PANTHEON...PLUS

Well, I wrote a poetry series/chap (scroll down) called ROMAN HOLIDAY (also included in THE THORN ROSARY) and, as my poems often foretell the future (yes they do!), the family's off to manifest the poetry!



The Pantheon is probably the most impressive building I've ever entered. Perhaps because, as a temple, it was meant for "all gods"? Anyway, I'll be teaching history to Michael there in the next couple of weeks (one of the downsides of English-as-a-second-language is that it supplants a course and, for his 7th grade, this meant that Michael was not taught History), along of course with exposing him to real Italian food (I haven't visited every country in the world but, to date in my experience, no one can best the Italians at cuisine).

While not watching my waistline (Hello Venice, Florence, Rome, Padua, Sienna and even Pisa!), I'll be offline. I'll return calls and emails after my return to the U.S. on July 1.

Until then, I'll hang out with Raphael -- his bust here over his tomb in the Pantheon:



Here, of course, is the 18th century painting of the Pantheon's interior by Giovanni Paolo Panini:



To the Arts ... and parenting about those Arts!

SUMMER READING RECOMMENDATIONS!

For Poetry, my Recommendations are HERE at No Tells Blog. I rarely do "Recommended Lists" because they're always incomplete, as this one is. But I figgered that, this time, better to recommend something(s) than just be silent ....

Meanwhile, we celebrated Father's Day during dinner tonight. Here's Michael's present--just purrrr-fect for the occasion as the hubby has used beekeeping as a means for father-son bonding:



Here's a detail that makes Moi laugh -- that would-be beekeeper looks kinda nervous!



Anyway, I always relish my son's artistic talent. Speaking of relishes, here's my last updated Relished W(h)ine List before I go offline on Monday until July 1 (which means I can't return emails until next month):


SPRING HARVEST:
1 stalk of "miner's weed"
100 stalks of green onion
77 strawberries
2 artichokes
2 cherries
7 zucchini
4 stalks of scallions
3 summer squash


PUBLICATIONS
(MADE), poems by Cara Benson

EMINENT DOMAIN, poems (in manuscript) by Justin Petropoulos

LANTERN REVIEW: A JOURNAL OF ASIAN AMERICAN POETRY, Ed. Iris A. Law (is it me or there seems to be a resurgence of new Asian American literary journals...?)

THE PIED PIPER, novel by Ridley Pearson

RAPTURE IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb

VISIONS IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb

MEMORY IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb


WINES
1997 Sandrone La Vigna
2000 Bierzo "Corullon"

TWEEN SILLINESS

Knucklehead--that's what Moi thinks whenever Michael does something silly. Often, something silly because tweens just can't help themselves sometimes. Like, we just got his fourth quarter grades. Boy got his best grade results yet -- STRAIGHT A's....except for one class. And that one class? Of all things: Chorus.

Chorus! The easiest class he had (he basically just had to show up and participate but couldn't really be judged on his singing ability, or lack thereof). Why? Cause he disliked Chorus so much that he never took it seriously. So for this one class project whose results brought down his grades, he apparently messed around in class instead of paid attention. His classmates graded each other for that project--and they gave his group a B-. I was so irritated that -- and also for turning it into a "teachable moment" -- I made him volunteer to do an extra credit paper. That paper, which was actually good in helping him practice English writing, brought his final 4th grade result to a B.

Still, straight As except for that B which would have been so easy (versus, say, Math or Science where he worked his butt off) to get an A. Sigh. Fortunately, I'm not one of those "hovering helicopters."

Y'all know what a "hovering helicopter" is? Apparently, it's the term for parents who closely hover over their children. Hey, at least I'm not a "Black Hawk" parent! (click on link to see what I mean)...

....whrrrrr, whrrrrrr, whrrrrr....

***

Here's an older photo of Michael with some visitors -- I keep forgetting to post it. But I post it because I love these two darling girls ...



