Asheville-based poet/artist Pasckie Pascua details life and journey in his book, “Red is the Color of my Night”

ASHEVILLE-based poet Pasckie Pascua, a native Filipino, is a 15-year resident of Asheville. He never had qualms or inhibitions proclaiming, “I am an Ashevellian!” proudly whenever he visits other US cities because he means it from the heart. “Asheville is my home barrio away from my island barrio back in the Philippines.”

       Pasckie published (and edited) the community paper, The Indie, from 2001 to 2011 (on and off in 2013-14). He is also the founding executive director of the Traveling Bonfires, a non-profit “people’s culture” organization that advocates family wisdom and community connectedness via musical concerts, artistic pursuits, and poetry readings. The TBonfires organizes the summertime downtown music convergence, “Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park.”

       He is also a very visible poet in town and elsewhere in the region to as far as Columbia, Charleston, Greenville and Myrtle Beach SC, Athens and Augusta GA, New York City, Baltimore, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and in several spots in Southern California. In Asheville, he has been featured at Malaprop's, Black Mountain Museum of Arts, Altamont Reading Series, West End Reading Series, Wordfest, and Wordplay radio program. His next readings will be at The Crow and Quill in downtown Asheville and City Lights Bookstore in Sylva NC on August 9 and August 20, respectively.

       Published by Loved by the Buffalo Publications, the poems and prose in “Red is the Color of my Night” reflect the often ragged but mostly warm wisdom of a journeyman who witnessed and experienced a life that defies his reserved demeanor and soft-spoken tact. This book is written in blood and delivered with a language that crosses creed and culture, without hesitation or reserve. The poet traverses the rough terrains of his past with piercing honesty and visionary glare. His work bothers and comforts at the same time; it also provokes while it reassures.

     

      Pascua is a veteran journalist and poet who survived a dictatorial regime in his home-country of the Philippines. He went to the University of the Philippines' Institute of Mass Communication, and attended undergrad Film programs at Tisch School of Arts, New York University. He was a journeyman writer even before he reached the age of 30—having worked for print, radio, and TV in various capacities, as well as a community organizer/media specialist in coastal villages and farming barrios in the countrysides since he was 15 years old. He served as member of the media liaison staff for the late president Corazon Aquino’s “good government” commission in early `90s, and consulting team for Philippine presidential candidate Senator (deceased) Raul Roco in the 1990s. In the US, Pasckie edited the Manhattan NY-based Headline Philippines from 1998 to 2001; and headed the Southern California/Los Angeles bureau of Philippine News, the oldest nationally-distributed Filipino/Asian-American newspaper in the US and Canada.

       “Red is the Color of my Night” is available at Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe in downtown Asheville; City Lights Bookstore in Sylva NC; Avid Bookshop (avidbookshop.com) in Athens GA; Park Road Books (parkroadbooks.com) in Charlotte NC. Also via Amazon. For more info: www.pasckie.com or http://pasckiepascuawords.blogspot.com/ (or find Pasckie Pascua in Facebook)