Eileen R. Tabios is a poet working in multiple genres and in-between. She also loves books by writing, reading, publishing, critiquing, romancing and advocating for them. This blog will feature her bibliophilic activities with posts on current book engagements and links to her books and projects related to books.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

INTERVIEW AT WATERMELON ISOTOPE


Kenneth Butler interviews me at WATERMELON ISOTOPE -- what a fantastic name, yes?  You can see interview HERE. Here's an (unexpected) excerpt:
KPG. Do you have a connection to the American Civil War? Relative who served? Visited a battlefield and have a story? 
ERT. When we were dropping off my son for his freshman year at IUP in Pennsylvania, we stopped on the way there to visit Gettysburg. And I was most struck by the State of Louisiana monument created by Donald DeLue. Entitled “Spirit Triumphant,” it presents a wounded gunner while above him flies a “Spirit” sounding a trumpet and raising a flaming cannonball. While the title discernibly relates to the majestic Spirit, I my attention remained snagged on the body of the fallen gunner, specifically how his toes were visible as they’d broken through what was a pair of too-small shoes. And I’d also just learned that many soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were younger than the son I was bringing to his college. I considered my son to be so “young” and my  heart just broke, looking at the fallen gunner who might have been younger than my son but who had to fight a war in ill-fitting boots.

The interview is accompanied by three poems from my next book HIRAETH--"Kohl's Stories," "Notes to the Spanish Guitar's Autobiography," and "Where the Pages End." Poems are HERE.


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