“WHO IS BIENVENIDO LUMBERA?

The Life of Ka Bien

A written report presented to Mr. Jericho Quilates De Leon

Laboratory High School

College of Education

Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University

In partial fulfillments of the requirements for the course 21 st Century Literature and Learning

By:

Basoc, Aurora Mae M.

Bernal, Adrian F.

Catbagan, Elleine

Duclayan, Rendell

Ganayo, Darius

Lamaroza, Eula Mae

Nisperos, Princess Aubrey

March 20, 2019

BIENVENDIO LUMBERA
I. INTRODUCTION

This report looks into the life of Bienvenido Lumbera and his contribution to the world of
literature. Bienvenido Lumbera is a poet, librettist, and scholar. He won the National Artist Award for
Literature in 2006. Before achieving numerous awards like what was mentioned above, he had gone
through challenges and conquered every obstacle he had experienced in his life that led him to be a
great writer and achieved awards he deserved to have. Ever since he was on his secondary school
his love for language blossomed which led him to be a writer. This report provides information
obtained through researching regarding Bienvenido Lumbera. The purpose of this written report is to
answer the given title “Who is Bienvenido Lumbera?” and for the readers to gain knowledge about
one of the popular authors here in the Philippines. This report does not only cover the life of Lumbera
but will also state his literary works and a further discussion about one of his major literary work we
chose by providing an analysis of the poem entitled the servant.

II. DISCUSSION

A. BIOGRAPHY

In the town of Lipa, Batangas Bienvenido Lumbera came out from his mother’s womb, Carmen
Lumbera on April 11, 1932. He was barely a year old when his father, Timoteo Lumbera (a pitcher
with a local baseball team), fell from a fruit tree, broke his back, and died. After a few years, Carmen
Lumbera, his mother suffered from cancer and died. By the age of five, young Bienvenido Lumbera
was an orphan. He and his older sister were cared for by their paternal grandmother, Eusebia Teru
and both lived in their grandmother’s house. A few years passed Eusebia Teru unfortunately passed
on due to old age. He was asked to choose whether he would stay with his maiden aunts whom his
sister had stayed, or his godparents Enrique and Amanda Lumbera who were childless. He was 13 at
the time, Lumbera chose his godparents because they could send him to school.

For secondary school, Lumbera moved on to the private Mabini Academy, where is love of
language blossomed. His third year English teacher, Jose Katigbak, took him under his wing and
pressed him to read difficult works such as Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice. What he
really liked were the popular novels such as Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm and The Five Little
Peppers. As his abilities advanced, he came to enjoy plays of Shakespeare and short stories by
authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In contrast Lumbera dislikes Tagalog
readings and referred it as a boring one like the classics of nineteenth century, “Urbana at Felisa” and
“Florante at Laura”
 Determine to be a writer, Lumbera entered Santo Tomas to study literature and embarked
upon a degree in journalism in the University’s Faculty of Philosophy in Letters, eventually he
completed his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Indiana University in 1967 and so the life he
pursued goes on.

Bienvenido Lumbera shared the strong views articulated by his workshop writers they build an
organization and called it Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (Writings for the Progress of
the People) or simply PAKSA. With some of them, he helped to found an organization dedicated to
politically engaged writing which circulated among opponents of the dictatorship. Bienvenido Lumbera
was part of an organization called PAKSA.

On September 22, 1972, martial law was declared by Ferdinand Marcos who was the
President during that time. According to Lumbera, that morning when he woke up, he turned on the
radio and there was no sound. He only heard static. After a while, he realized that Martial Law had
started. Since PAKSA had openly espoused the national democratic position, he already assumed
that he would be targeted for arrest. He abandoned his apartment near Ateneo for Rolando Tinio’s
House and from there he shifted to safe houses in Greater Manila for about a year and a half and
lived underground posing as “Uncle: here and “Pedro” there and putting together a mimeographed
anti-martial law magazine of prose and poetry called Ulos(Thrust), which circulated quietly among
opponents of the dictatorship.

Lumbera was caught by the military men in January 1974. Marcos Soldiers slapped him in a
cell wit a group of young activist ad subjected him to intensive interrogation. When he was on the
prison, he had visitors but not that often but there was one who visited him everyday that was Cynthia
Nograles, his former student at the Ateneo de Manila University, wrote to Gen. Fidel Ramos for his
release. A few months later after he was released, he married Cynthia Nograles on March 19, 1975.

B. MAJOR LITERARY WORKS

Lumbera dreamed of being a writer even as a teenager in high school and he published his
first poems and short stories while still in college, even as he moved into the academic world, he
continued writing creatively. For many years, he composed his poems mainly in English, mimicking
styles and themes that were fashionable in the west.

