EXTREME TEXTS

The long-awaited  “Extreme Texts” feature at Jacket2 edited by brilliant scholar-poet Divya Victor is out! And I’m pleased to be a part through MURDER DEATH RESURRECTION’s exploration of kapwa, transcolonialism, cubism/abstract expressionism, mathematics, subjectivity, weariness, a Pacita Abad painting, the illusion of the random, and, always-and-forever-for/from-me: Poetry. Here's my essay.

I heartily recommend reading through the entire issue as some of the most innovative work—innovative thinking—in contemporary poetry is presented here. Here’s link to the editor’s Preface with Table of Contents on the right side: http://jacket2.org/feature/extreme-texts

I am particularly heartened (I hadn’t expected it) that my work is presented in the same issue as a “Philippines Dossier”—as Angelo V. Suarez calls it with his intro, “Philippine literary production under fascism.” I am reminded of a leading Filipino poet who’d recently contacted me about publishing a book here in the U.S.—because while they normally would be able to publish it in the Philippines, it includes anti-Dut poems and that would make it difficult for such a publisher. (Relatedly, there are implications to how such a Dossier ends up being in Jacket2, a non-Filipino pub except for how cyberspace encompasses global of course)

Much to read. Much to consider. Do join me in perusing.

[Thanks to Carol Dorf and Leny Strobel and the Babaylan Files for their help with my essay. And Tom Beckett--I continue to give credit to the inspiration of your book DIPSTICK/DIPTYCH.]

NEW INTERVIEW AT THE ARGOTIST

I’m grateful to Jeffrey Side for interviewing me for The Argotist (given that Jeffrey is the author of this article, I’m also honored he asked to interview me). This is the latest of a series of stellar Argotist interviews. You can see my interview HERE but here’s an excerpt…which I’m highlighting for myself because not caring who reads my poem is a privileged position which, at the time of the interview, I didn’t get into (one must maximize self-awareness). Ah well, next interview! 

JS: In an interview for the Asian Pacific American Journal, you said: ‘In poetry, I try to create an emotion that transcends the dictionary sense of what words mean or what they typically evoke in the current cultural context. There are words that are beautiful outside their meaning, like azure or jasmine or cobalt... For me, this is partly the place of abstract poetry, in addition to what’s happening in that space between, words, lines, sentences and paragraphs’. I agree with this approach very much. How much resistance (if any) have you had to such an approach from critics or publishers? 

ERT:  I’m glad the approach resonates with you, Jeffrey! It’s an approach I’d created in a vacuum (mostly from my love of abstract expressionist art) so it’s always good to hear it validated by another writer.

As regards critical response, …those poems can be seen through my first U.S.-published book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (Marsh Hawk), that sold out its first printing in about six months or so (granted, it’s a small press’ first printing but, still!) And I wouldn’t be surprised if that book has sold more than all of my other books combined. Those poems were also picked up in my selected prose poem collection, The Thorn Rosary (Marsh Hawk). In this sense, the poems seem to have received favorable responses (before they were published in books, many of course were published in literary journals). …

Having said all that, in terms of critical reception—and I would include academia here—my approach takes me outside discernible identity-related poetics and so my books are not go-to publications for those invested in Filipino, Pilipinx, Asian American and related-other literature. I think it’s because linkages with those concerns would not be obvious from the narrative content of the majority of my poems (though some exist). But if I’m disappointed, it’s because I feel there is a 100% linkage with those concerns through the approach to language. For instance, abstraction is one means to disrupt the historical use of English as communication for colonial purposes. But it requires more thought, a deeper thought, to address poems and language in this manner. It’s easier if the text itself is saying the obvious…

But having said all that again, I’m fairly clear in what I’m looking for in a poetry audience. It’s not to have a big audience but an open-minded audience really interested in poetry. So, ultimately, I am totally accepting of the kind of readership I have and the limits to expanding such readership. I don’t need to push my poems on anyone.

Full interview HERE.

SELECT THE SELECTEDS!

I’ve had about five poetics essays accepted for publication in the last couple of months—folks seem to like my blather. (Indeed, I write this while on a break from writing another such essay requested by another poet.) I think if I have a lot to say on poetics, it comes from how I approach poem-making. And, ever multi-tasking, I’d like to talk about it by answering another question that’s recently come up to me: 

“You have so many books and I’m new to your work—how do  choose?”

