Poetry is the best speaker of the mind, and music the spokesperson of the heart.
As a musically-inclined senior high student pushed open the door, she stood bewildered and lost inside the crowd of poets and musicians at the Bean Connection. Seeing the venue full of new faces—though there were some familiar ones—she decided to sit at the farthest corner of the venue, waiting almost five minutes to feed her hungry soul as the event began.
She placed her arm on the table, took a bite of her cookie, and mellowed on the soothing sensation produced by the strumming of guitars. The singer’s sweet voice made her body sway slightly from side to side and, unknowingly, made her sing quietly in her seat. As the song was about to end, she took another bite from her cookie and clapped gently, appreciating the performers’ original compositions and song covers.
This was an event that covered a night of poetry and music. A project hosted by Dumaguete-based local art-centered movement Indievided and the Silliman University Student Government Advocacy Committee, Balak serves as an avenue for young individuals to pour their hearts out through poetry and music. This event was conducted for a cause, and as an advocacy addressing societal and psychological issues. As a head start, its first chapter held last July 29 from 5:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. unveiled the dilemma of most teens—adolescent angst.
A young teen’s complaints on their mother’s disapproval of the clothes they wear, brave attempts to rival parents’ disallowance of tongue piercings, and suicidal thoughts due to heartaches brought by an ex-lover are, if not most, the struggles of being under the reign of adolescent angst.
The noise made her uneasy, but she remained quiet for the whole duration of the program. Sternly watching the poets and musicians perform on stage, she listened to how the poets freely expressed their emotions with their finely crafted poems.
A lovely girl, while holding her notebook in front of the crowd, read aloud secluded feelings of fear and anxiety. Another charming poet, whose mother was quite disturbed at her lack of a relationship, revealed of her ex-lovers and almost-boyfriends her mother never knew about. There was another poet who spoke about a new drug in town known as “the feels.” This drug levers the emotional senses rather than basing them on logic or reason which is, surprisingly, infecting others abruptly.
The performers during the event gave emphasis on self-acceptance in this peer-pressurized society, changing the perspective of a lot of teenagers. The poems performed during the event also explicitly portrayed the apprehensive feelings of anxiety. Ultimately, Balak was a spectacle of an event, gathering the local artists in the city in sharing their talents for a cause rather than simply showing off what they’ve got.
After the 3-hour night of poetry and music, she was still astonished—the echoes of the rhythm of musical instruments and the lyrical arrangement of the poems’ messages rang in her ears, even when she already left.
