THANK YOU, ABE IGNACIO ... AND GRATITUDE TO ALL GREAT LIBRARIANS

In middle school, I volunteered at my school library, learning the Dewey Decimal System as I mostly shelved books. I did not yet know how great librarians do much more than check out and check in books across the lending counter. I did not yet know how great librarians are also great thinkers, conceptual artists, and curators. The requisite intelligence, vision, and activism exists in one particular librarian: Abraham “Abe” Ignacio, Jr. Without Abe, the 15^th anniversary of the hay(na)ku’s creation would have passed without much fanfare. I, the inventor of this poetic form, certainly was not planning on doing anything to mark the hay(na)ku’s 2018 achievement until a librarian suggested we do so.

 This Saturday’s 15th birthday celebration of the hay(na)ku is one of many highlights for celebrating the poetic form’s against-the-odds lasting, and global, appeal. In addition to this weekend’s launch of a new (the 5^th) hay(na)ku anthology, 2018 will have seen a successful hay(na)ku poetry prize competition (won by seasoned and stellar poet Sheila E. Murphy), an installation of framed hay(na)ku at the San Francisco Public Library and two exhibitions at the San Francisco as well as Saint Helena Public Libraries. None of this would have been possible without a librarian who paid attention. Abe took notice and then acted, facilitating a year-long celebration that involved not just Filipino poets, not just poets in the U.S., but poets from around the world. The anniversary anthology, HAY(NA)KU 15, is not just written in English but in eight languages. Thus, not only do we celebrate with champagne and cake but we celebrate as befits the form of the hay(na)ku as an inclusive diasporic poetry form.

And all this is why, in my next life, I plan to be a librarian. Thank you, Abe Ignacio.

And for those who don’t know Abe, Abraham Ignacio, Jr. is the librarian for the Filipino American Center, part of the Kresge Foundation International Center at the San Francisco Public Library. He also co-authored (with Helen Toribio, Enrique de la Cruz and Jorge Emmanuel) the important, historically-significant The Forbidden Book: The Philippine American War in Political Cartoons and is a long- time member of the Filipino American National Historical Society. Ignacio has been active in numerous Filipino community issues over the years. Visit him in the SFPL Main Library on the 3rd floor!

Abe signing his book for his many fans!

HAY(NA)KU 15 IS RELEASED!!!

September brings the release of Hay(na)ku 15 featuring 128 poets and translators, the representation of 13 countries, and eight languages!

To order, go to Paloma Press' Lulu account or contact Paloma at editor@palomapress.net  The anthology also will soon be available at Amazon.

And, to remind, you're invited to the anthology launch and hay(na)ku's 15th birthday celebration:

Sept. 8, 2018: Hay(na)ku Poetry Reading and Celebration
–with Birthday Cake, Bubbly and Other Yummies!
2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room A/B
Lower Level
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Just between us, if you attend the launch, you're likely to receive a door prize of THIS:

A POET READS--AUGUST

As of Jan. 1, I began tracking the following stats on a daily basis:

--how many poems I wrote and/or edited

--how many poems I read

--how many poetry chapbooks and/or books I read

--other media that relates to poetry, e.g. audios and videos

On Facebook, where I post my daily list, my favorite comment was from witty Melinda de Jesus who said, “They’re like a FitBit for poetry…” My daily posts can look like this entry:

1/7/18: Today

I wrote zero poems.

I read 6 poems and 1 poetry book

That’s it. No names, which is why I’m posting below the names of poets whose works I read. I name them, whether I read a single poem or an entire book by them. January's reading is HERE, February's reading is HERE, March's reading is HERE, April's reading is HERE, May's reading is HERE, June's reading is HERE, and July's reading is HERE.

