Longtime Unalaskan Carlos Dominico Tayag has worn many hats over the years, including chef, radio DJ and little league president. Now he’s adding “local author” to the list with his recently published poetry collection, ‘an island’.
Tayag will read selections from the book and sign copies at the Unalaska Public Library June 14 from 6-8 p.m.
In this episode of “Island Interviews,” KUCB’s Andy Lusk sat down with Tayag to hear more about the collection and the inspiration behind it.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Carlos Tayag: My name is Carlos Dominico Tayag. I'm a resident of Unalaska. I've lived here for almost the past 12 years, and I'm a poet. I've written a book of poetry entitled ‘an island’, and it's a collection of poetry inspired by Unalaska and my life experiences and written here in Unalaska and available on the island.
Andy Lusk: What is the story that you're telling with this book?
Tayag: It's a little bit autobiographical, but it's also a little bit whimsical and kind of out-there. You know, poetry always means two things, right? If you're doing it right, it should force people to think about multiple perspectives. I wouldn't say it's only about me, but I think it's about my experiences and interactions in the world and in society and with people and memories of people whom I've met, or stories that people have told me, and connecting to those stories in a personal way.
It really is inspired by this island, by living here in Unalaska and writing poetry here, and meeting people, being in nature and listening to the sounds, being in the wind. The wind is kind of a metaphor for adversity in some ways, but it's also a metaphor for change and growth.
Lusk: You're using a lot of imagery from the tundra. I've noticed that the colors of the tundra are deeply symbolic in multiple entries here, and I think this is a very imagery heavy collection. Would you agree with that?
Tayag. Yeah, I had a friend describe it as “lyrical,” which was interesting to me, because I do think that colors resonate a lot with me, and landscape resonates a lot with me. I think a lot of the art that I want to create is inspired by music as well. But I'm not, I'm not at all a musical person.
Lusk: I don't know. There's a cadence to the way you write here. It's all in the pauses. It's got a certain rhythm to it and it's distinctly modern. It reads like it should be set to music. I think if you took this collection and you said to a friend who plays the guitar, “Come on down, let's put this to a couple of chords,” you'd have something really special.
Tayag: Well, I'd love it if someone wanted to play some music for it, but that's not my skill, that's not my talent.
When I was building the collection, I wanted it to be like an album, like if you put a record on the record player, or you listen to your favorite album from beginning to end. I wanted each poem to kind of be like a track in the record that told this complete story. That's kind of the way that I approached putting this collection of poetry together.
Lusk: How long have you been writing poems?
Tayag: I think I was in the sixth grade when I wrote my first poem, and I remember writing a poem and really kind of enjoying the process and then bringing it to school and turning this assignment in. I remember my teacher telling me about how good of a poem it was. And I thought, ‘Oh, that's cool,’ but I didn't really know anything about poetry, you know? I mean, I don't know if I even now know anything about poetry.
Recently, I've been writing poetry for about the last six or seven years and really digging into it when I have the time to do it.
Lusk: I'm not going to ask you to recite that first poem from memory, but do you know what it was about?
Tayag: I do. I'm not an arborist, so I'm not going to know the name of the tree, but there's the trees with the little twirly helicopter things. I remember the wind blowing and a bunch of these little twirly helicopter things falling to the ground in a very beautiful, slow motion, majestic manner. It was just this moment in nature that I had, and I wrote about the little seeds falling from the tree.
Lusk: So nature imagery has been the through line.
Tayag: Yeah, I think so, and the range of emotions that I experience in life.
Lusk: And we've got your son here, Remy, joining us. Remy, can you say hi to everyone?
Remy: Yeah, hi.
Lusk: How's it going?
Remy: Good.
Lusk: We're here talking about poetry. Do you like your dad's poetry?
Remy: Yeah.
Lusk: Do you have a favorite one? What's your favorite poem by him?
Remy: There's one about me.
Lusk: That's a pretty good choice.
Tayag: A lot of the poems were inspired or written for Remy, because I think, you know, gosh, I don't want to get too emotional. But we only have the time that we have, and when my time is up, I just wanted him to have something to remember our times — especially the early times and the way that I felt being Remy's dad.
[The poem ‘Dreams of Our Dreams’] is about generations of family and people. And there's some of the poetry that I write in the collection that touches on being an immigrant and being a child of immigrants. I think that experience is unique in many factors, but common for a lot of people.
All the people that come before us have these dreams about upward mobility and doing something better and giving something more to their children and their children's children, right? So I think we all kind of try and do our best to give more or provide better for our children through these adverse experiences and these things that we go through. You do hard things so that they'll pay off for future generations, and you may not even see the fruits of your labor.
We've got family who immigrated on both sides from all over the place. Obviously, I write a lot about my Filipino heritage, or my half Filipino heritage. My wife's family is ethnically Jewish as well. And so there's a lot that plays into the storytelling of the poem as well.
Lusk: I was struck by the imagery of coming in from Dresden, the GI Bill, and dreaming of Sweden. It's evocative.
Tayag: My wife also has family from Norway and Sweden, ancestral family. It's drawing from all of those inspirational places, and then realizing that your own child has all of that within him — all of those stories and all of those struggles in every generation, every person from both of our families went through to be here — to watch your kid swinging on a swing set in the Bering Sea.
Lusk: On that note, where can folks find this book of poetry?
Tayag: The book is available online right now at the Museum of the Aleutians website at aleutians.org. You can also go into their store whenever they're open and buy a copy of the book. It's also available at the Unalaska Visitors Bureau shop on the Dutch Harbor side, by Safeway.
I will be doing a poetry reading at the Unalaska Public Library this Saturday the 14th, from 6-8 p.m. It's an open mic poetry night, so if anyone else wants to come and sing a song or read a poem or do any type of performance art that you might have. Sydney Mahoney at the PCR is hosting it, and she graciously allowed me to be the special guest and read some of my poems.
So, I will be doing a live reading there at the poetry night and I'll have copies of my book available, so you can purchase them there as well. I will even sign them for you, if you like, because I would love to do that.
This was a really special project for me. It's something that I dreamt of and I wanted to do, and I found a way to get some copies of my poetry made. And I'm really proud of this project, and I want to have it out to the world, and I would love for people to read my poetry.
