With decade: A novel in verse

• Main Author: Gamao, Austere Rex P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Novels in verse; Creative Writing; Fiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_lit/6; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=etdm_lit
• Institution: De La Salle University

A novel in verse that seeks to explore queer futurity and indeterminacy. Decade, the main character, is a queer entity with indeterminate origins and abilities. An aspect of time that takes on any form, they are genderfluid. Working with the form of hybridity and the notion of post-epic disrupts conventions. It is an instance of queering, openness, and instability. The project seeks to challenge the archetype of the “epic hero” and the elements of the traditional awit and corrido and narrative poetry. The verse novel is a good vessel for instability and potentiality of identities, languages, and forms that engage with societal and political issues. The project hopes to be in the spirit of queer future-thinking. This project utilizes Jose Esteban Munoz’s notion of the Queer Utopia, stating that, “Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we are not yet queer” (1). In its heart, the project is a story of finding an identity and a place to belong. I will also use Jaya Jacobo’s definition of the bakla and agui: “Similar to the Tagalog bakla […], the Kinaray-a agi in this instance is not an identity, but a series of scenes identifying some sort of difference. And because such movement cannot be located, it might as well be misapprehended.”