WHEN YOU ARE THE BABAYLAN...: A LIFE ANTHOLOGY

Mommy-hood is ... time-consuming! And might I say that Michael did an outstanding job in soccer this weekend (his team tied 2-2), which is a better result than the prior game. Anyway, Mommy-hood takes up enough time such that rather than write up a new lecture for SF State's "Writers on Writing" series that I'll do tomorrow evening, I'm going to root my talk in my already-written "Babaylan Poetics" essay and leap it to link to Nota Bene Eiswein which students in Bob Gluck's Creative Writing course are reading. My thoughts on "Babaylan Poetics" are not yet widely-disseminated, though aspects of it have been delivered at two prior conferences, so it should be fresh enough. I mench all this because I'm excited to see a possible front cover of the forthcoming --and historic -- and unique! -- anthology RECLAIMING THE NOW: THE BABAYLAN IS US edited by Leny Strobel:



Leny is among the visionary scholars who've done work with a multiplicity of side-effects, one of which is the debunking of the notion that literary history is solely based on modernism.

I also much appreciate how my Babaylan essay will be in a, not solely a literary anthology but, life anthology. Other contributors discuss a variety of topics ranging over spirituality to family to decolonization to "re-imagining possibilities" to the diaspora to martial arts. More info on the Babaylan Project is HERE. Much thanks to Leny for contributing to scholarship by not doing it the *usual way* (that be the poet's way...).

As to other things I'm relishing, here's my latest Relished W(h)ine List -- :

CITY SLICKER'S SPRING/SUMMER/FALL GARDEN HARVEST (to date)
14 bunches of yellow table grapes
37 bunch of red flame table grapes
22 bunches of Concord grapes
91 green figs
24 black figs
41 red cherry tomatoes
217 golden cherry tomatoes
215 red heirloom tomatoes
37 yellow heirloom tomatoes
4 peaches
5 artichokes
125 green onion stalks
14 onions/scallions
92 strawberries
43 yellow squash
30 zucchini (2 the size of infants, 2 the size of canoes, 2 the size of my arm beneath the elbow)
315 basil leaves
75 lemon cucumbers
26 cucumbers
25 pepper leaves
19 green bell peppers
32 jalapeno peppers
30 mint leaves
30 yellow squash leaves


PUBLICATIONS
"IN MEMORY OF REV. MARLEA J. CONRAD WABER", mail art by Dan Waber (this is the most effective piece of "mail art" -- or broadside -- I have ever seen. Really moving memorial to the poet's mother)

SITUATIONS, poems by Laura Carter

HI HIGHER HYPERBOLE, poems by Nicholas Manning (witty; had a grin throughout my reading)

WASTE, poems by Thierry Brunet (this is an excellently-wrought project! But it's likely not to get the recognition it deserves. So, out from BlazeVOX: Spread the word!)

RHAPSODY IN PLAIN YELLOW, poems by Marilyn Chin

THE LAST 4 THINGS, poems by Kate Greenstreet

SONG OF A LIVING ROOM, poems by Brigitte Byrd

MAKE IT HAPPEN, poem broadside by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

OCTOBER CENTERFOLD, poems by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright and images by Nathaniel Hester

MARCH 18, 2003, poem by Michael Lally

THE TWENTIETH TRAIN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE AMBUSH OF THE DEATH TRAIN TO AUSCHWITZ by Marion Schreiber

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, novel by Stieg Larsson

A RELIABLE WIFE, novel by Robert Goolrick

TURNING ANGEL, novel by Greg Iles

BLOODSTREAM, novel by Tess Gerritsen

BODY LANGUAGE, novel by James Hall

A PROMISE FOR SPRING, novel by Kim Vogel Sawyer


WINES
1999 Corullon Bierzo
2006 Ojai syrah Santa Barbara
1995 Thalgara "Show Reserve" shiraz
Chikurin Fukamari Junmai
2003 Rausan Despagne
1970 Ch. Lynch Bages
2002 Blankiet cabernet "Paradise Hills Vineyard"
2003 Clare Luce Abbey
R.L. Buller & Son Fine Muscat Solera
2006 Peter Michael charddonnay "Ma Belle Fille"