The Geography of Intimacy.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Luis H. Francia

NEW YORK-In a Bush-whacked (and grimly wacky) planet, a lot of people here probably think a poetry festival is the last thing we would want. Or need. This is, after all, a city where poets are so plentiful that, as the Spanish writer Quevedo once noted, if they could fly we would not be able to glimpse the sun.

Well, if the just concluded all Asian-American poetry festival "Intimacy and Geography"-the first ever in New York-was any indication, they were wrong. From the opening night event, where 10 poets each paid homage to a poet he or she particularly admired by reading a work by that poet, to the closing night's performance/party two nights later, attendance went far beyond what the organizers had expected, though in truth …