THE FORCE IS WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

(click on images to enlarge)

"The Force..."--just a Pinoy Pun on the generous title of an exhibit on some of my books over at the San Francisco Public Library's International Center (3rd floor, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco). The title is courtesy of the exhibit's generous curator who deserves to receive plaudits, not give them: Abraham "Abe" Ignacio. Since about four months ago, Abe has served as Librarian of the SFPL's Filipino American Center. I'm honored, I'm blessed, and I'm grateful. Maraming Salamat, Abe!  Abe is a historian and noted author as well, having released the important The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War (co-authored with Helen Toribio, Enrique de la Cruz and Jorge Emmanuel).

Here are photos of the exhibit which also reminds me to say Thank You to my book publishers whose faith I appreciate in publishing me. Featured in the exhibit are publications released through Editions du Cygne (France), Knives Forks and Spoons Press (U.K.), Black Radish Books, Theenk Books, Otoliths, and a few each by Paloma Press and Moria Books/Locofo. Thank you Patrice, Daniel, Irene, Alec, Marthe, Steve, Mark, Aileen and Bill.

Also below are photos of various Filipino- and Filipino-American titles displayed and also curated by Abe. It is great to be surrounded, to be contextualized among, these wonderful works by what is still one of the more overlooked groups within the literary world: Filipino English-language writings.

(Abe Ignacio)

In the marvelous company of:

REVIEWED: AMNESIA and THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA!

I'm grateful for Otoliths and editor Mark Young who've nourished me and many poets whose works I respect. And grateful for the new issue's review of two of my books AMNESIA and THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA. Excerpts:

"the chapter numbers are not in sequence in the contents page... The lack of a linear sequence mirrors the way our mind seemingly moves from one random thought to another... Tabios points out in an Author’s Note that readers may reorder the chapters themselves ... in order to generate different stories since any combination or story is valid."

And

"The sequence was generated by applying prime numbers against the order of the lines from the MDR database... Every line is viewed as being as important as the previous one. If we think of memory as being a bit like a computer creating a database of images, mathematics is one of the recurring images throughout the text:
     'I forgot there are no guarantees, not even in math where “1+1” may not be “2” but, as a visual artist insisted, “1 1” or, as a philosopher insisted, “a turning towards the other".'

You can see the review by Neil Leadbeater HERE.

WHAT'S OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA?

I'm grateful for this rather stylish review of THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA by Jonathan Mulcahy-King for X-Peri. You can see the entire generous review (with appropriate nod to Tom Beckett) HERE, but here's an excerpt/its first paragraph:

The Opposite of Claustrophobia: Prime’s Anti-Autobiography is a tender blend of modernist, de-colonial and procedural code in which poet Eileen Tabios elegantly defies Plato’s prescient warning against the dangers of web-connected memory, and that relying too heavily on external memory (he was referring of course to writing at the time) would have irreversible consequences on our ability to remember.

The review also cites definitively what actually is the opposite of "claustrophobia"--a first among this book's reviews!

Thank you, Universe.

FEATURED AS (I MEAN, AT) LITTER

Wow. An unexpected feature on Moi over at Leafe Press' LITTER Magazine! As in

     Introduction

     Interview with Eileen Tabios

     Review of "I Forgot Arts Poetica / Am Uitat Arta Poetică"

     Review of "The Opposite of Claustrophobia"

     Four New Poems by Eileen Tabios

As they say, I'm gobsmacked. Thanks to editor & reviewer Alan Baker, interviewer John Bloomberg-Rissman, reviewer Valerie Morton and avatar Angelo Suarez. The new poems are from a manuscript, HIRAETH.  And here's the "Author Photo" they chose from googling me.

From Valerie Morton's review of I FORGOT ARS POETICA:

There is continuous movement in these poems which hop from place to place within the mind, hardly allowing the reader a breathing space, and like a musical concerto reaching great heights and lows, twists and turns.  Although I never quite comprehend the “you” throughout this work, I do enjoy the mystery of trying to fathom whether this is the country left behind, the one waiting ahead or a lover, a parent, a friend. But this seems unimportant as whichever way it is read it comes back to the same thing—loss/discovery, displacement, loneliness, passions, fears—eventually settling in acceptance and re-discovery of the true sense of the self re-emerging and free. The ‘you’ becomes what you want it to. And yet the reader never becomes “resigned” —there are forever more questions to be asked.

From Alan Baker's review of THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA:

There are passages of rare beauty, there are striking phrases and cadences, and there surprises on every page: 

I forgot meagre pity.I forgot omission as confession.I forgot dungeons waste marble. 

And always, throughout the sequence, there is an abiding sense of mystery: 

I forgot her hobby of attending to deathbeds – afterwards she always lusted forhotel lobbies stuffed with crystal chandeliers 

By generating these poems, and by using her own past poetry as raw material, Tabios has breathed new life into the “I remember / I forget” form, in a way typical of this inventive poet.

Thank you, Universe.

THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Deep gratitude to Valerie Morton and The Poetry Shed for its review of The Opposite of Claustrophobia: Prime's Anti-Autobiography. Among its stellar elements, the review explains the (sub)title!  You can see entire review HERE but here's an excerpt:

The very words in this collection seem to breathe – 

I forgot I saw a city breathing beyond the window 

I forgot the musk of evenings quivering into post-elegance 

I forgot a sarong fell and a river blushed 

I forgot a girl singing as she smooched the sun ….. 

