A FUNNY THING HAPPENED

the first time I ordered a copy of SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS, my new release from Blue Lion Books. I ordered SILENCES through Blue Lion Books' Cafe Press site....and what I received was a book with the correct text inside, but covered by the cover of the prior Blue Lion Books release by Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennett.

It had never happened before in my, or (Blue Lion publishers) Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's or Peter Ganick's experience that a book would come covered with the wrong cover. But I suppose that's part of the possibilities now with print-on-demand systems, like Cafe Press'!

Cafe Press quickly remedied the error, sending me a new and correct copy of SILENCES. But I actually love having the erroeneously-covered version -- and not just because that's the kind of error that could be worth BIG BUCKS someday to book collectors (oh let me dream...). I love my errant copy because, synchronistically, the title of the Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennet book is

Furtherest Fictions/BACKWORDS

Given the nature of SILENCES as "a disruption of conventional autobiography," I think "Furtherest Fictions" and "BACKWORDS" are equally legitimate titles for my work. And the identification of the author as "Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennet" rather than "Eileen Tabios" also fits!

One of my epigraphs in SILENCES is an excerpt from the poem "Epipoem: Conversation" by Marne L. Kilates which goes

Who minds our journeys?
Who remembers we ever left?
In our absence are places ever less?
What do our words mean
When everything has been said?

Anyway, I love the company SILENCES keeps in Blue Lion Books. For some of the most innovative literary work out there, check out Blue Lion Books' *catalogue*, conveniently encapsulated in a recent email from Peter Ganick to Buffalo Poetics List which I share here:

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:45:40 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group
From: P Ganick
Subject: revised list of BLUE LION BOOKS

someone asked me to include the author's names along with corresponding titles in the previous BLUELIONBOOKS post. at our site at www.cafepress.com/bluelionbooks66
we cannot easily list authors at first view, only titles

[[from most recent then
backwards to the first book]]

SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss
Eileen Tabios

Furtherest FIctions/BACKWORDS
Richard Kostelanetz/John M. Bennett

Huddles
John Crouse

To Delite and Instruct
Catherine Daly

Post ~ Twyla
Jack Kimball

In The Weaver's Valley
William Allegrezza

Hotel di Roma [novel]
J Hayes Hurley

myesis, vol. 1, and
myesis, vol. 2
Jim Leftwich

Proletariaria (Vol.1)
Proletariaria (Vol.2)
Kevin Magee

Structure of Experience
Peter Ganick

0x03
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

Post Empire
Scott MacLeod

why: ...1 ...2 ...3 ...4
Peter Ganick

Motion and Rest
J Hayes Hurley

thetextasifsuch
Jim LEftwich

(no subject)
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

[[available at: www.cafepress.com/bluelionbooks66]]