My answer is three-fold:

1) Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole as it’s what I consider my true first poetry book (includes sizeable excerpts from technically my first book, Beyond Life Sentences which is not distributed well outside of the Philippines) and it’s always interesting to see any poet’s first book; 

2) Any of my recent books as they would benefit from experience and maturity (hopefully); and/or

3) My favored answer—the one I would say if I could only choose one of these three numbered options: books from my form-based Selected Poem series.

I create Selected Poem books based on a single poetry form. I do so for one reason: so that I can prove to the reader that I didn’t just write poems but helped to expand the landscape of its particular form ... because I believe that if I didn’t expand poetry’s expanse, then my poems threaten to be solipsistic, masturbatory, or derivative (yes, I'm my toughest critic).

Relatedly, the poems inside each book are presented chronologically so that the reader can track how the writing developed before it ends up in expanding the form. I think this layer is interesting as art is a process as much as a result.  

To date, I’ve released three such Selected Poems books:

One Two Three: Selected Hay(na)kuPoems

INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected CatalogPoems & New 1996-2015

THE THORN ROSARY: Selected ProsePoems & New (1998-2010)

Forthcoming are two more Selected Poems collections:

The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets (1996-2019)

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL: Selected Visual Poetry (2001-2019)

So I have addressed four forms through my Selected Poems series: the prose poem, the catalog or list poem, the tercet, and visual poetry.

I write/have written in other forms but if I haven’t released a “Selected Poem” addressing a particular form, it likely will be because I don’t feel I’ve explored it sufficiently and thus provided my own value-added on to its form. I’ve written, for example, in quatrains, sonnets,  ghazals, etc. and while individual poems may have merit, I don’t feel I’ve (yet) expanded on the form.

An exception to my Selecteds will be the tanka. In the future, I likely will present a Collected Tanka book of the tankas that I will have written only in 2018 (I don't anticipate writing more tankas after this year this year). Thus, that book will be a Collected rather than Selected and, yes, I also feel I expanded that form (for proof until I release that Collected, you can check out  my TANKA, Vol. 1 from Simulacrum Press, 2018).

But to get back to poetics, I don’t think I’d have much to blather about poetry were it  not for my desire to expand the possibilities of whatever form I’m writing. So, if you have to choose among my many books, you might consider one of my Selecteds. Thank you for asking.

KOMUSTA CEBU!

Well hello Cebu! Slowly but surely, my books released in nine countries make it back to my birth land. The photos show some of the books that soon will be available at what's officially the Rizal Memorial Library and Museum but more popularly known as Cebu City Public Library. It's on Jones Avenue (the popular name of the street) but the current traffic zone calls it Osmena Boulevard. The building is home to a museum on the second floor that's hosted book launches. The library on the ground floor is now open 24 hours a day, bright, and has wifi with a MOA forged between Cebu City. A 24-hour-a-day library! Brilliant!

Here are some of the available books below (my books and other Filipino titles published through Meritage Press). And the photo of the lady below is 85-year-old Mama Doreen holding on to Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole . She's a retired teacher of English and Filipino and I'm much honored by her interest :) ).

Looking at Mama Doreen, I wonder about her reader profile. She'd be about the same age as my mother and many educated Filipinos were quite aware of Greek, U.S.-American and British literature (Reproductions opens with Greek references, and perhaps such actually was a point of access for her... just speculating). Anyway, it gladdens the heart to see new readers. And Reproductions continues to amaze me with its standing power (it is still the bestseller among all of my books (selling out its 1st printing in less than 6 months), though poetry sales relies on so many vagaries besides literary merit).

Salamat, Universe.

4TH FILIPINO AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL

I was delighted to be part of this Festival!

Fourth Filipino American International Book Festival, San Francisco

Oct. 7, 2017

San Francisco Public Library

I participated in a "Hot Off the Presses" Reading as well as moderated a panel on "Ekphrasis" featuring authors reading works inspired by Filipino-American artists. During the day, I was present at the PALH/Paloma Press/Meritage Press Table at the Book Fair.

