whta's the interpretation of the poem querida?

Question

querida by angela manalang gloria

Answer 1

Do you mean this poem:

Querida:
The door is closed, the curtains drawn within
One room, a brilliant question mark of light
Outside her gate, an empty limousine
Waits in the brimming emptiness of night.

Old Maid Walking On A City Street:
She had a way of walking through concupiscence
And past the graces her fingers never twirled
Because her mind refused the heavy burden
Her broad feet shoveled up the world.

The Wise Virgin:
My sisters talk of flighty things
They never live beyond Today.
They sing, they dance, they burn their wings
(I notice they are very gay.)

I do not laugh and neither borrow
Of Peter what I would pay Paul
I do not live but for Tomorrow -
(They say I do not live at all.)



It was written in English by a Filippina (Philippines) English writer, it was written some time in the year 1940.
Notice the rhyme: light/night and the hesitant sense suggested by the dotes after light!

Querida, I've gathered, refers to a woman of ill-repute. The occupant of the limo has possibly just entered the room leaving his car "brimming emptiness" throughout the night. The poem pays tribute to the women sexually exploited and abused by well-placed men, possibly, some sex-maniac Generals during world war II.
That, I humbly assume and admit, is the meaning of the "question mark of light" of the first stanza!!
There is suggestion that the old maid is drugged and imagines she is a virgin. Try to explain along that line. Eventually, your interpretation is solely your own as long as you can support it with textual evidence.


good luck

Answer 2

Interesting ... actually, "Querida" is only the first four lines ....

Querida (1940)

The door is closed, the curtains drawn within
One room, a brilliant question mark of light ...
Outside her gate an empty limousine
Waits in the brimming emptiness of night.

Here's an article that refers to the fact that the poem was famously hard to understand, that it was originally ridiculed as "saying nothing" or not making any other sense.

http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about_cultarts/articles.php?artcl_Id=23

Ari's interpretation is interesting ... yeah, it's a possibility ...

Alternatively, you can just focus on the play of opposites in the poem ...

Look, the poem contrasts

dark and light
open vs. closed
emptiness vs. fullness

You've got a mysterious, well-lit room -- inside a gate, inside a closed door, behind drawn curtains -- and whatever goes on there is a "question mark."

Outside you've got an "empty" limousine in the "emptiness" of the night ... but that emptiness is "brimming" -- interesting word, suggesting that somehow the emptiness of the night is full -- of what? potential? possibilities?

So maybe the poem poses a type of paradox -- that what goes on inside -- inside the lit rooms at night is a mystery, but that also the "empty night" is brimming with mysteries and questions of its own.

I dunno ... the article argues that the poem participates in a type of traditional riddle poetry ... or poetic riddling ... or something like that ...

Answer 3

kk