... and stumbling across this photo made me remember another recent incident. I had limited Michael to "60,000 girlfriends"? Well, he came up to me the other day and announced,

"Mom, I've broken up with the bees. This means I can begin to look for 60,000 new girlfriends, right?!"

....whrrrrr, whrrrrrr, whrrrrr....

MATH: A POETICS

You know, I had had different plans for how I was going to spend my life at this point of my life...and it wasn't to continually rehash middle school math. Sigh. Below is a photo of Michael beginning summer math tutorial to catch up with the standards of his new school in the Fall. It's been interesting (euphemism for frustrating) teaching math to Michael -- if you show Michael how to do one exercise, and the next 99 exercises are similar in structure, he will do the next 99 all correctly. But, the next day, he won't necessarily remember how to do the same type of problem, which means he is not always getting the concept of the math. He is the best mimic and copy-er which, if one thinks about it, has been one of his ways of surviving his prior orphanage-life (to copy, to blend in...). Now, we have to teach Michael by not just teaching subject-content but also to gear his brain to conceptualize versus to (simply) copy. The issue is not simply one of math but also one of culture.



Conceptualization, of course, is often the dividing line between the greats and the ... crowd. If, for example, you take a look at Vermeer's painting "The Girl With a Wine Glass," you might see just another domestic scene of an interior with a painting hanging on one wall. But if you click on the link and go through the right-side explanations by Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock, you'll see reference to "the careful placing of the upright ancestral portrait between the two male figures focus(ing) on the artist's concerns for the lack of moral constraint in contemporary life. The rigid pose and somber treatment of this passage enhances its none-too subtle admonitory message." Keep going through the prose about this painting and you'll see the layers of complexity in Vermeer's conceptualization of a painting of "a girl with a wine glass" (and one reason I honor it through SILK EGG).

I've always been lousy at math. So I used to think it ironic that I had an international banking career when, without the calculator, I couldn't ever resolve many math problems. But what I then observed (and I guess my prior employers realized) is that the ability to resolve math problems is something. But more valuable at times is the ability to frame the math question. Ultimately, management is an art and it's one reason why artists (or those with artistic leanings) often end up being great corporate managers (one of my favorite CEOs is one I met who had poetry books on his shelves in addition to business tomes). In both the arts and business, answering an inherited question is always easier than framing the next (apt) question.

So should artists take over corporations? Based on many recent examples, how could artists do worse than the monkeys who successfully clambered up the corporate ladders, yah?

But I've also observed how many artists find it difficult to respond to a question often asked in bottom-line oriented businesses: WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?

On one level, the artistic mindset -- if it is one coming from being as open and expansive as possible -- would have to be re-geared to be able to focus on and privilege a certain matter in order to determine a "bottom line".

What I've observed is that in both the arts and the corporate sector, it's the combination of a fluid mindset that also can hone into what's important at a particular point of time (that bottom line) that can generate "successes."

This next paragraph was then going to share the secret for making a million dollars in a million seconds. Sadly, that will have to await another day as I now must go instead to prepare a fractions tutorial for Michael...

POETRY

Achilles loves his frisbee...and a picture is worth a thousand-plus words.

Thanks Michelle for the photo!

MOI "COUNTRY LIFE"

I expected the snakes and snails and puppy dog tails. But bats?!!!!

Just when I thought we were turning in for the night, the household erupted into chaos. A bat had gotten into the house! Michael first noticed it in his bedroom. So what did he do? What any 14-year-old boy would do: Look for his digital camera and start to chase it! He trapped it in my (yeah: MY) bedroom. After he closed the bedroom doors on said bat (and, unfortunately though temporarily, the two cats), he yells down at me in the kitchen the obvious: There's a Bat in the House!

I immediately call the hubby on the phone -- he was in transit commuting in from SF -- and yell at him: There's a Bat in the House! (Is there an echo on this blog?)

Anyway, said hubby instructs -- go get the long pole with net usually used for clearing leaves from the pool. Then, he proclaims, trap the bat in said net!