Hot Off the Press Readers: Gemino Abad, Aileen Cassinetto, Merlinda Bobis, Barbara Jane Reyes, Roberto Flor, moderator Cecilia Brainard, Eileen Tabios, and Janice Sapigao

Paloma Press and I also officially launched MANHATTAN: An Archaeology at the FilBookFestival as well as introduced LOVE IN A TIME OF BELLIGERENCE for a fundraiser for Puerto Rico relief. HERE is a video of my reading. And here are some readers:

Here's info on panel:

PANEL: Word + Image: Filipino American Art as Inspiration

Moderators: Eileen Tabios and Janna Añonuevo Langholz

Ekphrasis, typically defined as a literary response to a visual work of art, can be valuable to the work of a writer both as a creative exercise and as the impetus for a complete poem or prose piece. During this session, artists from The Filipino American Artist Directory will introduce slides of their art and writers will share their crafted responses.

Panelists include the artists Carlo Ricafort, Kimberley Acebo Arteche, Pam Ybanez, Daniel Ballesteros, and Janna Añonuevo Langholz. Represented writers include Jonel Abellanosa, Aileen Cassinetto, Melinda Luisa de Jesus, Veronica Montes, and Eileen Tabios.  Jean Vengua’s art also will be featured.

As an ekphrasis project, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE also was distributed to attendees of the ekphrasis panel. Here are more photos of the artists and attendees:

A good day!

HAIL, RENE NAVARRO

(Photo by Laura Billingham)

Poet, healer and martial artist Rene Navarro ( considered an expert in and therefore qualified to teach acupuncture, dragon-well qigong, Xing shen Zhuang rehabilitative therapy, tai chi chuan Dao Ren and related forms, internal alchemy and spiritual practice, Chi Nei Tsang internal organs massage, Taoist philosophy, Shaolin kung fu or wushu, and arnis de mano--got that?) sent over the above photo of the "Fairy Child" pose that had inspired a poem--a different type of ekphrasis. I share both--Happy Friday. It's always fun to share this poem in a reading because I always end with the Kung Fu movement I learned from Rene (my weak attempt to be a bad-ass):

The poem is from my first U.S.-published book, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE

and later reprinted in the Selected Prose Poems collection, THE THORN ROSARY

THE FILIPINO AMERICAN ARTIST DIRECTORY!

"(De)Centered: An Exhibition of Filipino American Artists," the Fil-Am Artist Directory's first exhibit will be up at WAS gallery (Washington D.C.) through June 16 (for more info, go to http://www.filamartistdirectory.com/events/ ; the above image is from the exhibition's announcement). Meanwhile, Directory founder Janna Añonuevo Langholz reads my Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole with Directory advisor Isabel Manalo's guinea pig. I love a diversified audience for (my) poetry!

I'm also an Advisor to the Directory and one of  my projects is an ekphrasis-based creative writing series in response to art from the artists in the Directory. If you'd like to participate, go for more information to  http://www.filamartistdirectory.com/call-for-writing

APIA HERITAGE MONTH

Barbara Jane Reyes is creating lists over HERE to celebrate May as APIA Heritage Month. Honored to be in the company of Frances Chung, Catalina Cariaga, Truong Tran, Bhanu Kapil, and Oliver de la Paz.

Thanks Barbara!

CALL FOR EKPHRASTIC WRITING!

So, after you've voted :), you might want to look at some art and if inspired, write a poem, (flash) fiction or any other type of creative writing inspired by an artwork! That's the idea to a new project, EKPHRASIS WRITING AFTER ARTWORKS in THE FILIPINO AMERICAN ARTIST DIRECTORY. 

The project is open to all writers, Filipino or not. More information is available at the CALL FOR WRITING . You'll also see there two examples--one by Luisa A. Igloria and one by me ("Alegria" , a "Haybun Interrupts" variation of the hay(na)ku, after Janna Anonuevo Langholz's installation "Ghost Houses") to give you an idea of poems written after some of the art. Please spread the word.

I will be editing this feature, and participating writers also will receive, in addition to publication, either of two of my ekphrastic books, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (inspired by abstract expressionism) and SUN STIGMATA (inspired by sculpture).

This project has an ongoing deadline and offerings will be posted as accepted over time. Please visit the site -- at least it will expose your eyes to some LOVELY ART!

