MOI AM HERE TO MAKE YOU PURR

Well, yawn. I'll leave tomorrow to be at AWP through the weekend. Except for my Friday panel (noon to 1:15), I'll mostly be hangin' at the Marsh Hawk Press table in the Book Fair. Now, got an idea here: ATTN. AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS! Stop by and give me a copy of your book(s) for review purposes in Galatea Resurrects! I'll even take mid-list and other non-recent titles, folks -- because we believe Poetry is forever!

Anyway, while I'll be offline through Sunday, here's something to entertain the rest of moi peeps...or at least Guillermo who echoes my cats' observation that too much attention is being paid to the dawgs.


(Bottom: Artemis; Top: Missy Scarlet)

COMPLICATIONS AND TAU!!!!!

It's definitely worth nota bene-ing that I -- rather, Meritage Press -- just signed up Garrett Caples for a new poetry release this Fall entitled, COMPLICATIONS. That'd be Garrett's second poetry book since his celebrated celebration The Garrett Caples Reader.

Garrett, of course, is no stranger to Meritage Press as we'd released his swiftly-out-of-print-but-what-do-you-expect-for-a-limited-edition-from-someone-in-demand er, um.

COMPLICATIONS will be designed by the raved-for-poetry-book-designer-of-the-now Jeff Clark. Oh, and that Jeff be a purty good poet, too. Sip. Tonight, the 2005 Mollydooker shiraz...

Puts glass down. But THERE'S MORE!

Garrett is currently editing an unpublished volume of Philip Lamantia's poetry, to be titled TAU! It'll be published by City Lights, and include the poems of John Hoffman, whose poems Philip read at the infamous Six Gallery reading. TAU is due out in Spring 2008.  Now, THAT is ... Fantabulous News!

And she raises the goblet back up to toast ... the memory of Portuguese wine and olives with Philip...

RADIANT MEAT AND GEMS!

asking what we want poetry to do for us is really asking what we're willing to do for poetry.
--Karri Kokko

Wow and Whew! This interview just became one of my top three favorites put out by Tom Beckett's Will To Exchange Blog! There is just SO MUCH! in this interview of Karri Kokko by Tom Beckett. Like this excerpt below -- and do click HERE for entire DAZZLING INTERVIEW -

let me recount the story of Giotto, the early Renaissance painter from Florence, of Tuscany. As a young boy Giotto worked as a shepherd, and to pass the long hours out there in the hills he used to spend his time drawing. For lack of proper materials, he drew on rocks or made his pictures right there in the sand with a stick. One day Cimabue, the most famous painter of his time, walks by and sees young Giotto's drawings. He's impressed by the boy's apparent skills and asks him to join him as a student. Giotto accepts (actually his father does) and the rest is history. Even today, seven centuries later, millions of people from all over flock to see the raw beauty of the former shepherd's images in the cathedrals of Italy.

Now, I think what we have here is analogous to all art, including poetry. We have this talent and the willingness to use it, no matter what happens. We write our poems, no matter if the wind or the rain washes it off before anybody actually sees it. Then one day maybe, just maybe, a Cimabue happens along the way to help us. And if we are talented enough, and persistent enough, maybe we find an audience. And if we're lucky, really lucky, maybe we get to touch a few people's hearts.

But there's so much more Gorgeous words -- wait till you read about Karri's Mama! Do check it out check it out check it all out!

JUST POSTING BECAUSE I WANT TO TINKER SOME MORE WITH NEW BLOGGER'S "LABELS"

Well, I did it again.

A publication -- this time, an anthology -- sent me an acceptance. And I replied, GREAT! ... but then followed up with a sheepish request that they email back to me a copy of the poem because I don't know to what poem they're referring.

Dang -- I've flown a ways from my first couple of years as a poet when I actually mapped out on Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets my poems, where they were sent, what's been accepted, rejected or has status pending, etc.

I was so earnest about poetry back then. Nowadays, Missy WinePoetics mostly sips it. And this Poet never spits out.

MORE GOLF POETIX

As a result of how internet searching unfolds, a golfer found his way to Galatea Resurrects' current issue due to this golf (dis)course in the Comments section of my Editor's Introduction. The golfer has no particular interest in poetry...but has a daughter who does. And so this father read through Galatea Resurrects, and later was able to recommend Galatea Resurrects to his child. Subsequently, they had something rare for them: a conversation about poetry.

Against that result, I care less about certain issues, viable though they might be. For instance, what makes good criticism. Or whether Galatea Resurrects is as prestigious a critical journal as ____. Or whether Galatea Resurrects needs to take a stand for the avant-ish brand. Only one flag rises above Galatea Resurrects, Peeps, and it is the pure Love represented by dogs, not your gods.

Sip. The 1994 Mondavi reserve cabernet...And now, to make your weekend a ball -- here's a golf ball of a poem by LeClerc!

Glimmering Coconuts

A Nonnet for Eileen Tabios and her husband (whatever the hell his name is!)


Bogart n Lupino in High Sierra.

Eileen n’ guy down da Mex’kin Riviera,
holed up in La Hotel Grandé.

World class golf course beckons.
Hubby’s a duffer - yuh know – golf handy.

Tabios’ gotta learn. That’ll take nanoseconds.

Turns out golf’s a revelation.
I dint read dat in no New Testament,

but La Presidenté de La Galatea Nation
ephiphanizes bout green eagle birdie sacraments,

knows da bogey (Humphrey?), and da beauty (Ida?).
Did E n’ G walk da course, or take-a motor-driven golf cart rider?