Sounds easy, right? But as I didn't have a better idea, down to the other side of the backyard go the dogs and I in nightgown for said pole with net. It's a trek, by the way, that around here unfolds at night to the music of coyotes howling at their dinner targets. I get the pole and net and bring it back to the house. Meanwhile, per the hubby's instructions, Michael's put on his beehiving outfit over his pyjamas so that the bat won't bite him when he tries to net it.

Now, throughout, I am thinking: the odds of us actually netting that bat are in the negative numero range. But we soldier on into our bedroom, Michael all gleeful and I trotting behind him with his baseball bat (I have no clue; I thought maybe the bat would come at me so I'd swing at the bat with a bat. Seriously.) Fortunately, Michael just took one attempt and, Voila!, here he is in raptures over the netted bat!



After torturing the bat with many camera shots complete with flashes, Michael finally agrees to release the poor thing to the night air. More night music of coyotes as we go to the far side of the yard away from the house to release it. 'Twas a beautiful moon tonight, and the bat sailed right to its white cheese. And now may we all all live happily ever after.

ARTICHOKE POETICS

I have a pathetic vegetable/fruit harvest result-list (see City Slicker "SPRING HARVEST" below). But I think it's because of what this photo symbolizes: in order for an artichoke to flower, it's gotta get past the veggie stage when it otherwise would be "harvested" for eats. But look at that flower arising from the artichoke patch -- isn't it as ferocious as a poem?! Not edible in terms of original intention, but seductive in a fresh way...



Anyway, here's moi latest “Relished W(h)ine List)”"


SPRING HARVEST:
1 stalk of "miner's weed"
100 stalks of green onion
45 strawberries
2 artichokes
2 cherries (sigh)
2 zucchini
4 stalks of scallions


PUBLICATIONS
LAST WORD IS THE POET'S CALLING, poem by Aileen Ibardaloza

TIMES IN RHYMES, RUINS, poem by Jon Curley
(The Ibardaloza and Curley titles are the latest additions to Hay(na)ku for Haiti (Click HERE for more info and free book offer!)

SYMPHONY NO. 1 (EN ENTROPIC CUBIST DIMENSIONALITY), poems by Ric Carfagna (FABULOUS updating of the 20th century's cubist experiments in poetry. Page 4 alone is worth checking out :-). Click HERE to do so in a free read!)

AERODOME ORION & STARRY MESSENGER, poems by Susan Gevirtz (ethereal but embodied at the same time)

TRANCE ARCHIVE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Andrew Joron (read many of these poems before but also enjoyable to see it in a Selected context. If you're in the Bay Area, you should try to attend Andrew's reading with Will Alexander! this Wednesday, June 16, at 7 p.m. at City Lights!)

WATER THE MOON, poems by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (had read this before in manuscript form; lovely to see it in finished book form!)

GRIEF SUITE, poems by Bobbi Lurie (a searing courage)

THE SEVEN AGES, poems by Louise Gluck (stellar writing but made me wonder what would happen, too, if she started relying more on, say, a third-party pronoun...)

AS IT TURNED OUT by Dmitry Golynko, Trans. by Eugene Ostashevsky with Rebecca Bella and Simona Schneider

ALL THAT GORGEOUS PITILESS SONG, poems by Rebecca Foust

WINGS WITHOUT BIRDS, poems by Brian Henry

FAULTY MOTHERING, poems by Elaine Randell

THE DOORS OF THE BODY, poems by Mary Alexandra Agner

WHOMEANSWHAT, poems by Lars Palm

INFINITE DIFFERENCE: OTHER POETRIES BY U.K. WOMEN POETS, Ed. Carrie Etter (educational, useful, necessary)

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, novel by Stieg Larsson

ORIGIN IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb

DIVIDED IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb


WINES
2008 Blankiet "Prince of Hearts" NV Rose Wine
2007 Peter Michael "Belle Cote" chardonnay
2003 Pride cabernet franc Sonoma County
2002 Rusden "Black Guts" Shiraz Barossa Valley

"LITERATURE...TOWARDS LIBERATORY PRACTICE"

Here's latest anthology in which Moi appears: WALANG HIYA: Literature Taking Risks Towards Liberatory Practice (translated as "without shame").

