SEEDINGS: THE INAUGURAL ISSUE!

I'm delighted to have an essay, "Babaylan Poetics & the MDR Poetry Generator" in Seedings, Issue One, edited by Jerrold Shirroma!  The essay presents the conceptual underpinning to my most recent books, among other matters.

Please also check out the other participants, certainly an impressive roster:

Pura López Colomé – from Speaking in Song (hearing and forgetting) (tr. Dan Bellm)
Rachel Tzvia Back – In the Quiet Hills: Lost & Found Lyrics
Michèle Métail – from Earth’s Horizons (tr. Marcella Durand)
Rachel Blau DuPlessis – from Numbers
Aleksandr Blok – On Death (tr. Peter France)
Lu Xun – Three Poems (tr. Matt Turner)
Pierre Reverdy – from Painted Stars (tr. Dan Bellm)
Brian Lucas – Five Poems
Guillermo Parra – Moro / Westphalen
César Moro – Seven Poems (tr. Guillermo Parra)
Emilio Adolfo Westphalen – Seven Poems (tr. Guillermo Parra)
from The Aeneid, Book VII (tr. David Hadbawnik)
Marcella Durand – Four Poems
Demosthenes Agrafiotis – from Y’es (tr. Angelos Sakkis & John Sakkis)
Elke Erb – Haste Makes Waste (tr. Rosmarie Waldrop)
Etel Adnan – At Two in the Afternoon (tr. Sarah Riggs)
Nathaniel Tarn – Three Poems
Eileen R. Tabios – Babaylan Poetics & the MDR Poetry Generator
René Depestre – Seven Pillars of Innocence (tr. Colin Dayan)
Santiago Vizcaíno – Four Poems (tr. Alexis Levitin)
Paul Verlaine – Forgotten Little Arias (tr. Keith Waldrop)
Sarah Riggs – Manifolds
Jaime Montestrela – from Fluid Fables (tr. Cole Swensen)
Τζών Σακκής – Τα Νησιά (Μετάφραση, Θανάσης Φωτιάδης Λίνα Τσουκαλά και Άγγελος Σακκής)
Rosmarie Waldrop – Doing
Larry Kearney – On Translation
Λάρρυ Κέρνυ – H Μετάφραση (Μετάφραση, Άγγελος Σακκής)
Laura Moriarty – from Late Mourning
John Olson – Two Poems
Sara Tuss Efrik – Gland (tr. Johannes Göransson)
Will Alexander – from Concerning the Henbane Bird

I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS

As I've said before, my MDR Poetry Generator can create a de facto infinite number of poems (a number with 3,110 digits).  So far, I've written 130 poems.  And a recent set just created my first released poetry collection for 2015: 

I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS.

Thanks to publisher William Allegrezza of Moria who says about it: "I Forgot Light Burns is an excellent book, so head over to read it!"

This is the second published poetry collection concocted through the Generator, the first being 44 RESURRECTIONS.

Not to worry, I won't keep cranking up the Generator.  As also a conceptual project, it's proven itself: poems published in individual journals, two released books and three other manuscripts (at least one of which has obtained a new book publisher).

Light burns and I've got toilet paper on my book cover -- doesn't that make you want to check it out?!

ALL VOICED UP!

The current issue of Our Own Voice is generous to me.  Thank you Reme Grefalda and Aileen Ibardaloza for featuring, not just Mom’s reminiscences of me as a toddler-writer, but

--a poem from AMNESIA: SOMEBODY’S MEMOIR: “I Forgot All Ancestors” 

--a review of FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA.  Here's excerpt of review:

[Tabios’] “poetry” may be “inherently a matter of interconnections,” but the principle of “a word arbitrarily place next to another” is not going to guarantee the collection of generative interconnections; the poet needs to have written the poems carefully and then to have thought vigorously enough to establish effective groupings. And she did. … When Tabios’ poetry simultaneously enables the reader to contemplate the significance of the “frame” of words and to “see/ Beyond the frame” to “another possibility,” its algebra is most enticing and acute.