Some of his poems he composed were, Ka Bel, The Yaya’s Lullaby, Servant, Sadness, Eulogy
of Roaches, 'Jamborzkie Light. He has a poetry collection entitled Likhang Dila, Likhang Diwa (1993),
and Balaybay: Mga Tulang Lunot at Manibalang, a collection of new poems in Filipino and those from
Likhang Dila. He has several critical works, including Abot-Tanaw: Sulyap at Suri sa Nagbabagong
Kultura at Lipunan (1987) and Writing the Nation/Pag-akda ng Bansa (2000).

He has also done several librettos, among them Tales of the Manuvu (1977) and Rama Hari
(1980). Sa Sariling Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika (DLSU, 2003) collects the four historical
musicals Nasa Puso ang Amerika, Bayani, Noli Me Tangere: The Musical, and Hibik at Himagsik
Nina Victoria Laktaw.

As a scholar, his major books include the following: Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898: Tradition and
Influences in its Development; Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology, Revaluation: Essays on
Philippine Literature, Writing the Nation/Pag-akda ng Bansa.

Bienvenido Lumbera was also a recipient of numerous awards, including the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in 1993, the Gawad
CCP, Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, Manila Critics’ Circle, Palanca, and Professor
Emeritus. This year, for all his creative and critical work directed towards a literature rooted in the
search for nationhood, Dr. Lumbera also received the much-coveted title of National Artist for
Literature.

III. SUMMARY OF CHOSEN WORK

Servant: A Poem by Bienvenido Lumbera

On the shut door of the mind

We knock, we of soul and body torn;

We who serve and are ignored,

Broken into pieces to be of use.

Our heads nod, our arms lift,

Our feet are quick, our faces turn:

We scatter our parts to the beck

And call of those higher than us.

Deep within, we have a name,

 A story to tell. Against a harsh life

We’ve put up a fight, only

To end up with a servant’s life.

We serve the strong, we are

Feet and arms wanting to climb,

Heads and faces used to fool the law,

Will we be whole again tomorrow?

Up ahead the new day shines,

The change-of-fate we seek—

Then we shall rise again,

With our names and bodies back.

IV. LITERARY ANALYSIS

The poem written by Bienvenido Lumbera focuses on the feeling of an enslaved person or
what an enslaved person feels. It can inspire broken soul who are being enslaved because it is very
heart touching and life changing. It is a free verse poem and metaphor is its figurative language which
states or draws a verbal picture from a large point of view. For us, it is about what a slave or servant
experiences and feels in a difficult situation. To cut the long story short, “hope” is always there in the
side of every tragic story. New beginnings follow after harsh endings.

There are two point of views in the interpretation of this poem. The positive and negative side.

Positive. All people undergo “servant hood” or a stage in our life where we begin to be a
servant in the sense of following our elders, respecting them and taking good care of them. We serve
them for it signifies our love for them. We serve them because it is the right thing to do. It is a process
of life, where we can be our own through the help of our elders. This will give us our purpose in life;
that is to be leaders and good stewards. It is said in the poem that we have a name deep inside us. In
order for you to justify your identity, you must be a good steward and in turn pursue your own way.
 Negative. It is inspired by the story of people who were neglected, forsaken and overtaken. We
can relate this to Filipino people who were abused by foreign visitors. Even if they want to fight, stand
up, and be free, they have no choice but to follow and continue to be enslaved. Also, to the people
who chose to serve others but turned to received an abusive life. They can’t use their voice to fight, to
seek for justice rather they shut their mouth, lived their life with a living sorrow inside and continue.
But all people have names and identity, unique and absurd. No one can stop an individual to grow
and fight for his right. You cannot stop an eagle to fly, it needs space to soar. You cannot hold up a
thunder bolt from striking above the sky. It needs to shout and shine bright blinding the enemy. You
cannot stop a genius mind to think of ideas that could change the world. Everybody needs to be
treated equally, because deep inside all of us have an ember capable of starting a fire.
References

“Bienvenido Lumbera.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Oct. 2019,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bienvenido_Lumbera.

johnamaranteblog, Author. “Literary Analysis: Servant by Bienvenido Lumbera (Poem).” John's

Blogs, 2 Sept. 2017, johnamaranteblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/literary-analysis-servant-by-

bienvenido-lumbera-poem/.

“Lumbera, Bienvenido L.” Panitikan.ph, 24 Jan. 2020, panitikan.ph/2014/06/06/bienvenido-l-

lumbera/.

“Order of National Artists: Bienvenido Lumbera.” National Commission for Culture and the Arts,

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Bienvenido Lumbera

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49d3/1564189549852/RM+Bienvenido+Lumbera+1993.pdf