MOI BECOMES A DOT.COM ON LABOR DAY

LABOR DAY 2014:  I have labored, and now I’m a dot.com. 

Ignore the plaudits on the site—I expended a lot of bills and envelopes to get them.  Go instead to where I recommendothers’ poetries and arts.  Or fawn over Jim McCrary’s cat Iris as he reviews one of my books as a good pillow.  Or my guapo hijo.  All to say, yours truly is now "eileenr.tabios.com"

More seriously, I’d not anticipated seeing so clearly through this exercise how many of you like-minded travelers I’ve met in this Poetry journey. I mostly like this site for how many of you appear in it—I’m grateful: Thank you. 

And its loveliness is not something for which I can take credit—Bless you, Jai ArunRavine, fabulous poet and graphic designer.

Sincerely,

eileenrtabios.com

AVANT-PINOY POETRY

I appreciate this article, "Avant-Latino Poetry" on JACKET2 by David A. Colon.  What amused me about it is that if you take its first three paragraphs and just replace "Latino" with "Filipino" or "Pinoy," you'd have the beginnings of a legitimate "Avant-Pinoy Poetry" article.  Like so--if the writer doubles the referenced "seven or eight" years that begins the third paragraph on the Latino article:

When Vladimir Mayakovsky memorably proclaimed that “without revolutionary form, there is no revolutionary art,” and Renato Poggioli wrote that “the avant-garde image originally remained subordinate, even within the sphere of art, to the ideals of a radicalism which was not cultural but political,”[1] and Marjorie Perloff (now famously) asked “what if, despite the predominance of tepid and unambitious Establishment poetry, there were a powerful avant-garde that takes up, once again, the experimentation of the early twentieth century?,”[2] they weren’t talking about the current work of a new cohort of Filipino/a poets who transect extrusions of renegotiated identity consciousness within extremities of conceptual aesthetics. 

But, in retrospect, they kind of could have been. 

Developments within the past near two decades have vastly exceeded the extent of experimental inquiry that had ever existed before in US Filipino/a poetry. What by now can be legitimately regarded as an emergent generation of younger Filipino/a poets is taking to task the inheritance of academic Filipino/a identity and, by gaming its language, rendering this tensile form more pliant in order to better fit the identity of the layered, contested, and changing Filipino/a subject in the contemporary world. These poets, by exploring the limits of poetry as well as Filipino/a identity through a diversity of aesthetic and cultural incursions in their writing, articulate a new Filipino/a poetry that in turn proposes a new view of Filipino/a identity, one that grants more agency to diverse potentialities than to conformist restrictions imposed from the past: a condition I regard as the avant-Pinoy.

So seven to eight years later, a Latino writes about his community poetry in this way.  Nearly two decades later, where's the Pinoy writing about his/her/xir community's poetry in this manner?  I guess we too busy cooking, eating or, avant-wise, deconstructing that adobo?

BOOKIN' IT!

That saying about judging a person by the company said person keeps?  Can’t say that about poetry books in a bookstore—not that I’m judging!  Am just happy my books made it into ANY bookstore!  Here’s a photo of some of my books and what surrounds them in a bookstore:

Speaking of books, here's the rest of my latest Relished W(h)ines update of recently imbibed books and wines.  As ever, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for GalateaResurrects!  More info on that HERE. 

PUBLICATIONS

PORT LIGHT: A HAY(NA)KU COLLECTION, poems by William Allegrezza (read in manuscript as it’s the next book to be published by Meritage Press.  So, obviously: OUTSTANDING!)

THE HOAX OF CONTAGION, poems by Michael Leong (witty. LinkedIn Poetry Recommendation (LPR) #126)

RED BOX OF BLUES, poems by Ryan Gallagher (favorite poem among many enjoyed is probably “And the Gods Make Love.”  LPR #127)

I DIDN’T KNOW MANI WAS A CONCEPTUALIST, poems by Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde (smart and elegant. LPR #128)

INTERVAL, poems by Kaia Sand (luminous.  Fabulous.  LPR # 129)

#!, poetry by Nick Montfort (pleasingly thought-provoking. LPR #130)

THE OLD LIFE, poems by Donald Hall (wonderful mastery of the long poem. To be an LPR recommendation)

SMALL WORKS by Pam Rehm (thoughtful and delicate.  To be an LPR recommendation)

THE WHOLE MARIE, poems by Barbara Maloutas (lovely. To be an LPR recommendation)

OPEN NIGHT by Aaron Lowinger (ravishing. To be an LPR recommendation)

ON LIBERTY, REPRESSED, poems by Tom Jenks (thought-provoking such that it compelled me reviewing it for next GalateaResurrects)

PRELUDE TO BRUISE, poems by Saeed Jones (very strong)

THE LANDFILL DANCERS, poems by Mary Kasimor (liked “water for mrs lot” and “pray for the stone”)

AS WATER SOUNDS, poems by Sunnylynn Thibodeaux (steel with delicacy or delicate steel)

NOT FOR YOU ALONE, poems by Robert Murphy (lovely chap. Read chap and listened to CD – the auditory is as fine as the words)

*  TWO FAT BOYS, poems by James Davies (funny!)