The poetry of Eileen Tabios invites us to look at what it truly means to be part of the human race, not merely a fragment of it. Challenging in its width and breadth, I would highly recommend this collection – it is at the same time startling and unnerving, not always comfortable reading, but every page/every line is an adventure in itself. If you are prepared to travel with her you will be astonished at her creativity and will close the last page wanting more: 

I forgot the perfume of fresh bread outside a panetteria, the vinegary tang floating from a wine shop, heaven as the scent of roasting coffee from a grocer, and the necesssary reminder of those different from us through the stench of street drains

Also, the book is published in the U.K. but it also just got listed on Amazon.

THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Coming out of England, my first 2017 book, THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime's Anti-Autobiography, with custom cover art by Nico Vassilakis, is now available through HERE.  

My deep gratitude to Alec Newman, KFS, and the Arts Council of England.

NEWLY AVAILABLE: THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA!

THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime's Anti-Autobiography is a 2017 release but it is now available through KFS, my British publisher, for 12 pounds (just over $14) shipped worldwide. 8 pounds if you're a U.K. resident. (Click HERE for ordering info.) As KFS is a new publisher for me and I want to support their decision, I'm also making an offer that if you order this book, I'd be happy to send you another of my (in print) other books free. Just let me know by Comment or email.

And thanks to Nico Vassilakis for that fabulous cover image!

Here's the publisher's release:

Eileen Tabios's ‘The Opposite of Claustrophobia’ is out now. This is what Eric Gamalinda & Jesse Glass have to say about it:

Startling, not just for the method but for the lines of breathtaking beauty resulting from it. These poems are tender, wistful and humorous, an incantatory catalogue that is spiritually tethered to the body and the earth, where everything is vital and important, and incites wonder, melancholy, and gratitude.— Eric Gamalinda

While Georges Perec famously gave us a work of literature that began “I remember…”, Eileen Tabios gives us a very human sounding algorithm that lists for us what “I” has forgotten. In the backgrounds of paintings like those of Lucas Cranach, Bosch, Durer, Da Vinci, are castles, ruins, caverns. Each one is an invitation, a window into which I’d like to peer. In just such a way each of the lines of Tabios’ new work is an invitation to seek within the sfumato for a miniature clarity—sometimes the blinding light of a furnace, sometimes an old movie set swarming with quotation marks, sometimes lines that, with their specificity, invite us to linger and to imagine the margins full of novels, short stories, memoirs of: “Marisa peeling the skin from a blue-boned fish…Luisa who squatted beside betel-chewing crones with crooked front teeth, and Marjorie who swallowed the scarless sky over Siquijor.” Some lines are mere rungs for the hands and feet of angels and these I recommend to you most of all.
— Jesse Glass 

Check it out at http://knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/theoppositeofcla.html

DEAR U.K. RESIDENTS

Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, publisher of my forthcoming THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime's Anti-Autobiography, has instituted a "Subscription Scheme" for U.K. residents.  The "scheme" (I love that) is HERE, but I replicate below for convenience:

KFS SUBSCRIBER SERVICE
for books published between 2016 and 2017
EXCLUSIVE TO UK RESIDENTS

£50

Receive a welcome pack of books from our backlist worth at least £50, selected by the editor.

And receive forthcoming titles from the following poets as they are published:

Alison Gibb
Wendy Heath
Helen Ivory
Camilla Nelson
Eileen Tabios
Steve Willie

£100

Receive a welcome pack of books from our backlist worth at least £100, selected by the editor.

And receive forthcoming titles from the following poets as they are published:

Rob Burton
Nikki Dudley
Alison Gibb
Jesse Glass
Wendy Heath
Helen Ivory
Ira Lightman
Bruno Neiva
Camilla Nelson
Eileen Tabios
Steve Willey

For further details see here:
http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/subscriberscheme…

AT THE BLACKPOOL ILLUMINATIONS!

I'm grateful to Alec Newman and Knives, Forks & Spoons Press for putting up excerpts from my forthcoming book-length poem THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime's Anti-Autobiography_ to be part of Blackpool Illuminations in the U.K. It's going on now and for more info click here: http://www.blackpool-illuminations.net

Photos by Alec Newman.

I'LL BE UP IN LIGHTS!

... well, not "I" but an excerpt from my forthcoming book-length poem, THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime's Anti-Autobiography due to be my second book released in the U.K., thanks to Knives, Forks and Spoons Press. Here's the excerpt that will be up in lights as part of the Blackppool Illuminations Festival 2016:

How very exciting! My thanks to Alec Newman for including my poem. My poetry does love to travel!

And thank you Arts Council of England!

"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

THE WORKING LIFE: NEXT!

Just finished a new manuscript:

     THE OPPOSITE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Prime’s Anti-Autobiography*

That'd be these Primos:

This joins my other unpublished manuscripts:

      AMNESIA: Somebody's Memoir

      THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS

I also anticipate this:

      INVENT[S]TORY: COLLECTED CATALOG POEMS 1996-2016+

I write my butt off.  That's how I roll.

_________

(* first working title: PRIMED, WITH A BOX OF CORONA GORDAS HARRUMPHING NEARBY)