SESSION 10: After archive
Fellow: RJ Ledesma (Poetry, English)
Moderator: Luna Sicat Cleto

Of Ledesma’s After archive, Luna Sicat Cleto put forward that the key to understanding the collection is the combination of the words: “after” and “archive.” She praised its sharp, newer approach to documenting activist work, deviating from the commonly masculine tropes of protest literature; instead, the realities of violence rests in the subjunctive form, in the deliberate interplay of repetition and incompleteness. To her, the organizing principle of the collection is that it recognizes the human factor in activist work. Such an observation is aptly accompanied by Ledesma’s collagic writing process: because of the demanding nature of political work, he simply collects fragmented observations and impressions during stolen moments in time. Ledesma also explained that he writes to reflect and to process his grief, but he is anchored still in the primacy of the mass struggle.

Fellows and panelists had similarly high praise for the collection, describing it as preserving in amber the more tender aspects of revolutionary thought and practice. Ledesma’s sensitivity to detail—portraying through textured minutiae the quiet commitment, moments of crisis, and personal contradictions—is a humanization of those embedded in the mass struggle. Revolutionary archives are either difficult to assemble due to censorhip and state intervention, or wielded by state forces as an oppressive tool; in its endowment of a human face to the revolution, Ledesma necessarily resolves this gap.

After the session, Ledesma shared that he feels inspired to continue the project and explore further the use of poetry as pedagogical tool.