This Is How to Mean No Harm

What happens to an isolated mind? A new poetry collection from the Ateneo Press, This Is How to Mean No Harm by Martin Villanueva grapples with the revolving experiences of nostalgia, rage, and isolation during the minuscule minutes of the pandemic.

Mark Anthony Cayanan, author of Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous, praises Villanueva’s ability to pinpoint the raw emotions to be found in the seemingly mundane: “The poems shuttle between workplace and rented condo unit, or are coerced into antsy immobility by lockdowns, spaces and moments in which rage simmers into irritation and devotion must contend with fatigue. While revealing an unsettling alertness to routine fits of social embarrassment, frustration over government ineptitude, and blunted grief from the pandemic, the poems refuse the illusory refuge of epiphany and transcendence—what’s maintained is a self-deprecation that’s pathological in its ubiquity: ‘I’ve always been some form / of forgettable.’ As curious as an office busybody and as adept at crisp, resourceful maneuvers as an urban commuter, Martin Villanueva’s collection is mundane in its preoccupations and casual in its demeanor, yes, but also, in its delineations of adult impotence, quick-witted and sympathetic and relatable. This is poetry that understands us.”

The depth the Villanueva finds in the mundane is further emphasized by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, author of Sergius Mencari Bacchus, who states that he “delivers his poetic moments with ice-cold, knife-sharp patience. He fills the space between these moments with music.”

A line from one of the poems says: “I hear you’re angry. Tell me about it.” The pandemic is not a figment of the past, as much as we want to believe otherwise—rage simmers, despair dwells, and the memories continue to linger. As this book dives deep into these emotions, it invites the readers to do the same so we may push against the isolation together.