These poets make up August's reading (translators' names also are included):

Carolyn Gutierrez-Abanggan

Kim Addonizio

Aga Shahid Ali

Kazim Ali

Merlie M. Alunan

Ivy Alvarez

Sacha Archer

JoAnn Balingit

Jennifer Bartlett

Tom Beckett

John M. Bennett

Oscar Bermeo

Sheila Black

William Blake

Paula Bonnell

Kamau Brathwaite

Stephen Brockwell

Luis Cabalquinto

Regie Cabico

Natalee Caple

Nick Carbo

Albert Casuga

Joel Chace

Neeli Cherkovski

Kazumi Chin

Michael Chin

Tom Clark

Allison Hedge Coke

Kate Colby

Cid Corman

Artista Daily

Raymond de Borja

Melina Luisa de Jesus

Emily Dickinson

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

Donmay Donamayoora

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Camille Dungy

Stephen Dunn

Peg Duthie

Richard Eberhart

K.S. Ernst

Norman Fischer

Felix Fojas

Kenny Fries

Forrest Gander

Peter Ganick

Angela Manalang-Gloria

Anne Gorrick

Erica Goss

Vince Gotera

Torrin A. Greathouse

Camille Guthrie

Carolyn Gutierrez-Abanggan

Daniel Y. Harris

Lee Herrick

Thomas Hibbard

Bob Holman

Micah J Hood

Luisa Igloria

Camisha Jones

Ronak K. Kapadia

Stuart Kindmond

J.I. Kleinberg

Alysse Knorr

Kien Lam

Kathleen Ann Lawrence

Li-Young Lee

Jim Leftwich

Joseph O. Legaspi

Ada Limon

John Robert L. Luna

Dawn Bohulano Mabalon

Sally Wen Mao

Djelloul Marbrook

Agnes Marton

Billy Mavreas

Heather McHugh

Lateef McLeod

Dunya Mikhail

Chelsey Minnis

Rajiv Mohabir

Carol Moldaw

Lani Montreal

Nayomi Munaweera

Michelle Murphy

Sheila E. Murphy

Bianca Elorde Nagac

Kamen Nedev

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Mimi Thi Nguyen

Tiana Nobile

Geoffrey O’Brien

Ursula Andkjær Olsen

George Oppen

Jose Padua

Shailja Patel

Jeffrey Pethybridge

John Phillips

Aloysiusi Polintan

Cesar Polvorosa, Jr.

Cristina Querrer

Barbara Jane Reyes

Manuel E. Ortiz Rodriguez

Lisa Marie Rollins

Ammi Romero

Stuart Ross

Shawna Yang Ryan

Michael J Seidlinger

Brandon Shimoda

Larissa Shmailo

Daniel Simpson

Ellen McGrath Smith

Jessica Smith

Patti Smith

Brandon Som

Nathan Spoon

Janet C. Mendoza Stickmon

Carole Stone

Donna Stonecipher

Eileen R. Tabios

Lorenzo Thomas

Joel M. Toledo

Calvin Trillin

Tukaram

Eliana Vanessa

Nico Vassilakis

Marc Vincenz

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay

Kathy Wolfe

Jane Wong

Elaine Woo

William Butler Yeats

Kevin Young

Mark Young

Maged Zaher

J. Zimmerman

MY BROTHER ROY

I've rarely written about my dead brother Roy. Through Art, through one of his artworks, I was able to write something this morning ... partly to give him life in the internet for my family, especially the young ones who never met him.

"Art. It’s not just about the specificity of the object—it’s about how the object can become a threshold into a new experience. Given my brother’s death at a young age, I don’t have and will never have a huge amount of memories with him—whatever I have will never suffice. But, Art—it gives me a new way to interact with him."

Read more about my brother Roy over at North Fork Arts Projects.

HUMANITY IN SAINT HELENA!

HUMANITY receives press attention viz The Saint Helena Star!

(click on images to enlarge)

PETER WATERHOUSE'S CAESURA

I enjoyed Peter Waterhouse's LANGUAGE DEATH NIGHT OUTSIDE, a book recommended to me by Gabriel Gudding. I also had an unexpected visceral reaction to the white space inserted within paragraphs. Not sure why, but i suspect it may surface in my own future work. There's something about that particular caesura within a paragraph, i.e. amidst dense text (versus, say, the looser lines in a poem), that moves me...

A HAY(NA)KU SPRING!

... and it was also the Hay(na)ku Spring!  That is, poet-"peminist"-scholar-mezzo soprano-etc Melinda Luisa de Jesus -- in apparently the hardest gig she's ever done -- was a "Visiting Poet" who did a kiddo workshop on the hay(na)ku at Walden Center and School in Berkeley. Second and third graders, in Beth Baugh's class, were a tough crowd! Here are some lovely shots from the May 1 workshop: