MY BOOKS AT AWP!

At AWP, Dos Madres has my book stacked front and center! It's INVENT(ST)ORY, my Selected List or Catalog Poem book. When I do "Selecteds", I do it based on poetic form* so that it's easy for the reader to discern whether, in my poems, I just blathered or actually extended/expanded the form. I lay those lines on the line. Judge Moi if you wish ... and hopefully the poems also provide pleasure.

David Katz and Paul Pines finish laying out the Dos Madres book table!

Also featured elsewhere at AWP is the book table of Marsh Hawk Press which presents my book THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS! Say Hi to Moi Boy at front left corner!

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* My first Selected was THE THORN ROSARY which is on the form of the prose poem.

TO WRITE IS TO READ

It's precisely because the new issue of OF/WITH features so many lovely offerings from poets and artists that I'm honored to be its "Featured Writer" -- thanks to editor Felino A. Soriano for asking! You can see the issue at https://issuu.com/of-with/docs/issue_4, and here's my Intro to the five poems in the issue:

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"A POET WHO INNOCENTLY TURNED TO PAINTING"

Poet Allen Bramhall will have his first art exhibition!   Something to celebrate and support!  Go HERE for his fundraising project to support print extensions of his original works which are just lovely:

A BOOKISH DAY!

Today, I read the best poetry anthology I've read so far this year: FUTURES TRADING: ANTHOLOGY THREE edited by Caleb Puckett.  It's a print compilation of the poetry he's featured in three issues of his online journal Futures Trading--a source that makes even more impressive how the print anthology coheres. The book's effectiveness has to do, I feel, with an absolutely marvelous editorial vision as noted in its Editor's Note below (see 2nd and 3rd paragraphs):

(click on all images to enlarge)

Caveat: I'm in the issue, but I'd feel this way about this anthology even if I weren't.  Here's the back cover's list of contributors; many have penned fabulously innovative "forward-facing" poems:

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Today, I mailed off a copy of The Hay(na)ku Anthology, Vol. II edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young to Heikki Lahnaoja, the author of the first hay(na)ku book in Finland, Puitten Uni, written in Finnish!  These radiant Finns!  I also sent him my book NOTA BENE EISWEIN because it contains my flamenco hay(na)ku series.

What's marvelous about Heikki's hay(na)ku is that  it all began from his discovery and research of the hay(na)ku online (I don't think Charles Bernstein will mind being quoted on its back cover). Heikki's not even seen any of the three hay(na)ku print anthologies out there. The internet: at its best, a positive generator!

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I don't have any of Sharon Olds' books in my poetry library.  But the first entered its space today!  But I obtained it through our local coffeeshop's "Community Book Trade" shelf where cafe customers are encouraged to "Take a book, Bring A Book"!  What a lovely idea!  And I rescue all poetry books! Welcome Sharon Olds -- I read her THE GOLD CELL whilst having latte with coconut flavor and a white chocolate, pistachio and cranberry scone: it, um, kind of helped mitigate her subject matter!

And after reading Olds' poetry, I read three review copies that arrived recently for Galatea Resurrects from stellar poetry publisher BOA Editions:  CELESTIAL JOYRIDE by Michael Waters; WHERESO by Karen Volkman, and THE BLACK MARIA by Aracelis Girmay. They and other lovelies are available for your review consideration over HERE!

CHANCE POETRY?

I appreciate Chris Mansel's attention to my new book The Connoisseur of Alleys in The Daily Art Source. Chris asks, "Should poetry be left to chance? If it is 'generated' by a machine is it still chance?" 

It's an interesting question because even when I (and others based on what I've read about others' processes) write consciously with "I" in place, chance often comes up in the process (as words define their own effect as much as the human does). 

(Btw, if my source is a machine, it's probably a hybrid between human and machine, not purely a machine...but that's another story involving how I prefer trans ... Anyway, information on my MDR Poetry Generator HERE.)

ONCE UPON A TIME (2)

Delighted that I've managed my daily writing for the new novel.  And delighted to have completed the first journal where I am writing in this novel.  I have a bunch of journals like these

and thought to use them for the novel. As you will see, these are the entries dated from Jan. 1 to today:

Eighty-three days of daily writing.

