CHECK ME OUT (PUN INTENDED)!

No, really: check me out.  Which is to say, Napa County Library is now carrying five of my books as part of their Main Collection.  I'm not exactly sure which five, but I'm pretty sure it includes

SUN STIGMATA (Sculpture Poems) 

THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems and New (1998-2010)

and then probably three of the following:

NOTA BENE EISWEIN 

MENAGE A TROIS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE  EMPTY FLAGPOLE 

THE AWAKENING: A LONG POEM TRIPTYCH & POETICS FRAGMENT 

SILK EGG: COLLECTED NOVELS (2009-2009)

Okay. Check me out!  And love libraries!

NO SLAMS AT THE POETRY SLAM!

Okay -- never too old to experience firsts.  And moi just judged my first Poetry Slam, in this case a Teen Slam, at the Napa Library in California.  I would have given 20 out of 10 to what looked like an 11-year-old contestant (11 years old?  You get the prize just coz you showed up!); but the disciplined librarians scotched my sentimentalism with their strict judging sheets.

Prizes included copies of my book MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21ST CENTURY!  I also performed a poem from NOTA BENE EISWEIN.  It's all good -- really heartening to see poetry live and breathe...

The Napa Valley Register also covered the event.

Click to enlarge the visual coverage:

(Napa Library Poetry Display)

(Some of the Teen Poets)

(Napa Librarian Ricah Quinto announcing the winners)

(One of the judges, Glynda Velasco, also performed some of her "Spoken Word"!)

(Event Flyer)

HAY(NA)KU DURING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Thanks to Vince Gotera, the hay(na)ku has lit up NaPoWriMo!  Click HERE to see the unfolding of new poems, including by new fans.  To paraphrase from oenophiles, Hay(na)ku's got great legs!

By the way, here's Michael with a relevant vizpo from a few years back: "Zucchini Hay(na)ku" as Gabriela stood nearby to show her appreciation: Woof!

FOUND POETRY

Many years later, I fess up as to why I would invent a poetic form named "hay(na)ku": here's the reason:

Just kidding.  That's in Philippines (thanks for finding it, Krip Yuson) and the text surrounding "Heinakuh" can be translated as:

What a bummer, Dear.
There's no more beer.

Please note I tried to translate it poetically viz something I rarely use: rhyme.  That hay(na)ku: it expands your mind.

Love,
Eileen

CAN WE BE PART OF YOUR SUMMER FUN?

I’m working on putting out the next issue of Galatea Resurrects.  Meanwhile, I’ve set the deadline for submission reviews for the next issue to be Nov. 15, 2015.  That means, you schoolsters, you can do a review as part of your summer break! 

And here's the rest of my latest Relished W(h)ines update of recently imbibed books and wines.  As ever, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects!  More info on that HERE. 

PUBLICATIONS

ITSELF, poems by Rae Armantrout (fabulous. LinkedIn Poetry Recommendations, or LPR, #172)

THE ROAD TO EMMAUS, poems by Spencer Reese (fabulous. LPR #171)

ARIANE: A STOCK EPIC, conpo by Angelo Suarez (quite cool)

APPEARANCES: A NOVEL IN FRAGMENTS by Tom Beckett (read in manuscript form; it deserves a home)

ALL HAT, NO CATTLE, hay(na)ku poems by lars palm (read in manuscript form; a cool project: it deserves a home)

*  AS A BEE, poems by Simon Pettet (fabulous)

*  BEST WESTERN AND OTHER POEMS by Eric Gudas (wonderful)

THE FACE BEHIND THE FACE, poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Trans. by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin (contains the MAGNIFICENT poem, “Snow in Tokyo”)

*  CESSATION COVERS, poems by Steve Halle (found this to be a really moving project)

HARD LOVE PROVINCE, poems by Marilyn Chin

LUNETTE, poems by Pamela Davis

FAITHFUL AND VIRTUOUS NIGHT, poems by Louise Gluck

ROME, poems by Dorothea Lasky

REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS, poems by Diane di Prima