Jayo’s glad da Galatea twosome are on to Tiger’s game.
LeClerc’ jus gotta fists n football history,

but he knows, he surely, surely, surely knows da glory,
and so many, many stories bout da majestic Golden Bear n Señor Pablo Neruda’s name.
__________________
Composed with affection and respect (Really. Goddamit!)

J.O. LeClerc
2-19-07

WRITING REALITY

Hadda go into San Francisco and spend the morning going over legal papers for, ahem, "Galatea Winery and Vineyards, L.L.C." Always a frisson when I'm there all lumpy in my farmer's garb as I sit in my lawyer's sleek skyscraper office. Anyway, whilst signing signing signing -- and being all grumpy about it because the promised bagel with cream cheese didn't appear -- I noted the need for business cards so that I can impress the hawks ever-circling over Galatea.

Moi: So what's my corporate title?

Lawyer: What do you want to be?

Well, Wall Street always had the most boring titles so after some thought:

Moi: THE EMPRESS!

Lawyer: [silence]

Notary in the room: [stifled laughter]

Moi: Didn't like that? Well, what's actually my legal title in the company?

Lawyer: "Member"

Moi: Are you serious?

Lawyer: Yes. Legally, you're either a member or a manager and you happen to be a member.

Moi: But shitski, Legal Peep. That is banal. Okay, how's about --

THE IMPERIAL CHATELAINE!

Lawyer [after sigh]: Your peeps will think you're just a fat bottle.

Moi [suddenly noticing her wine-plumped belly]: Okay --

THE IMPERIOUS CHATELAINE!

Lawyer [another long-suffering sigh...]

Moi: Okay. Let's make it simple. From hereon, I am the company's

CHATELAINE!

*****

And what does all of that have to do with Poetry, youse ask? Well, the "Chatelaine," I remind y'all, was something Moi concocted for the delectation of poetry blogland. And now it's a reality. Thus continuing my 1,000% batting average on writing things viz poetry ... that then become true!

A GHOSTLY TRANSNATIONALISM

"The history of the Philippines is the history of the world."
--Eric Gamalinda

Huh. Well whaddya know? The first reading related to Jean Vengua's PRAU (see penultimate post) won't involve the poet, publisher, or ... anyone on the American continents! That is, in celebration of PRAU's and its author's prize, Alfred "Krip" Yuson plans to read Jean's "Turncoat" at the closing ceremonies/"Word of Mouth" event for the historic exhibition "Chromatext Reloaded" in Manila.

Well, the transnational character of the celebration seems apt, since "prau" is a type of boat.

But not just any ol' boat! A boat typically without a deck and propelled by sails and paddles....doesn't that sound as ever-shifting as poetry? And the poets "in the longboats row and row."

Oh, and prau was once popular with Malayan pirates...just sayin'.

UPDATE: Oscar Penaranda also notes that "prau" a prau can be a womb (as how his mother carried him during WWII as they fled Manila to return to their home in the Island of Leyte, as well as that "prau" is the provenance, according to folktale, of Princess Urduha's historical and original name.

All to say -- Jean's come up with quite a unique collection. It's complicated, multi-layered, often despairing, always simmering with desire, tensile, diasporic, always stunning...the poem samples featured in the Meritage Press announcement don't capture the depths and circularities in the manuscript. There's a poem "Momentum" in the deceptive form of essay that begins:

Gustav Mahler died in 1911. He saw himself as an outsider. "I am thrice homeless," he wrote, "as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed." His music is polyphonic, bursting with emotion. He is inspired by the cacophony of the carnival fairground. My mother was born in 1911, in Fort Stotsenberg, now the abandoned Clark Air Force Base in Iba, Zambales, in the shadow of the volcano, Pinatubo.

and the poem continues to span a wide historical range, encompassing how Moses Browning developed the M-1911 Colt 45 to kill intransigent Filipino "Moros" in Mindanao; 1911's "Buffalo Soldiers"; Marie Curie isolating radium (for which she'd receive the Nobel Prize); Filipino Alaskero workers; the ukelele; Eniwetok where in 1952 the first hydrogen bomb exploded (500 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima); the relevance of Chilean surrealist painter Roberto Matta to all of this ... and how Vengua's ancestors were related to all these developments -- as we all are.

So Jean's first book begins:

She dredges up old boats, barkentines, praus, longboats
vessels with rigging. There is no more new. A lot of

nakedness around here lately, though. it shuffles, goes
everyday under the radar, shifts sightlines (a surface thing)

we anesthetize. the long trip home.

The manuscript will go through Meritage Press' rigorous in-house copyediting as part of the publication process (I love this sentence for implying I have a staff of editors? heh). That slippage in capitalizations is interesting. Inconsistent grammatically but effective poetically. But, duh, maybe just typos (wink).

Anyway, this is a poetry collection that makes the art "new" ... by making it fresh. Hope you all will check it out when the time comes!

RESEARCHING ATLANTA

Oh sure I'm preparing for next week's trip to AWP (where I'll be cooing over poetry books at the Marsh Hawk Press Book Fair table). Very busy am I: BUSY RESEARCHING HERE. After all, I take Poetry very seriously.

CONGRATULATIONS, JEAN VENGUA!

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce: the recipient of "The Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize" is

JEAN VENGUA

for her manuscript, PRAU.

Ms. Vengua (Santa Cruz, CA) will receive a U.S.$1,000.00 prize and PRAU will be published by Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com) for a release date in Fall 2007.

We would like to thank the poets who participated in this contest. We read many wonderful poems by other participants. In particular, we would like to acknowledge Finalist/Second Place Winner Edgar B. Maranan (Quezon City) for the lovely lyricism and imagery displayed in his manuscript, STAR MAPS & OTHER POEMS.

