Sa Bahay ni Lola Taba by Jeanilyn Kwan
A poem about visiting one’s hometown and the dissonance that arises from it.
First published in Pandan Weekly in January 2025.
From the author:
“Sa Bahay ni Lola Taba” revolves around a visit to my maternal grandmother’s home in Bicol, Philippines, during the 2023 Mayon Volcano eruption. It is not so much an ode to the place and family as an observation of personal history and culture. Its subtly ethnographic lens aims to capture both distance and dissonance between observer and the observed in one enduring image.
An earnest experimentation, the piece is my first foray back into poetry after thirteen years. As a workshop entry for Pandan Weekly, it no longer existed in a vacuum but in a space of exchange among creators intuiting and resonating with the poem’s setting and essence. It gained not only a new title but also perspective and grounding. Through the process, I rediscover and navigate the power dynamics between structure and message, past and present, perception and memory.
Listen to the author read her work:
Jeanilyn Kwan is a Nigeria-born Singaporean-Filipino writer. Over the past decade, she has worked as a copy editor for news media, corporate communications, and lifestyle publications. Her writing tends to explore musings on interpersonal relationships and self-(re)discovery within the context of multicultural identity. She has a keen interest in how accents and languages reflect a speaker’s inner world. She has lived in Lagos, Manila, and Beijing.
Instagram: @jenkwansuyi
Thank you for reading!
Pandan Weekly is a bi-annual zine and weekly email series produced by SEA Lit Circle, a community of writers and readers from Southeast Asia and the diaspora. At SEA Lit Circle, we inspire each other to write fresh, compelling work that’s true to ourselves, and we encourage each other to read and be more open to new works, stories, and perspectives within and beyond the region.
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