Christian Jil Benitez is a Filipino poet, scholar, translator, and educator. He is the author of Isang Dalumat ng Panahon (ADMU Press, 2022) and translator of Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics (PAWA Press and Paloma Press, 2024).

Isang Dalumat ng Panahon

Ateneo de Manila UP, 2022

Best Book of Literary Criticism/Cultural Studies, 41st Philippine National Book Awards

Isang Dalumat ng Panahon ("A Theory of Time") proposes a "Filipino" notion of time through harnessing literature as its subject and method, turning to a wide range of texts, from precolonial folk poetry and colonial dictionary entries, to contemporary Philippine scholarship and journalistic writings. What emerges is a vernacular intuition of time as panahon, or the opportunity for things to become. This is further explored through related concepts such as the mythic and the bountiful; the materiality and arrival of things; trope and tropicality; contemporaneity and history; and love and metaphor, ultimately demonstrating a new vocabulary on time specifically grounded on the Philippine world.

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Praise

A novel and comprehensive study on a subject matter seldom considered in the field of literary studies, Christian Benitez's Isang Dalumat ng Panahon... advances an attempt to problematize time and its experience in relation to the idea of being Filipino.
—Citation, 41st Philippine National Book AwardsIsang Dalumat ng Panahon is an incisive theoretical discourse on time through literature... Exceeding simple translation of or borrowing from phenomenological studies on temporality, Benitez opens a clearing... by identifying and practicing such a study in the particular ecology of the Philippines...
— Gary C. Devilles, author of Sensing ManilaIn this book, Benitez creates a "language of his own," with an exceptional style on discourse, that can only be idiolectical: the sign of emergence of a true theorist and critic!
—Oscar V. Campomanes, co-editor of Colonialism & Modernity: Re-mapping Philippine Histories

Features

— 'Filipino Time'? By Virgilio S. Almario. Filipino Ngayon, 11-13 Oct 2022 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).
— Pakikipanahong Pagbasa: Rebyu ng Isang Dalumat ng Panahon ni Christian Benitez. By N.J. Torre. Katipunan 10.
— Our 26 Favorite Filipino Books of 2023. By B.B. Suralta. Esquire, 29 Dec. 2023.
— Christian Jil R. Benitez's Isang Dalumat ng Panahon. By L.A.L. Liwanag. Philippine Studies 72(1): 125-29.

Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics

English translation of Jaya Jacobo's Arasahas: Mga Tula (Savage Mind Publishing House, 2023)
Philippine American Writers Association (PAWA) Press and Paloma Press, 2024
Longlist, 2023-2024 John Dryden Translation Competition, BCLA
Finalist, Transgender Poetry, 37th Lambda Literary Awards

In Arasahas, Filipino poet Jaya Jacobo writes of the tropics as both time and place, as well as a sensibility through which one may understand and come to terms with the world. Translated by Christian Jil Benitez, the poems in this collection intimate how being tropical not only conjures torridities, but more importantly, entitles one to tenderness.

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Praise

Drawing from the wild and natural landscape while refracted through disrupted syntax, interpersonal nostalgia, religiosity, folklore and music, these poems dramatise and reflect—nearly in shards while also steeped in shadow —the divided self and spirit in evolution, braving transition and thus in forlorn conflict with our uncompromising world. Here are linguistic insurrections, cosmic disavowals and inward feats of courage we must recognise as necessary in order to become, transform, soar or even transcend.
— Cyril Wong, author of Infinity Diary and BeachlightJaya Jacobo’s poetry, in the original Filipino, startles in how it amplifies qualities that make the lyric what it is. Reveling in the material and historical filaments of the language while placing the subject in environments that display her cosmopolitanism, Jacobo, in poem after poem, manages to be both lush and flamboyant, on the one hand, and spare, on the other, skillfully deploying the genre’s acknowledged obsession with le mot juste and its predilection for resonance through distillation. Her image work is highly sensuous, sweltering, even sticky—and yet, her poetry also pursues its analytical flirtation with precise abstractions and unnamable vulnerabilities. Christian Jil Benitez’s translation further contributes to this already intricate coalition of paradoxes, fusing a sinewy handling of syntax attuned to the hermeneutic generosity of the contemporary fragment with the undeniable authority of Jacobo’s voice.
— Mark Anthony Cayanan, author of Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous

Feature

— "Complex Entanglements: A Review of Arasahas by Jaya Jacobo." By L. Sing. Asymptote, 17 Feb. 2025.

