Tropicalia

By: Mookie Katigbak, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Frances Cannon

Published by Vagabond Press, 2016

In 'Tropicalia', two writers, one Filipino and one American, set off on an unusual collaborative effort entailing the translation of one English to another English, allowing two different sensibilities to happen to the same language, the same content, and ultimately the same poem. Using Katigbak-Lacuesta's existing text, Cannon approached the concept of translation as a creative act, more than as a transcriptive one. She responded to the text in a series of poems, which were then re-translated into paintings. Mookie Katigabak-Lacuesta is the author of two poetry collections: 'The Proxy Eros' (2008) and 'Burning Houses' (2013). She obtained an MFA from the New School University in 2002, and has since taught in major universities in Manila, fronted a rock band, written feature articles, a libretto, and short fiction. She is the editor of Metro Serye, a fold-out zine featuring new poetry, fiction and graphic art in the Philippines. She also co-edited 'Fast Food Fiction Delivery: short short stories to go', an anthology of flash fiction, in 2014. Widely awarded, she was the Filipino delegate to the 2012 Medellín Poetry Festival. In 2015, she completed a writing residency for the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Frances Cannon is a writer and artist currently pursuing a master's degree in nonfiction and book arts at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, teaching literature and creative writing at the University of Iowa, and working as an editorial assistant to The Iowa Review. She was born in Utah and since then has bounced around living, making artwork, and writing, in Oregon, Maine, Montana, Vermont, California, France, Italy, and Guatemala. She received her bachelor's in poetry and printmaking at the University of Vermont, where she self-published several chapbooks of silkscreened prints and poems. She has also worked as an editorial intern and contributor at McSweeney's quarterly, The Believer, and The Lucky Peach. She has recently been published in Vice, The Examined Life Journal, Edible magazine, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.