EVERY TIME A KNOT IS UNDONE, A GOD IS RELEASED: COLLECTED AND NEW POEMS 1974-2011 by Barbara Chase-Riboud

*  EXHIBIT OF FORKING PATHS, poems by James Grinwis

*  ELECTRICAL THEORIES OF FEMININITY, poems by Sarah Mangold

*  THE GODDESS CAN BE RECOGNIZED BY HER STEP, poems by Sarah Mangold

*  ALONE AND NOT ALONE, poems by Ron Padgett

*  WOMEN IN PUBLIC, poems by Elaine Kahn

*  THE ALL-PURPOSE MAGICAL TENT, poems by Lytton Smith

*  NULL SET, poems by Ted Mathys

*  CUT UP APOLOGETIC, poems by Jamie Sharpe

*  BONNARD’S DOG, poems by Rosalind Brackenbury

*  MARTHA, poems by Leslie Allison

*  HISTORIC DIARY, poems by Tony Triglio

*  OF MONODIES & HOMOPHONY, poems by edric mesmer

PITY THE BEAUTIFUL, poems by Dana Gioia

WINTER FRUIT, poems by Beclee Newcomer Wilson

ELEMENTAL TANKA, poems by Gary Silva

WISTERIA FROM SEED, poems by Jeremy Cantor

CALIFORNIA DREAMING: POEMS OF THE GOLDEN STATE by Richard Alan Bunch

PERFECT WORDS, poems and poetic how-tos by Kay Day

*  HOUSE ORGAN #90, literary zine edited by Kenneth Warren

KUWENTO LOST THINGS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW PHILIPPINE MYTHS, poetry, fiction and prose edited by Rachelle Cruz & Melissa Sipin

MANGYAN TREASURES / THE AMBAHAN:  A POETIC EXPRESSION OF THE MANGYANS OF SOUTHERN MINDORO, PHILIPPINES compiled, translated and explained by Antoon Postma (fabulous. LPR #173)

I AM THE BEGGAR OF THE WORLD: LANDAYS FROM CONTEMPORARY AFGHANISTAN, Translated and collected by Eliza Griswold with photographs by Seamus Murphy (fabulous. LPR #174)

PLEASE EXCUSE THIS POEM: 100 NEW POETS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION, edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer and Lynn Melnick

ESSAYS AFTER EIGHTY by Donald Hall (I appreciate his prose more than his poetry.  This one is a good one: LPR #170)

DAKOTA: A SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY by Kathleen Norris

MAN IS WOLF TO MAN: SURVIVING THE GULAG, memoir by Janusz Bardach and Kathleen Gleeson

TOMORROW’S MEMORIES: A DIARY, 1924-1928 by Angeles Monrayo

THE DESCARTES HIGHLANDS, novel by Eric Gamalinda (luminous. LPR #169)

ANGELICA'S DAUGHTERS a “dugtungan,” or collaborative novel, by Nadine Sarreal, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Erma Cuizon, Susan Evangelista, and Veronica Montes

THE ART FORGER, novel by B.A. Shapiro

THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY, novel by Gabrielle Zevin

THE ESCAPE, novel by David Baldacci

WINES

1989 Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse De Lalande

2012 William Fevre Chablis

2012 Rivers-Marie “Summa” Pinot Noir

1989 Poderi Luigi Einaudi

1990 CNP Clos du Bosquet

2011 DAC Alvaro Castro (Portugal red wine blend)

2008 Quilceda Creek cabernet Columbia Valley

2009 Quilceda Creek cabernet Columbia Valley

Trattoria Del Arte (NYC) House Proseco

2013 Chasing Venus sauvignon blanc Russian River

2010 Tarima Hill

2006 Dutch Henry “Argos”

2007 Dutch Henry “Argos”

2015 Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc

2007 Ch. De Fieuzal Pessac sauvignon blanc
2012 Cercius (Rhone)

THE CASE FOR POEMS WITHOUT BYLINES

In the contentiously disputed and defended terrain of Identity, what's often missed is how authorship is not synonymous with Identity. Read two books recently that synchronistically offer the case for poems without bylines (itself something with which I empathize): the books are re the poetic forms of the ambahan from the Philippines and the landay from Afghanistan:

MANGYAN TREASURES / THE AMBAHAN:  A POETIC EXPRESSION OF THE MANGYANS OF SOUTHERN MINDORO, PHILIPPINES compiled, translated and explained by Antoon Postma  

I AM THE BEGGAR OF THE WORLD: LANDAYS FROM CONTEMPORARY AFGHANISTAN, Translated and collected by Eliza Griswold with photographs by Seamus Murphy 

Hopefully I'll have time to engage with these books for the next issue of Galatea Resurrects...!

