"SLICING THE ORCHID BEFORE THE TARGET FALLS"

I'm always grateful to see my books pick up new readers. SILK EGG was released in 2011 but just received a review--thanks to literature lover and high school teacher Aloysiusi Polintan for his engagement. You can see it HERE, but here's an excerpt:

A dialogue between a man and woman. A slice of breath released on the canvas. Wine swiveled in a decanter which light reflects on frescoes. An assortment of velvet red ribbons. There’s a lot more of these “beautiful mysteries” in reading Silk Egg, a compilation of novels that defy measures established by scribes incognizant of the beauty of brevity and the freedom in responding to art. If her poetry reverberates pulchritude in rhythm and restrictiveness, Tabios’s fiction challenges a novel’s typical length, proving that every line, space, and punctuation can speak of a narrative some writers’ unapologetic verbosity cannot provide in clarity and grandeur.

THE PYRAMID ARCHITECT'S BOOK

I'm always gratified when my "older" books get reviewed. Books deserve better than being categorized in "recent" vs. non-recent.  Thanks to Aileen Ibardaloza-Casinetto who apparently inaugurated her Goodreads Reviews with a review of my collected novels, SILK EGG!  She calls me an architect of pyramids -- why not?  Here's an excerpt of the review:

Muted as they are, these images rouse the tenderest of sentiments over the impermanence of structures.  That is to say, the perception of impermanence as directed by experience (or is it the other way around?). Architectural paradoxes aside, the significance of these novels is to present a new way of texturizing orthographical symbols and their meanings using as few combinations as possible. As Tabios puts it, "Look where the window view finally stops…" and/or see the world with words. That is again to say, dare to perceive, represent, truthfully.

You can see entire review HERE.

AT BUFFALO'S POETRY COLLECTION!

I was delighted (and honored) to learn yesterday that the University at Buffalo Libraries Special Collection, the Poetry Collection had been including all of my books and publications.  Today I'm sending them three publications to help them complete their collection (though it's not likely to be complete as my very first poetry collection, AFTER THE EGYPTIANS DETERMINED THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD IS A CIRCLE, is both out of print and a rarity).

Looking at these three works encourage me yet again to thank Mandy Laughtland for publishing, technically, my first novel, NOVEL CHATELAINE (later collected in SILK EGG):

And I'm also moved to thank scholar and jazz musician Theo Gonzalves for having produced my first and only single-author CD, The Empty Flagpole, which unbelievably includes Mei-mei Berssenbrugge as a guest artist reading her what-will-be-classic-poem "The Four Year Old Girl"!!!   (The CD's poems are also in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole). It's been years so I'd almost forgotten about that project and Mei-mei's generosity. Here are pictures  of the CD and the CD liner notes:

I'd for sure forgotten about my appreciation for Richard Thatcher's mixed-media art, specifically his use of bolts as "marks" on fields to create sculpted "paintings" -- an appreciation that reveals itself in the image of carriage bolts on the four corners of the CD's paper sleeve.

Thanks for the memories, Buffalo, and having carried my works all these years!

TONY FRAZER: ONE OF THE POETRY EDITOR GREATS!

Happy Birthday, Tony Frazer! Delighted to be part of your Festschrift!  (Thanks again for publishing SILK EGG: Collected Novels!). I was also moved by how so many thought to put this project together for you -- but then you deserve it when we read ABOUT YOU, including the following:

"Tony Frazer is one of the great poetry editors of our time. This website is a tribute to him on his 64th birthday. It contains more than 200 contributions from poets whose writing he has published since 1981 under his imprints Shearsman Books and Shearsman Magazine, as well as from friends and well-wishers. Together, these present a unique collective tribute ... to Tony’s achievement as the publisher of more than 300 writers"

My very modest participation allowed me to showcase moi dawgs -- why not as I understand Tony Frazer to also be a great animal-lover! Here's Athena and Achilles doing some bedtime reading with SILK EGG:

I FORGOT I AM AN OVOID

Looking at some recent reviews of my writings for possible back cover text for my forthcoming SUN STIGMATAS, I came upon Michael Leong's review of my collected novels book SILK EGG -- I'd forgotten I'm an ovoid!  Michael, citing Jurgen Koller's mathematics, says my "language" does this:

This is one of my favorite reviews of my works, which is apt as SILK EGG is one of my favorite books!  THANKS Michael!

The superb cover image is by brilliant artist Maureen McQuillan!