WHOAH: MY FIRST BILINGUAL EDITION! And MY HOW TO DO SELECTED POEMS

Just sitting here minding my own business and then I receive the offer for what would be my first bilingual poetry edition! Well, Thank You, Universe!  So I'm delighted to share that said bilingual edition, with its English title,

I FORGOT ARS POETICA

will be coming out of Bibliotheca Universalis in Bucharest. Yes: my first bilingual edition will see my poems translated into Romanian! Like I said, this was an unexpected opportunity -- I wasn't exactly strategizing on how to get my poetry into Romania. But, nonetheless, I am honored to have my poems enter the distinguished Romanian culture.  

And thus I've been preparing a selection of poems that, it occurred to me after my first cut at the selections, could be a rehearsal for how I might choose what may be my favorites among the 25 million poems or so that I've written. 

Precisely because I'm prolific, I've to date only chosen to do "Selected Poems" project based on form -- also, this allows readers (if they care) to see if my work has expanded the parameters of that particular form, e.g. the prose poem addressed by THE THORN ROSARY and the list or catalog poem addressed by INVENT(ST)ORY. I also have a manuscript-in-progress, HIRAETH, of Selected Poems addressing the tercet.

But for the bilingual edition, I was asked to provide (among other things) 25 poems. So how to choose the 25 poems? I can't even do a one poem per book (my preference) approach as I've written more than 25 poetry collections.

As it turns out, the answer came fairly quickly to me. There's a particular element (for lack of a better way to put it) that some of my poems have more than others when those poems tap into some stream or vein of something ineffable. All I know is that I realize I was particularly "on" or beyond myself when I wrote those poems. 99.9% of the poems in REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE contain this element (perhaps that's why it sold out its first printing in less than six months). By extension, many of the poems in SUN STIGMATA which chisel out poems from the raw material of REPRODUCTIONS ... also bear this stigmata. So, for the 25 chosen poems, 10 come from REPRODUCTIONS, 11 from SUN STIGMATA, 1 from MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21ST CENTURY, and 3 from AMNESIA: SOMEBODY'S MEMOIR (listed in such order below).

As expected after I made my selections--and as another reason why I previously avoided Selecteds not based on form--I felt guilty: 'twas as if I had played favorites among my 25 million poems. I'll live. But, for now, here's my first ever selection of just ... favorites. I can't feature all the favorites since I'm limited to 25, but this exercise is certainly useful as it forces me for the first time to consider what I've liked the most from what I've written.  Finally, I know you're dying to know so here are the Favored Poems that will comprise I FORGOT ARS POETICA:

ETHOS

JADE

COME KNOCKING

AFTER 2 A.M.

PROFILES

GREY SURREPTITIOUSLY

EULOGY

THE WIRE SCULPTURE

THE FAIRY CHILD’S PRAYER

THE CONTROLLING AGENT

(ECLIPSE*

(PURITY

(COROLLA

(NOBILITY

(THE SECRET OF HER HAPPINESS

(MUSE POEM

(MUSTERING

(AMBER 

(MY STATEN ISLAND FERRY POEM

(RAPUNZEL ENRAPT

(AGAINST DISAPPEARANCE

(RETURNING THE BORROWED TONGUE

"LOOKING PAST THE BIRTH" (Gabriela Silang poem)

I Forgot the Language of Scars
I Forgot Eyes Widening to Pull In More of the World
I Forgot Ars Poetica

(*UPDATE: "(ECLIPSE" was left out of the book due to space considerations)

Last but not least, my first bilingual edition is in a language I would not have expected. I might have thought Spanish, one of the Filipino languages... But I appreciate this unexpected development for reflecting how I'm not a Pin@y in the U.S., but a Pin@y in the diaspora. As noted Filipino poet-novelist-artist Eric Gamalinda once said, "The history of the Philippines is the history of the world." Romania, here I come! How might you translate the ineffable?

WHAT I LOOK LIKE IN ROMANIAN

I'm blessed to hear several of my poems have been/will be translated into Romanian. The first such translation just appeared in Contemporary Literary Horizon, no. 3 (May-June), 2016, based in Bucharest, Romania. My thanks to poet and translator Monica Manolachi for opening up this possibility.  Here's a shot of my poem "Profiles" (from Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, the gift that keeps on giving) translated by Teodore Panait of the University of Bucharest:
(click on images to enlarge)

English

Romanian

THE BLESSINGS OF READER-RESPONSE

I'm moved that THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS moved a reader to write his own poem.  Thank you for this:

RE:LIFE RE: LIVING

By Michael Gullickson

I forgot memory

contains an underbrush

that snags words

and photographs

pictures that were

never taken

leaving St. Thomas

leaving Sequoia

leaving places

I'd never been

I forgot until just then

the ache of how that feels.