"... MY SKIN WAS RUIN"

And in a different manifestation from poems generated by my "Murder, Death and Resurrection" project, I enlist the aid of decapitated Disney princesses -- rather, stickers presenting said decapitated princesses -- to create "I Forgot Forgetting My Skin Was Ruin." As this is vizpo, it's appearing -- indeed, inaugurating -- h2, a journal of visual/concrete poetry curated by Ian Whistle.  Check it out HERE !

"I Forgot Forgetting My Skin Was Ruin" was sculpted out of a poem "I Forgot My Skin Was Ruin" which appears in my  manuscript, AMNESIA: Somebody's Memoir.

NAPA POETS!

Had my token National Poetry Month Reading yesterday -- made my day when a stranger in the audience bought some of my books because he's into Rilke, Ashbery and Forche. Specifically, he purchased REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE and THE THORN ROSARY.  A good day.  And here was my company!

Jeremy Cantor, Eileen Tabios, Beclee Wilson, 

Kathleen Patterson, Jeremy Benson and Gary Silva

A POSITIVE FACEBOOK EFFECT?

The majority of my poetry book purchases aren't due to Facebook. Still, I just bought the 19th poetry book that's caught my interest since January 2014 due to my FB Feed. 19 books in 16 months. I can't judge whether that's a lot (though it seems like a lot if I rethink it as averaging more than one book a month...). Here's a purchase (owed to FB) that I freely admit to not having cracked just because I love the physicality of its four huge volumes bound together in thick plastic wrap -- it's got better sculptural charisma than a Warhol box:

"POST MANO A BIRDO"

I was thinking of doing a focus on the essay form but couldn't find the time. But I did muster one recent essay, and I thank ENTROPY and its editor Janice Lee for giving it a home. It's for the birds and you can check it out HERE.  It's illustrated with this photo below, which presents treetops from the mountain where I hermit. Nota Bene: that tree is full of birds but they're not necessarily discernible. Like poetry, you see ...

"CHROMATEXT REBOOTED"

is the title of a wonderful series of exhibitions of visual arts by poets in the Philippines. The first exhibit was put together in 1983 by members of the Philippine Literary Arts Council.  Here's an article about its history (love the photos of the poets as young pups!) and the next exhibition that will open  on Nov. 11 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Main Gallery, to last until Feb. 14, 2016. Invited to participate, I sent over a four-panel piece, each panel being imprinted with a word. I won't say anymore than that for now except to say that it's the third piece of a triptych poem-vispo work that 's part of "EXCAVATIONS," my latest manuscript-in-progress.   

This will be my second time participating in Chromatext.  My first participation involved a visual presentation of my poem "List(ing) Poem: Towards the New Filipino Society" -- an essay about the work's conceptual underpinnings is available HERE, and further contextualized in my book THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES: Our Autobiography.  Here's a photo of the poem's installation:

Thanks to Alfred "Krip" Yuson for inviting me to participate in the Chromatext exhibitions.

BODY BURNING FROM LIGHT

Yes, it feels like we were just here: It's always a special moment when one first receives author copies.  Welcome I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS.  Mi casa con banos es su casa ...

If you must know, those red toilet paper rolls that inspired a poem during, well, you know... are from the bathroom of that lovely if over-the-top hotel in Spain, the Marquis de Riscal.  One gets inspiration wherever one can...!

APRIL APPEARANCES IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA

I will be joining a group of Napa poets, including Napa Poet Laureate Beclee Wilson, for a National Poetry Month reading at a fabulous bookstore with over 20,000 titles!