Excerpts

— Hiyas/Gems. into the unfathomable pearl programme, O Quilombismo. Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
— Corcovado; August, Going to Waverly Place; and Oyayi. Trails & Ruins: Poetry & Poetics of Place. Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin, February 2024.
— Stony Brook Souvenir and other translated poems. AKDA 4.1.
— Three poems from Arasahas. Journal of Southeast Asian Ecocriticism 2.1.
— Gems. Shenandoah 74.1-2.

Christian Jil R. Benitez is Filipino a poet, scholar, translator, and educator. He teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), in the Philippines, where he earned his AB-MA in Filipino Literature. He finished his PhD in comparative literature at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand through a Second Century Fund (C2F) Scholarship.His poetry has been given recognition in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Maningning Miclat Poetry Awards, and the Talaang Ginto of the Commission on the Filipino Language, among others. His earlier critical work revolved around time and tropicality, leading up to his first book Isang Dalumat ng Panahon (ADMU Press, 2022), hailed as the Best Book of Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies at the 41st Philippine National Book Award. His recent work, expanding from his doctoral dissertation, proposes a nonhuman comparative poetics via the ideas 19th-century Filipino patriot and polymath José Rizal.He is a member of the interdisciplinary research network Rethinking the Order of Time; and the Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle. He is also the associate editor of the journal Katipunan, published by the Department of Filipino, ADMU. Previously, he was the head of the Creative Writing Desk of the Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices, where he directed the annual Ateneo National Writers Workshop (2018-2023).Currently, he translates contemporary Filipino literature to English. His translation of Jaya Jacobo's debut poetry collection Arahas: Poems from the Tropics (PAWA Press and Paloma Press, 2024) was shortlisted in the 37th Lambda Literary Awards for Transgender Poetry. His sample translation of Alvin Yapan's Time of the Eye (Ang Sandali ng mga Mata; ADMU Press, 2006) was among the inaugural winners of PEN Presents x International Book Prize.

Contact:

✏ [email protected]

