POST-GRADUATION

(Michael on far left with two buddies)

The last few weeks have been taken up with my son's graduation...which happened this weekend and, Yay, it happened!  But it's Monday and back to work!  Though, this is my favorite part of the book-making process: checking final proofs before sending them to the printer!  I'm working on

If you click on images below, you will see the first and last page of Thomas Fink's Introduction.  I've been blessed to find an ideal poet's editor and reader in him, and hope his words tickle your curiosity about my forthcoming book, INVENT(ST)ORY:

PRESENTING EL INDIO BY MANUAL BLANCO!

Delighted to update BIBLIOTHECA INVISIBILIS (it’s been too long!) with a reference to El Indio by Manuel Blanco, a 19th century conceptual project.

You can see the notation for the work HERE 

 but for convenience, I cite from a paper (with a Facebook link) by Angelo Suarez:

"Philippine literary history is not w/o its share of telling silences. Literary historian Resil Mojares writes of the Augustinian botanist Manuel Blanco, a Spanish friar credited w/ having penned Flora de Filipinas, segun elsistema sexual de Linneo (“Flowers of the Philippines, according to thesexual system of Linnaeus”) in 1837, who “was tasked by his order to write atreatise on the character of the Philippine native (indio). The friar secluded himself in a monastery and admonished his confreres that the book he was working on should be opened only after his death. When he died years later, the friars eagerly opened the magnum opus on which their brother had long labored, only to find that the book contained nothing but blank pages.” The book is said to be thick, held together by a cover made of vellum that bore its title, El Indio. Its blankness—reinforced no less by author’s surname, Blanco—cld be read as a testament to either the unknowability of a people or their lack of merit to be even known, or even as either the diligent friar’s refusal to reduce a people into an object of theimperial gaze or the outcome of anthropological incompetence borne of eccentricity. This interpretive indeterminacy, however, veils the possibility of reading the substrate that is the paper itself—such that an equivalency between the indio & the aggregate of sheets is posited, & that conquest is presented not so much as inscription onto the ‘native’ page but the very framing of the sheets as native: the indio is itself an imperial fantasy, a discursive composition."

It's worth noting Manuel Blanco's El Indio, if only to remind that conceptual art is way more than the two CA artists currently in the po-world news.

ZESTILY AGAINST MISANTHROPY

Allen Bramhall says I'm zesty and keeps doors open.  Zestily, may I open the door to his engagement with I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS and AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A Life in Poetry -- go HERE for the whole review but here's my favorite section--how he responded to the line

I forgot Red for the slithering snake freezing to S in Espana

by saying he then saw "this weird ass toilet paper being pulled sinuously from the roll."  This is the kind of engagement my poems warrant.

REVIEWING FOR GALATEA RESURRECTS!

So that was fruitful dusting of the shelves of review copies for Galatea Resurrects.  I mean, I think the dust didn't go away; they just migrated to other parts of the room.  But in the process of dusting and then reorganizing the review copies, I was compelled to stop several times to read several books.  And from such reading, I was compelled to review nine books for the next issue.

I don't assign myself books to review; I just try to read widely and then will review books that surface for that type of attention -- here are what compelled my reviewing attention:


BAD BABY by Abigail Welhouse
SHIELDS & SHARDS & STITCHES & SONGS by Dan Beachy-Quick
MEMOS by Susan Terris
THERE ARE WORDS by Burt Kimmelman
SMILES OF THE UNSTOPPABLE by Jason Bredle
DOUBLE-EDGED by Susan Terris
WARDOLLY by Elizabeth Treadwell
PASSION by Larry Kearney
ORIGAMI HEART by Andrea Bates

These are books I might not have been moved to review absent dusting. Kudos to the authors for having their works grab my attention.  I believe I read between 90 and a hundred poetry collections in this process--many of them wonderful but not books for which I thought I'd have something meaningful to say.

There were a few books that I might have reviewed based on their merit but didn't for a variety of reasons; for example, if Sheila Bare had not already reviewed--and reviewed so well--Sherman Alexie's collection, WHAT I'VE STOLEN, WHAT I'VE EARNED, I undoubtedly would have reviewed it (here's link to Sheila's review).

Anyway, the list of GR's available review copies is newly dusted and organized.  I invite you to peruse them and hopefully something will interest you in reviewing for the next issue.  Deadline is Nov. 15 though I'll take reviews sooner.  Won't you spend part of your summer vacation on a worthy poetry book or two or ...?

