THE HAY(NA)KU EVEN RANTS!

A poet in New York City sent me a hay(na)ku rant (that befits the times) after reading my and j/j hastain's the relational elations OF ORPHANED ALGEBRA.  Of course I asked to reprint it, because I love how the hay(na)ku keeps dancing out there!


A SURVEY
By Iris Lee


Do
you own
your own home

or
are you
just a renter

or
do you
have a roommate

or
do you
live with family

even
though you’re
old for this

way
of living
but oh! finances

preclude
having your
own living space

one
more question
are you homeless

as
in having
less home than

every
human being
ought to have

perhaps
you sleep
in your car

but
if you
have no car

you
must sleep
in the subway

and
eat wherever
and shit wherever

thanks
for responding
to this questionnaire.

SHOW SOME LOVE TO A FILIPINO AUTHOR!

THE HALO-HALO REVIEW (HHR) is an online journal featuring reviews and other engagements of  Filipino authors’ works in all genres. Its inaugural issue will be released later this month. This is a Call for what will be an ongoing feature:

SHOW SOME LOVE TO A FILIPINO AUTHOR

If you would like to highlight or recommend any Filipino author, dead or alive and writing in any genre, please do so by talking about why you love that author’s works.  Statements can be written in any style and any length. The author of the loving statement need not be Filipino.

I got this idea from a wonderful project running at The Poetry Foundation curated by poet Amy King. That project focuses on women poets but, for HHR, I’ve expanded the idea to encompass all Filipino authors writing in all genres.  For an example, here below is Barbara Jane Reyes’ statement for poet Ruth Elynia Mabanglo (first published by The Poetry Foundation). As you can see, it’s only a paragraph long but it provides sufficient details as to why Barbara appreciates Ruth Elynia Mabanglo’s works. Of course,if you want to write an encyclopedia of praise for a beloved Filipino author, feel free!

HHR’s first issue is nearly finished, but if you can muster a statement by Tuesday, Sept. 22, I can still include it.  Otherwise, the deadline for the second issue is Jan. 30, 2016.  Here is Barbara Jane Reyes showing some love for Elynia Ruth Mabanglo:

On Elynia Ruth Mabanglo
I wanted to say a few words about Elynia Ruth Mabanglo, as a poet whose work has really changed me. But first, a confession. I have only read Mabanglo’s poetry in translation; she writes in Tagalog, and I am barely fluent in my native language. You must understand that writing in Tagalog in itself is already a critical statement about colonial mentality and the primary value of English over native languages among Filipinos. Mabanglo has written a phenomenal collection called Anyaya ng Imperyalista, or Invitation of the Imperialist (University of the Philippines Press, 1999), which is mostly comprised of persona poems, from the point of view of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), as well as the “comfort women,” the wartime sex slaves of the Japanese. These poems hurt so much to read, as Mabanglo holds nothing back of the everyday violence, the endless violations, of being raped and ripped, and intimidated into silence. Some of these poems are written in epistolary form, and this is important, because you must also consider the institutional erasures which OFWs and “comfort women” have endured. In the case of the “comfort women,” half a century of silence, of never telling your children, your grandchildren of being 11, 12 years old, abducted and raped by dozens of soldiers, for days, weeks, impregnated, aborted, diseased. Half a fucking century of silence. Without Elynia Ruth Mabanglo, I wouldn’t be able to write about the continuum of colonial and gendered brutality I write about. I wouldn’t know how to. I wouldn’t know where to begin. 

Send all statements to Eileen Tabios at galateaten@gmail.com

"AS A SOW PIDDLES"

Well, okay!  I do believe the St. Helena Star's brief but erudite review of INVENT(ST)ORY may just become one of my favorite reviews for comparing me to a pig.

The prolific Mozart once boasted (to his sister, no less) of writing music “as a sow piddles.” I’m not sure St. Helena poet Eileen R. Tabios would resort to such coarse imagery to describe her own creative process, but she sure churns out volumes of poetry with astounding ease and regularity. Her latest (at least as of its publication on Sept. 1) is “Invent[st]ory,” and the punning title is a clue that it’s a collection of “catalog” or “list” poems Eileen has written since 1996. My favorite poem in it was “The Erotic Life of Art: A Séance with William Carlos Williams,” which draws upon anecdotes from the lives of great artists in a way that reminded me of David Markson’s late novels. I wonder if Eileen has read Markson’s moving, profoundly sad “Wittgenstein’s Mistress” – if not, I humbly recommend it to her, and to the rest of you as well.

Plus, the reviewer added a new novel to my reading list -- what's not to appreciate?!

INVENT(ST)ORYING ... THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE?

