"MURDER, DEATH AND RESURRECTION"

[Apologies ahead of time for replicating a Facebook post]

So some of you care what Eric Gamalinda thinks, and he happens to think my forthcoming book THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA is the best poetry book I’ve written. Of course, Eric hasn’t read all of my books (who has?) but he’s really talking about the books coming out of my “Murder, Death & Resurrection” (MDR) project, which include THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS, I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS, and the forthcoming AMNESIA: SOMEBODY'S MEMOIR.  I’m reminded of Eric’s input when X-Peri (thank you curator Daniel Y Harris) just featured an excerpt from THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA which you can see HERE. You might also consider this Black Radish Pre-Publication Special. While all coming out of MDR, these projects are actually very different from each other so my non-biased opinion is that you won’t find it boring to have copies of all of them. (That’s it today for “marketing” moiself, which I do for the presses lovely enough to support my work—thank you all.)

Last but not least, thanks to Irene Koronas for her artwork designed to accompany the excerpt from THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA:

"Komma Klawed Magnolia"

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

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.

"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)

NEW REVOOOOOOOOS

An embarrassment of riches.  But I'm grateful to the reviewers who took the time.  First, I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS was reviewed by Zvi A. Sesling in Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene.  You can see entire review HERE but here's an excerpt:

...many of the poems are worth remembering. Take for example the following poem ...

I forgot memory contains an underbrush—
I forgot the inevitability of ashes—
I forgot sentences like veins—

*

Also receiving a recent review is SUN STIGMATA (SCULPTURE POEMS), reviewed by Edric Mesmer in new issue of Yellow Field.  You can see entire review HERE but here's an excerpt (reprinted in Marsh Hawk Press Blog as YF is a print edition):

...Tabios is a poet who needn't reinvent herself; rather the span of her expression is wide, and this booked enfold takes on a more narrative aspect than other collections, often sensuous in its rend: "I'd give you / the ripest plum, ready to split / apart from a thought I still / would be folded about your tongue" (61); other times, anguished: "familiar with departures / the loosening of embraces / the forfeiture of birth places" (60); and once more, philosophically political: "the unanswered question / will be, "Might Justice / be colored white?"

A GOOD READ

Thanks to Grady Harp for his lovely words on I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS posted at Goodreads!  An excerpt:

I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS is her 28th poetry collection and she has never repeated herself, thought wise, style wise, or aura wise.

I chose the above for excerpting not just coz I like that I don't repeat my aura(s).  It's just that it touches on what I try to do when I'm so prolific.  Because I have released/release so many books, I wish each book to be significantly different from each other.  Themes etc. may get repeated here and there, but I'd like each book to not be able to be a foretelling for the next(s).  It's the least I can do, I feel, if I'm to keep up the prolific pace.

Fortunately, NETFLIX binge-ing prevents me from being more productive than four books a year.  So back to catching up on LOST!  Meanwhile, the entire review is HERE.

BODY BURNING FROM LIGHT

Yes, it feels like we were just here: It's always a special moment when one first receives author copies.  Welcome I FORGOT LIGHT BURNS.  Mi casa con banos es su casa ...

If you must know, those red toilet paper rolls that inspired a poem during, well, you know... are from the bathroom of that lovely if over-the-top hotel in Spain, the Marquis de Riscal.  One gets inspiration wherever one can...!

TRUCK HAS DELIVERED ITS MARCH LOAD!

And so I end my guest-curatorship of The List or Catalog Poem Series over at TRUCK.  I end with me.

Hm. "I end with me."  That's, like, almost as catchy as "I is the Other" but I digress...

I said, "I end with me" because I chose to feature as the last poem a poem written by Sandy McIntosh when he was making fun of how prolific I am and specifically with thick books like, as he called them, the BRICK and SON-OF-A-BRICK.  Funny guy, my publisher.

Anyway, it's been a joy to do this project.  And I thank the poet-participants again and, for your convenience and re-reading pleasure, post their names below -- you can check out their List Poems by going HERE:

1 – Pamela Hart 

2 – Amanda Ngoho Reavey 

3 – Barry Schwabsky  

4 – Stephanie Strickland 

5 – Sandy McIntosh

6 – John Bloomberg-Rissman

7 – Anne Gorrick

8 – Sheila Murphy 

8 – Rebecca Loudon

9 – Patrick James Dunagan

9 – Jean Vengua 

10 – Anny Ballardini 

11 – Patti Greenberg 

12 – Neil Leadbeater 
12 – Lanny Quarles

13 – Laura Roghaar 

14 – Donna Fleischer

15 – Marton Koppany 

16 – Minal Hajratwala 

17 – Michael Sikkema 

18 – lars palm 

19 – Tom Beckett 

20 – Mark Young 

21 – Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow 

22 – Alex Gildzen 

23 – Melissa Eleftherion

24 – J.G. Dimaranan 

25 – G. Mae Aquino 
26 – Erin Virgil
27 – J Likha Yatco

28 – Julia Fleeman 

29 – Shloka Shankar 

29 – Jim McCrary

30 – Halvard Johnson 

31 – Eileen Tabios & a Doppelganger (Sandy McIntosh)

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?!