Where Words Lead Him Home
It started with the silence that follows being at a tired sea. Thoughts couldn’t be any louder than the moving waters slamming onto the worn-out metal of a boat, the hiss of the salt air, nor the mechanical hums of the engines. This was the life of Marwin Estremos, a Filipino writer and marine engineer whose life stretches over the horizon while he recounts the moments of stillness on pages.
Estremos’ writing process is deeply rooted in his actual experiences and ordinary moments. He inhabits a world between movement and departures despite the demands of his professional work. Perhaps leisure is found in listening to the quiet call to write: to capture our experiences and trace our becoming.
For Estremos, writing is a way of understanding the intimacy of living and a finished literary work is the result of capturing it. The call of the sea urged Estremos to reflect on his life.
A marine engineer by profession and a writer by passion, Estremos navigates his experiences from a vantage point for his literary expression—a project born at sea that has now become Distances We Call Love: A Story About Almosts, Endings, and Choosing Yourself.
Translating Distance into Literature
One of the most defining characteristics of Distances We Call Love is its hybrid literary form. Estremos encapsulates his distinct personality as a seafarer and writer. The movements of waters echo through the movement of his prose and poetry, where experience gradually becomes a reflection. He writes across memoir, personal narrative, and reflection, building a body of work about what happens to us when love ends, when we return to ourselves, and when we begin constructing a life that no longer depends on being chosen.
Estremos treats prose as a means of unfolding experiences through memory and personal narrative, while he treats poetry as another medium for articulating emotions. Together, the forms converse with one another, grounding abstract emotions in lived experience.
The slow, deliberate storytelling of Distances We Call Love allows readers to read between the lines.
Speaking of reading between the lines, it is also worth considering that Estremos intends to symbolise long distances not only as geographical but also as extending beyond the meaning of who someone was and their eventual becoming.
These details contribute to the distinct voice emerging in Estremos’ work.
Connect with on his social media:
📘 facebook.com/marwin.estremos.2024
Get a copy of his poetry book.
🛒 Paperback:
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