Submissions were screened by Eileen R. Tabios to generate Finalists' manuscripts. To determine the winner, manuscripts were reviewed on an anonymous basis by Beatriz Tabios to ensure that judging was based solely on the merits of the poems themselves. We are pleased to present below some samples from Jean Vengua's winning manuscript PRAU, and hope you will remember her entire book -- as it turns out, her debut poetry book -- when it is released later in 2007.

FROM PRAU:


THE PAPER HOUSE

Because back then, I truly did not care. I want to return to the fold. This is the text, these are the tears along the creases of time. If time is that room, and an interior of paper and ink, which some say is "not limited," then I must have built it all myself, and furnished it with my loneliness. I became beautiful in a manner of speaking, and without adequate protection against intrusions, I framed and latched the windows and thought this is myself. So, if you don't mind or even if you do mind, I'll return to the hundred rooms mansion, and put on the ornate cuffs and collars left by my changeling masters and mistresses. I will lock the doors tightly.

I am all yours, O.



******************


NIGHT DIARY

She removes her clothing before going to bed.
Allusions she drops along the way.
What can you find out by picking through the trash.
4 dimes rest on each other like fallen dominoes.
The headache diminishes with an illusion of surcease.
Chartreuse post-its and floppy disks.

Mind your manners.

Say nothing.

Say little.

It's late.

Tiny adjustments all day long.

In the night the body, the meat diary, remembers certain conversations.



******************


THE PROBLEMS (2)

I barely know what I'm writing; it's true. Something comes out of "reality." Some letters; something is missing, and we know it. The sound of that engine is indifferent to humans, like a dog nosing garbage. Aching for some taste of something. Fat and the heat it generates. Beuys understood this. Or the assemblage and movement of parts. What might be fashioned from it? Still the old bird keeps trilling. Mimicking the bird next door. Mimicking, in fact, the door. Something opening and closing on squeaky hinges. Nothing is new, or should be.


******************


TURNCOAT

position the bird in a side pocket or put it to sleep in poetry. step right up to the shining path. a broken column is pinned to the collar bone, pillar to support her head. she paints a portrait, enlarges upon puddles hidden behind creative writing, drips tears onto a palette, rips open her camisa de dormir. there are two fine breasts cleaved up the middle, and crowning the brow a hairy sliver of moon. the bees are joined in marriage behind literature, european. i kiss your hand, madelaine. i eat your cookies. she unstraps her camisa de fuerza. el corazón beats between science and the mystery of moths and myths. there is cooking for my mother's rosary, juvenile for our apocalypse. choose your color, advance one square, retreat six. cambiarse la camisa is to change categories. in fiction, one must cross two rivers, being careful to avoid the black holes, center stage. fall forever into universe, tell a story, make place.


******************


THE HOKUM FLOWER

this in the moment
being hurried &
little time to say…

this is beef stew
being et while jotting
a number of tasks

to do

this is not listening
to the still deep bubble
of ecstatic hokum flower

flowering in my gut
i promise someday dear
ecstatic lightning rod

& transcendent protein

i will listen i will
write you i will listen

i promise

COVER ME STOCHASTICALLY...& ECSTATICALLY!

And I'm ecstatic to present the cover to my next book: SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss (Blue Lion Books, Spring-March 2007):



Jukka Pekka-Kervinen designed the book cover through a program he wrote that generates a stochastic layout based on the letters of my name. After the layout phase, the program chooses one photograph from a big group of Jukka's photos, makes some manipulations, and then superimposes the manipulated fragment with the letter combination. Part of Jukka's poetics has to do with not allowing editing. Thus, after each (cover) image is generated, Jukka always destroys the original file.

The process reflects what Jukka calls one of his "basic" principles: "simply, if I use programs to generate works, I'm not allowed to edit them afterwards, otherwise I will make them manually."

Not only do I appreciate the thoughtfulness of Jukka's process, but I appreciate how it reflects the fragility of life and poetry. And how poetry, ultimately, cannot be pinned down. Thank you, Jukka!

BOOKS WITH WINE & VICE VERSA

One of the most worn native cliches is 'Every Romanian is born a poet.' It could be a noble declaration, if it weren't so pathetic. Being a poet is bad enough, being born one is hopeless.
--from Andrei Codrescu's introduction to Born in Utopia

I wonder if much attention is being paid to Born in Utopia: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry, edited by Carmen Firan and Paul Doru Mugur with Edward Foster (Talisman House, 2006). To quote Midwest Book Review which put it on its Bookwatch last month, it's "an omnibus assembly of poetry by dozens of Romanian authors. All poems are sublimely translated into English; some are from the years of the tyrannical regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, others are during the cultural proliferation that followed. A one-of-a-kind treasury of Romanian pride and literary art."

The poems are fabulous. And it is presented with an educational as well as witty essay By Andrei Codrescu. I hope to present a review of it in the next (May) issue of Galatea Resurrects, but I recommend you check it out. It's not just filled with poem-gems; it's historic and a lovely way to learn about Romanian poetry.

