In The Mix Magazine had some interesting interview questions for me recently – about Dear Planet (my debut poetry collection), life in the Philippines, plus the work of Young Focus. Here’s Part 1 of the resulting feature:
Am constantly amazed (read: embarrassed) how, before I know it, I’m once again being mastered by my machines. Scrolling on my phone: it feels like five minutes – it’s thirty. A lovely pile of books waiting to be read – I pick up my phone again. Emails waiting to be written – I get sucked down the latest online controversy rabbit hole.
The poem below was written years ago, but feels a hundred times more relevant today, for me at least. That’s probably partly because I’m a slow learner, but I wonder if it’s also because our machines, and the people behind them, are becoming more efficient, more cunning and greedy in keeping our attention.
Here’s my latest combat strategy: Just as I regularly update the apps on my phone, I also need to regularly update my brain, like having a personal ‘brain alert app’, a YOU-ARE-CURRENTLY-BEING-MASTERED-BY-A-MACHINE one.
I’ll let you know how I get on.
PRAYING AN OBITUARY (FOR HUMANITY) WON’T BE NECESSARY
man by machines mesmerized
by device seduced
we scare ourselves witless
likes shares
shape our souls
propaganda run rampant
half-boiled frogs we haven’t a clue
a kid with a Tesla & no idea
where the brakes are
please God we figure it out
or step away from the vehicle
before we’re
cooked
heaven hear our cry
grant us the grit to grasp
are we mastering the mechanics
of enslavement to our gadgets
or mutating
into some kind of
zombie
amphibian
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary in July 2025. (First shared on Rattlecast’s Open Mic in December, 2022.)
Photo: a beautiful, healthy (uncooked) Common Tree Frog (Polypedates leucomystax).
An improv event versus a movie show: Think how we experience attending these differently. At the first, you’re an integral part of what happens; at the second, though there may be some interaction with fellow attendees, your presence makes not the slightest difference to what’s on the screen.
I recently had the good fortune of being invited to an improv event – set up as a game show with two teams competing. Such a ‘contest’ ups the ante of audience participation. Not only were we the constant source of prompts for the improv artists and encouraged to be as vocal as we liked with opinions and emotions (all normal improv audience stuff), we were also given voting cards for each round, a supply of plastic flowers to throw on stage should we want to express appreciation, plus (most fun of all, as it turned out) wet sponges to aim at the onstage judges should we happen to disagree.
Now imagine thinking you were going to a movie theatre, but soon after you’re in your seat, instead of the lights dimming, you’re passed an armful of plastic roses and a pile of dripping sponges. “Oh, no,” you think, “this is not exactly what I had in mind!” But (trust me), ten minutes later you’re starting to have the time of your life!
May I stretch your thinking even further: Imagine the inside of a big theatre, and there’s an audience settled in their comfortable seats, assuming they’re there to watch the latest blockbuster. Meanwhile, the reality is that a group of improv artists have gathered on the stage, and are trying to get a show up and running… But the audience’s assumption of movie watching is so all-pervasive, they’re oblivious to understanding their true surroundings.
I feel like I’ve been part of such an ‘audience’ for most of my life. I’ve been watching for so long, and finally… As if something in me was in a deep-freeze sleep and is now thawing awake. In my case, while bird watching.
I thought I was an observer. But I’m a participant.
As humans, we’re not ‘outside’ the natural world, looking in. We’re part of it.
What’s in front of our noses is not a giant projection screen, but a live stage with a wonderful invitation to get stuck in.
Here’s a 5-line poem summing up my thawing out:
IN A NUTSHELL: BIRD WATCHING PART II
it used to be a simple me–it
or a generic though warmer me–them
then came a more nuanced me–her/him
recently a veritable revolution me–you
which has just given birth to a gorgeous us
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary, July 2025.
Photo: Bird(/Human) Watching: a young Philippine hawk-eagle (Nisaetus philippensis).
Photographer: Paul van Wijgerden
With the all the bluster and the clamour from those in power, it might be easy to forget that these ‘men are but mortal and will surely fade as grass’ (from hymn by Johann Georg Albinus). Our mortality is ultimately an epic fact of life; rather than that triggering more frenetic shouting and sabre-rattling, shouldn’t it be inspiring more humility and curiosity?
PUFF
“… dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.”
