Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"THE T(H)ORN ROSARY"

I'm purring with gratitude. Thank you to Litter Magazine, edited by Alan Baker, for featuring a review of THE THORN ROSARY. And thanks to the reviewer Aileen Ibardaloza! Click HERE for entire review but here's an excerpt:
As the rosary is a meditation on the decades and their mysteries, the mysteries of The Thorn Rosary involve more than a decade’s worth of meditations and engagements with language, form, culture, reason and human experience. Underlying both is a “purity of intention”. Without romantically idealizing a post-colonial Philippines or the concerns of immigrant communities in a postmodern, multicultural society, Tabios redefines the word “Balikbayan”(3).

I am called “Balikbayan” because the girl in me is a country of rope hammocks and waling-waling orchids—a land with irresistible gravity because, in it, I forget the world’s magnificent indifference.(4)

This, along with Allen Bramhall's earlier engagement, is heartening....especially as I think that THE THORN ROSARY will send out the fewest number of review copies among my books. Kinda interesting how that occurs: one would think one would do an extra-super marketing push for a "selected poems" type of project. Instead, by the time Moi got to my first Selected, I'm simply exhausted from the whole po-biz slogging machination, choosing instead to focus on fewer but perhaps more intimate engagement-experiences.

So I'm very grateful for this review -- especially as I learn from reading it that here's one reader who apparently had been "meditating" on my poems for nearly five years now! Five years! To know that I wrote a poem(s) that can move someone to that kind of commitment -- I'm blessed to find such a reader! Salamat!

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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

ORPHANS & ALGEBRA

Just typed up the eight prose poems that so far make up ORPHANED ALGEBRA, a series-in-progress. I handwrote all the first drafts, and the handwrit drafts had been staring at me by my laptop for about six months. I don't know why I was so reluctant to type them up; I suspect because once typed, it'd be easy for me to send them out to publishers. Until this morning, I'd only typed up two--I sent the first to Fieralingue and the second to Tinfish because both asked for poems and these were the only unpublished ones I had. Then, I just typed up two more to send over to another solicitation from another poet-editor I respect and don't want to reject. With half typed, I just typed them all up.

They're now printed out...and I know that if I take those to Michael's math textbook, About California Math 1 by Ron Larson, Laurie Boswell, Timothy D. Kanold and Lee Stiff, I could easily riff off more to create a new manuscript. But I probably won't, for now...even despite some favorable reactions I've received for these early pieces.

People often ask if having a son influences my writing of new poems. I would have thought it would. But, instead, what haunts my poetry-writing are the orphans I met during the two-year international adoption process: the ones longing for a family. There are nearly 200 million orphans worldwide. They're the ones who pop up in my poems, less so Michael whose obvious relief and happiness don't aggravate the Muse.

But on the other hand, I've not rushed to write these poems in ORPHANED ALGEBRA. Everything is fodder, but everything is not just fodder. When it comes to orphans, I haven't figured out yet the second part of that (poetics) statement. That relationship, its algebra, is still over my head. (When I first wrote about adoption in THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS, later reprinted in THE THORN ROSARY, it was through the inaugural haybun which included this hay(na)ku:
Ars Poetica at Age 47

Sometimes
the world
cannot become fitted

into
the poem.
Even the Poem.

What I can tell you with more fortitude is that there is a clear demographic connection between childless babyboomers and "older" (over 6 years old) orphans, and that there could (should?) be more adoptive connections between the two. Kidsave is an organization unique for focusing on older orphans (a category for which it's harder to find adoptive parents)--check them out HERE if you'd like more information. They share information about kids in foster care, and also are just starting their summer program where they bring older kids from Colombia and another country (not yet known to me) to the U.S. to meet potential parents. Please pass on the word...

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BECAUSE THEY ARE SO LOVELY

here is Artemis on the counter and Gabriela hoping for a cookie:



Aesthetics are important: I often joke I adopted Artemis because I wanted a cat to match the house...doesn't her fur mirror the counter?

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Monday, March 29, 2010

THANKS FOR ENGAGING

Speaking of THE THORN ROSARY, am very grateful to Cynthia for your engagement...and to my editor Tom Fink who, I understand, will be discussing a thorn or two during a grad course in Contemporary American Poetry at Millersville State University in Pennsylvania. (Hello...o...o Millersville!) Thank you!

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Saturday, March 27, 2010

HARDBACKS FOR THE SOFTHEARTS!

The hardback copies of THE THORN ROSARY arrived yesterday. Woot! Mom happened to be in the kitchen mending dish towels when the delivery came, and she was happy to interrupt her mending to look at Moi Hardback!