Meanwhile, here's latest list of recently-relished w/h/ines:

BOOKS:
SKIRT FULL OF BLACK, poems by Sun Yung Shin

BROKEN WORLD, poems by Joseph Lease

IN NO ONE'S LAND, poems by Paige Ackerson-Kiely

THE ANIMAL HUSBAND, poems by Christine Hamm

NIGHT SEASON, poems by Mark Lamoreaux

SUPER 8, poems by Richard Lopez

SELECTED POEMS by Fanny Howe

SOS POETRY by Mairead Byrne

AT THE EDGE OF THE BODY, poems by Erica Jong

a(A)gust, poems by Akilah Oliver w/ collages by Brenda Iijima

THE LATE ROMANCES, poems by Eric Pankey

BORN IN UTOPIA: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ROMANIAN POETRY, Ed. by Carmen Firan and Paul Doru Mugur with Edward Foster

JOYFUL NOISE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN SPIRITUAL POETRY, edited by Robert Strong

MEM 4, anthology zine edited by Jill Stengel

I CELEBRATE MYSELF: THE SOMEWHAT PRIVATE LIFE OF ALLEN GINSBERG, biography by Bill Morgan

REMINISCENCES OF A SOLDIER'S WIFE, memoir by Ellen McGowan Biddle

A YEAR IN SAIGON: HOW I GAVE UP MY GLITZY JOB IN TELEVISION TO HAVE THE TIME OF MY LIFE TEACHING AMERASIAN KIDS IN VIETNAM, memoir by Katie Kelly

PACK OF TWO: THE INTRICATE BOND BETWEEN PEOPLE AND DOGS, investigative journalism/memoir by Caroline Knapp

UNFORGETTABLE MUTTS: PURE OF HEART NOT OF BREED, profiles by Karen Derrico

THE SECRET LIFE OF COWBOYS, memoir by Tom Groneberg

CHINESE TAKEOUT, novel by Arthur Nersesian

JAMES, THE CONNOISSEUR CAT, novel by Harriet Hahn

JAMES, THE FABULOUS FELINE,FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE CONNOISSEUR CAT, novel by Harriet Hahn

GOING POSTAL, novel by Terry Pratchett

CROSSING VINES, novel by Rigoberto Gonzalez

WINES:
1997 R.B.J. "Theologicum"
1968 Castillo Ygay Reserva Rioja
1989 Barbaresco Asili
1993 St. Hallett Old Block shiraz
1993 St. Francis Old Vines Sonoma Valley zinfandel
1989 Ch. Cantemerle
1994 Von Strasser cabernet NV
2004 Latour pinot noir
2004 Dutch Henry chardonnay
2004 Caymus cabernet

GOLF POETICS

Yeah! "El Tigre's on the prowl"! To quote Moi Court Jester LeClerc, "You won’t get stuff like this with ESPN or Paris Review."

...which is to say, Poetry can encompass anything. Even Golf. Who'da thunk?

So git over to the sporting golf commentary on my Editor's Introduction at Galatea Resurrects! Ending with a doozy of a poem by Kapitan LeClerc -- click on excerpt below to see the whole thing;

El Tigre (for Tiger Woods)

Put away your putters
Cast off and toss your irons.
Though your drivers be of Titanium made,
Tiger's orange shall make you
Bitter Marmalade.

LeClerc -- it is indeed "brisk as a goddam volcano"! For that, you, too shall get a calendar with moi dawgs!

STILL SOARING...!

Speaking of Marsh Hawk Press (MHP) , it just received two grants: 1) a grant from NYSCA / CLMP for the press.....and 2) a grant from The Monterey Fund directed at my Fall 2007 MHP book, The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes.

Well now. Thankee! Timely for that prior post's "limited edition" of Moi -- herself a very limited edition, too, and no doubt to many people's relief...!

This, mayhap, may be why one of MHP's editors just quoted someone else to note about Moi:

"All she did was whine
and then dine
on the remains."

I'ma jes havin' a good ol' time here. Are you? Oh please just let me be Drew Barrymore to your Hugh Grant...!

MARSH HAWK PRESS SOARS
(AKA, MY BOOK WILL COST $750.00 EACH ... SERIOUSLY)

Finally, I have the chance to relish going over the new issue of Galatea Resurrects....there's this excerpt from Julie R. Enszer's review of Rochelle Ratner's BALANCING ACTS:

Balancing Acts has many special things happening in it. The final special thing that I noticed is not about Ratner’s text but about Marsh Hawk Press. Something special is happening there. I’ve read a number of their books over the past year, many through the auspices of reviewing here at Galatea Resurrects. They have gathered a highly creative and talented group of authors and are putting out beautiful and interesting and provocative books. Huzzah, huzzah!

Yep -- that's Moi Press. But of course I'm biased -- and partly because, this week, we set up my Fall 2007 book (The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes) as, not only to be released in the usual paperback but as, a limited-edition hardback. Each hardback edition will be signed and include a one-of-a-kind work-on-paper by Moi. The prize for this limited-edition, cough, will be: $750.00 per copy. Obviously, book collectors and visual art markets (as well as the drinking market) are targeted as the general poetry market won't usually lend itself to this structure (heck, the usual poetry market can barely tolerate the $24.95 price on my Brick!). So, I HEART Marsh Hawk Press -- I'll still be alive when I get to see one of my books at the three-digit price (now, about the four-digit pri....wink).

More specialness: check out props from past winners of the Marsh Hawk Press Annual Poetry Prize -- though I don't like poetry contests, if one is to participate in that infrastructure, at least we're clean and nice. Meet us at the Book Fair at AWP for more contest details for this year (judged by no other than David Shapiro!!!!!!), or just check out our contest details here. Deadline is April 30, 2007.

NUMBER FIVE! FOR GALATEA RESURRECTS!

Okay! Hoist up the flags!