– The Great Dictator
acrid breath
of old age
elbows
of schoolboy thuggery
only lines short
lines small circle
of nose
no depth
two dimensional
no-man
one breath
stirs dust
you’re gone
& no
make-believe
imperial gown
will save you
now
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary, July 2025.
It seems like something appropriate to share on a Good Friday – how hope, light, love and life can spring up from the most unpromising of circumstances.
But this is my lived experience.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s yours too.
Here’s a personal story in the shape of a poem:
MANILA
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger
Daybreak dog walking, looking down from the hills
Seen from safe distance, a sight overwhelming
Rising out of the hollows of hell’s grey haze:
A scene from Inception, concertina-like folds.
Would not this Here the bravest heart heave?
Then morning commute, caught in the maze
Of your internal organs, interminable traffic,
Bumper-to-bumper, brain be-numbing.
But worst is the poverty plait through your pavements,
And shrill is the contrast cursing your landscape:
Fortified mansions, megalithic malls
Luxury outnumbered by beggars and shacks.
Stark city apathy searing our souls.
You’ve borne the brunt, colonizers’ brutal obsession
For greed and for glory, for riches ungranted.
Now local officials are your leering oppressors,
They the heirs of corruption kindling chaos and need,
Siphoning government goods for personal gain,
Bribing policemen
For blindness or blood.
Strangely I find my heart hopeful on the homeward commute,
Though the traffic is worse as we wind through your streets.
Recalling their faces, effervescence of beauty,
Of youth unrestrained, uncontaminated, untainted.
Ignited to learn, they dream unalarmed,
Cleaving to schoolbags, defining coolness and courage,
Education’s a treasure, they tell us, together
We’ll fight for a freedom, a future without cycles
Of poverty with parents unempowered and enslaved.
Maynila, you bore from womb’s darkness these brilliant babies.
Do not dare to betray them or take them for granted,
They will be your salvation, my salvation included
Now I know it’s these children, not your jungle of concrete,
They the powerful stranger disguised in school uniforms,
As in Wagoner’s wisdom,
I’m no longer lost in the woods.
From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary, July 2025.
Dear friends in the Philippines, my poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’ will be available at the Philippine Book Festival 2026!!!
When? March 12-15; 10:00 am – 8:00 pm.
Where? The Balangay Books’ booth #B023 (Isang Balangay Media Productions), Megatrade Hall, SM Megamall, Manila.
How? Register for free – scan QR code above.
What unfolds as two majorly unexpected, wonderful events happen simultaneously… This is my story: https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/birth-debut-poetry-collection-dear-planet-vanwijgerden
So excited to share that my poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’ has just been printed in the Philippines!!! Will be available through Balangay Books (https://balangaybooks.com). More details to follow VERY soon…
Just got ‘Sins of Our Fathers’ published in For Page & Screen Magazine. It’s a short story set around the year 2010, but is based on high school memories from around the 1970s. Hence the photo: my actual physics teacher was a David Essex lookalike!
Link to story here:
Funny how a simple writing exercise can expose what we’re really bothered about. Such is the power of a pantoum poem writing prompt! The instructions were straightforward, the results were… unexpected. It took me where I was not expecting to go!
The writing prompt was part of Pádraig Ó Tuama’s inspiring Poetry Unbound substack community. See his post here:
https://poetryunbound.substack.com/p/a-new-year-a-new-pantoum
And try it – poetry as in therapy, as in a personal reality check.
A SNOWY NIGHT IN ‘26
Throaty gurgle of ancient dishwasher has me charmed,
though I’ll be less charmed if woken by its final BEEP.
A multitude of visits to the little room–too much cider (0%).
Through curtains see thickening snow blanket in dim streetlight.
//
I’ll be less charmed if woken by a final BEEP.
On 4th loo visit now charmed by our white muffler 5cm deep,
through curtains watch thickening snow blanket in dim streetlight.
This thatched holiday cottage will look gorgeous in morning sun.
//
On 5th loo visit–our white muffler now 6cm deep.
Caught in a glass ball winter wonderland.
This thatched holiday cottage will look gorgeous in morning sun.
But don’t shake too wildly–for fear of shattered glass.
//
Caught in a glass ball winter wonderland,
a multitude of visits to the little room–too much cider (0%).
Don’t shake too wildly–for fear of shattered glass.
I dream of a throaty gurgle: life-as-we-know-it, its jugular cut.
CrackedCeiling 