Whatever the reason, I found myself resolving to teach modern poetry to “speak in Filipino.” Part of the reason for my decision to undertake this quixotic enterprise was my utter ignorance of the modern literature that already existed in Filipino. I was blissfully unaware that an entire generation of writers before me, and my own contemporaries in other universities, had produced and were producing Tagalog novels and short stories and poems that revealed an awareness, and betrayed the influence, of the themes and methods of the literature of modernity being created in more industrially advanced cultures.
Sa gayon nagsimula ang tinatawag ngayong Kilusang Bagay sa panulaang Pilipino. Hindi iyon pormal na kilusan. Nagkataon lang na naroon kami sa iisang lugar sa isang partikular na panahon, mga nagsusulat ng tulang Tagalog sa unibersidad na balwarte ng Ingles sa Pilipinas.