting. Metaphor is quietly built up to the final insight. Almost, almost there, but seemingly never handed over. At each turn, we find silences where our hands braille for some luminous, moving thing that surely has always been there for us. Like breath or prayer. And then we reach inwards. The gesture is as inevitable as the wonder: Náenotán niyá an enot tang gios! Nierva has been breathing in us through the night.

— Merlinda C. Bobis

In Antisipasyón, Vic Nierva's filtering vision brings into focus—in poems both heartfelt and precise—internal and external landscapes that only a gifted Bikolnon native can genuinely portray as regionally unique, engaging realities. Many poems in this collection raise the level of Bikolnon verse writing to a remarkable peak of achievement.

— Luis Cabalquinto

Hiníhiling ko an Antisipasyón ni Nierva na saróng malúdok na pag-agaghá sa mga bagay na minálaktaw sa tulóng panahón kan satúyang ronáng Bikol. An tren na nagsísirbing saíyang nangúngurog na metapóra asín an ibá pang mga tunínong alágad may kusóg na magpakurad- kutad sa daghán na mga imáhe mináalok satuyà sa saróng pagbakláy, pagsalíngoy, paghurúp- húrop kan mga bagay na daí ta kayang laktawán ta an buhay panù-panò nin mga istasyón nin satúyang sadíring pasyón: mga muhón nin pagkatagalpô na nagíbo ni Nierva sa mga bersíkulo sa behíkulong may kabráy sa Bikolnon na kalág.

— Kristian Sendon Cordero