Welcome to a quiet place where you define the seasons of your life, where you survive the monsoons of your history, where your secrets are affirmed and your vulnerabilities are cradled with care. In a quiet place whose boundaries you define, where night and day arrive alternately at your command, your very own place you have yet to name.

It is a secret place. And in this book, I seek to share mine with you. Where is this secret place, you might ask? In my works you will find that it’s more than just a physical location. For example, it often starts with my children, two beautiful boys who are my refuge from a harsh and unforgiving world. A quiet place is where you sum up hope, and this I usually find in the change of seasons, especially in spring when the world comes back to life. A secret place is a soul-mate, someone who understands me without expectations, who shares my political struggles, my pains and joys… that is the safest place in the world to be. A secret place could also be the home of my ancestors, for in being reminded of who I am, I come closer to accepting and loving myself. So all this means that a “place”, more than being just a physical location, represents people, memories, a history, or even a set of beliefs. For women, it is a secret garden where the goddess inside us can flourish without boundaries or restrictions, where everything is beautiful and well-nourished because there we have the absolute power to make it so.

It's been more than 20 years since I started writing poetry. Since then I have endured the pain and anxiety of “baring my soul in a poem”, as someone once said. I have sat twirling a pen with my fingers during countless hours of self-flagellation, for to write is to sit in judgement of oneself, as Ibsen wrote. I have sought reward, and found it, with every word rolling off my tongue as I read my work to myself, often in the depths of solitude when only poetry was my line to the surface world, and later when I read to others.

A month ago, I was fortunate to travel to Durban, South Africa for the World Conference Against Racism. The experience was so intense, the country so amazing, that I was inspired to publish this book in South Africa. The people of Durban stirred images in my heart of the country I had left long ago, that very same cradle of my childhood and later of my adult pains, the country that reminded me so much of South Africa itself, with its history of scars and struggles.

The courageous and resilient people of South Africa, whose determination won them their freedom, brought me back into the arms of struggle. As a result I found the courage to put together Monsoons, a collection of poems from way back, written in mountain enclaves or behind the front lines of protest rallies, some in the days of the Philippine revolutionary struggle of the ‘80s.

Durban turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me, so culturally diverse. I have finally come home, I told myself. After living in Europe for quite a while, this discovery was such a relief indeed. After wandering the globe in search of a home, one can imagine how much finding South Africa meant to me. This produced the impetus to put together the collection Seasons.

I usually shy away from the thought of publishing poetry. Poetry is so intense, with so much packed into so few lines and pages. This intensity makes the writer vulnerable. I know it makes me feel naked and alone. But now, emboldened and free, I am able to release the third collection in this book, A quiet place. It includes poems written at various stages of my life, inspired by the people who helped shape my identity and my writing.

I am honored that this book is being launched in South Africa for it gives me a chance to give back to the people of that country who have reawakened me, who made me realize that that quiet place truly exists. In return I would like to share with them a slice of my own people’s stories and struggles, a glimpse into our culture, and that very part of me which they have set free.

Edessa Ramos
September 2001, Zürich