And am pleased to be part of the Poets for Living Waters project curated by Amy King and Heidi Lynn Staples in response to the BP oil spill disaster. Innit with a poem, statement of conscience and explication of Michael and his anti-colony collapse disorder beekeeping. I was very happy, too, to be able to meld some Babaylan Poetics/indigenized POV into that conscience-statement...

THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU -- A LONG-AWAITED UPDATE!

Three years in the making! But it shall soon arrive! I am talking about THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT anthology that will be released by Meritage Press and its trusted Finnish co-publisher, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's xPress(ed)! Here is the gorgeous front cover designed by award-winning artist Mimi Nolledo:



A Book Description:
The hay(na)ku's swift popularity would not have been possible without internet-based communication. With the internet's capacity for engendering collaborations, it was inevitable that a collaborative hay(na)ku project such as THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU would arise. It, of course, was fitting that THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU anthology began with an invitation from a blog. On June 24, 2007, an invitation was posted on http://chainedhaynaku.wordpress.com/ for poets to participate in hay(na)ku collaborations. Nearly a hundred poets and artists from around the world responded, and this anthology is one result, along with friendships and much fun! Forthcoming in Summer 2010 from Meritage Press and xPressed and available soon from Amazon, Lulu.com, direct from Meritage Press, among other outlets.

Participants:
Curated by Ivy Alvarez, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ernesto Priego and Eileen R. Tabios. Participants besides the curators: Ira Franco, Denise Duhamel, Ariana Mason, Maya Mason, Thomas Fink, Burt Kimmelman, Molly Diablo Mason, Sandy McIntosh, Joseph D. Haske, La Erika Garza-Johnson, Sam Arizpe, Rodney Gomez, Emmy Pérez, Airlie Rose, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich, Horacio Castillo, Holly Anderson, Caroline Beasley-Baker, Lisa B. Burns, Amy Bernier, Majena Mafe, Natasha Narain, Mela Fitzgibbon, Jeff Harrison, Allen Bramhall, Anny Ballardini, Sam Bloomberg-Rissman, May Garsson, Adele Mendelson, Edna Cabcabin Moran, Hannah Newman, Ellie Haworth, Kate Studd, Lucy Morris, Holly Anderson, Caroline Beasley-Baker, Lisa B. Burns, Peg Duthie, Donna Carter, Neal Jettpace, Jean Vengua, Michael Fink, Margo Ponce, Lola Bola, Kristi Castro, Anne Froyen Mowery, Kaja Mowery, Jean Gier, Tom Novack, Candida Kutz, Jeff Hansman, Joselyn Ignacio, Kate Coulter, Liza Li, Mary Vezilich, Mike McGuire, Mardi May, Sally Clarke, Amanda Jackson, Paula Jones, Janet Jackson, Ginger Stickney, Liz Breslin, Kunal Dutta, Tom Lewis, mIEKAL aND, Audacia Dangereyes, Sheila Murphy, Maria Damon, Dirk Vekemans, Jim Piat, Halvard Johnson, William Bain, steve d dalachinsky, Gregory Severance, MD, Larissa Shmailo, Bob Marcacci, John M. Bennett, Patricia Carragon, Om Mani Padme Hum, hands proje, and Thomas Savage.

MOI HAD TO MUG VERMEER

to steal the wine glass in this painting so that I could complete SILK EGG!



Which is to say, here's the first draft of SILK EGG's "book description" below -- but first let me share that ...