For it's time to celebrate GALATEA RESURRECTS #5 (A Poetry Engagement)

For convenience, here are the Contents:

February 14, 2007

CONTENTS:

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
From Eileen Tabios

NEW REVIEWS
Ron Silliman reviews HAVING BEEN BLUE FOR CHARITY by kari edwards

Mark Young reviews HAVING BEEN BLUE FOR CHARITY by kari edwards

Guillermo Parra reviews Micah Ballard’s poems in 6x6 #5; BETTINA COFFIN; ABSINTHIAN JOURNAL; SCENES FROM THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT; UNFORESEEN; DEATH RACE V.S.O.P.; EVANGELINE DOWNS; and NEGATIVE CAPABILITY IN THE VERSE OF JOHN WIENERS

Julie R. Enszer reviews BALANCING ACTS by Rochelle Ratner

Ernesto Priego reviews THE ANIMAL HUSBAND by Christine Hamm

Nicholas Manning reviews NIGHT SEASON by Mark Lamoureux

Eileen Tabios reviews FIRST ADVENTURES OF COL AND SEM by Dan Waber

J.O. LeClerc reviews BOWERY WOMEN: POEMS, Ed. by Marjorie Tesser & Bob Holman

Ivy Alvarez presents a Chap Roundup reviewing MY LIGHTWEIGHT INTENTIONS by Pam Brown; SURFACE TENSION by Mackenzie Carignan and Scott Glassman; TRANSLATIONS FROM AFTER by Joel Chace; OH MISS MARY by Jim McCrary; DOVEY & ME by Strongin; and THE NAME POEMS by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Julie R. Enszer reviews A HALF-RED SEA by Evie Shockley

Nicholas Manning reviews TRACT by Jon Leon

Mary Jo Malo reviews BLOOD AND SALSA / PAINTING RUST by Jonathan Penton

Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor reviews THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino Realuyo

Eileen Tabios reviews THE ALLEGREZZA FICCIONES by Mark Young

Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews NAVIGATE, AMELIA EARHART'S LETTERS HOME by Rebecca Loudon

Nicholas Downing reviews CIVILIZATION by Elizabeth Arnold

William Allegrezza reviews KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews UNPROTECTED TEXTS: SELECTED POEMS 1978-2006 by Tom Beckett

Tom Beckett reviews A READING, 18-20 by Beverly Dahlen

Eileen Tabios reviews WIND IS WIND AND RAIN IS RAIN by Brynne

Allen Bramhall reviews DOWN SPOOKY by Shanna Compton

Lynn Strongin reviews SHOT WITH EROS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS and SEED PODS, both by Glenna Luschei

William Allegrezza reviews I OF THE STORM by Bill Lavender

Richard Lopez reviews OH MISS MARY by Jim McCrary

Craig Santos Perez reviews THE TIME AT THE END OF THIS and 60 LV BO(E)MBS, both by Paolo Javier

Anne Haines presents reviews RADISH KING by Rebecca Loudon; LIVING THINGS by Charles Jensen; and MORTAL by Ivy Alvarez

Lynn Strongin reviews THIRST by Mary Oliver

Mario E. Mireles reviews excerpts from NOT EVEN DOGS by Ernesto Priego; Matsuo Bash’s “The Narrow Road of the Interior" in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Ed. Maynard Mack; and Octavio Paz’s "The Tradition of the Haiku" in Convergences: Essays on Art and Literatur.

William Allegrezza reviews ELAPSING SPEEDWAY ORGANISM by Bruce Covey

Laurel Johnson reviews CALLS FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD by Robert Hershon

Eileen Tabios reviews BODY OF CRIMSON LEAVES by Celia Homesley

Eileen Tabios reviews THE PLANT WATERER AND OTHER THINGS IN COMMON by Kathryn Rantala

Julie R. Enszer reviews OSIP MANDELSTAM: NEW TRANSLATIONS, Ed. by Ilya Bernstein

Hugh Fox reviews SEEDPODS by Glenna Luschei

Marjorie Light reviews COMING FULL CIRCLE: THE PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION AMONG POST-1975 FILIPINO AMERICANS and A BOOK OF HER OWN: WORDS AND IMAGES TO HONOR THE BABAYLAN, both by Leny M. Strobel

Mark Young reviews SONNET by Matt Hart

Eileen Tabios reviews THE GRACES by Elizabeth Treadwell and SONNET by Matt Hart


FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE: REPRINTED REVIEWS
Andrew Joron reviews ULTRA VIOLET by Laura Moriarty

Britta Ameel reviews ALASKAPHRENIA by Christine Hume

Sharon Mesmer reviews OPPOSABLE THUMB by Joe Elliot

Eileen Tabios reviews OBEYED DILEMMA by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

Alfred Yuson reviews BELIEVE & BETRAY by Cirilo F. Bautista

Alfred Yuson reviews MATADORA by Sarah Gambito

Alfred Yuson reviews FAULTY ELECTRICAL WIRING: POEMS by Ruel S. De Vera, A FEAST OR ORIGINS by Dinah Roma and ELSE IT WAS PURELY GIRLS by Angelo Suarez


BACK COVER
What it Means to be Missy WinePoetics’ Dawgs

BREATHER POST

There's a good reason and a bad reason to take a breather from busily formatting the soon-to-be-released next issue of Galatea Resurrects:

BAD REASON:
Yo State of California -- your ridiculous energy policy is discouraging me from expanding Galatea's solar field. Now, does that even make sense? Woke up to today's news -- prices have risen another 5 cents per gallon at the pump! So, Google Moi, Gov. Schwarzenneger and other "CALIFORNIA ENERGY POLICY" makers: Get your acts together -- you're discouraging independent power producting activities.

GOOD REASON:
Well, Whooo and a ... Coooooooo! Yours Truly just got her FIRST

Hardcover ISBN

I will be in hardback! Worth breathing out a Nota Bene, moithinks.

