Literary Themes In 'Gahasa' By Maria Joi Barrios

Best known as Joi Barrios in her literary works, “Maria Josephine Barrios is a Filipina poet and activist. She writes Tagalog poetry (the primary language in the Philippines). To give an idea of the importance of her work, Virgilio Almario, one of the best recognized literary critics and a scholar of Filipino poetry, has stated that there are only four recognizable women poets in
Philippine literature. Joi is one of them.
Ms. Barrios completed her Ph.D. in Philippine Literature at the University of the Philippines
(UP). She taught at the University and also served as an Associate for Fiction at the UP Likhaan:
Creative Writing Center. She has won various honors and awards, including the Palanca Award, the most prestigious literary award in the Philippines. During the Marcos dictatorship and the

She has taught in Korea, Japan, and is currently working as a visiting Professor at the University of
California, Irvine.” (Trina, n.d.)
This paper is a review of one of her works entitled “Gahasa”, the poem Gahasa is a brief literary piece which deals with rape and how the Philippines as a country deals with it. The Philippines is known for its “victim blaming”. If a normal person sees a rape case in the news he would say “It was the fault of the suspect (the rapist) because he did not resisted his desire and that the crime is solely the liability of the criminal only.” As of a typical Filipino, he will say “It was the