Running with Ghosts
by Merlie M. Alunan
1 In the end, after all the rhetoric of sympathy,
2 they'd come mainly for the burial,
3 a funerary of such scale
4 as no words suffice to tell.
5 They came in busloads, boatloads,
6 planeloads from all over the world—
7 we could tell by the colors of their skin,
8 and by their talk. They teemed for a while
9 in our city, almost replacing our lost ones.
10 They were efficient, effective, fast,
11 they tidied up the city in no time,
12 making it safe once more for the quick.
13 Thousands of dead to deal with all at once—
14 such a burial seldom seen anytime
15 anywhere in this planet. There was no time
16 for anything else, no time if you please,
17 to sort out beggars from kings,
18 heroes from villains, sinners from saints.
19 After the surge, virgin and whore lay on the dirt
20 side by side, mere rubble, litter on the sand,
21 fly-infested piles of rotting flesh, debris
22 snagged on shorn trees, welter in the wasteland
23 that our city had become.
24 No time for the obsequies*, the rites of honor, *funeral
25 the graceful gestures of mourning—music, flowers,
26 elegant elegies belying the animal state.
27 Backhoes dug out huge pits for the graves.
28 Dump trucks hauled the corpses to the site.
29 Bulldozers pushed the bodies in
30 and scraped earth over them afterwards.
31 No muted hymns or prayers but men yelling
32 to get the job done fast as they could—
33 the stench, they recalled, was overpowering.
34 But no one talked much about it then.
35 No one wants to talk about it now.
36 Aye, not much talk about it to this day,
1
37 not even to ask where the abominations* *a thing of disgust or hatred
38 had come to rest at last.
39 Perhaps no one wants to know?
40 Sometimes in the dark we grope in our mind
41 for a face, a hand, a name that the storm
42 had ripped from us.
43 Everyone’s gone away,
44 back where they came from.
45 The wind and the sea are quiet,
46 we're on our own again, wiping off
47 the dust from our blighted altars.
48 Grass sow their seeds over the turned earth,
49 the graves are greening in the seasonal rain.
50 Everyday we run with ghosts by our side.
51 God is silent, as ever blameless and inscrutable*. *difficult to understand/interpret
Source: Running with Ghosts and Other Poems. Naga City, Philippines: Ateneo de Naga
University Press, 2017. 103-105.
Guide Questions:
1. Who is speaking in the poem?
2. Who were the “they” the speaker is referring to in the first stanza?
3. What kind of wound or wounds were depicted in the poem?
4. What does the image of grasses growing on overturned graves imply?
5. Why is the poem entitled “Running with Ghosts”?
6. In her introduction to the collection Running with Ghosts, Merlie Alunan concludes that
“When dust settles and loss seethes in every muscle and bone of our bodies, the poet
writes to make us think and remember—everyday is a fine day, but there’s always a
chance of earthquakes.” (xxxiii) How is the role of the poet here exemplified in her
poem? Also, what does it mean to be a writer, a survivor, and a witness of traumatic
events?
Assignment
Write your own two-page critical reflection of “The Haiyan Dead” by Merlie Alunan
(https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/opinion/content/342524/the-haiyan-dead-a-
poem/story/). Follow paper guidelines and submit as pdf to my email jctoledo@up.edu.ph.
2
Supplementary Information: Trauma Studies
In the 1990s, a new literary theory emerged as a response to the traumatic events of the time.
Trauma Studies emerged as field of literary discourse, that “explores the impact of trauma in
literature and society by analyzing its psychological, rhetorical, and cultural significance.”
(Mambrol, 19 December 2018)
The objective of this theoretical movement is “to examine how trauma unsettles and forces us
to rethink our notions of experience, and of communication, in therapy, in the classroom, and
in literature, as well as in psychoanalytic theory.” (Caruth 4)
According to Tal (1995), “[t]he writings of trauma survivors comprise a distinct ‘literature of
trauma’. Literature of trauma is defined by the identity of its author. Literature of trauma holds
at its center the reconstruction and recuperation of the traumatic experience, but it is also
actively engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the writings and representations of non-
traumatized authors” (17).
Cathy Caruth, in her book Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996),
points out that for readers to be able to examine trauma, they must regard it as “a temporal
delay that carries the individual beyond the shock of the first moment” (10). There are views
that point out how traumatized individuals disavowed or repressed the memories. Some
resort to escapism. However, it is only through recognizing the gaps and impossibility of
traumatic language can we actually depart from its dissociation. “To listen to the crisis of a
trauma… is not only to listen for the [traumatic] event, but to hear the survivor’s departure
from that trauma.” (Caruth 10)
Because of this ability to dissociate or disconnect thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of
identity, “one’s own trauma is tied up with the trauma of another.” (Caruth cited in Balaev 6) It
means that trauma of an individual is connected to traumas across history and nations.
Today, Trauma Studies has evolved into acknowledging that language can convey variable
meanings of trauma and that traumatic experiences are influenced too by “social, semantic,
political, and economic practices” (Balaev 7).
References:
“Akdang-Buhay | Merlie M. Alunan.” Likhaan: Institute of Creative Writing. UPOU Networks. Accessed on 13 August 2020. Web.
https://networks.upou.edu.ph/26616/akdang-buhay-merlie-m-alunan/
Alunan, Merlie M. “Running with Ghosts.” Running with Ghosts and Other Poems. Naga City, Philippines: Ateneo de Naga
University Press, 2017. 103-105.
Balaev, Michelle. Contemporary Approaches in Literary Trauma Theory. 2014. Print.
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Harlow, U.K: Pearson/Longman, 2009.
Print.
Caruth, Cathy. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1995. Print.
---. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, And History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Print.
Laplanche, J. and Pontalis, J.-B. (1973) The Language of Psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth Press – Reprinted by Karnac Books, 1988.
665-6.
3
Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Trauma Studies.” 19 December 2018. Literary Theory and Criticism. Web. Accessed on 13 August 2020.
https://literariness.org/2018/12/19/trauma-studies/
Tal, K., 2008. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