Cooooo-ing over those numbers! Cooooo....!

NEW MONTHLY SERIES: ART FORUM PICK

I'm an Art Forum subscriber. Just for the heck of it, I've decided to blog my pick of best artwork in each monthly issue (subject to reproduction constraints). I came up with the idea after going through the current issue and, sigh, seeing just how much derivative stuff there is out there being hailed by art non-cognoscenti--those who look with their ears instead of their eyes. My pick encompasses all images in each issue, including ads (well, come to think of it, it feels like Art Forum's content is mostly ads). So, my inaugural pick:

Art Forum February Best Image: P. 88 -- Larry Poons (in an ad for his exhibit of "New Paintings" at Danese, Feb. 16.-Mar.17, 2007)

So there: if you listen with your ears, let Moi guide you. At least I know moi contemporary art!

From “Poetry Economics: A Moronic Oxymoron”
MOI'S LATEST "POET’S INCOME STATEMENT”

I just did my Poet's Income Statement for my 2006 tax return. By “Poet”, I include all my literary roles, so that it’s not just fees I earn as a writer (e.g. for my deliberately fewer and fewer readings or for publication fees), but also what I earn (or lose) as a publisher through Meritage Press. Now, I have never made a profit as a poet, so my goal has been to manage my losses. That I don’t make money as a poet shows (1) why poets need day-jobs or other sources of earnings, and (2) why many poetry publishers rely on grants to subsidize their publishing activities. As Meritage Press is a private press, I am not eligible for nonprofit type of grants but choose to subsidize my publishing activities from other sources (“Wine, anyone?” asks Missy Winepoetics). Here are the summaries for the last three years:

2004 SUMMARY:
TOTAL REVENUES: $7,194.62
TOTAL 2004 EXPENSES: $21,516.59
PROFIT/(LOSS): ($14,321.97)

2005 SUMMARY:
TOTAL REVENUES: $6,770.03
TOTAL EXPENSES: $12,932.82
PROFIT/(LOSS): ($6,162.79)

2006 SUMMARY:
TOTAL REVENUES: $3,607.47
TOTAL EXPENSES: $10,068.83
PROFIT/(LOSS): ($6,461.36)

2004 was a big loss, reflecting how I hadn’t yet switched to print-on-demand technology (POD) at Meritage Press. 2005’s expenses were significantly less, reflecting my incorporation of POD. The reduction in expenses, due to POD, continues in 2006.

Now, my loss would seem to be higher in 2006 rather than 2005. Certainly, that’s because I didn’t sell as much books, and chose to do less paying gigs, in 2006 versus 2005.

But the loss figure is deceptive when comparing 2006 with 2005. 2006 is the first year where I incorporate expenses related to Galatea Resurrects. I’d estimate that doing Galatea Resurrects cost me about $500-700 in 2006 -- such costs relate to postage and books “paid” to reviewers. If we adjust for the low-end estimate of $500, my 2006 Loss is actually $5,961.36 -- which means that overall, I did succeed in reducing my Annual Loss.

The willingness to subsidize Galatea Resurrects relates to how, as many of us poets know, three infrastructure weaknesses for poetry are (1) limited book publishing opportunities, (2) paucity of reviews, and (3) distribution systems for poetry publications. Knowing that my switch to POD would lower my costs, I decided to use some of the anticipated savings (viz cost reduction) to address one of these weaknesses: paucity of reviews.

For an extra $500-700, in 2006, I was able to help facilitate 176 new poetry reviews and 31 internet debuts of previously print-based reviews. I don’t know that, for the same amount of money, I could have done more to contribute to increased book publishing opportunities or facilitate a new distribution system.

Also, while it may be worth noting that I applied my M.B.A. and financial analytical skills to my involvement in poetry, this Poet’s Income Statement really can’t help but reflect what I believe to be true about Poetry: that it ultimately is a Gift Economy.

Which is all to say, too, that the Losses I’ve incurred financially (even though they've become more than double my initial goal to lose no more than $3,000 per year) have been more than made up by the rewards given by Poetry. For me, there has been no such thing as a Loss in an activity where the returns you receive are mostly based on what you give.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my annual tale of my poetry wallet’s transparency -- sponsored by the Internal Revenue Service. Sip. Tonight: a glass of the brilliantly luscious 1993 St. Hallett Old Block shiraz. Yum! Whatta Gift!

YAY TO EVE

Aschheim, the artist for the front cover of my SECRET PUNCTUATIONS book, who just opened a new exhibition in New York City! If you take a look at her drawing below, I think you'll see a "visual poetry ars poetica" -- how distillation results in minimalism that generates maximalist resonance (see my boldfaced section of an excerpt of press release below):



Here's Eve's Gallery Press Release -- why don't you New Yorkers check out her exhibit:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Eve Aschheim: New Drawings 2005-2006

February 1 – March 9, 2007

From February 1st through March 9th, 2007, Lori Bookstein Fine Art will present new work by Eve Aschheim. Using both sides of the semi-transparent support—all works are gesso, black gesso, ink and graphite on Duralene Mylar—the artist continues to draw on and expand her vocabulary of minimalist mark making. This is Aschheim's first solo show at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.

With the simplest of tools, and a severely restricted palette (pure whites and blacks, blues, and grays of varying opacity are her staple, with cameos by bright red) Aschheim creates delicate, penetrating worlds. Overlaid structures of dashes and lines converge and disperse on the paper, at times leaving large swaths of Mylar barren. Such spaces are in turn activated by the rhythm of her marks, which passes easily from harmonious order to subtle antagonism. In his review of the 2005 group show In Black and White for The New York Observer, Mario Naves describes Aschheim as having "an unprepossessing knack for reconciling opposing images, gestures and inclinations without diminishing their independence or their momentum—the pictures court chaos even as they remain wedded to structure."