Of course, when she started reading through some of the pages, the same bemused expression began creeping across her lovely face, even setting her eyeglasses askew -- this critic says she's given up on trying to understand many of my poems (heh):



But, hey, 'twas good for interrupting the mending of frayed dishtowels, okay? (Gotta be a generational thing -- that mending of dishtowels...)

If you wish a HARDBACK, it'll cost you $750.00. What can I say: poetry is priceless.

But, okay, it'll be on Amazon.com fairly soon for $34.95. Go for it!

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READING VITALITY

The emotional disturbance echoes down the canyons of the / heart.
-- Jack Spicer, from
Language: Phonemics (as quoted by Anny Ballardini)


My word! Rather, Anny Ballardini's WORDS! To wit,

"Arakawa and Gins: Architecture and Philosophy"

is a beautiful intellect in meditation. I recommend you pause from ____ (fill in the blank) to read, engage and savor. Also purrrring from how Moi popped up in this excerpt:
After André Breton in his 1924 Manifesto

Bill Lavender is Surrealist in Rimbaud
Hank Lazer is Surrealist in Spirit
Crag Hill is Surrealist in Reviews
Pam Brown is Surrealist in Justness
Charles Bernstein is Surrealist in Pound
Steve McCaffery is Surrealist in prisming
Camille Martin is Surrealist in collaging ideas
John Bennett is Surrealist in collecting
Ezra Pound is Surrealist in Economics
Mairead Byrne is Surrealist in repetitions
Obododimma Oha is Surrealist in Anthologies
Christian Boek is Surrealist in monosyllables
Maria Damon is Surrealist in translations/interpretations
Robert Pinsky is Surrealist – just a Surrealist
Alan Sondheim is Surrealist in resurrections
Karl Young is Surrealist in world views
Jim Letwich is Surrealist in air
Maxine Chernoff is Surrealist in theory
Mark Young is Surrealist in publishing
Paul Vangelisti is Surrealist in Italy and in California
Marilyn Hacker is Surrealist in Emotions
Pierre Joris is Surrealist in French
Sheila Murphy is Surrealist in the rain
Geoffrey Gatza is Surrealist in menus
Susan Schultz is Surrealist in Pacifism
John Tranter is Surrealist in Australia
Peter Ciccariello is Surrealist in convoluted shots
Fan Ogilvie is Surrealist in Dreams
Ron Silliman is Surrealist in Encyclopaedianism
Eileen Tabios is Surrealist in Vitality
David Graham is Surrealist in Poetic History
kari edwards is Surrealist in Paradise
peter ganick is Surrealist in editing
Bob Grumman is Surrealist in Visual Mathematics
Evelyn Posamentier is Surrealist in Faith
R. S. Gwynn is Surrealist in Narcissism
Rachel Loden is Surrealist in her eyes
Geof Huth is Surrealist in Goodness
Mary de Rachewiltz is Surrealist in Remembrance
Jean Vengua is Surrealist in painting
Br. Tom Murphy is Surrealist in Religion
Ruth Faintlight is Surrealist in Light
James Finnegan is Surrealist in Wallace Stevens
Joel Weishaus is Surrealist in anthropological philosophy
Kent Johnson is Surrealist in State Affairs and in Foreign Policy
Tad Richards is Surrealist in Lyrical Dylan
Carol Novack is Surrealist on the net
Dennis Barone is Surrealist in Prose Surrealism
Eve Rifkah is Surrealist in Medium States
Halvard Johnson is Surrealist in Sonnets
Ingrid Wendt is Surrealist on earth
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is Surrealist in letters
Gabriel Gudding is Surrealist in Traveling
James Cervantes is Surrealist in Mexico
Amy King is Surrealist in her Kingdom
Barry Schwabsky is Surrealist in reading
Dante (already quoted by A. Breton for his Surrealism) is Surrealist
Tony Trigilio is Surrealist in Projects
Machiavelli is Surrealist in the evening
Grace Cavalieri is Surrealist in the kitchen
Richard Dillon is Surrealist in Hope
Jesse Glass is Surrealist in Ekleksographia
Joseph Duemer is Surrealist in Vietnam
Farideh Mostafavi Hassanzadeh is plain Surrealist
Charles Martin is Surrealist in New York
Michael Rothenberg is Surrealist in touring
Jeff Harrison is Surrealist in Appearance
Jerome Rothenberg is Surrealist in thousands of books
Tom Beckett is Surrealist in ventriloquism
Daniel Zimmerman is Surrealist in post-avant-gardism
Etc.