...generally, I've written books to learn something. But SILK EGG: Collected Novels (2009-2009) is the first book where I feel everything I'd learned to that point of creation all melded together into some rapturous birthing, which is why I also can say I wrote these dozen novels in a limited period of time--I think a month). Anyway, perhaps the book description will elucidate (somewhat):

SILK EGG: A Book Description:
Last century, I temporarily borrowed Jorge Luis Borges' chatelaine. I slipped off a certain key and made a copy before I returned it to its chains and the old man (OMG: can he ever snore!). Since then, I've been able to slip into Jorgie’s Library of Babel whenever I wished—that permanent stain on the 7th floor's limestone windowsill was from the d'Yquem I'd carelessly spilled from my treasured wine glass (stolen previously from Vermeer). About a year after I wrote all of the novels that comprise SILK EGG, I returned to the Library of Babel's 7th floor with a bottle of Ajax cleanser (“stronger than dirt!”) that I'd hoped would work this time in erasing proof of my unpermitted visitations: that hardened pool of “nectar of the gods” ever winking out a small sun from the bibliophilic dimness. It was during this yet again failed attempt at the domestic arts that I also stumbled across a book whose spine mirrored the color of the sweet liquid I'd spilled; I do love this wine’s color—an apt symbol of enlightenment among Buddhists. I pulled out the book from the shelf, blew off the dust, opened it, and discovered there the same words that comprise SILK EGG. However, the novels were contextualized by the book's title: INEVITABLE GIBBERISH. I dispute the Library of Babel's context—but there's no need to take my word for it: I've decided to release SILK EGG to the public and have readers judge whether these novels are more than the leavings from more acceptable narratives as authors strive to use every letter, space and punctuation mark in every possible combination.
--Eileen R. Tabios

Jean, if no one else, might appreciate the subtitle "Collected Novels (2009-2009)"...so: what facet of the literary world does this (affectionately) critique? There's that trickster in Moi!

LATEST HAY(NA)KU VARIATION

would be Jean's

Hay(na)ku Sentence

! Very kewl! Or, to put it more fittingly,

It seems obvious like all-black paintings; but one still has to paint!

GROWING THE EYE

Here is a fantastic photo by Michael--so fantastic that we're submitting it to the American Bee Journal (it's waaaay better than the current issue's cover photo, I nota bene with an unbiased lucid eye).



Here is Michael by our beehive...that he painted as well with the colors of the Colombian flag (laugh):



The bees arrived at about the same time Big, Burly Men worked on installing gardens. So there's plenty of flowers to go around, like in this shot with Mom doing her daily walk (which I insist she does particularly as she's now been afflicted with writer-disease):



Given our own interests, it's been a joy to have a child around who's developing his eye nicely as well as his own artistic talents. A blessing. It requires much pollination, after all, to create Honey.

AUTHOR AUTEUR: A PHOTO SHOOT

Moi digs her latest publisher: Shearsman Books for upcoming SILK EGG: Collected Novels (2011). Only a publisher with wit, style and grace would allow traditional author photos not to be so ... traditional! To wit, they needed an author photo and I proposed, and they accepted, a performance-based shot based on Moi as Thetis rising from the sea (uh, as flowed through into Galatea's fountain) whispering to Achilles as he plays draughts with Ajax:



Okay, love 'em both. I also ended up whispering later in Ajax's ears:



The fountain of course is based on the brilliant Exekias' amphora of Achilles and Ajax at Draughts, Black Figure Ware Amphora, Greek, 540 BCE:



So what was I whispering? Not actually game advice -- just that I'm in with two poems "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" and "Sacred Time" in OCHO 30 (love that segue, don't you?) published/edited by Didi Menendez. GO HERE for mine and stellar company provided by Bob Hicok, Nick Carbo, David Krump, Sam Rasnake, Favia Tamayo, Letitia Trent, Grace Cavalieri, Cheryl Townsend, Andrei Guruianu, Peggy Eldrige-Love and Christine Klocek-Lim!

What's also cool about this issue of OCHO 30 is the bio section where poets were asked to identify their favorite poet and why. My answer:

[My] favorite poet is Philip Lamantia whose faith and generosity [I] continuously strive to deserve.