I'm grateful to Allen Bramhall for his engagement of INVENT(ST)ORY in the context of mindfulness over at Mandala Web. Only such mindfulness would glean from the "details" of my trash the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That's ideal poetry reading!  Click on excerpt below for whole review:

Writers write. Some write more than others, and publish more. It's an exercise, and a maintenance of an order, to write. You can't sit back waiting for the Muses. The Muses, always fickle, have apparently been bought by Donald Trump to give him half an idea. Eileen's not waiting for the Muses to visit. Instead, she seems to be making a continual transcript of the energy markers of her world. By her world I mean her concerns and interests (refer back to Olson quote). These concerns and interests embrace cultural, historical, aesthetic, social, and political elements.

NAPA: VALLEY OF POETS

I'm looking for poets who live in Napa Valley -- or have a connection through work and/or performance -- for a new project I'm curating:

NAPA: VALLEY OF POETS

Please spread the word. Click on above link for information about how to participate.  Here are some of the poets featured so far (the blog is in-progress so some of info is incomplete):

(Edgar-Arturo Camacho-Gonzalez)

(Glynda Velasco)

(Gary Silva)

Then there's Moi!  We'd love to meet more of you! Contact me at galateaten at gmail dot com

I REMEMBER BLACK RADISH BOOKS!

Yesterday, I had a lunch meeting with my Black Radish Books editor Dana Teen Lomax!  Guess what we both shared (from the salad menu to your left) to start?

Anyway, Black Radish Books!  This wise collective will publish AMNESIA: Somebody's Memoir in Fall 2016 and, as part of their process,  one of their collective members -- poets who also are often editors, critics and scholars -- give close readings and editorial suggestions to their authors.  This may seem like it should be part of a  normal publishing process but it's not.  AMNESIA will be (if I've counted right) my 33rd poetry collection and will only be the 8th manuscript to benefit from the eyes of a third-party editor.  Poetry simply doesn't contain those types of resources. (Granted my experience is colored by preferring to be published by indie poetry presses but that's where I feel much of the interesting poetry developments occur.) So I'm very grateful to have an in-house editor and very grateful that it's Dana Teen Lomax.

Dana also was wise enough to couch her comments in the following way -- which I generally believe is how all editorial suggestions should be made in Poetry: "Here are all of my thoughts and you can use them or ignore them as you wish."

This point of view is critical because, sometimes, a typo is not a typo in poetry.  But what the smart author will do is pay attention to all of the editors' thoughts -- some can be ignored, some can be followed and some often (more often than not, in my experience) may actually surface a different thought that the author then may use to adjust hir text.  Again, thank you Dana!

I'm also happy to be published by Black Radish Books because it provides the ideal model for how I think a great indie press should operate. Here's an excerpt from their vision:

Our collective editorial focus is to publish and promote innovative books of poetry, prose, cross-genre and other hybrid writing. We strive to operate with a collective impetus, and all board members are encouraged to contribute various talents other than the literary to the publishing of the press. Our goal is to allow members, not the artistic conscience of a press, to dictate the aesthetic. As such, our bent is best described as eclectic with focus on the difficult and the surprising. 

We strongly support literary community collaboration and exchange, and we look for this spirit in our published and potential authors as well. All Black Radish Books authors are well-established creators of innovative writing and have been carefully selected based on quality, publication history, promotional/marketing ability (as established micro-presses, or as regular promoters of), and demonstrated commitment to actively supporting diverse aesthetics.

This hits much on the mark for me as a poet who looks for publishers: the aesthetic preference to poetry that expands poetry's landscape and the nerve to address/appreciate "the difficult," the social awareness to understand the importance of community (and politics therefrom), and, last but not least, the sophistication to appreciate the nutritional value of the black radish.  Truly, what's not to like?

And now that I'm hungry, I'm off to lunch.  Afterwards, an afternoon spent with my manuscript and my editor's very intelligent thoughts -- she goes from typos over double vs single spaces to the project's conceptual underpinnings. 

For this poet (and probably most poets), an editor is an all-too rare gift.  Thank you Dana and Black Radish Books which is helmed by equally fine poets Marthe Reed and Nicole Mauro! You can support their contributions to Poetry through SPD--they offer many fine reads!

THE HAY(NA)KU CONTINUES TO THRIVE!

with this newest collection by lars palm (and a great title!):

all hat, no cattle

published by the fabulous Gradient Books put out by dream poetry publisher Jukka-Pekka Kervinen! Congratulations and thanks to both gentlemen!

A wonderful cover by Petra Palm.  lars also gives some interesting background to his book over HERE.

For more information and titles re the hay(na)ku, you are invited over HERE.