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Excerpt from a poem by Pablo Tariman: I like the peace that comes with the prospect of dying./ But when you die young you pause and think of the possibilities of a more fruitful life ahead./ Then and now, you learn to appreciate the long and short of a borrowed life.
Whenever I’d complain aloud to Pablo about the financial challenges of being a freelance writer, he would quiet me down by saying, in his serious baritone voice, “It’s the only good thing we know how to do.”
From the weight and thickness of Pablo A. Tariman’s Encounters in the Arts alone and the starry names that fill the contents page and photo folio, the author has veritably compiled his life’s work. And what a compilation it is, with a knockout cover featuring international pianist and national treasure Cecile Licad and art patron Nedy Tantoco in the inset.
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry P. Treñas has conferred honorary citizenship to writer-journalist, poet, and impresario Pablo Arcilla Tariman, a Bicolano, in recognition of his artistic excellence and contribution to Iloilo’s arts and culture.
He is more known as a practitioner of celebrity journalism, having covered rising and established talents in the arts and entertainment field for half a century. But it was his series of soul-wrenching poems that initially appeared in Facebook after the COVID-19 lockdown that drew him the widest and most receptive audience he has ever known. So wide that even the young American poet laureate Amanda Gorman posted one of his poems, “The Poet Is a Lonely Hunter,” on her FB timeline.
Aliw Awards recognized writer Pablo A. Tariman’s “contribution to the performing arts as music writer and concert impresario” in ceremonies held last Dec. 13 at the Manila Hotel Pavilion.
