Cordero Wins 2009 Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize

Diliman, Quezon City- The Bikol literary circle and the avid supporters of this artistic renaissance in the region has another reason to celebrate in the winning of Kristian Sendon Cordero in the Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize (Filipino Category) last September 24, 2009 at the Abelardo Hall of the University of the Philippines.

Cordero, a graduate school student of Ateneo de Manila University, joins other two winners, Mikael de lara Co for the English and Chen Liang from Fujian Province for the Chinese category respectively.

In a press release statement issued a week before the awarding ceremony by Alma Miclat, the Executive Director of the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation and mother to Maningnging Miclat, three finalists were named for every category. The finalists for Filipino and English categories are all in their mid20s, with age below 28, which is part of the criteria in joining the contest, are all previous winners of Palanca and other important literary competitions in the country.

Cordero, one of the bright luminaries in Bikol contemporary writings, as New York-based poet Luis Cabalquinto described him, has already won several national awards including the 2007 NCCA Writers' Prize for Poetry, the Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award and the Palanca in 2006. He has three books of poetry in three languages and is a regular name that appears in the leading university journal in the country today. His latest collection was a finalist in the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry. Last April, he went to Germany under Ateneo de Naga's partneship program with the Friedrich-Alexander Gymnasium in Neustadt as der Aisch to present his poetry and give short talks on Philippine contemporary writings especially Bikol literature.

His winning collection for this competition, Labi (Remains) is composed of ten poems, which dealt on the physical and metaphysical losses that confront the individual-poet. In a literary journal where some of poems in the Labi collection appeared, editor and poet Ronald Baytan, decribed Cordero's poetry as "lyrics of remarkable clarity and tenderness. They express the sentiments of the self dealing with absence, with grief, with cosmos."

The Judges for Filipino category were university professors and award-winning poets, Vim Nadera, Former Director of the U.P. Institute of Creative Writing, Marra Pl. Lanot, and Rogelio Mangahas, a National Book Award Winner and one of the prime movers of Filipino modern poetry in the late 60s.

The announcement of winners was held during the tribute concert that featured Maningning's younger sister Banaue Miclat, a multi-awarded theater actress and the Mabuhay Singers. All winners received P 28,000, books of the Miclats and a much- coveted Julie Lluch trophy from Mrs. Alma Miclat and National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario.

The Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize is named after Maningning Miclat who was a talented poet and visual artist when she passed away on September 29, 2001 at the tender age of 28. It is to her name that the family and the foundation decided to put up the Maningning Miclat Prize for Poetry and Visual Arts given alternately every year, to recognize the growing talents among Filipinos and Chinese artists. The foundation has been handing the award since 2003 and is now reputed as one of the most prestigious literary competitions in the country and even in Southeast Asian region.