"VOICE BECOMING RUSTY NAIL PULLING OUT OF AN OLD BOARD"

"Of the 110 reviews that I have done, there are half a dozen reviews of books that Eileen Tabios has either written or edited. This has been an easy decision to make, because no two are the same." 

THANKS to Joey Madia for reviewing I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS!  Excerpts above and below, but you can see the entire review HERE.

The result of Tabios’s approach in I Forgot Light Burns is akin to a series of sutras—of gemlike word-meditations with endless facets, meditations on color and sound and humanity. Sometimes concrete, oftentimes abstract. The following have been chosen to show the variations in effect: 

“I forgot Red of cantaor’s voice becoming rusty nail pulling out of old board.” (1) 

“I forgot how quickly civilization can disappear, as swiftly as the shoreline from an oil spill birthed from a twist of the wrist by a drunk vomiting over the helm—” (7) 

“I forgot how gemstones can gasp—” (8) 

“I forgot the revolt of the minor key—” (30) 

“I forgot the mother snapped the umbilical cord with her teeth, strapped the newborn to her back, then picked up the scythe—” (31) 

“I forgot I wanted to make memories, not simply press petals between pages of expendable books—” (42)

"THE MORTALITY ASEMICS"

Never has so much been done with white hair absent dye.  Or so I think.  I talk about my white hair and how I asked gravity to turn it into art in an illustrated blather essay, "The Mortality Asemics" which -- aptly -- inaugurates the "Misfits" section of Queen Mob's Tea House.  Asemics like this image below -- but GO HERE for the whole thang.  And I promise to stop plucking my hair...

Thanks to Misfits curator Reb Livingston.

WHY I SHOULD DUST MORE

I was straightening out the shelves of review copies for Galatea Resurrects last week.  I got distracted into reading several times.  From such activity, too, did I come to do reviews of the poetry collections by Abigail Welhouse, Dan Beachy-Quick, Susan Terris, Jason Bredle, among others as I haven't finished the task yet.  A nice effect of dusting.  

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

MARTIN & MEDITATIONS ON THE SOUTH VALLEY, poems by Jimmy Santiago Baca (MAGNIFICENT!  LinkedIn Poetry Recommendation (LPR) #177)

*  PHOENIX, poem by Ouyang Jianghe, translated by Austin Woerner, and with images of the massive two-bird sculpture of the same name by Xu Bing which inspired the poem (Gorgeous production, excellent translation essay and persuasive poem in its English translation. LPR #183)

*  KRAZY: VISUAL POEMS AND PERFORMANCE SCRIPTS by Jane Augustine (stunning! LPR #178)

THE BOOK OF FERAL FLORA, poetry by Amanda Ackerman and various plants (smart and delicate. LPR #175)

ALL PURPOSE VISPO by Nico Vassilakis (a huge hug. LPR #179)

RED EPIC, poems by Joshua Clover (no less than a bomb. LPR #176)

THE LAST INCANTATIONS, poems by David Mura (massive heart. LPR #180)

THERE ARE WORDS, poems by Burt Kimmelman (a welcome respite from the world)

BAD BABY, poems by Abigail Welhouse (enchanting. LPR #181)

SHIELDS & SHARDS & STITCHES & SONGS, poems by Dan Beachy-Quick (lovely alchemy)

COMPANION ANIMAL, poems by Magdalena Zurawski (smart … and tender)

LOOK WHO’S SINGING, poems by lars palm (energetic mirroring of zeitgeist)

GUIDE TO THE TOKYO SUBWAY, poems by Halvard Johnston (a wonderful read!)

OHIO TRIANGLE, poems by Alex Gildzen (reading offered a lovely, elegiac experience)

*  TOWN, poems by Kate Schapira (smart!)

*  SMILES OF THE UNSTOPPABLE, poems by Jason Bredle (hilarious and witty energy)

MEMOS, poems by Susan Terris (well-done!)