THREE POEMS SPRUNG!

Thanks to curator Mary Kasimor for SPRUNG POETRY for featuring three poems from INVENT(ST)ORY. Great recent company includes Craig Santos Perez, Marina Stamatakis, Wang Ping, John Goodman, Anne Tweedy, Susan Lewis, George Farrah, Jeff Hansen, and more. A generous project from a discernibly generous spirit.

Go HERE for the poems: "O 'Eerily Quiet Drive' Towards Baghdad", "Faith", and "; The Embodiment of Language" -- three very different poems from each other but all hopefully providing a pleasurable reading experience.

MY GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

is finally published!!!!!

Please go HERE for details!

TERCE SUBMISSION CALL FOR MARSH HAWK REVIEW

I'm editing the Fall Issue of the Marsh Hawk Review. The theme will be TERCETS.

You are invited to send me poems utilizing this form by emailing galateaten@gmail.com  Deadline is August 1, 2016.

Previously published poems are fine, as long as they're not yet online. I will give Acknowledgments to print publications which first published them.

All best,

Eileen Tabios
P.S. I thank Barry Schwabsky for inspiring the theme by sending me two brilliant poems in this form (and which will be part of the Review). As my own recent work has been on this form, I'll be delighted to see other poets' approaches.

P.P.S.  The hay(na)ku is a tercet!!!!

POETRY: SO PRICELESS IT'S EXPENSIVE

Finished my taxes. Delighted as a prune to report my Loss on my 2015 Writer's Income Statement dropped 93% from the prior year's Loss.

TRUST IN BEAUTY

Sometimes, you read an entire book and it is one sentence that makes the entire book. Not that I’m saying the other contents in Jim Dine’s DIARY OF A NON-DEFLECTOR: SELECTED POEMS are not worthwhile reading. But for me, reading just this one line from its first poem made the whole book engagement more than worthwhile — I adore this line from its title poem, this truth:

“My trust in you, Beauty, is real.”

ONCE UPON A TIME

I feel, sadly, that I've taken down entire rain forests trying to write a particular novel. Which doesn't stop me from trying again. I began the latest effort on January 1. I used that New Year Resolution infrastructure of trying to write every single day on the novel, even if it's just a few words. And, indeed, sometimes it was just a few words for that day but, so far, have hit the daily mark. Today I was delighted to discover the manuscript at 76 pages. It's still fragile, but I'm pausing to have an ever-so-brief moment of celebration for fortitude:

The other infrastructure? Each daily entry begins with "Once upon a time ..."

CAN'T BE SILENT OVER THIS 100 CHINESE SILENCES

I occasionally repost from Facebook when the matter at hand is a book. And this matter is a great book: Timothy Yu's 100 Chinese Silences.  I said:

It's March 2016 but I just read this 2015 release and, for a moment, it made me forget everything I read from 2015. That's how brilliant, nay, BRILLIANT, this book is. It should be required reading by ALL literature lovers, poets, Russians, scholars (especially in Asian American and ethnic studies but also in creative writing), students in any and all disciplines, critics so you'd up the threshold against which you might compare the poetry book,... Matter of fact, you cannot consider yourself a serious fan or student of poetry IF. YOU. DO. NOT. READ. THIS. BOOK. Most assuredly I can assure you, if poetry really were a competition, it will beat out any other book that might be awarded everything from the Pulitzer to the Asian American Librarian Poetry Award (even if they're still subsuming poetry under non-fiction -- I digress but librarians, please wake up!) So listen to me: I don't get this offensive without a reason...

DROPS OF RAIN / DROPS OF WINE

I’ve written about a father’s death—it’s an impossibility. That is, one can write on a father’s death but when one does so, one is just writing out that impossibility. Nonetheless, if one is a writer, the impossible is risked and Patrick James Dunagan does so masterfully in Drops of Rain / Drops of Wine which he contextualizes as also a “eulogy” for his father. On the cover is a resonant photograph of his father Gary Lee Dunagan, in Vietnam though date and photographer are unknown:

Thank you, Patrick, for persevering. I will have more to say on this book in the forthcoming issue of Galatea Resurrects.