--my interview with poet Patrick Rosal about his breakdancer drawings:

"Patrick Rosal: Sketching the Energy of Breakdancers" 

--a review of my three 2014 released poetry collections: SUN STIGMATA, 44 RESURRECTIONS and 147 MILLION ORPHANS. Here are excerpts from the review:

On Sun Stigmata 

With few exceptions, the titles of the poems in this collection begin with an open bracket as if they are being written in parenthesis. To my mind this is because they seek to offer an elaboration or a rephrasing on something that has gone before. Interestingly, the brackets are never closed. This is the parenthesis that offers a space, a digression, an interlude that Tabios leaves for the reader. It is up to the reader to complete whatever it is that he or she discovers in the poem and then to close that bracket. It is a mechanism that allows the poem to breathe, to resonate in all its nuances, much as a person might stand before a painting and not move away from it until its impact has been experienced in full. 

 In the opening section, “My Greece,” Tabios gives hints as to the strategy she will adopt as a writer. She will embrace unpredictability, she will not be constrained by narrative, she will appeal to the emotions, write from the heart as well as the head, and escape chaos through the creation of art. She is attracted by the statue of the Kritios Boy because it breaks with tradition by shifting away from a rigid full-frontal position, the right leg slightly bent, the whole statue immortalized in hesitation. In “Purity” she laments how a square canvas depicts a square and a circular canvas depicts a circle. In contrast to such dull predictability, she wants her writing to flow like “a menstruation—ooze with a viscous intensity unmitigated by geometry.” 

 On 147 MILLION ORPHANS 

This is a book that offers up some powerful thought-provoking messages. It deserves to be heard because it speaks out against social injustice and brings to light the shocking plight of those who have no voice of their own. 

 

On 44 RESURRECTIONS 

The overall effect is often one of the beginning of a story or series of stories which the reader is left to complete because once again Tabios has allowed us the freedom to indulge in the realm of our own imaginations. Isn’t that one of the things that all great poetry should really be about?

I guess I've been busy....

AN INVENTORY OF THE INVENTORY FORM

If only because I'm prolific, I try to avoid writing poems that repeat their language. I try to do something fresh with language.  When I did my first Selected book, it was  THE THORN ROSARY which focused on a selection of prose poems. The compilation, for me (and any interested reader), allows for a look at what I've done with the prose poem form and see if I've contributed to it--expanded the form's expanse--in some way.  

A focus on poetic form opens up for me a way to do a Selected Poems type of book which, for many other poets, seems to focus on a best-of perspective: the best poems the poet has written over a period of time.  It's a point of view that doesn't resonate or challenge or interest me, if only because I've no interest in the "best poem" perspective.  Still, I enjoy reading many Selecteds and Collecteds precisely because I like what they reveal about the poet's trajectory.  But by focusing on an individual poetic form, I can see more clearly that trajectory and, thus, privately judge whether I've done justice to that particular form and earned my title as poet.

All this leads me to share news of my second Selected.  It will focus on a selection of catalogue or list poems, hence its title:

INVENT[ST]ORY

SELECTED CATALOGUE POEMS & NEW (1996-2015)

The period covered ends in 2015 because I have a publisher interested and it looks like it'll come out next year--thank you Universe.  Anyway, the reader will be able to see what I've done with the list poem form over the past 19 years and see if I've warranted the paper and ink I've used for such...

As I begin putting together the manuscript, I have to retype up many of the older poems since I don't have them e-saved somewhere.  So I thought I'd share what is the first poem of the collection which I plan to structure chronologically.  It is also the first List Poem I've written--I wrote it in 1996 when I first started writing poems:

Listening To What Woke Me

in the city, as summer evaporates off the streets:

the stilled, sharp blades of a three-pronged fan

behind the curve of its grated mask

the fragments of dust wakened

by the sole of a gavel

slamming as the judge stands

the pale-pink cotton fluttering

from my baby’s tiny snore,

bereft of nightmares cracking the eggshell of his brow

the memory of Black Mesa (New Mexico), an infinite sapphire

past the horizon as I drive by in a red car with Foreplay

surrounding … then the smoke in Anita’s songs

your finger trailing the ragged seam of my stretchmark

the last puddle of spicy, flour-thickened gravy

as a crumbling piece of warm cornbread

hovers, the butter dripping

you cannot translate the scattered remnants of a circle

covering the box from Chinatown in the hands of a boy

and I think of moths as the sun disappears

—the flutter of wings as they tease a dim porchlight

I think it'll be interesting to contrast that first list poem with my current work on list poems (e.g., HERE).  In between, the trajectory has been ... turbulent.  But I suppose, as a poet, I wouldn't have it any other way.

IT'S LIVE, BUT OTOLITHS IS ALWAYS ALIVE!

