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.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

AGAINST MISANTHROPY aka HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY TO MOI!



Well, I got my copy and it's beautiful.  Perhaps you'll be interested, too, in reading through my latest book -- AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A LIFE IN POETRY (2015-1995).  I share the publisher's book description below ... but I should also say something about the form, to wit:

This is my fifth book that tinkers with, if not subverts, the form of autobiography and biography.*  I use disparate elements like blurbs, interviews, essays, poems as well as a paper on me written by Mom that I discovered two years after she passed. If a reader ever chose to read this book straight-through from beginning to end, a profile surfaces and that could be "Eileen R. Tabios."  Of course, only my stalkers may be interested in going through this exercise, but I'ma just sayin'....  And here's why I'ma sayin' that, to quote from an interview-in-progress:


Disrupting the (traditional) form and genre of autobiography and biography is one of my interests, primarily because it amuses me.  But there’s certainly many reasons why one (or I) desires to disrupt auto/biography—from the general factors of how one may or may not ever know the true story, how one elides the true story, and how I believe identity is both constrained by inherited circumstances as well as fluctuates such that any life story narrative is at best a snapshot narrative rather than something that can hold true over time.  I call these “general” factors because they can apply to everybody, thus how *knowing one’s self* is one of the most difficult goals to achieve.


But then when, in my case, one is forced to grapple with immigration, diaspora, minority/POC positionings in the land where the migratory transplant ends, then the memoir, by being a genre that posits it can present an accurate life story, becomes a landscape fertile for disruption. 

For now, here's info from publisher's release of the book:


2015 marks the 20th year anniversary of Eileen R. Tabios’ “career switch” from banking to poetry.  AGAINST MISANTHROPY presents her life as a self-educated poet—from, as a newbie poet, reading through all of the poetry books of her local Barnes and Noble as she scratched her head over what poetry is supposed to be … to more recently creating a poetry generator capable of making poems without additional authorial intervention.  Along her journey, she also released about 30 poetry collections, two fiction books and four prose collections with the help of publishers in eight countries.  Ultimately, however, her so far 20-year poetry journey has taught her that poetry’s greatest gift is the means by which to forge a new life as a better person.  As one of her Facebook friends Maxwell Clark told her, and she agrees, “The best person is the best poet.”


Excerpts from AGAINST MISANTHROPY:

I think the human race is on a suicide path.…where are the moments of joy, of beauty, of grace within this doomsday path humans are on? From where or how do we come up with reasons that make it worthwhile to continue living? To rush out of our beds to greet the day? To smile? To laugh? Well, for me, these moments would occur through the positive interactions made possible by love and respect for other people, creatures and the environment….I look at these moments, and if I bear in mind my own apocalyptic forecast for the human race, I view these moments—the stubbornness of their continued existence against all odds—as poetry in the sense that poetry's task is not to affirm the (unjust) status quo but to disrupt it.
—from ARDUITY’s Interview of Eileen R. Tabios

...the moment, the space, from which I attempt to create poems. In the indigenous myth, the human, by being rooted onto the planet but also touching the sky, is connected to everything in the universe and across all time, including that the human is rooted to the past and future—indeed, there is no unfolding of time. In that moment, all of existence—past, present and future—has coalesced into a singular moment, a single gem with an infinite expanse. In that moment, were I that human, I am connected to everything so that there is nothing or no one I do not know. I am everyone and everything, and everything and everyone is me. In that moment, to paraphrase something I once I heard from some Buddhist, German or French philosopher, or Star Trek character, “No one or nothing is alien to me."

—from Eileen R. Tabios’ “Babaylan Poetics”


Ordering info from BlazeVOX and Amazon HERE.


_______
*The other four books are I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED (2005), THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES: OUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY (2007); SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS (2007); and THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS (2008).



Monday, February 23, 2015

GALATEA RESURRECTS RECOMMENDS BOMBYONDER!

News of my latest project: permanent link is HERE but here are the whatsisis...