***

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

STEP BELOW: SELECTED POEMS 2000-2015 by William Allegrezza (It’s an honor to publish this book that is both lyrical and experimental.  An. Honor.)

GEORGE OPPEN: NEW COLLECTED POEMS edited by Michael Davidson with Preface by Eliot Weinberger (BUT. OF. COURSE. LinkedInPoetryRecommendation (LPR) #223) 

STAYING ALIVE, poems by Laura Sims (ravishing. LPR #226)

THE AMAZING CAGE OF LIGHT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Martine Bellen (wonderful. LPR #225)

RADIO SILENCE, poems by Philip Schaefer and Jeff Whitney (a knockout. LPR #224)

*  DROPS OF RAIN / DROPS OF WINE, poems by by Patrick James Dunagan

ARCTIC POEMS by Vicente Huidobro, Trans. by Nathan Hoks (fabulous)

TRACES: POEMS TO PAINTINGS with poems by James Wagner and paintings by Nava Waxman (Wagner’s a really stellar poet of ekphrasis and I enjoyed his latest effort with Waxman’s deceptively powerful paintings)

XXX, poetry and needlepoint by Maria Damon (charming—I also found it quite festive!)

AFTER SWANN, poems by Marthe Reed (stellar joys)

MEDITATIONS IN A HELICOPTER ABOUT TO EXPLODE OVER A GUY COVERED IN CHUM, SURFING OFF OF SHARK BAY BEACH, poems by Jason Bredle (vigorous and pleasing energy!)

SPINE, poems by Carolyn Guinzo (lush and, impressively, starkly-writ imagery)

NIGHTS READING :: BURTON’S THOUSAND AND ONE :: , poems by Marthe Reed

A TRANSPARENT REALITY, poems by Marthe Reed

PAPER CHILDREN, poems by Mariana Marin, Trans. by Adam J. Sorkin

*  YOUR LAPIDARIUM FEELS WROUGHT, poems by Jennifer Stella

*  THE PERFORMANCE OF BECOMING HUMAN, poems by Daniel Borzutzky

LIKE THE RAINS COME: SELECTED POEMS (1987-2006), poems by Mercedes Roffe, Trans. by Janet Greenberg

*  ORLANDO by Sandra Simonds in VERSE, VOL. 32, NUMBERS 1-3

*  AFTER HISTORY by Douglas Piccinnini in VERSE, VOL. 32, NUMBERS 1-3

DARK TIMES FILLED WITH LIGHT: THE SELECTED WORK OF JUAN GELMAN, poems Trans. by Hardie St. Martin with Introduction by Paul Pines

“DARK TIMES/ FILLED WITH LIGHT,” The Café Review’s tribute to Juan Gelman, edited by Paul Pines

MORSE, MY DEAF FRIEND, poems by Croatian writer Milos Djurdjevi

SIGHTINGS: SELECTED WORKS (2000-2001) by Shin Yu Pai

*  ECLIPSE BABEL, text and drawings by Brian Lucas

*  MEDI(T)ATIONS, poems by Emma Bolden

*  THE STARS GLOW OF OUR SWEAT, poems by Francisco Aragon

*  SONGS FROM A MOUNTAIN, poems by Amanda Nadelberg

HERE AND NOW, poems by Stephen Dunn

INTENTIONS OF ALIGNED DEMARCATIONS, poems by Felino A. Soriano

MORNING OPERA, poems by Burt Schneider

THREE SHADOW INVENTIONS, poems/mixed genre by t thilleman (in manuscript)

THE STARS LOOK VERY DIFFERENT TODAY: A DAVID BOWIE TRIBUTE, curated by R.R. Hansen (sweeeeet!)