Thanks to editor-publisher Mark Young for taking two of my poems -- "In the Beginning, Before Words There was Poetry" and "END TO BEGIN: An Autobiography" -- in latest issue of Otoliths.  Here's message from Mark!

Otoliths issue thirty-four is now live. Insert your own superlatives. In addition to September Poems, a long sequence from Ken Bolton, there's the usual ….. variety of work in a ….. variety of styles from a ….. variety of people—Anne Gorrick, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Jessie Janeshek, Christopher Mulrooney, Richard Kostelanetz, Philip Byron Oakes, Steve Timm, Pete Spence, Thomas Michael Gillaspy, Jim Meirose, Jack Galmitz, John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich, Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett, Thomas M. Cassidy & John M. Bennett, Tom Beckett, Joe Balaz, B. T. Joy, Raymond Farr, Louise Landes Levi, SS Prasad, Philip Hammial, Cecelia Chapman, Bobbi Lurie, Pam Brown, Nicola Griffin, John McKernan, Natsuko Hirata, Shataw Naseri, Eileen R. Tabios, John Lowther, sean burn, Mary Kasimor & Susan Lewis, Stephen Nelson, Sheila E. Murphy, Michelle Greenblatt & Sheila E. Murphy, bruno neiva, Aditya Bahl, Andrew Topel, Leigh Herrick, Satu Kaikkonen, Andrew K. Peterson, Andrew Brenza, Marco Giovenale, Marcello Diotallevi, Jeff Harrison, David-Baptiste Chirot, Marcus Liljedahl, Felino A. Soriano, Jeremy Freedman, Carol Stetser, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, J. D. Nelson, Bob Heman, Francesco Levato, Mark Staniforth, Lakey Comess, Ong Sher Li, Kit Kennedy, Cherie Hunter Day, Texas Fontanella, Maureen Alsop, Marty Hiatt, Katrinka Moore, Owen Bullock, Joseph Salvatore Aversano, Susan Gangel & Terry Turrentine, Jake Goetz, Michael Brandonisio, Alice Allan, Chris D'Errico, sven staelens, Bogdan Puslenghea, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Nurul Wahidah, Eric Hoffman, Spencer Selby, John Pursch, & Marilyn Stablein.

In addition, the print editions of issues thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, &—be amazed—thirty-four are all now available from The Otoliths Storefront.

Mark Young

SHALL WE GO FISHING TOGETHER?

Poet Paul Pines is also a psychotherapist and former Merchant Seaman, some context for this lovely email he recently sent regarding 44 RESURRECTIONS: 

"Reading your "44 Resurrections," I thought of one of the ideas I am playing with as a talk to follow my reading of "Fishing on the Pole Star," called "Trolling with the Fisher King." It seems to me that fishing, trying to hook important unconscious content and bring it to light, the split-off parts of one's self, etc., is to recognize that what you catch returns to darkness--since the fish disappears back into the depths, we are also reminded of the dictum that the unconscious both wants to become conscious but also does not wish it. (Jung) So it was with Isis gathering the parts of Osiris, and Eileen making the process central to the details of her life. Unforgettable!

Yes, the process matters mucho to me.  Thank you, Paul.  (And those who actually read moi resurrections will understand the significance of his compliment, Unforgettable!)

And may I also recommend this interesting conversation between Paul and Jon Curley at THE CONVERSANT!  It ends with the poem “ORACLE” that I excerpt here with much agreement for its sentiment:

… be kind
Art is letting
All your senses
Live
...
All books will
Be written

ENTER OBLIVION OR AMAZE YOURSELF!

Some early Facebook (I know, I joined the 21st century 2 months ago) responses to 44 RESURRECTIONS:

"let us dive into ... beautiful oblivion"
--Lars Palm

"amazing read AMAZING!"
--Eric Dickey

Read Moi and realize why  I'm a forgettable read!!

POST-SPAIN CATCH-UP

44 Resurrections is alive with detail and incident.  It's brilliant and multi-faceted, a jewel--Tom Beckett

Just returned from a Spanish vacation.  But apparently I was busy while attempting to vacate.  Here are some catch-up news:

44 RESURRECTIONS, the first poetry collection from the MDR Poetry Generator, was released by E-ratio Editions.  I hope you check it out -- I feel a lot of affection for this project (and I don't always have affection for my projects, even when I love them all).  Here's an excerpt 

I forgot the musk of evenings. 

I forgot there are keys to everything, even handcuffs missing their rabbit fur linings. 