Galatea Resurrects (GR) is pleased to announce a Book Prize Selection as part of its attempts to bring attention to wonderful poetry projects or projects by poets.  To be named a Book Prize Selection means GR will provide complimentary copies of the selected book to its reviewers.  For the inaugural selection which is offered to reviewers of GR #24, we have selected BOMBYONDER by Reb Livingston!

The deadline for review submission for the next issue, of GR #24, is April 19, 2015.  If you are interested in reviewing and thus subsequently receiving a copy of BOMBYONDER, you can look at available review copies HERE.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Rev Livingston.  That GR selected your book means ... GR considers your book HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Eileen Tabios
Editor, Galatea Resurrects
and Poetry Gadfly




Thursday, February 19, 2015

CALL TO FILIPIN@ POETS

Dear Filipin@ Poet,

For a possible project, I'm interested in seeing any poetics prose about your work, whether authored by you (e.g. an essay) or by others (e.g. an interview of you).  Send as many as are available.  You can send as links if they're available online or cutnpasted into email.  If we know each other you can also send as attachment.  Email to galateaten at gmail dot com

Salamat!
Eileen Tabios



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

RESURRECT A BOOK!

These are just some of the many MANY review copies that have come in for Galatea Resurrects. If you're interested in reviewing, you can check out the review copy list at http://grarchives.blogspot.com/ Note that GR doesn't just focus on "recent" titles. We're open to reviewing any poetry book regardless of when it was published. Because Poetry is forever!




Monday, February 9, 2015

AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A LIFE IN POETRY

I've been grinning over the cover to my book AGAINST MISANTHROPY: A Life in Poetry (2015-1995), forthcoming from BlazeVOX Books.  It features a photograph by Geoffrey Gatza.  The result is something I find deliciously odd ... odd in a good way, of course!  More information about the book will be forthcoming but, for now, here's the cover and a book description below:




Book Description:

2015 marks the 20th year anniversary of Eileen R. Tabios’ “career switch” from banking to poetry.  AGAINST MISANTHROPY presents her life as a self-educated poet—from, as a newbie poet, reading through all of the poetry books of her local Barnes and Noble as she scratched her head over what poetry is supposed to be … to more recently creating a poetry generator capable of making poems without additional authorial intervention.  Along her journey, she also released about 30 poetry collections, two fiction books and four prose collections with the help of publishers in eight countries.  Ultimately, however, her so far 20-year poetry journey has taught her that poetry’s greatest gift is the means by which to forge a new life as a better person.  As one of her Facebook friends Maxwell Clark told her, and she agrees, “The best person is the best poet.”




Thursday, February 5, 2015

THANK YOU, ANSELM BERRIGAN, FOR A CONCEPT TO REALITY



I like the idea for idea's sake.  Like many people, I have tons more ideas than what moves from idea stage to become reality.  And finishing up my experimental biography manuscript, AGAINST MISANTHROPY, reminded me that one of my ideas became reality only because of Anselm Berrigan.  To wit, here's an excerpt from the book:

An example relates to 147 MILLION ORPHANS, a “haybun” which is a form that combines hay(na)ku and other text....I’m excited about 147 MILLION ORPHANS partly because each word forming a hay(na)ku is taken chronologically from an 8th grade project by my son who was charged to learn English partly by studying 25 new words a week.  I blogged for months about 147 MILLION ORPHANS because I just loved the idea of using my son’s words that he learned over the course of a schoolyear.  But I was mostly relishing its concept, and only wrote its first few poems after Anselm Berrigan solicited me for The Brooklyn Rail.  [From there I wrote more poems.] I respect both Anselm and The Rail and so wanted to respond to the solicitation.  Without Anselm Berrigan, the [physical reality of the book] 147 MILLION ORPHANS might not exist.

Until editing AGAINST MISANTHROPY, I'd forgotten about Anselm's role in 147 MILLION ORPHANS.  Without Anselm's interest, I may never have written the actual poems but might just have continued blathering about its underlying concept.  I don't know that I'd ever thanked him specifically for his role!  Que horror!  So belatedly, sheepishly, but sincerely, I say, MARAMING SALAMAT, Anselm!