NEW POEM UP AT THE POETRY FOUNDATION

"Mom Betty Addresses the Nature of Proportion" is one of those poems I wish I did not have to write. But I wrote it, and now it's now up at The Poetry Foundation. I'll be doing a radio interview with the Foundation and WFMT Radio Network this Friday. They'll then host a four-minute excerpt of the interview at POETRY NOW -- if you click on that link, you'll  see that I'm in good company, and this is a good feature at the Poetry website of poets talking about their poems. 

Thanks to the Poetry Foundation.

The poem, by the way, was written after a photograph by Paul Tanedo entitled "She was the song of my dark hour."

ANOTHER EFFECT OF DECLINING READERSHIP?

I'm all for recycling but I don't quite get the conceptual underpinning of restaurants using old or antique books--with tendency to the classics for upscale marketing?--for presenting their fare. There's a restaurant I know which uses open books for presenting appetizers -- it was a recipe book so when I was confronted by this practice, I thought, Huh, but soon forgot about it.  But more recently, William Faulkner's GO DOWN, MOSES was used for presenting our dinner bill--see pics below. I think it's disrespectful.

Per the third photo, were we supposed to write how much we enjoyed the shrimp scampi? Poor Faulkner.  Apologies for this impoverished culture.

GALATEA RESURRECTS--MAY EDITION!

I'm pleased to share that Galatea Resurrects closes out the May month with 19 new reviews plus some features, including the urgent Poetry response to Alex Tizon's article in The Atlantic about Eudocia Tomas Pulido.  You can go HERE for the issue, though I reprint Table of Contents below for convenience:

MAY
FEATURE: Poetry In Response to Alex Tizon's article, "My Family Slave" as regards Eudocia Tomas Pulido, The Atlantic, June 2017. Poems by Jonel Abellanosa, Jim Pascual Agustin, Kimberly Alidio, Michelle Bautista, Aileen Cassinetto, Melinda Luisa de Jesús, Elaine Dolalas, Rose Linda Gonzales, Maileen Hamto, Luisa A. Igloria, Sean Labrador Y Manzano, Agnes Marton, D Hideo Maruyama, Amy Ray Pabalan, Aloysiusi Lionel Polintan, Barbara Jane Reyes, Tony Robles, Irene Suico Soriano, Leny Mendoza Strobel, Eileen R. Tabios, Jean Vengua, and Alfred A. Yuson
(5/29)

"Broken Verse" by Darrell Nettles
Engaged by Eileen Tabios (5/28)

Explanation model for 'Virus' by Freke Räihä
Engaged by Thérèse Bachand (5/27)

Love Song to a Blue God by Sophie Strand

Reviewed by Tamas Panitz (5/26)

Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes From the Underground by Amy Bassin and Mark Blickley
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/25)

The Fair Parts of Shadows by Dhiman Chakraborty
Engaged by Runa Bandyopadhyay (5/24)

Stop Armageddon by Howard Yosha
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/23)

“I’m Nobody! Who are you? The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson” Exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum (organized with Amherst College), New York City, Jan. 20-May 28, 2017

Reviewed by Adam DeGraff (5/8)

Driftwood Monster: Haiku for Troubled Times by Kath Abela Wilson
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/8)

B & O Blues by Aileen Cassinetto
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/7)

Ghazals 1-59 And Other Poems by Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt 
Engaged by Eileen Tabios (5/7)

Manifesto of the Moment by mIKEAL aND (1)
Reviewed by Matt Hill (5/6)

Manifesto of the Moment by mIKEAL aND (2)
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/6)

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT by Olivia Stiffler
Engaged by Eileen Tabios (5/5)

Check & Balance by Luisa A. Igloria
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/5)

FANTASTIC CARYATIDS: A Conversation with Art by Anne Waldman & Vincent Katz
Engaged by Eileen Tabios (5/4)

La Police by Bill Lavender
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/4)

A CAPacious Act by Charles A. Perrone
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/3)

Afterword by Nick Piombino to Text Loses Time by Nico Vassilakis
(5/2)

IMAGINE RENAISSANCE by Naomi Buck Palagi
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/1)

The Owl Still Asking: Tanka for Troubled Times by Kath Abela Wilson
Reviewed by M. Earl Smith (5/1)

21 YEARS OF WRITING BOOKS

I had to prepare this list for a project and needed to "file" it somewhere. Entonces: Here, as what's a blog for? AND if you've read just one of these books/chapbooks/collections by me, I am very grateful. Thank you.