I also like Letitia Trent's answer. Her favorite is Barbara Guest

"who knew that everything is strange if you look at it the right way."

JEST LIKE A POET, BEST IN ... ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE!

I was thinking how ironic it is that Michael got the OUTSTANDING STUDENT OF THE YEAR award for his English class! Ironic because his number one tutor, Mama Moi, is ... a poet. But then again, what we're talking about is specifically English As A Second Language....so, I guess that works! Today was Awards Day for 6th and 7th graders at Michael's school; here is Michael being called up to be recognized:



Here he is with other awardees and, left to right, his English teacher, assistant vice principal, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent. Big guns came out to applaud Moi boy!



And here's the treasure!



So proud I happily share I just busted a gut!

HOUSEKEEPING

I will be off-line from June 20 to July 1, 2010.

So if you need to contact me, please do so before June 20. Or if you email me and don't hear from me, please know I'm not back to emailing until after July 1, 2010.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish the design work on THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU Anthology, hoping to send it to printer within the next two weeks. So exciting...and so frazzled! Thanks to the nearly 100 poets and artists from around the world who are participating in this project for your patience in waiting out the book's release!

THREE / HUNDRED ARE / TERCETS FOR HAITI

...so far. That is, to date, the Hay(na)ku for Haiti project has raised $300 for Haiti relief. That's one hundred tiny but big-hearted poetry booklets sold to date; my thanks to the 16 poets so far who've donated poems for this Haiti fundraising. More details HERE, and also to say that the two newest editions are:

#15: Last word is the poet’s calling by Aileen Ibardaloza

and

#16: Times in Rhymes, Ruins by Jon Curley

Remember that any order of at least $15 (five booklets since each costs $3.00 each) will also snag you a complimentary copy of THE THORN ROSARY (whose retail prices range from the $19.95 paperback to the $750 hardback signed/drawn edition) -- what a bargain...and it's for a fundraising!

Last but not least, here is today's guest blogger: SEAN PENN: "the first person served by service is the server".

POETRY AS A WAY OF LIFE

I know the power of the internet. So when I toss around things like THIS or THIS, I do so with the hope that it'll make a difference somehow. Well, it did--click HERE. Jonathan, a ten-year-old boy from Medellin, Colombia will be hosted by a Kidsave family this summer -- hopefully, he will find a family through the process.

Speaking of Kidsave alumni and the marvels of older child adoption, here's Michael rewarding himself with a strawberry for his latest award certificate: a SUPER STUDENT AWARD in Math! (That should be enough to encourage you to check out my Footnotes to Algebra, right?)

Poetry--it's also an algebraic formula that the discerning might solve....

E-HEARING!

I see many interesting things on the NZEPC's "Home & Away 2010" symposium....but so far I've most enjoyed hearing the sound of Mark Young's voice. Click on link and listen to his talk "Widening the Community: Otoliths and how". Many of my blog's readers are familiar with Mark Young and Otoliths. You'll enjoy listening to his voice, too.

Check. Still on my Bucket List: an in-person meet where I cheerfully give him a hug -- this Dude understands community in the 21st century! To wit:

"It's community. It's all frontier ..."

THANK YOU FOR THE THANK YOU

Barbara Jane Reyes is interviewed by Lantern Review, and here's an excerpt:

Two of my poetry mentors, Jaime Jacinto and Eileen Tabios, were hands on. Whereas I consider the monumental community figure like Al Robles to have been inspirational (because of his poems, the subject matter of his poems, and his community work; his poetic and political practice were the same thing), Jaime and Eileen gave me a lot of one-on-one concrete literary advice about where to submit my work, which poets to read; they asked me hard questions about what I wanted my poetry to do, and advised me accordingly. Both have also read my manuscripts in progress and given me feedback on these. These two also brought me into literary reading venues and as editors, into publication.

