GBL 2024

Vince Honrado Imbat is a writer and photographer experimenting with walking, drafts, and digital gardens. His Pangasinan poem “Gawat” and its translation “Tagsalat” were published by TLDTD and his hybrid image-poetry collection Mapa ng Los Baños Patungo Sa’yo and its accompanying essay “Ang Borador Bilang Panitikan ng Paglalakad” were published in the Buhian literary issue of Katipunan. Vincent is the co-author of “So we must meet apart,” a collection of epistolary essays on walking. His hybrid essay entitled “Traversing Liminality Through Walking: An Autoethnography” won him a fellowship in the 20th Ateneo National Writers Workshop (ANWW20), and his Pangasinan poem “Obong” landed him a spot at the 17th Palihang Rogelio Sicat. He is also a fellow of the Ikalawang Saling Panitik: Bienvenido Lumbera Seminar-Palihan sa Pagsasalin. Vincent finished a BA in Social Science in the University of the Philippines Baguio. He currently lives in Los Baños, Laguna.

Likhaya

Vince Honrado Imbat is a walker, photographer, and writer in three languages. His poems, essays, and photographs are explorations of how a creative, inquiring, free, and liberative spirituality might be practiced in the Philippines. His hybrid image-poetry collection Mapa ng Los Baños Patungo Sa’yo, along with its accompanying essay, “Ang Borador Bilang Panitikan ng Paglalakad” were published in the Buhian literary issue of Katipunan. He is also the co-author of So we must meet apart, a collection of epistolary essays on walking. In 2024, his works received recognition from the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera and the Gawad F. Sionil Jose. He is a fellow of the 20th Ateneo National Writers Workshop, the 17th Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and the 2nd Saling Panitik. Vince earned a BA in Social Science from the University of the Philippines Baguio and currently resides in Los Baños, Laguna.

TLDTD

Vince Imbat is a writer and photographer who walks the streets of Laguna and the dirt roads of Pangasinan in search for narratives and truth. In his website at vinceimbat.com, he writes two newsletters: Lilim (walk vignettes) and Uman (contemplative essays). He came to poetry via Tungko ng Tula, a nine-week poetry course, which started at the eve of the pandemic in 2020. Vince is a fellow of Saling Panitik 2019: Ikalawang Bienvenido Lumbera Seminar-Palihan sa Pagsasalin and is currently translating Thoreau in Filipino. Vince writes poetry in Pangasinan as a humble contribution to the contemporary literature of a dying Filipino language.

Philippines Graphic

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Los Baños-based Pangasinense writer and photographer who walks. His essays and poems, recognized by the Gawad F. Sionil Jose and the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera, are explorations on how a creative, inquiring, free, and liberative spirituality might be practice in the Philippines. His works have previously appeared in Katipunan and TLDTD, and he has been a fellow of the 20th Ateneo National Writers Workshop, the 17th Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and the 2nd Saling Panitik.

Walang Kukurap

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Los Baños-based Pangasinense writer and photographer who walks. His essays and poems, recognized by the Gawad F. Sionil Jose and the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera, are explorations on the convergence of place, history, and spirituality. His works have previously appeared in Katipunan and TLDTD, and he has been a fellow of the Ateneo National Writers Workshop, the Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and the Saling Panitik.

Si Vince Honrado Imbat ay taga Los Baños na Pangasinenseng manunulat at potograpong naglalakad. Ang mga sanaysay at tula niyang kinilala ng Gawad F. Sionil Jose at Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera ay mga paggagalugad sa tagpuan ng lugar, kasaysayan, at pananampalataya. Nailathala siya sa Katipunan at TLDTD at naging fellow ng Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Palihang Rogelio Sicat, at Saling Panitik.