I forgot the ruins

of the bomb scarred city-

my own Hiroshima

complete with the shadows

burnt into the sidewalks

until I walked through

broken brick & scattered glass.

I forgot how that felt

a certain kindness-

sometimes forgetting is best.

I forgot why I told you that.

Thanks Mike!! Here's a little about him:

Mike Gullickson is the co-editor and publisher of The Enigmatist and Blue Hole. Mike has a poem on display with San Antonio’s VIA Metropolitan Transit. He and his wife Joyce Gullickson are founders of the Georgetown Poetry Festival.

***

And I'm moved that my selected list poem project, INVENT(ST)ORY, moved Neal Leadbeater to review it. You can see the entire review HERE but here's an excerpt:

This substantial volume of work brings together selections from several previous publications written over the last twenty years together with some new and uncollected work. A fine introduction by Thomas Fink, who made the selection, places the work in context and provides a useful and informative guide to readers who may be encountering the work of this poet for the first time. 

For a while now, Tabios has been interested in the concept of the list poem – that is to say, poems composed of lists. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her sequence of poems about the content of the Balikbayan Box (taken from her book Post Bling Bling, 2005) and the poem sequence called Garbage: A True Story. The former reveals her very real engagement with problems and perspectives relating to cultural identity and expatriatism and the latter with environmental issues and the problems of living in a throw-away society. In other words, these are not just lists recorded for the sake of it, but revealing commentaries on subjects that go far deeper than the surface text. Tabios‘ engagement with the public is of particular interest in these two sequences. E-mails received from individuals responding to her texts and calls for information form an integral part of her work and lend a degree of objectivity and authenticity to the overall content.

***

And I'm also moved that my 14-year-old book, and first U.S.-published book, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE, moved Romanian-based critic Monica Manolachi to review it in part by calling me a new name (so to speak): "vexillologist"!  Woot.  You can see the entire review HERE but here's an excerpt:

The study of flags, vexillology is a fusion of the Latin word vexillum (flag) and the Greek suffix –logia (study). Vexillologists deal with all sorts of flags and they often meet to discuss their meanings. When the flags happen to be unidentified and fictional, they may be found in short stories, novels or comic strips. If the flagpole is empty and the vexillologist says “I am addicted to what I do not know” or “I symbolize nothing” or “I am unsure with metaphors—I allow them to bleed from my pen,” then we are talking about a poet disguised as vexillologist. In Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (2002), Eileen R. Tabios dwells on the possibilities offered by the combination of poetry and prose, reflects on belonging to various forms of in-betweenness and imagines unusually liberating flags for the states she explores. 

The motif of “the empty flagpole” can be read in different ways throughout the book. As a vertical line, it is a sign that simultaneously divides and unites, and it stands for the attempt to find laws in what is apparently turbulent and disconcerting: “To escape chaos, the Greeks created art with abstractions. It is a familiar approach, having long used geometry to deny myself caresses.” Tabios’s collection is also political. As a Filipino-American poet, born in Ilocos Sur, she explores the intersection of double belonging, by grafting cultural, ethnic and personal memory onto her American and transnational experience: “What does it say about me when I ask for asylum in places where people wish to leave? I try to find meaning in flags. But they repel me when buffeted by an incidental breeze.” The motif also implies the difficulty of separating poetry from prose and the desire to employ the aesthetic complexity of both, in order to express the struggle of finding meaning. For Tabios, the middle ground can be where the rhythmic cadences of free verse, with their lyrical repetitions, images and sounds, meet what seems to resemble a narrative, but which expresses a mood, emotion or feeling rather than strictly the thread of a story. The facts are only pretexts for further subjective visions, both sensual and intellectual.

THANK YOU, Universe.

P.S.  The book covers weren't planned together and the books span over 14 years -- but it's interesting to see how, really, blue is my favorite color...