Eve Aschheim was born in New York City and studied art at the University of California, Berkeley (BA, 1984) and the University of California, Davis (MFA, 1987). Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe. Selected solo exhibitions include Lori Bookstein Fine Art; University Gallery at the Fine Arts Center; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Galerie Rainer Borgemeister, Berlin; and Galleri Magnus Åklundh, Lund, Sweden. Aschheim has received fellowships from the Elizabeth Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her honors include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award. Her work belongs to numerous collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Kunstmuseum, Bonn; the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, and the New York Historical Society. In 2003 Aschheim was appointed Director of the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University.
__
LORI BOOKSTEIN FINE ART
37 West 57th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10019
Tel (212) 750-0949
www.loribooksteinfineart.com

CALL FOR REVIEWS!

Woooo! And that wasn't Daddy the Owl! I'ma Woooo-ing as today was a big snailmail day for receiving review copies for Galatea Resurrects! Including "advance copies" from Coffee House....which further includes RIPPLE EFFECT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Elaine Equi! Now, that be a major event even bigger than, uh, today's snailmail!

So, surely you lovely Peeps wanna go to Galatea's Review Copy List and choose something to resurrect for the Sixth Issue -- deadline May 5, 2007? Of course you do! Go on! Choose something! Then email Moi at GalateaTen@aol.com

Of course I'm also highlighting Elaine Equi here because as I pridefully blogged before in a prior blog, I was the first blogger she read! Preen. Who knows, though? She may not read blogs anymore after my blather. But still, that doesn't preclude me from emphasizing, we got her SELECTED in Galatea's House! A goodie, Peeps. Woooo.

THAT "NARRATIVE ARC"

As I receive the reviews that will come to comprise the fifth issue of Galatea Resurrects, I paused over one because the reviewer had made the point that he might have read one poem -- call it "A" -- differently if it had been placed earlier in the book and before some other poems that came to affect his reading of "A".

This points out how the order of poems matter; some of us -- and I often do -- read poetry collections in the order in which the poems are presented because I assume that the poet had something in mind about the order of the poems, and I wanted first to meet the material on the poet's own terms. Later, I might jump around the book, relishing any one poem, but I actually want my first read of a poetry collection to be read chronologically.

Anyway, this issue also relates to something I've sometimes addressed here: the "narrative arc" of poetry collections which, at one point, I called "inevitable." Clearly, some people design a poetry collection to be just that: literally a collection of individual poems. I don't actually dispute that (since I'm not interested in a binary of that approach versus poetry collections put together as a "book", which presents its own dimension)...but that response bypasses something I mean when I discuss narrative arc in poetry collections. (Not to say that others can't mean differently the notion of narrative arc).

But in my case, while I believe that (1) poems can be written as a series of sorts (thus promoting an "arc") versus individually, as well as (2) individually-made poems later can be contextualized under some arc viz a book, there's really another concept that relates to why I think a "(narrative) arc" is inevitable.

It has to do with how poetry transcends authorial intent -- that language's power can transcend any one poet's conception of it (this is basic, yah?, and exemplified often by how the same poem(s) can generate different readings from more than one reader). To paraphrase Stein, you put two (or more) seemingly unrelated words together and yet, somehow, that phrase creates a significance (if not meaning) to the reader due to such combination.

Similarly, a poetry collection which might be intended by the poet to be just a group of poems with no arc intended will still generate an arc based on how the poems relate to each other and flow from each other page to page. Hence, we have the example of this one Galatea reviewer whose reading of a poem somewhere in the middle of the book was sizeably influenced by the poems that preceded it.

Put another way, let's say you want to put together a poetry collection by randomly ordering a group of poems. If I read those poems together I can still sense an arc to the poetry collection -- an arc that the poet may not have intended. The only way, perhaps, to avoid this effect is to do what certainly many other poetry readers do, which is open poetry books at random and read one poem here, one poem there...over a prolonged interval of time. A friend reads my 504-page ENGLISH this way, reading a poem a day, which is a legitimate way to read the book (and addresses the test of whether any one poem is a good poem versus "filler"), even as this reading approach doesn't fully meet the work on its own terms since the overall organization is part of the project. Matter of fact, a Peep backchannelled recently to ask how I managed to create a unity among disparate fragments in ENGLISH. So here -- a reader "got" that book's arc.

If the narrative arc happens to be what's fashionable nowadays, and some poets deliberately write as such, this has nothing to do with my concept of an arc's inevitability. Actually, I believe most poets just write whatever it is they feel compelled to write, regardless of what's deemed fashionable. No doubt, some may consider me naive for believing that...which is a shame in itself.

MOI'S FRAGMENTED SELF

Just received my contributor's copies and January edition of FOURSQUARE, that fabulous publication edited/published by Jessica Smith! Totally love it! I haven't seen FOURSQUARE before as subscriptions were sold out; fortunately, I was able recently to subscribe. It's a fabulous hand-made, multidimensional way of offering poetry, complete with, for my issue, gold coins which you can unwrap to eat ... chocolate! Chocolate is gold! Yeah!

Anyway, here is the Vizpo image from which Jessica excerpted my contribution -- where the self is fragmented, not by poetry techniques, but by politics, dictatorship, diaspora and war:



Thanks again for the opportunity! I love these intimate gestures in poetry...And now: on to that golden chocolate!

