Professor and Poet Luisa A. Igloria to Be Honored at Provost’s Spotlight
Luisa A. Igloria
Mystery, what is this image
you have brought, thin as a wafer
slipped through the window's hinge?
Luisa A. Igloria, from "Morning, Aperture"
By David Simpson
When Luisa A. Igloria was growing up in the Philippines, her parents wanted her to be a lawyer or a professional musician.
She didn't become either one. But she did grow up to make music with words - words that have captivated readers, critics and prize juries.
Igloria is a poet who teaches on the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, where she is University Professor, Eminent Scholar and Louis I. Jaffe Endowed Professor.
On March 18 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the University Theatre, she will be honored at the spring Provost's Spotlight.
Igloria has amassed not only prestigious academic titles but also literary awards. Among them: the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the National Writers Union Poetry Prize, the Crab Orchard Review Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, the Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry, the Fugue Poetry Prize and - no fewer than 11 times - the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, which honors Filipino literary excellence. She also won the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world's first major award for ecopoetry.
Her published collections include "The Buddha Wonders if She Is Having a Mid-Life Crisis" (2018), "Ode to the Heart Smaller Than a Pencil Eraser" (2014), "The Saints of Streets" (2013), "Juan Luna's Revolver" (2009) and numerous others. Her next book, "Maps for Migrants and Ghosts," is due out in the fall.
Igloria earned a B.A. at the University of the Philippines Baguio, an M.A. at Ateneo de Manila University and a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
She took time before the Spotlight to answer a few questions:
When did you arrive at ODU and what have your roles been?
In fall 1998 I came to ODU on a visiting appointment, in part to help begin Filipino American studies initiatives on campus. In 2000 my position converted to regular full-time faculty. I was tenured and promoted to full professor in 2010. I teach in the MFA Creative Writing Program, which I directed from 2009-2015.
Where were you born and where did you grow up? How have those early landscapes (physical, psychic) affected you as an artist?
I was born in Makati (now a suburb of Metro Manila) in the Philippines, but spent the majority of my life growing up in Baguio City in the north. In the 1900s, Baguio was designed as a hill station for the American colonial government in the Philippines, and in many ways reflects the meeting/collision of indigenous and foreign cultures. These have certainly influenced the themes of place/displacement and history which appear frequently in my work. Baguio is cool as it is up in the mountains, but it has a long monsoon season, and I feel as though that also influenced certain psychical qualities - you have to have a certain kind of stamina to live in damp and rain for many months at a stretch.
Were you always a reader and a writer? What led you to make a life in words?
I learned to read at 3, and I've always been a reader and a writer. My family have always been big on reading. My parents had hoped I would make a career in either law or music (my father was a lawyer and then a judge later in his career); I also took music (piano) lessons from the age of 3 to 15, and might have gone to conservatory if my English professors in college had not shown me other possibilities.
Tell us about your poem-a-day discipline, what led you to start it and what it does for you.
Dave Bonta is a poet and publisher, and he and co-editor Beth Adams had published some of my work previously at the literary journal qarrtsiluni. In November 2010, during a week when we had a lot of snow in Hampton Roads and everything was shut down, I wrote a poem in response to a blog post on Dave's Morning Porch microblog. At that time I was feeling very frustrated about not having enough time to come to my own writing; I went back to his blog the following day, and the next, and the next, and found myself writing poems in response to his posts. He invited me to post my poems at his other blog, Via Negativa (www.vianegativa.us), which focuses on poetry/writing. After doing my daily writing practice there for 9+ years, now he considers me a co-author of the blog. What it gives me is a form of daily discipline (i.e., athletes train every day). I look forward to writing every day, whether I have only 30 minutes or longer. Some of the things I've learned: letting go of notions of perfection; learning to filter out noise (both external and internal); welcoming uncertainty and surprise. Also, I've loved "meeting" other writers and artists in this digital space; some great collaborations have come out of this too - with video film poem artists, for instance.
Describe a memorable moment from your teaching career.
It's an honor to have been named a Louis I. Jaffe Endowed Professor and a University Professor (fall 2019). Apart from that - there is not one memorable moment but many, especially when students go on to write and publish a book, win an award, email with news of a coveted graduate school, job, or other acceptance.
The Provost's Spotlight will take place from 3:30 to 5 p.m. March 18 at the University Theatre. It is sponsored by the Center for Faculty Development and the Office of Academic Affairs. Refreshments provided.
