page_title: Gilbert Luis R. Centina III
section_title: Latest literary projects and criticisms
hierarchical_section_title: Gilbert Luis R. Centina III / Latest literary projects and criticisms
caption_attribution_description: Cover of Our Hidden Galaxette, a poetry collection.
context_page_description: Gilbert Luis R. Centina III, an award-winning Catholic poet, was the author of nine poetry books, two novels and a book of criticism. Respected for his poetry, his works have been anthologized in Philippine high school and college textbooks. Besides English, he also wrote in Spanish and in two Philippine languages, Hiligaynon and Tagalog. He received the Catholic Authors Award in 1996 from the Asian Catholic Publishers and the Archdiocese of Manila under Cardinal Jaime Sin.
context_section_description: At the time of his death on May 1, 2020, due to complications from COVID-19 in the northwestern city of Leon, Spain, Centina had just completed his ninth poetry collection, Recovecos/Crevices. The poetry book, which contains three hundred fifty poems in Spanish and English, is his third bilingual poetry collection. He started producing bilingual books in English and Spanish after rediscovering his Spanish roots in Spain, where he was assigned from 2013 until his death in 2020 and where he found a receptive and growing audience. 
  His time in Spain was marked with an explosion of creativity, resulting in the publication of six poetry books, a novel and a book of literary criticism. Such was the intensity of his creativity that in less than a year, he was able to produce three poetry books Madre España, which he released in July 2019, quickly followed by Plus Ultra y otros poemas/Plus Ultra and Other Poems, which was published in January 2020 and Recovecos/Crevices These three books were produced under very difficult circumstances for Centina who struggled with his health after a difficult kidney transplant surgery in June 2018 at Bilbao's Cruces Hospital, where he underwent seven surgeries in a span of one month as surgeons struggled to fix a leaking bladder that was causing him constant infections. In the end, they attached a nephrostomy tube to his new kidney into a collecting bag outside his body. He hinted about his health problems in the preface to his book Madre España, in which he thanked the Spanish people for their generosity: "I am writing this a year to the day I underwent a life-saving surgery, full of gratitude in my heart for the hospitality and the generosity of the Spanish people, which have sustained me in my long and continuing journey to recovery. Their selflessness exemplifies the nobility of their Iberian roots."
  On April 7, 2013, he published Somewhen in the United States, his third poetry book. Portland Book Review described Somewhen as "modern poetry at its best," adding that "for modern poetry to be this eloquent and thought provoking is a grave task that Centina III accomplishes splendidly."  Sacramento Book Review called the book "lyrical" and "positively radiant" and noted that it is "deeply rooted in religious history, mythology and mysticism." The collection, it added, "honors the [Catholic] church's fortitude, individual spirit and conviction, belief and the voyage thereof."
  The collection marked his comeback to poetry writing after a long hiatus that followed his winning the Focus Literary Awards in poetry in 1982. Along the way, he devoted himself to his priestly duties and limited his writing to newspaper columns. During this time, he served as editor-in-chief of Search, a journal on the life and works of St. Augustine of Hippo published in Makati City, Philippines, by Colegio San Agustin-Makati.  Somewhen was followed by the publication of Rubrics and Runes  (New York: June 2013), Triptych and Collected Poems (New York: August 2013) and Getxo and Other Poems (New York: January 2014). His earlier books of poems, Our Hidden Glaxette and Glass of Liquid Truths, were also republished in May 2013.
  His first novel is a roman à clef, written under a nom de plume. The novel, Wages of Sin, was published as a limited edition in Honolulu in 1988. On June 20, 2013, he released under his real name his controversial second novel Rubrics and Runes, a satire tackling clericalism, simony, financial shenanigans and sex abuse in the Catholic Church as perpetrated by some misguided churchmen.
  According to the blurb of Rubrics and Runes, it "tells the story of a friar who gets caught in the maelstrom of conventual and secular politics when the two supposedly incongruous worlds collide. When José Morán entered the monastery, it was to pursue the highest form of chivalry. But his fate as a religious priest takes a precipitous turn when social paroxysm grips the fictional island-nation of Islas e Islotes after the downfall of the government. To cover up his own misdeeds, his abominably corrupt religious superior
caption: Our Hidden Galaxette
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