GEMOLOGY by Megan Kaminski (wonderful)

STAINED GLASS WINDOWS OF CALIFORNIA, poems by Julien Poirier (excellent)

MAO’S PEARS, poems by by Kenny Tanemura (pleasingly fresh)

THE TRUE KEEPS CALM BIDING ITS STORY, poems by Rusty Morrison (stellar. Language matured like fine wine)

AFTER URGENCY, poems by Rusty Morrison (stellar. Language matured like fine wine)

BEYOND THE CHAINLINK, poems by Rusty Morrison (stellar. Language matured like fine wine)

A DISTURBANCE IN THE AIR, poems by Michele Poulos (a natural)

BIG MAMA SEZ: POEMS OLD & NEW by Babeth Lolarga (admirably brave and earned poetry)

*  THOUSAND TIMES BROKEN: THREE BOOKS by Henri Michaux, drawings and poems translated by Gillian Conoley

WEAR WHITE AND GRIEVE, poems by Jennifer Diskin

MIDWINTER DAY, poem by Bernadette Mayer

OF COLLOCATED RHYTHMS, poems by Felino A. Soriano

GREEN AND GRAY, poems by Geoffrey G. O’Brien

*  MUM IS DOWN, poems by Oscarine Bosquet

*  JAGUAR HARMONICS: PERSON WOVEN OF TESSERAE, poems by Anne Waldman

*  THE UNKNOWING MUSE, poems by Sarah White

*  AFTER LUNCH WITH FRANK O’HARA, poems by Craig Cotter

*  AGAINST CONCEPTUAL POETRY, conceptual poetry by Ron Silliman

HOME AMONG THE SWINGING STARS: COLLECTED POEMS OF JAIME DE ANGULO, Editor Stefan Hyner with essay by Andrew Schelling

VIDEO TAPE, poems by Andrew Zawacki

COMES UP TO FACE THE SKIES, poems by Steve Gilmartin

WATCHING THE WINDOWS SLEEP, stories, poems and art by Tantra Bensko

*  THE GREENHOUSE, poems by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet

*  LOVE, OF A KIND, poems by Felix Dennis

TREMENDUM, AUGUSTUM, poems by Leonore Wilson

SKY LANTERNS: NEW POETRY FROM CHINA, FORMOSA AND BEYOND, Edited by Frank Stewart and Fiona Sze-Lorrain

THE DIFFICULTIES, Vol. I, Nos. 1 and 2, edited by Tom Beckett (six numbers or Volumes of this magazine were published between 1980 and 1989.  They’re now available online at http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/DIFFICULTIES/difficulties.html to present a lovely recovery project.  I plan to read the entire series).

HOUSE ORGAN, No. 87, literary zine edited by Kenneth Warren

*  AUFGABE #13,  Edited by E. Tracy Grinnell, erica kaufman, Jen Hofer and Nathanaelm, Maryam Parhizkae, Jamie Townsend and Zandra Ruiz, including poetry from India and from the Moroccan journal Souffles

NARRATIVE (DIS)CONTINUITIES: PROSE EXPERIMENTS BY YOUNGER AMERICAN WRITERS, Editor Kristina Marie Darling

PICASSO BLACK AND WHITE edited by Carmen Gimenez

A BROOM OF ONE’S OWN: WORDS ON WRITING, HOUSECLEANING & LIFE, memoir by Nancy Peacock

EVERYTHING TO LOSE, novel by Andrew Gross

WINES

2003 Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spatlese

Pestoni Family “1892 Field Blend”

2003 Bert Simon Serrig Herrenberg Riesling Auslese

2012 Farmstead chardonnay

2003 Ch. Rauzan Despagne

Launois champagne Grand Cru

2002 R.B.J. theologicum

2011 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett Mosel

2012 Buehlers cabernet

2012 Black Stallion chardonnay NV

2010 Franciscan Estate  Winemaker’s Reserve cabernet NV

STATE OF PLAY

I need to go grocery shopping; there are more books than food in the kitchen:

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN MORTIFIED?

CALL FOR A MORTIFICATION PROJECT: 

I am interested in collecting poets' and writers’ tales of mortification as have occurred in their literary lives. These can include but not be limited to bad reviews, poorly attended readings, rejections, being left out of group projects like anthologies, etc. Please email me if you have any such tales or have questions. While the tales can be written in any style -- rant, complaint, self-deprecation, humor etc. -- my (flexible) intent at the moment is that it be a funny project.

[UPDATE: Visual poet extraordinaire Marton Koppany is the first participant with his tale over HERE!]

My project is inspired by a 2003 book on the same theme, MORTIFICATION: WRITERS' STORIES OF THEIR PUBLIC SHAME (Ed. Robin Robertson) which I am relishing now. Here’s an excerpt from Simon Armitage’s contribution:

“It is three hours before the first train home. I breakfast with winos and junkies in McDonald’s. Killing time in the precinct, I find a copy of one of my early volumes in a dump bin on the pavement outside the charity shop. The price is ten pence. It is a signed copy. Under the signature, in my own handwriting, are the words, 'To Mum and Dad.'"

YOU CAN NOW SEE IF I ACTUALLY EXIST

over where I APPEAR.

First appearance will be on behalf of Kids Exposed to Domestic Violence Program and Haiyan survivor relief.  See?  I APPEAR not (just) to let my poems preen but for a good reason if not a good cause!  Do join me!

WANNA TRADE?

I had an active August trading books through MOI COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF!  This is a project where I list spare copies of poetry books or other genre by poets.  I then will trade such books for other poetry books I don't have (you can check if I already have your would-be trade at my Poetry Library).  Poets, you can trade your own books or spare copies of others' works.

So far in August, I've traded 25 books!  I believe that's a monthly record.  If you'd like to participate, do go to what can be OUR COMMUNITY BOOKSHELF.  I believe poetry should be circulated!