Forthcoming
— Trash on the Eastern Side: Women and Garbage in Duanwad Pimwana's Short Fiction. With C. Phallangsri. The Handbook of Postcolonial Ecofeminist Literature, ed. D.A. Vakoch.
— Agam: Filipino Memory, Time, and the Contemporary Climate Crisis." With J. Martin. Memory Studies in Southeast Asia: A Handbook, eds. E. Clavé & Q. Tran.2026
— Swarms of comparison: Pests at the end of the world. Social Science Information.2025
— A verdant reading: On the agency of nonhuman landscape in Apocalypse Now (2019). Kritika Kultura 47.
— Stalking demons in the garden: On Rizal’s "el demonio de las comparaciones." Antennae 67.
—Flowers from afar: Mayflowers (2021), "A las flores del Heidelberg” (1886), and epipythic communities. SARE 62.1.
— Alaála: Tropical memory. Kritika Kultura 45.2024
— Repeating Joy: On Misteryo sa Tuwa (1984). Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito/Waiting just behind the curtain of this age: Philippine Pavilion, ed. C. Quijon, Jr.
— Ilang tala hinggil sa samantala [Notes on meanwhile]. Kinaadmaan 45.
— Bugtong, or the Philippine ecopoetry in a riddle.. Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis: Educational Creative Approaches to Complex Challenges, eds. S. Sorby, S. Kleppe, & A. Ed.2023
— Aralin sa Heograpiya ng Isang Indie Film/maker [Geography Lessons of an Indie Film/maker]. Ang Mahaba't Kagyat na Buhay ng Indie Sinema, eds. R. Tolentino & A. Atienza.
— Philippine philippine, or the tropics in Cixous's dreaming true. With P. Chittiphalangsri. eTropic 22.2.
— Pulo: A Metonym. Kritika Kultura 40.2022
— Vernacular Virtual: Toward a Philippine New Materialist Poetics. eTropic 21.2.
— Philippine Literature and Ecofeminism. The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature, ed. D. A. Vakoch.
— "Magaling, Datapoua Hindi Tola": Ang Tula, Isang Katutubo, at Hinggil sa Kathang Tagpo ["Magaling, Datapoua Hindi Tola": Poetry, a Native, and Regarding the Fabled Encounter]. Kritika Kultura 39.
— Relational Nation: The Appreciation of Characters in Rizal’s Noli me tángere in Two Philippine Public High Schools. With F.V. Aguilar, Jr. & M.E.J. Macapagal. Kritika Kultura 39.
— Gubat sa Lungsod: Ang Pulong Arroceros [Forest in the City: The Arroceros Island]. Hulagway: Bahay ng Salita, Balai ng Gunita. (Presentation)
— All Hail, the Baklang Kanal!: Subversive frivolity in two Filipino influencers. With S. Cabbuag. Plaridel 19.1.
— A Tropical Traumaturgy: Rereading the folk in "May Bagyo Ma't May Rilim." Kritika Kultura 38. (Presentation)
— "Bagay": Articulating a new materialism from the Philippine tropics. Rupkatha 14.1.2021
— Queer Frames. Critical Asia Archives.
— Learning Without Reading Noli me tángere: The Rizal Law in Two Public High Schools. With F.V. Aguilar, Jr. & M.E.J. Macapagal. Philippine Studies 69.3.
— On the Weariness of Time: El Niño in the Philippines. eTropic 20.2. (Feature)
— Telepathic Visions: On Alvin Yapan's An Kubo sa Kawayanan (2015). Res Rhetorica 8.2.2020
— On Collecting Things: Vargas and Materiality. The Vargas Collection: Art and Filipiniana, ed. P. Flores.
— #DuterteStandardTime: Mga Pamamahalang Pamanahon [#DuterteStandardTime: Temporal Governance]. Katipunan 6.
— Mebuyan, the Tropical, and what could be Erotic. Writing Presently, ed. R. Laru-an.2019
— Panahon and Bagay: Metonymy and the Close Reading of Dictionaries to Understand Filipino Temporality. Philippine Studies 67.3-4. (Archived) (Review)
— Tungo sa Isang Dalumat ng Panahon: Ilang Panimulang Talâ [Toward a Concept of Time: Preliminary Notes]. Látag: Essays on Philippine Literature, Culture, and the Environment, eds. T. Ong and I. Lacuna.
— Ekonomiya ng Bulaklak: Ang Paghanga sa Bituing Walang Ningning [Economy of Flowers: Adoration in Bituing Walang Ningning]. Pelikula 4.2018
— Lullaby of Diasporic Time: On Lav Diaz’s 'A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery'." International Journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism 8.2. (Archived)
— Salaysay, Saysay, Salukoy: Tungo sa Dalumat ng Alamat [Narrative, Meaning, Present: Toward a Concept of Alamat]. The Cordillera Review 8.1.
— Laro Lang, o Ilang Guhit Pa-Patintero' [Just a Game, or, Few Lines on Patintero]. Katipunan 3.2017
— Tungo sa Dalumat ng Bayan: Isang Metonomiya [Toward a Concept of Bayan: A Metonym]. Kritika Kultura 29.
— Kung Paano Umalpas sa Panahon: Isang Pagbasa sa Dalumat ng Panahon sa Kuwadro Numero Uno ni Benilda Santos [To Transcend Time: A Reading on the Concept of Time in Kuwadro Numero Uno by Benilda Santos]. Bright Sign, Bright Age: Critical Essays in Philippine Studies, ed. J. N. Garcia.
— Toward the Unsurmountable You: The (Non)presence in Mark Anthony Cayanan's 'Except You Enthrall Me'." Bright Sign, Bright Age: Critical Essays on Philippine Studies, ed. J. N. Garcia.
— Tungo sa Posibilidad ng Apokalipsis: Pelikula at Kritisismo, Palabas at Paloob [Toward the Possibility of Apocalypse: Film and Criticism, Palabas and Paloob]. Katipunan 2.