A HAY(NA)KU BIBLIOGRAPHY

I've just updated the Hay(na)ku Poetry Blog site to begin a Bibliography where I mention books and other publications in which hay(na)ku appears. Please email me at GalateaTen@aol.com if you know of other publications. The initial Bibliography list is off the top of my head, just to get things started.

This is for a project that's likely to debut in 2010 so I know that I'll at least take additions to the Bibliography until then. So please include publications that are forthcoming but known to include hay(na)ku. I also am not au courant with publications that include visual hay(na)ku so please share that information.

For the same project, I also must now keep tabs on the Links to various sites that display hay(na)ku, which is the second post below the Bibliography. For such, please also alert me to changes and updates.

Thank you, Dears.

DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR GR (NOT GRRRRR).

So, I just overheard this:

Through her blog, Eileen Tabios has been a great supporter of my work, almost reviving a book of mine that I'd pretty much considered dead.

Really? I hadn't known..."revive" as in "resurrects" maybe...? Heee...

...which seems a veeeery nice introduction to this post's news: the deadline for the next issue of Galatea Resurrects has been extended to the end of this weekend (Feb. 11). So you reviewer-peeps who just needed the extra few days, you got...the extra few days!

Meanwhile, as always, check Galatea's Purse for additions to the review copy list. The more the merrier! Let's resurrect poetry projects!

MUSIC TO MOI EARS

Barry Schwabsky sends out his annual music list with "best CDs of 2006" below:

1. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain
2. Cat Power: The Greatest
3. I'm from Barcelona: I'm from Barcelona
4. Arctic Monkeys: Whatever People Say That I Am, That's What I'm Not
5. The Mountain Goats: Get Lonely
6. Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere
7. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Ballad of the Broken Seas
8. Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
9. Clap Your hands Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
10. Howlin Rain: Howlin Rain
11. CSS: Cansei de Ser Sexy
12. Yo La Tengo: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
13. Juana Molina: Son

Though I post the list as much to remind myself to get them, this year, I was struck by a parenthetical in Barry's email, to wit:

"(with apologies to all the good music I probably never got a chance to hear)"

Barry's admission that there are other good music out there besides what he judges as "top" is refreshing...and makes more credible his opinion as to what may well be best.

BREATHER #2

I have a writing studio separate from the house. But at the moment, there's a huge cat sunning itself in front of its entrance. It's either this Puss (an oversized version), or that Puss.

I guess I won't write today.

TAKING A BREATHER

...thus, I blog! I'm swamped. I'm copyediting my two 2007 books at the same time (one is a Fall book but production begins next week). And these are thick books -- the Spring book will be about 400 pages and the Fall book to be between 300-400 pages. Then, I'm reviewing a new title to be published by Meritage Press -- another groundbreaking project: STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AMERICAN ARTISTS edited by Theo Gonsalvez (more on this book later, except to give you the appetizer that it includes Eleanor Academia--Whoooo!)

Anyway, with the few breaths left in my breather, I just want to point you to this fabulous interview by Ric Carfagna of Vernon Frazer (at BIG BRIDGE) The interview is useful for, among other things, discussing a poetry book that is arguably my favorite discovery in 2006 (though the book was published in 2005): IMPROVISATIONS by Vernon Frazer.

I'm pleased to have another chance to recommend IMPROVISATIONS -- it's too often the case that the work that's advancing poetry is not what elicits attention. This would seem to be an occupational hazard for something so dismissed by culture -- such that, for example, certain National Book Critics Circle critics, if this article is correct, can't even be bothered to care enough about poetry to vote on it because to vote requires that they have to educate themselves on something in which they have no interest: poetry.

But then again, maybe the way the NBCC crits address poetry (letting the poets handle it) may be the right way. After all, I just read a fiction writer present herself as an expert on poetry and the ignorance displayed is simply, uh, breathtaking, but also not likely to be challenged because, who cares about poetry?

Well, ooops. Certainly didn't mean for this blog post to be a rant (heh). So, turning full circle -- if you care about poetry, do check out -- as I was saying earlier -- IMPROVISATIONS by Vernon Frazer.

WHEN MOI IS A MOM

Here on Galatea where blood-red roses have sprouted, it's the third week of taking care of Gabriela -- she had an ingrown hair, that she worried into a growth that the vet had to surgically excise and whose sutures then got infected requiring a second visit to the vet and since then the whole household has been taking care of her since she's not allowed to move much until tomorrow when her stitches are hopefully finally taken out -- to wit:



That'd be Artemis and Missy Scarlet hovering guard behind baby Gabriela's ass. Moi's avid readers have seen this photo before, but it still captures the moment. We call it recontextualization poetics. Yadda.

LISTEN! THIS IS HISTORIC!!!

I have never done before what I am about to do.

I am about to identify for you, this early in the 21st century, what surely will be one of the defining literary moments of our 21st century time!!!!

A romp that extends modernism!

To wit, I was finishing up a review I was compelled to do on Mark Young's novella, the allegrezza ficcione. (I say "compelled" because I choose which books I review based solely on the works, rather than their authors even though I consider Mark a pal.) You will be able to read the entire review in the next issue of Galatea Resurrects, which will come out later this month. But I'm so excited over this discovery that I am going to give you a preview, by quoting the conclusion of the review:

The effects of blogging on literature are obviously still being written. Mark Young's the allegrezza ficcione is undisputably one which will reflect how history, poetry, science fiction and magical realism were alchemized into something differently-modern through the existence of poetry blogland and the internet. That's right -- you heard it here first: Mark Young's the allegrezza ficcione is historic and will come to be considered a 21st century classic. CHECK IT OUT HERE!!

This is not something I say lightly. Check it out, Peeps.