Arnold Molina Azurin was born in Vigan, Ilocos Sur on 5 November 1946. He is a poet and an essayist. His early influences were his father, Modesto, a painter and a guitar and violin maker, and his mother, Romana Molina, who read American verses to him and who brought him along her travels around northern Luzon. He finished his secondary education at the Ilocos Sur School of Arts and Trade and later studied at the UST, where he finished his bachelor of philosophy degree in 1967. He took up masteral studies in anthropology and history at the UP while contributing articles to national newspapers and magazines.

Azurin’s poetry and essays reflect a deep knowledge and appreciation of the issues and problems surrounding the ethnic and folkloric dimensions of the nation’s cultural heritage. His books include Roots Upon Ruins, poems, 1973; Just Vexations, essays, 1990; Beddeng, Exploring the Ilocano-Igorot Confluence, monograph, 1991; Upwind, Downstream, poems, 1991; Adios Columbus, poems, 1992; and Reinventing the Filipino, 1993, essays. He curated the Beddeng exhibit at the CCP , which bared the cultural commonality among majority and minority groups in the northern regions. He edited the CCP’s Ani (Cordillera issue), 1991, Heartland, a book of poems, 1991, and the anthropological journal Aghamtao, and co-authored The ASEAN Sculptures.

Azurin was the 1988 local fellow for the essay of UP ICW and the recipient of a research grant from the CCP in 1991. He also won two first prizes in the 1991 Palanca Awards for his collection of poems Dogodog and Other Poems Bypassed by the Northerlies and his essay “Unraveling the Knots of Ethnicity.”

Written by F. Cao, from CCP Encyclopedia (volume 9)

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