UST pays tribute to poet Ophelia Dimalanta

The University of Santo Tomas (UST) held a tribute and vigil Monday night to mourn the death of Dr. Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, one of the country’s most important poets. Dimalanta, described as one of the best Filipino writers in English, succumbed to a stroke last Thursday, Nov. 4. She was 78. Until her death, she was the writer-in-residence at the UST Graduate School and a full professor of literature and creative writing at the Faculty of Arts and Letters. The “love poet," as she was fondly called, garnered numerous awards including Southeast Asia’s highest literary honor, the SEAWrite Award. She was also the recipient of the Catholic Authors Award in 1995 and the Outstanding Thomasian Alumni Award in 2002. A woman of letters As the country’s foremost woman of letters, she was a panelist for various writing workshops conducted by the UST, the University of the Philippines, Silliman University in Dumaguete, and Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in Iligan. Dimalanta also served as a judge in prominent award-giving bodies in literature, such as the National Book Awards by the Manila Critics' Circle, the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards, and the Palanca Awards. Born June 16, 1932 in San Juan, Dimalanta earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as her doctorate, at the UST. Her works include "The Time Factor and other Poems" (1983), "Lady Polyester: Poems Past and Present" (1993), "Love Woman" (1998), and “Montage", her first collection of poems which won the Iowa State University Best Poetry Award in 1969, and first prize in poetry of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (1974). Dimalanta was the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters for three terms in the 1990s until 2000. She started teaching right after graduation from college in the early 1950s. She has taught at Colegio de San Juan de Letran and De La Salle University, apart from UST. Love and truth Dimalanta was not only a writer of passionate poetry about love. In restrained and delicate verse, her poems also spoke out fiercely against the daily murder of truth in a country that has grown accustomed to falsehood. "Who says dead men tell no tales?/ Here in this dead country it is really the dead who speak./ The living are silenced; they brew them thin, cream them thick, blanch them white./ Here where happen the weirdest tales only mad fabulists concoct./ For the living, dead, breathe them not./ For the living, dead, breathe not." Tribute Monday’s program at the UST, dubbed “A Tribute to Lady Polyester: Ophelia A. Dimalanta, Eternal Love Woman", began with a Mass at 6 p.m. followed by a reception where young and veteran writers paid her homage with literary readings. The UST opened its A.H. Lacson gate for Dimalanta’s relatives, friends, and colleagues. On Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., the UST will hold a funeral mass for Dimalanta at the UST chapel. Her remains will be cremated at 3 p.m. on Tuesday at La Funeraria Paz in La Loma, Quezon City. Dimalanta lived with her family in Navotas City until her death. She is survived by sons Al and Wystan. - Jerrie Abella/DM, GMANews.TV