About #TheRebelSonnets
#TheRebelSonnets, Bino A. Realuyo’s second collection of poems is about rebellion and reflection, about love and survival. It is an interrogation of the Divine and to its end, an exploration of myths humanity has created as a response. It is a poetic interpretation of science and scientific truths. For Realuyo, writing the collection is also understanding the soul of rebellions, one steeped in the deep study of the sonnet form, and in conversation with sonneteers who have kept the form alive since Petrarch. Each sonnet is a tribute to scientists, sonneteers, and Rebels, and to the eternity of their great minds and sacrifices.
Poems from #TheRebelSonnets have appeared in the following literary journals and publications in the United States:
Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day January 25, 2022 – Euler’s Equation
Adirondack Review – The Moment, Surrender
Another Chicago Magazine (Race/Riot/Rebellion) – #Notes on the Butterfly Effect, The Dying Rebel
Harvard Review (Online) - #Notes for Soma, the God of Poets, ca. 2019
Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week – Dear Blood
Also watch Broadway actor Marc de la Cruz read "Dear Blood."
New American Writing – Teonanácatl: #Notes on the Year 2018 A.D.
North American Review – Dark Energy
Salamander – The Warming, Sonetto: Red Red Rose, Archipelago
The Georgia Review – Goberkli Tepe, The App, Babel, Upanishad, 2019 A.D.
Two Cities Review (online and podcast) – Oyate Tamakoce
Two Cities Review Editors discuss the Rebel Sonnet Oyate Tamakoce on their podcast.
ZYZZYVA (Resistance Issue) – Anonymous, Olbers’ Paradox, Fire
And in the Philippines:
The Achieve of, the Mastery (Anthology) – The Rebel Rose
In 2024, five #RebelSonnets debuted in the Philippines in Santelmo Magazine – Resistance, Triquetra, Amygdala Hijack, Tempus Edax Rerum, and Ouroborus: An Instruction for Future Resistance
Behind #TheRebelSonnets
I have always loved the sonnet form. Its contraints and visual shape on the page. Poetry for me is creating a world that hide in the space between words. Language and carefully picked tone. Emotions from what you don't read on the page. I wrote sonnets for about twenty years, starting even before I published my first poetry collection. It was my diary of sorts while I traveled outside the U.S.
As soon as I had a taste of the world while studying and living in South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil), I had not stopped packing and spending a month every year in a different country. Like my mother, I am a polyglot. Years of going to Brazil had me studying Portuguese, a language I consider easier to read and speak than hear. I traveled by myself. I met friends during the time I stayed in these cities. In my early 20s, I was very much into activism, although my version of it was more global. Studying Latin American history IN latin America had me looking at my own origins--the Philippine relationship to Hispanidad. My mother, being a Chavacano, was a big influence. As she was a big mystery. My travels took me everywhere, and during that time, I collected "seahorse" memorabilia, even wore a seahorse necklace. Before long, I had a collection of 100 sonnets. They were originally called "The Seahorse Sonnets." When I published my second book, and technology drastically changed with little warning (i.e. floppy disks), I lost the whole collection. I lost 100 Seahorse Sonnets.
More than a decade later, perhaps in between move, I would find my floppy disks, a lot of them, different from each other. I would finally be able to access one. And there inside, as if waiting for the right time to reveal themselves, were The Seahorse Sonnets. Found at a very different time in my life. The sonnets didn't sound like they were written in my time, at least not the time we met again. I had become a different poet, with many years of independent studies of the form. I decided to revisit and rewrite.
They came to me at the time when I was deep in science, quantum physics, the culture of mythology (Joseph Campbell), and the mythology of religion (Elaine Pagels). I began to research the origins of the sonnet form, which I have always loved, and collected historical anthologies from Petrarch and through Shakespeare. I bought collections of sonnets to see what was written. Rilke became a spirit guide. My first collection began with a sonnet. And now I wanted a whole collection full of it. From removing half of the poems through the rewriting of most of the poems and to adding more, #TheRebelSonnets was born. I only read poetry (I can't read prose when I'm writing poetry). That was my work for five years. My life fed the writing of the collection and when I finished, I took a break and ran into Bataan New Jersey.