Here's what's ... sad. Part (just part) of what I take from Barbara's interview and the above excerpt in particular is that she gives credit. She doesn't forget. Is this significant? Well yeah! I can't even begin to tell you how many young poets have asked for...and received ... my help and now treat me today as if I don't exist. (Google me, Young Poet, and you know who you are...!) Wassup with that? It's like, thanking someone might dim the spotlight you require on your own of-course-very-magnificent achievement...

Fortunately, I don't do what I do to get thanks (I do it for subway tokens) -- it's just that, isn't it a shame when "thanks" becomes so unlike poetry: a rare commodity?

Speaking of community, I get a lot of how-to-get-published queries. Last time I mentioned community versus the quality of their writings, I got (stunned?) silence in response. (Not even a simple "Thank you" for my feedback?) And this is not to say I privilege community over the writing -- it's just one of my assessments of the practicalities of publishing...

Some young (and old) writers don't seem to like discussing community -- they're more likely to believe what they're writing is the greatest thing since the Fall of Paradise, thus want to focus only/mostly on the quality of their work (sigh: at times, I don't like it when others behave like Moi). Writing is individual (if we not address, for the moment, the constraints of inherited context). But publication is social. This ain't complicated: writing and publishing aren't the same thing -- and if you're not smart enough to recognize that, how great can be the quality of your work? Greatness in anything, it seems to me, often requires a minimum level of ... self-awareness.

POETS BEARING GIFTS!

the gaping wound
the bulwark of harlequins
undocumented consternation
--Ric Carfagna

What do Ric Carfagna, Peter Ganick and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen have in common? I would suggest, in part, a complicated, highly-sophisticated sense of musicality that enervates their poems in unique ways.

What else do they have in common? Why, that'd be innovative publishing venue Chalk Editions put out by also-brilliant-as-publishers Peter Ganick and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen! And which now has released

Symphony No. 1 (en entropic cubist dimensionality)
by Ric Carfagna

Here's another paradoxically-winsome excerpt from Ric's contemporaneizing the 20th century cubist experiment with poetry:

The view from cages
a lost wisdom
as unspeakable
as memory
collects on thresholds

Thank you, Ric Carfagna, for the lovely dedication ... to Moi, who's rather humbled by the honor though not made speechless by her love for preening.

And speaking of preening, Thank You, Bill Allegrezza for your take on moi thorns. I should say, though, that even before I saw Bill doing a "Daily Glance" at my book, I'd been following his Daily Glances -- one of the better blog projects currently out there. (He also does one on Jean's Prau--HERE.) It's not easy to do pithily articulate takes on poetry books, and Bill does it with grace, balance and intelligence--all the while making it all seem effortless.

Check 'em all out...!

SILK EGG: COLLECTED NOVELS!

Well. I was sitting on the mountain this weekend amidst a swarm of bees wondering what next to do with my boring life...then this happened:



Isn't this ink and acrylic work on paper lovely?!!!! 'Tis by brilliant artist Maureen McQuillan!

And it's the front cover image for my next book! (Yes, I know....I was supposed to taper down...but moi blather's got huge inventory....to wit:)

WOOT! I'm delighted to announce that SILK EGG: COLLECTED NOVELS (2009-2009) has been accepted for publication by the illustrious Shearsman Books of Exeter, U.K. Publication Date: Spring 2011!

SILK EGG, of course, began with the first novel Novel Chatelaine! Thanks to Amanda Laughtland and her Teeny Tiny Press for early encouragement--you encouraged the literal seed to this project! SILK EGG (you can see the title novel HERE) will present a dozen novels!

Thanks to Shearsman editor Tony Frazer for welcoming me into the Shearsman fold, which includes many authors whose works I admire -- heck, I thought I'd first have to be dead to be on a list that includes Stéphane Mallarmé, Du Fu, or Fernando Pessoa (grin).

Pessoa: that's one to chase...Food for thought: did you all know that "Eileen Tabios" also has written and published under other names...? (wink)

Anyhoot--this will be one of my slimmer books. After all, these are novels, not poems...(grin & wink).