2025
— Five sonnets. Tomorrow Club.2024
— Weathering. SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English 61.1.
— Mga Pangungusap (Sa Bogambilya) [Sentences (On Bougainvillea)]. Hulagway: Empire/Emporia, ed. F. Pantaleta.
— A Passing Moment in Soi Song Phra. This is Southeast Asia (Feb. 21).
— Teorya ng mga Puno [A Theory of Trees]. Katipunan 11.2.2023
— Of Plants and Ghosts. Manoa 35.2, Here Was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Ecowriting.
— Sanaysay sa Pagkahimpil, Bilang Kalbaryo [Essay on Stillness, as Calvary]. TLDTD (6).2022
— Wild Dogs. SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English 59.2.2021
— No Wild Iris. eTropic 20.1.
— Maybe baby is a way to say bye. Asiatic 14.2.2020
— Sapagkat Dapat Sumapat sa Kalungkutan ang Lalabing-Apat na Taludtod; Sapagkat Nangungulila Lang Talaga Ako sa Ilang Kaibigan, at Bagaman Alam Kong Hindi Nila Ito Mababasa, Narito Ang Ilang Balita) [Because Fourteen Lines Must Suffice Loneliness; Because I Just Miss Few Friends and Though I Know That They Won't Get to Read This, Here are Some News]. Agos 1.1.
— nang sinabi nilang magugunaw na ang mundo [when they said the world was ending]. Heights 67.2.
— On the prospect of sitting. tractions: experiments in art writing.2018
— Sapagkat Pag-ibig ang Tuod sa Pinakamahabang Bugtong sa Kasaysayan [For Love is the Answer to the Longest Riddle in History]. Likhaan 14.
— Sapagkat Darating ang Panahong Hindi na Sasapat ang Pananalinghaga [Because There will Come a Time When Metaphors Won't Suffice Anymore]. Heights 65.2.
— Because I Just Miss Few Friends and I Know that They Won't Get to Read This. Verse and Voice Poetry Magazine 42. (Archived)
— Isang Paglikhang Muli sa Ang Dalawang Punong Matayog [Rewriting The Two Tall Trees]. Heights 65.2.2017
— Sapagkat Mangyari Lamang [Because It is Asked]. Heights 65.1.
— You Must Recall Your Past Lives; Must God Be Gabriel Garcia Marquez; One Day, A Mountain, A Rock; Nietzsche Must Be So Proud. Softblow.2016
— Sa Ilalim ng Punong Namumulaklak; At Noong Binura ko ang Aking mga Paghiyaw sa Ilalim ng Punong Namumulaklak; Balang-Araw Mamahalin Kita _________ [Under The Blossom Tree; And When I Erased All my Howling Under the Blossom Tree; Someday I'll Love You _________] Heights 62.3.
— Mga Pagtukoy [Significations]. Heights 63.2
— from I Shall Be Missing.. Habi 1.1.
— Kung Saan Nagsimulang Pinakaibigin Kita [Where I Begin to Love You Most]. Plural 4.
— from Rhetoric. transit. (Archived)2015
— Limang tula mula sa Sapagkat Umiibig [Five poems from Because Loving]. Heights 63.1.
— Mahirap Akong Maging Kaibigan [I'm Difficult to be Friends With]. Heights 62.3.
— As the River. Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 30.2014
— Ang Dalawang Punong Matayog [The Two Tall Trees]. *Heights Kuwentong Pambata 2014.
— Bugtong; Adan at Eba; Liham kay Orpheus; Mga Tagpong Hindi Nasaksihan ni Tungkung Langit [Riddle; Adam and Eve; Letter to Orpheus; Scenes Unwitnessed by Tungkung Langit]. Heights 62.1
— Mango Trees. Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 25.
— Epitapyo sa Kutsilyo; Sa Hangin at sa Pagkalumbay [Epitaph to Knife; On Wind and Loneliness]. Heights 61.2.2013
— Mga Tala sa Pangalan ng Ulap [Notes on the Name of Clouds] High Chair 19. (Archived)

Forthcoming
— Tall Grass. By A. Yapan. SUSPECT.2025
— Legends of Sagrada. By A. Yapan. e.g. journal 5.
— from Time of the Eye. By A. Yapan. PEN Presents 3.
— Bread Peddler. By A. Derain. tr. review of translations.
— Fabrications, By A. Derain. Ghost City Press.
— Gems. By J. Jacobo. Shenandoah 74.1-2.
— Scrapbook. By A. Derain. ANMLY 40.
— The Flower of Heidelberg. By A. Yapan. eTropic 42.2.
— Three poems from Arasahas. By J. Jacobo. Journal of Southeast Asian Ecocriticism 2.1.2024
— The Boy with a Pet Dog. By A. Derain. eTropic 23.1.
— Stony Brook Souvenir and other translated poems. By J. Jacobo. Akda 4.1.
— Three poems from Arasahas. By J. Jacobo. Trails & Ruins: Poetry & Poetics of Place, Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin, 7 Feb.2023
— Searching for Maura/Paghahanap kay Maura. By C. Healy, N. Dungca, & R. Galeno. With K.C. Schaper, R. Cabato, & H. Dormido. Washington Post, 16 Aug.
— Hiyas/Gems. into the unfathomable pearl programme, O Quilombismo. Haus der Kulturen der Welt.2019
— Apocalypse. By A. Yapan. eTropic 18.2.
— The Riddle of the Eagle and the Fowl. By A. Yapan. eTropic 18.2.2017
— "Angelus Novus." By W. Benjamin. High Chair 23. (Archived)