2-4 p.m.
Sunday, April 19, 2015

Napa Bookmine

964 Pearl St.

Napa, CA 94559

(707) 733.3199
Napa Bookmine Facebook

Open to the public.

***

Also I will be judging a Teen Poetry slam in Napa, California.  Spread the word to your teens!

(Click to enlarge)

BOW TO YEVTUSHENKO'S "SNOW IN TOKYO"!

My attention to Yevgeny Yevtushenko has been cursory and I saw no need to challenge my cussedness cursoriness when I picked up this morning a used copy of his 1979 book, THE FACE BEHIND THE FACE. I wasn't moved by the first couple of poems, and so would have put the book aside. But before the poems was an Introduction by the poet—an ars poetica. And I empathized with much innit so I decided to tolerate the poems and get the book for the introductory essay. See these excerpts (click to enlarge):

But having now finished the book, I'm so pleased to have it! For the last poem “Snow in Tokyo” is magnificent and worth the price of the entire book. It's a poem that could be the crowning achievement from a poet’s entire output.

The morale of the story? Pay attention to the ordering of the poems. Surely, the first poem  must be as compelling as the last….? (I edited the exclamation point to insert the question mark because, as with nearly all things poetry, one’s never sure…perhaps others, including the author/translators, thought the first poem is compelling and I'm just eye-deaf).

Anyway, here’s an update of my recently BOUGHT POETRY list:

THE FACE BEHIND THE FACE, poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Trans. by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin 

HARD LOVE PROVINCE by Marilyn Chin  

JUNKYARD DOG by Halvard Johnson  

HOTUS POTUS by Mark Young  

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer  

PORT LIGHT: A HAY(NA)KU COLLECTION by William Allegrezza  

FANTASTIC VOYAGE TO THE ORDINARY PLANET by Erin Virgil  

MAGNETIC REFRAIN by Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut  

SOME VERSIONS OF THE ICE by Adam Tipps Weinstein (bought through a membership of the fabulous Les Figues Press)  

100 CHINESE SILENCES by Timothy Yu (Les Figues purchase)  

THE GATES by Vanessa Place (Les Figues purchase)  

THE BOOK OF FERAL FLORA by Amanda Ackerman (Les Figues purchase)  

LEAVE YOUR BODY BEHIND (Les Figues purchase) 

ABU GHRAIB ARIAS, poems by Philip Metres  

SPINE STILL HOLDING by Bonnie Long  

RESURRECTION by Nicole Cooley  

NEW COLLECTED POEMS by Eavan Boland  

AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A LIFE IN POETRY (2015-1995) by Eileen R. Tabios  

I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS by Eileen R. Tabios  

147 MILLION ORPHANS (MMXI-MML) by Eileen R. Tabios

Yes, I list my own titles when I buy my own books as it just means they need to go through my house on their way elsewhere...!

MOI IN NAPA

I've lived in Napa Valley for about 12 years now, and I've deliberately kept a low profile here as regards being a poet.  Most of my readings as a Napa Resident occurred/occur in New York and San Francisco.  But I guess the valley is catching up with me.  April, as that hoax called "National Poetry Month," began with a reading and judging of a poetry contest forthcoming in Napa.  And, today, while doing chores along Main Street, I stopped by a bookstore and was surprised to see one of my books there, AGAINST MISANTHROPY,...which the bookseller then asked me to sign. I've not looked for this, but I guess it's all nifty.  Here's my book at the "Local Authors" section and, this being Napa, of course there's poetry but mostly cookbooks -- fortunately, another local resident is one of the most brilliant chefs alive today and it's an honor to have my book sidle up against A NEW NAPA CUISINE by Michelin 3-star chef  Christopher Kostow.  It seems fitting that AGAINST MISANTHROPY's publisher is a poet but also brilliant chef, Geoffrey Gatza.  Synchronicities!

"WHAT MAKES MOI TICK"

or, I'll take five-star reviews from wherever I can get 'em!  Thanks Grady Harp for the lovely review over at Amazon for AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A Life in Poetry!