SPAR, poems by Karen Volkman

POET IN ANDALUCIA, poems by Nathalie Handal

WAR OF THE FOXES, poems by Richard Siken

AMERICAN SUBLIME, poems by Elizabeth Alexander

THE TAPEWORM FOUNDRY, poems by Darren Wershler-Henry

ANTI-HUMBOLDT: A READING OF THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, poems and poetics essay by Hugo Garcia Manriquez

COLLECTED PETRARCH, poems by Tim Atkins

THE EGO AND ITS OWN, erasure poem by Michalis Pichler

I MEAN, poems and ars poetic essays by Kate Colby

BLOOD, SPARROWS AND SPARROWS, poems by Eugenia Leigh

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

TRACKS, poems by Logan Ryan Smith

IDENTITY / CRISIS, poetry by ________[EVERYBODY]

FIDDLE IS FLOOD, poems by Lauren Gordon

*  PARTICULARS OF PLACE, poems by Richard O. Moore, Edited by Garrett Caples, Paul Ebenkamp and Brenda Hillman with Intro by Cedar Sigo

*  LAODICEA, poems by Eric Ekstrand

*  THE HEARTS OF VIKINGS, poems by Lesley Yalen

*  SOME HABITS, poems by C. Viiolet Eaton

*  THINK TANK, poems by Julie Carr

*  A GUNLESS TEA, poems by Marco Giovenale

*  ORANGE ROSES, poems by Lucy Ives

*  ALLUVIUM, poems by Erin M. Bertram

*  FEIGN, poems by Kristy Bowen

*  WASTE, poems by Thierry Brunet

*  HOLIDAY, poems by Jennifer Firestone

*  LEFT GLOVE, poem-play by Mac Wellman

*  THE BEST OF MY LOVE, poems by Aaron Kiely

*  SEEDPODS, poems by Glenna Luschei

*  RIEN ICI, poems by Raymond Farr

*  PRODIGAL: VARIATIONS, poems by Ed Madden

*  MYnd mAp, poems and art by Gaye Gambell-Peterson

*  MESSAGES, poems by & interview with Piotr Gwiazda

*  THE SYLLABLE THAT OPENED AN EYE, poetry by Micah Cavaleri

*  MOTH MOON, poems by Matt Jasper

*  MANTIC, poems by Maureen Alsop

*  HYBRID MOMENTS, poems by Jon Curley

THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS, poems by Ed Foster

FORT DAD, poems by Stephen Paul Miller with illustrations by Noah Miller

*  NO MAP OF THE EARTH INCLUDES STARS, poems by Christina Olivares

THE CLOUD CORPORATION, poems by Timothy Donnelly

GEOMETRIES, poems and art respectively by Cheryl Snell and Janet Snell

ON THE CUSP OF A DANGEROUS YEAR, poems by Lee Ann Roripaugh

NOT HAVING AN IDEA, poems by Donna Kuhn

MULES OF LOVE, poems by Ellen Bass

ON THE WINGS OF INSPIRATION: EXPLORING OUR INNER LIFE THROUGH INTERPRETIVE SYMBOLS, poems and drawings with commentary by Cheryl Metrick and workshop analysis/commentary by Jeree Wade

YELLOW FIELD ISSUE 10, literary/arts magazine collated by Edric Mesmer (just fabulous!)

APPEARANCES: A NOVEL IN FRAGMENTS by Tom Beckett (wonderfully fresh!)

HERE COMES THE SUN: A JOURNEY TO ADOPTION IN 8 CHAKRAS, memoir by Leza Lowitz (wonderful treatment of an extremely complicated topic. LPR #182)

HAND TO MOUTH: LIVING IN BOOTSTRAP AMERICA, memoir by Linda Tirado

MR. PENUMBRA’S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE, novel by Robin Sloan

RODIN’S LOVER, novel by Heather Webb

HACKER, novel by Ted Dekker

THE INGREDIENTS OF LOVE, novel by Nicholas Barreau

WINES

2013 Venge Vineyards blend of zin, petit sirah, charbono and syrah Calistoga

2012 Tres PIcos Borsao Garnache

2007 Seavey merlot

2013 Trefethen Harmony chardonnay Oak Knoll District NV

2005 La Bienfaisance Millesime

2001 Tinto Gran Reserve Faustino I

1990 Ch. Marbuzet (Mother’s Day dinner wine!)

2013 Domaine Jean Collet Chablis Vieilles Vignes

2010 Ravenswood “Belloni” zin

2014 Santa Marina pinot grigio

2013 Ch. D’Aqueria rose Tavel

2008 Ch. Poujeaux

20__ Villa Blanche pinot noir

2010 Regusci Block 27 NV

2012 Darjoush merlot NV

2013 Darjoush pinor noir Russian River

2012 T-Vine petite sirah NV

2013 Proof of the Pudding pinot noir Anderson Valley

2012 Du Mol pinot noir Russian River

1997 Noon reserve cabernet