I forgot the child soldiers. 

I forgot other boys like Samuel and Elwin whose bones became transparent.

I Forgot. 

I forgot the mysterious Chinese girl who slipped syphilis to Van Gogh. 

I forgot love stutters over a lifetime.

***

And I'm blessed to receive a review by Aileen Ibardaloza and Our Own Voice of 147 MILLION ORPHANS.  The whole review is HERE, but here's an excerpt:

In an ideal world, no child is ever without parents. But we cannot deny the existence of 147 million orphans, the number so staggering they could be a nation unto themselves. 

The world’s history is littered with well-documented cases of orphan trains and “apprentice bonds“; with dying rooms for medically “unviable” infants, and cribs serving as virtual prisons. In many orphanages, babies receive approximately 5 to 6 minutes of attention a day; this, despite evidence that “neglect is awful for the brain.” In post-Ceausescu Romania, for instance, scientists found orphans with “disturbingly low levels of brain activity.” Babies who grow up to be youngsters, however, continue to face mounting uncertainties. Today in China (as it was in major American cities in the late 1800s), children who “age out” (or those who reach their 14th birthday) are deemed no longer “adoptable.” They are turned out of the orphanage, and expected to fend for themselves.

***

While I was vacating, my essay on "Behind the Scenes of a Fundraising Anthology" as regards VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA was published by Our Own Voice.  The whole essay is HERE but here's an excerpt:

Despair. To learn of a drowning mother counseling her child, “Let go” so the child can save herself? The child, I believe, let go. But I also know the child will never be able to let go of that moment… 

Or, to learn of a newly-born girl dying days after the typhoon despite her mother and father trading shifts in manually blowing air into her lungs because there was no power ... 

Subsequent damage estimates would be overwhelming—the numbers are unimaginable even as statistics alone surely elide the effects of the tragedy: 14 million affected, 4 million displaced, 1.1 million houses destroyed, over 3,200 schools damaged and so on. 

In response, I, a prolific writer, chose not to write. As a poet, I had zero interest in writing about Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda. My response was akin to Angelo Lacuesta who wrote a poem, “Pastoral” about Yolanda resulting in a blank page—you can see this sample poem over at BIBLIOTHECA INVISIBILIS (an online archive of the invisible): http://libraryofinvisible.blogspot.com/2014/03/angelo-r-lacuesta.html 

But not to write about Typhoon Yolanda is not the same as to remain silent about Typhoon Yolanda. I chose, instead, to edit a fundraising anthology—I asked Filipino poets who, unlike me, were moved to write on (or found older poems that applied to) the tragedy to “donate” poems for a book whose sales profits would go to the survivors of the typhoon. Thus, was born VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA: A Storm of Filipino Poets (Meritage Press, San Francisco & St. Helena, 2014)... 

The poet-contributors would come not just from the Philippines but from the diaspora: the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, South Africa. The contributors would come to include an entire class of students at Skyline College in California. The contributors would come to number 133 authors—by any standard, an unusually large number of writers participating in a single book.

***

We also received a review from HYPHEN Magazine of VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA.  The whole review by Melissa R. Sipin is HERE but here's an excerpt:

I watched, like the rest of the Filipino diaspora, from afar. After the winds fell and black body bags began crowding the streets of Tacloban, I felt the rage, the anger, the loss. As my television screen replayed the destruction left in Yolanda’s wake, I could feel what those at ground zero felt: grief, hopelessness, and the need to continue on. But within these moments of tragedy, many writers and artists gathered online and encapsulated their shifting emotions in art. We grieved together on blogs, via email, and on Facebook. We searched for our loved ones through Facebook status updates and Google Person Finder. When Juan Felipe Herrera, the Poet Laureate of California, and poet Vince Gotera sent out a call for poems of uplift and healing on the Facebook group, “Hawak Kamay: Poems for the Philippines After Haiyan,” the group epitomized the power of the Filipino collective psyche: kapwa (togetherness), kagandahang-loob (shared humanity), and pakiramdam (shared inner perceptions). This great tragedy tied the community together—and in turn, our art shifted into a call-and-response against tragedy. 

Two anthologies were born: Outpouring: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology (Flipside Publishing, 2014), edited by Dean Francis Alfar, and Verses Typhoon Yolanda: A Storm of Filipino Poets (Meritage Press, 2014), edited by Eileen Tabios.

YEP.  Now that I've shared all that, I think it's time for another vacation....