NEW POETRY FROM SPAIN, Edited and Translated by Marta Lopez-Luaces, Johnny Lorenz & Edwin M. Lamboy, featuring Juana Castro, Antonio Colinas, Jenaro Talens, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Olvido Garcia Valdes, Diego Martinez Torron, Francisco Ruiz Noguera, Jaime Siles, Cesar Antonio Molina, Julia Otxoa, Miguel Casado, Maria Antonia Ortega, Juan Carlos Sunen, Juan Carlos Mestre, Emilio Porta Tomas Sanchez Santiago, Rodolfo Hasler, Blanca Andreu, Amalia Iglesias Serna, Jorge Riechmann, Marta Lopez Luaces, Luis Munoz, Jordi Doce, Vicente Luis Mora and Ernesto Garcia Lopez

*  DEAREST ANNIE, YOU WANTED A REPORT ON BERKSON’S CLASS: LETTERS FROM FRANCES LEFEVRE TO ANNE WALDMAN, edited by Lisa Birman

THE POETRY PROJECT  NEWSLETTER ISSUE #246, Feb./March 2016, editor Betsy Fagin

POSIT 9: A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE AND ART, editors Susan Lewis and Bernd Sauermann

DANIEL DOUKE, art monograph (Nevada Museum of Art, 2016)

NEW PAINTINGS by PAUL FENNIAK, art monograph (Forum Gallery, 2016)

CHAIM GROSS: ON WITH THE SHOW, art monograph

TWO OLD WOMEN: AN ALASKA LEGEND OF BETRAYAL, COURAGE AND SURVIVAL by Velma Wallis

ONE  MAN’S WILDERNESS: AN ALASKAN ODYSSEY by Sam Keith from the journals and photographs of Richard Proenneke

THE FINAL FRONTIERSMAN: HEIMO KORTH AND HIS FAMILY, ALONE IN ALASKA’S ARCTIC WILDERNESS, biography by James Campbell

THE ARCTIC HOMESTEAD: THE TRUE STORY OF ONE FAMILY’S SURVIVAL AND COURAGE IN THE ALASKAN WILDS by Norma Cobb and Charles W. Sasser

THE BIG TINY: A BUILT-IT-MYSELF MEMOIR by Dee Williams

WINES

2005 Mollydooker “The Boxer” shiraz

2004 Samuel’s Gorge shiraz McLaren Vale

2005 Ch. Destieux Saint-Emilion

2011 Layer Cake shiraz

M.V. Andre Clouet Brut Rose

M.V. Bollinger “Special Cuvee” Brut

1990 Philip Togni cabernet

2003 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Beerenauslese

1978 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill NV

1991 Seavey cabernet NV

2006 Seavey merlot

1997 Seavey cabernet

2012 Seavey merlot

2012 Seavey Caravina cabernet

2012 Seavey cabernet

2013 Seavey chardonnay

2002 Domaine Leflaive Batard Montrachet

1959 Castillo Ygay Rioja Gran Reserva

1959 Mouton Rothschild

2013 Dancing Hares

1991 Grahams port

2003 Domaine Leroy Gevrey-Chambertin Oux Combottes

1970 Ch. Latour

2012 Schrasberg Blanc de Blanc North Coast Brut

2014 Trefethen Family Fineyards dry Riesling Oak Knoll

2013 Cakebread chardonnay NV

2013 Merry Edwards pinot noir Russian River Valley

2011 Lagier Meredith syrah Mount Veeder

2013 Robert Mondavi Moscato d’Oro NV

2007 Peter Michael “Ma Belle-Fille” chardonnay Sonoma County

2005 Saxum Bone Rock

2013 Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc Brut North Coast

2013 Robert Sinskey “Abraxas” Carneros

2013 Pride Viognier Sonoma County

2013 Dutton Goldfield Pinot Noir Azaya Ranch

2011 Rocca Family Vineyards Syrah “Grigsby Vineyard”

Charles Kruz Zinfandel Port Lot XIX

2013 Blackbird Vineyards Recuerdo Torrontes (La Rioja, Argentina)

2013 Straight Line Tempranillo

2012 Jax Y3 “Taureau” NV

1997 Greenock Creek Corner Stone Grenache

"I FORGOT THE SONG INSIDE THE STONE"

Deep gratitude to Susan Lewis for editing Posit: a journal of literature and art and her editor's note on my poem "I Forgot the Song Inside the Stone": "Eileen R. Tabios’ masterful litany of all that could never again be forgotten, once she 'composed this song that would turn you into ice, so that you will know with my next note what it means to shatter into tiny pieces the universe will ignore'." 

The poem is part of my forthcoming Black Radish Books book, AMNESIA: Somebody's Memoir, and can be seen HERE.