Benilde Talk

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Los Baños–based Pangasinense writer and photographer who walks. His award-winning essays and poems—recognized by the Gawad F. Sionil Jose and the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera—explore the convergence of place, history, and spirituality. His work has appeared in Katipunan, TLDTD, Mountain Beacon, and various zines, and his poetry and photography have been featured in exhibitions in Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal. He is a fellow of the Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and Saling Panitik. After years of spiritual wandering, he has since found refuge in the study and practice of jiyū shūkyō, best understood as a creative, inquiring, free, and liberative spirituality or religion. He draws spiritual support from Kiitsu Kyōkai, a budding international community that explores jiyū shūkyō through weekly online gatherings.

Mountain Beacon Rappler

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Los Baños-based Pangasinense writer and photographer who walks. His essays and poems, recognized by the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera and Gawad F. Sionil Jose, explore the convergence of place, history, and spirituality. His work has appeared in Katipunan, TLDTD, Northern Dispatch, Mountain Beacon, and various zines, and his poetry and photography have been featured in exhibitions in Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal. He is a fellow of the Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and Saling Panitik.

65th UPNWW

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Los Baños-based Pangasinense writer and photographer who walks. His essays and poems, recognized by the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera and Gawad F. Sionil Jose, explore the convergence of place, history, and faith. His work has appeared in Katipunan, TLDTD, Rappler, Northern Dispatch, Mountain Beacon, and elsewhere, and his poetry and photography have been featured in exhibitions in Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal. He is a fellow of the Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and Saling Panitik.

Daniw a Sonata

Writings-in-Progress

Vince Honrado Imbat is a Laguna-based Pangasinense writer and photographer exploring the potentials of walking as embodied worldmaking and contemplative practice. His essays and poems, recognized by the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera and Gawad F. Sionil Jose, engage with the tensions of history, language, and the sacred embedded in landscapes and places. Vince has facilitated and performed walking projects in Laguna, Baguio, Pangasinan, and Thailand. His work has appeared in Katipunan, TLDTD, Rappler, Northern Dispatch, Mountain Beacon, and elsewhere, and his poetry and photography have been featured in exhibitions in Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal. He is a fellow of the Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Palihang Rogelio Sicat, and the Bienvenido Lumbera Workshop for Translation.

Monsoon School 2

Vince Honrado Imbat is a translingual writer exploring walking as an embodied worldmaking, contemplative, and literary practice, engaging with tensions among history, language, memory, and the sacred embedded in places. He is currently engaged in three walking projects, including a re-walk of routes in Baguio City that he frequented as an evangelical minister serving the Deaf and hard-of-hearing. His essay in Pangasinan, a major but increasingly endangered language of northern Philippines, “Ikurit Koy Salisalik ëd Sayan Dalin: Pitoran Akar” (I Shall Write My Feet On This Land: Seven Walks), won the grand prize in the Pangasinan essay category of the 2024 Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera. Taking definitions from the Spanish colonial-period dictionary by Lorenzo Cosgaya as points of departure, the essay explores seven indigenous Pangasinan words for walking through personal narratives. His Tagalog hybrid poetry collection, Mapa ng Los Baños Patungo Sa’yo (A Map of Los Baños to You), and its accompanying essay, “Ang Borador Bilang Panitikan ng Paglalakad” (The Draft as Literature of Walking), explore how walking through ever-changing landscapes can necessitate a fragmented and dynamic writing practice resistant to dominant notions of finality in literature. Vince is also the coauthor of so we must meet / apart, an experimental collection of epistolary essays using the walking method, which was a finalist for the 2024 Big Other Readers’ Choice Award. He is a fellow of multiple writing workshops in the Philippines, including the 2026 Writings-in-Progress Traveling Writing Workshop of Savage Mind and the Goethe-Institut Philippinen, which traversed towns and landscapes across Bicol to engage with Fedor Jagor’s colonial text Travels in the Philippines. Vince holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences (major in History, minor in Political Science) from the University of the Philippines Baguio and currently teaches poetry at the Philippine High School for the Arts in Laguna, Philippines.

References

It is difficult to write about what one does and what one envisions. I’ve written about it many times in different notes but can’t always integrate them. There is also the challenge of changing one’s mind about what one wants to do.

My musings about these things are captured in the following notes:

My bio