2025
— To become an afterlife: An interview with Christian Jil Benitez on Filipino literature in translation. With A.M.M. Dapanas. Asymptote, 3 Dec.
— Putrid Pursuits: On Lav Diaz's Phantosmia (2024). The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— Ununderstanding: On Jopy Arnaldo's Gitling (2023). The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.2024
— Queering Tropically: Sexuality, Indigeneity, Decoloniality, Spatiality. With G.L. Chwala & A. Lundberg. eTropic, 23.2.
— Queering the Tropics: A Cartography of Tropical Materialisms, Queer Ecology, and Spectral Tropicality. With G.L. Chwala, A. Lundberg, & S.N. Nyeck. eTropic, 23.1.
— Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific. The Journal of Asian Studies 83.2.2023
— Introduction/Introduksiyon. With R. Guillermo, C. Ong, & E. Evasco. Likhaan 17.1.
— "On Pretense: On Guitierrez Mangansakan III's Topografia (2022)." The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.2022
— "Pakikipagtuos sa Panahon: Rebyu ng Historya ni Ha (2021)" [Reckoning with Time: Review of Historya ni Ha (2021)]. The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— Tropical Materialisms: Towards Decolonial Poetics, Practices and Possibilities. With A. Lundberg. eTropic 21.2.
— Ang Buhol at Bigkis ng Relihiyon [The Knot and Bind of Religion]. With A. Yapan. Katipunan 9.2021
— "Laging Ngayon Lamang ang Nililingon": Hinggil sa Ruta: Mga Bago at Piling Tula ni Benilda S. Santos [We Only Always Turn to the Present: On Ruta: Mga Bago at Piling Tula by Benilda S. Santos]. Humanities Diliman 18.2.
— Marlon Hacla's Melismas (2020), trans. Kristine Ong Muslim. SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English 58.2
— Pagsasalin at Bilateralidad [Translation and Bilaterailty]. Katipunan 8.
— Constellating Romance: Review of The Boy Foretold by the Stars (2020). The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
—. 1521 | 2021. Katipunan 7.
— Gina Apostol's Insurrecto: A Novel & Dominic Sy's A Natural History of the Empire: Stories. SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English 57.2.2020
— Panuto sa Pangangalaga [Instructions on Care]. Sine Sipat, The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— Aftercare: Review of Lingua Franca (2019) and Edward (2019). The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— The Experiment of the Tropics: Poems by Lawrence Lacambra Ypil. Humanities Diliman 17.1
— Hinggil sa mga Hinaharap [On Futures]. Katipunan 6.
— Ang Panitik sa Politik [The Literary in the Political]. Katipunan 5.2019
— Mukha't Pag-ibig: Hinggil sa Never Not Love You (2018) [Face and Love: On Never Not Love You (2018)]. The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— Hinggil sa mga Salalayang Pamanahon: Isang Pagbasa sa Sustaining the Archipelago (2017) [On Temporal Rubrics: A Reading of Sustaining the Archipelago (2017)]. Katipunan 4.
— Pagsasalin, Bilang Kumpas Ekokritiko [Translation, as an Ecocritical Gesture]. Katipunan 4.
— ""Tinig'": Bata't Mga Panahon [Tinig: Children and Times]. Ateneo de Manila University, 11 March. (Archived)2018
— "Isang Pelikula ng Pulo: Hinggil sa Baconaua (2017) [An Island Film: On Baconaua (2017)]. The Film Desk of Young Critics Circle.
— Misreading Usual Catachresis: Charlie Samuya Veric's Histories. Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 40.2017
— History is Form: On Apichatpong Weerasethakul's The Serenity of Madness. Vital Points.2016
— We Don't See: A view of Foreign. DIAGRAM 16.5