BY EILEEN R. TABIOS

POETRY

After The Egyptians Determined The Shape of the World is a Circle, 1996

Beyond Life Sentences, 1998


The Empty Flagpole (CD with guest artist Mei-mei Berssenbrugge), 2000

Ecstatic Mutations, 2001 (with short stories and essays)

Reproductions of The Empty Flagpole, 2002

Enheduanna in the 21st Century, 2002

There, Where the Pages Would End, 2003

Menage a Trois With the 21st Century, 2004

Crucial Bliss Epilogues, 2004

The Estrus Gaze(s), 2005


SONGS OF THE COLON, 2005


POST BLING BLING, 2005


I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved, 2005


The Secret Lives of Punctuations, Vol. I, 2006


Dredging for Atlantis, 2006



It’s Curtains, 2006

SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss, 2007


The Singer and Others: Flamenco Hay(na)ku, 2007


The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes: Our Autobiography, 2007


NOTA BENE EISWEIN, 2009


Footnotes to Algebra: Uncollected Poems 1995-2009, 2009


Roman Holiday, 2010


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


the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA (with j/j hastain), 2012

5 Shades of Gray, 2012


THE AWAKENING: A Long Poem Triptych & A Poetics Fragment, 2013


147 MILLION ORPHANS (MMXI-MML), 2014


44 RESURRECTIONS, 2014

SUN STIGMATA (Sculpture Poems), 2014

I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS, 2015

DUENDE IN THE ALLEYS, 2015

INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected Catalog Poems & New (1996–2015), 2015

THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS, 2016

The Gilded Age of Kickstarters, 2016

Excavating the Filipino in Me, 2016

I FORGOT ARS POETICA, 2016

AMNESIA: Somebody’s Memoir, 2016

THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime’s Anti-Autobiography, 2017

Post-Ecstasy Mutations, 2017

On Green Lawn, The Scent of White, 2017

TO BE AN EMPIRE IS TO BURN, 2017

If They Hadn’t Worn White Hoods … (with John Bloomberg-Rissman), 2017

What Shivering Monks Comprehend, 2017

YOUR FATHER IS BALD: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems, 2017

IMMIGRANT: Hay(na)ku & Other Poems In A New Land, 2017

COMPREHENDING MORTALITY (with John Bloomberg-Rissman), 2017

Big City Cante Intermedio, 2017

WINTER ON WALL STREET: A Novella-in-Verse, 2017

MAKING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH GREAT AGAIN, 2017

MANHATTAN: An Archaeology, 2017

HIRAETH: Tercets From the Last Archipelago, 2018

FICTION

Behind The Blue Canvas, 2004

SILK EGG: Collected Novels 2009-2009, 2011

PROSE COLLECTIONS

Black Lightning, 1998 (poetry essays/interviews)


My Romance, 2002 (art essays with poems)


The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys, 2008 (biography with haybun)

#EileenWritesNovel, 2017 (diary)

#EILEENWRITESNOVEL OUT IN PRINT!

Otoliths has always been smart about utilizing the internet and POD technology which means their journal has both online and print components. So if anyone (besides me for perhaps the purpose of looking for an agent) wants a 90-page paperback on my year-long diary about writing a novel's first draft -- complete with selfies of the process' effect on moi -- go HERE!

THE FILIPINO AMERICAN ARTIST DIRECTORY!

"(De)Centered: An Exhibition of Filipino American Artists," the Fil-Am Artist Directory's first exhibit will be up at WAS gallery (Washington D.C.) through June 16 (for more info, go to http://www.filamartistdirectory.com/events/ ; the above image is from the exhibition's announcement). Meanwhile, Directory founder Janna Añonuevo Langholz reads my Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole with Directory advisor Isabel Manalo's guinea pig. I love a diversified audience for (my) poetry!

I'm also an Advisor to the Directory and one of  my projects is an ekphrasis-based creative writing series in response to art from the artists in the Directory. If you'd like to participate, go for more information to  http://www.filamartistdirectory.com/call-for-writing

For CENTER FOR ART AND THOUGHT FUNDRAISER!

