#IWitness16: 'Bagong Makata,' dokumentaryo ni Howie Severino

Ngunit sa kasagsagan ng kasikataan ng Sev's, biglang kinailangan ipasara ito ng mag-asawang Howie at Ipat. Tila wala ngang forever. Ngunit bago ipasara, isang linggong gabi-gabing ginunita ng mga bagong makata ang kanilang mga simula sa pagtula sa Sev's.

Kasabay nang paggunita ng magagandang alaala ng Sev's para sa dokumentaryong ito, natuklasan rin ni Howie na hindi pala banyaga ang spoken word kundi may malalim na ugat sa tradisyunal na Balagtasan noon. At ang mga makata noon, pinipilihan at binabayaran pa para marinig tumula.

Iba-iba man ang anyo, hindi maikakaila na noon hanggang ngayon, pag-ibig pa rin ang paboritong paksa ng mga makatang Pilipino.

Mapapanood ang “BAGONG MAKATA” ngayong Sabado sa I-Witness sa GMA 7, pagkatapos ng Magpakailanman.

ENGLISH

"Sino ba namang 'yong taong magmamahal,” asked spoken word poet Henry Igna, “pero naka-schedule yung katapusan?"

That's one of the countless hugot lines uttered to enraptured crowds at Sev's Cafe, an arts hub in Malate started by I-Witness host Howie Severino and his wife Ipat Luna that revived the spoken word movement in the Philippines.

The small unassuming cafe located in a basement parking garage became a center of poetry and inspired audiences of millennials to write and perform their own.

Alas, as many heart-broken poets in the cafe could attest, nothing lasts forever. For reasons beyond their control, Howie and Ipat had to close it down, but not before one last week of all-night hugot poetry.

In a documentary that looks back at his short-lived entrepreneurial adventure, Howie learns that spoken word is not an imported concept as many of the cafe patrons believed, but has deep roots in Manila, with celebrated poets decades ago battling it out in poetry jousts before large crowds.

Then as now, many of the Filipino poets created and delivered memorable lines that recalled loves artfully gained and then painfully lost.