Analysis of "Evaluations" and "When Done for Thee" by Alfredo Litiatco

Alfredo Elfren Litiatco was born on July 9, 1908 in Manila to Kapampangan and Tagalog parents. He was a poet, an essayist, a short story writer, a critic and an editor. He discovered such writers as Ligaya Victorio-Reyes and Estrella Alfon-Rivera while he was the literary editor of the Graphic. He used to be called the "Ariel of Philippine Letters." He was also called by noted writer Manuel Viray as "one of the foremost practitioners of light …

…do his best ("If essayed in thy name"). Much of his poems were dedicated to his wife, and his only book entitled With Harp and Sling was published shortly after his death in 1943. This is a thin volume containing his best poems. In his foreword for his book, he boasts of his sonnets as "among the better ones in the entire range of world literature" while his light verse "has no equal in the Philippines."