I'm delighted to share that  INVENT(ST)ORY, my second Selected book of poems is part of the swag for a worthwhile Fundraiser on behalf of the Center for Art and Thought. Here's an about:

The Center for Art and Thought (CA+T) is a web-based arts and education 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. From our award-winning web platform, we take the Philippines and Filipinos as a point of departure for thinking about culture globally. The Philippines, where global processes like colonialism, migration, and globalization come together, is an ideal starting point for understanding pressing contemporary global issues, from labor migration to environmental crises. CA+T’s virtual platform presents creative and scholarly works exploring these questions through four cornerstone programs: 1) Curated Exhibitions, 2) Commissioned Works, 3) a DIALOGUES series of moderated, thematically-driven conversations, and 4) a one-of-a-kind Artist-in-Residence Virtual Residency program.

If you donate for my book, let me know and I'll send you signed copies of two different books so as to make your donation a bargain!  Info on fundraiser HERE.

"DEAR MAMA" HONORS MOM AND MOTHER'S DAY

I'm honored that my poem "Dear Mama," the pivotal poem in IMMIGRANT: Hay(na)ku & Other Poems in a New Land (Locofo, 2017) was part of today's Mother's Day service at my local United Methodist Church. It was in company with poems by Langston Hughes, Billy Collins and Mary Oliver. To live long enough to see how one's poems can fit into "everyday" life is a blessing. Thanks to my pastor and also author Audrey Ward for curating the event and asking me:

Details and more photos are available HERE.

MAKING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH GREAT AGAIN!

Yes, I actually did that poem-a-day thing last month, which was April as National Poultry Poetry Month. Good thing, too, as it helped me formulate my next "poetry series," The Ashbery Riff-Offs. Well, that series just released its first publication, a Locofo chap,

MAKING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH GREAT AGAIN!

Isn't that a click-bait title? How can you avoid checking it out?!

A free .pdf read is available at the publisher's web site HERE.

Hard copies are available through HERE.

Hope you enjoy!

EKPHRASIS WITH JOHN ASHBERY aka THE ASHBERY RIFF-OFFS!

As described in a recent conversation with Thomas Fink (Dichtung Yammer), I’d spent the past 4 years generating poems through what I call my “Murder, Death and Resurrection” project. After such a comprehensive series, it took some time for me to identify my next big project. But I found it through this year’s April as National Poetry Month; many poets write a poem a day during this month and I did so this year. Through that exercise, I began what's become my next big project, writing off and away from John Ashbery’s major poem, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.” I'm calling this series The Ashbery Riff-Offs.

I love Ashbery’s approach to ekphrastic poetry, for which I'll quote David Lehman  (in “Ashbery, Parmigianino, and the Convex Mirror,” Poets.org) as using

specific paintings “as points of departure that discover themselves by meditating on objets d’art, and thus displacing them. . . . Gazing at the painting, the poet comes virtually to inhabit its room, to make its quarters his own.”

This is non-caption type of ekphrasis which possesses my loyalty, and I tried to apply the same approach in writing poems from Ashbery’s poems, with his lines being the “objets d’art.” That is, all of my poems begin with 1 or 1-2 lines from Ashbery’s poem. The ekphrasis work as being more than just illustration is aptly captured by the convex mirror. If you look at this illustration, you’ll see how the outward gaze from a convex mirror expands to take in more of the world, versus the concave perspective that narrows the gaze:

According to Google, there are 522 lines in “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (I keep counting or mis-counting 515 lines). With 1 or 1-2 lines of Ashbery’s beginning each of my poems, I estimate the series will be comprised of over 300 poems.

By the time April ended, I’d written 29 poems (though I’ve continued writing a poem a day since).  Having said that, Locofo chaps is publishing six poems from the series which all coincidentally fit Moria/Locofo’s “political, anti-Trump” series.  The political is just one dimension—though it makes for a great click-bait  (and I hope you agree, funny) title for the chap, MAKING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH GREAT AGAIN!

(There are other poetics issues, besides ekphrasis, that relate to my choice to work with Ashbery's poem, but I'll save those discussion items for another day.)

As of today (May 2), here are photos of Ashbery’s poem showing some lines underlined in peach-colored ink. The underlined lines are those that I’ve used to date, and as you can see there's a lot  more to go.  It's encouraging that so far the poems have received positive responses during readings at Berkeley Museum of Art and during the New Orleans Poetry Festival. It took a while to get  here, but I’m eager to do more. 

(click on images to enlarge)

APIA HERITAGE MONTH

Barbara Jane Reyes is creating lists over HERE to celebrate May as APIA Heritage Month. Honored to be in the company of Frances Chung, Catalina Cariaga, Truong Tran, Bhanu Kapil, and Oliver de la Paz.

Thanks Barbara!