Yeah. Moi am Vital.

And before that, Neruda's
While I’m writing, I’m far away;

And when I come back, I’ve gone.

And before that, as regards "Arakawa & Gin's crawling posture,"
"...the detachment from our Self, the momentary gap between the I and my Identity, will not be perceived any more with anguish or terror, but with a joyful and playful attitude."

Anny's is a "welcome turn to philosophy." And yea doth the tree wound become an open mouth with much to say...

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Friday, March 26, 2010

MOI SON, THE ARTEEEEST!

Here's Michael's latest -- a Thank You Drawing for our hosts at Lake Tahoe where we introduced the pup to skiing and snowboarding.



Here's another drawing he did after seeing the colonial horror show called "Avatar":



I've figured out a possible Ideal Dream Job for Michael -- to be an illustrator for the movies, which he loves; after seeing, say, a 3-hour movie, he can set you down for another three hours and have you listen to him talk inch-by-inch through the movie frame of what happened. I know--I've been tortured by such experiences. Anyhoow, how now to get him training for and slotted into that possibility?

After all, he's gotten -- okay, I've gotten him -- started on his visual arts resume. He did the cover of moi ROMAN HOLIDAY and did it stellar-ly, yah!

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

SUCH A LOVELY SNAIL...MAIL!

Oh it's so nice when snailmail brings me lovely tidbits! Like, this hay(na)ku collage by Amanda Laughtland:



Isn't it enchanting?! Thanks Amanda, for the lovely surprise! That hay(na)ku really contributes to Poetry's "Gift Economy"!!

But, of course, I also try to respect, though it's moronic, Poetry Economics by actually shelling out cash. So, here's my latest list of Recently Bought Poetry Collections or Books by Poets:

A NIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR by Jewel Kilcheer ('twas a buck at the local library sale. It just called out to me, Please give me a home there... So, sure. Besides, Moi was curious, especially since it has the taste to be graced by Pat Steir's paintings, a detail I hadn't known until I picked up the book itself)

VESTIGES OF WAR: THE PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR AND THE AFTERMATH OF AN IMPERIAL DREAM, 1899-1999, Co-edited by Luis Francia and Angel Velasco Shaw. Contributors include Genara Banzon, Santiago Bose, Ben Cabrera, Renato Constantino, Doreen Fernandez, Eric Gamalinda, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Jessica Hagedorn, Reynaldo Ileto, Yong Soon Min, Manuel Ocampo, Paul Pfeiffer, Christina Quisumbing, Vicente Rafael, Daniel Boone Schirmer, Kidlat Tahimik, Mark Twain, and Jim Zwick.

LISA ROBERTSON'S MAGENTA SOUL WHIP by Lisa Robertson (this book and the one below by Frances Phillips were bought at Books & Bookshelves Had I had more time to browse, I'd have bought way more--and loved doing so to support this indie bookstore with a fabulous concept (bookshelves and books) and because their poetry selections are outstanding. Check them out at 99 Sanchez in San Francisco! Oh, and the proprietor David Highsmith is a fabulous poet to boot!)

FOR A LIVING by Frances Phillips

THE THORN ROSARY: SELECTED PROSE POEMS & NEW: 1998-2010 by Moi (Yeah what do you know? I self-promote so much I ended up convincing moiself to buy my own books! Do you see how I put money where my mouth is?!)

UNRELATED INDIVIDUALS FORMING A GROUP WAITING TO CROSS by Mark Yakich

BRIGHT STAR: LOVE LETTERS AND POEMS OF JOHN KEATS TO FANNY BRAWNE (the Penguin edition after which the movie was made so that introduction is by director Jane Campion)

TRAJE DE BODA by Aileen Ibardaloza (details of SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER! over HERE -- postdate deadline of Release Offers is by March 31 so check it out soon!)

AUTOPSY TURVY, poems by Thomas Fink & Maya Diablo Mason (details of SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER! over HERE -- postdate deadline of Release Offers is by March 31 so check it out soon!)

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

WHAT WOULD PATHISA NYATHI HAVE IN COMMON WITH ... SARAH MANGOLD?

They and a whole slew of fabulous poets -- Gustaf Sobin anyone? -- have review copies for Galatea Resurrects! C'mon: I've even got THE JOY OF COOKING by Tan Lin. Please check out GR's Available Review Copy List -- the list is updated frequently and got some books you'd want to read and review! Next issue's review submission deadline is April 15!

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

JOHN OLSON

has joined blogland with Tillala Chronicles. Big noose. Reed hymn.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

ONE YEAR

Michael just passed the one-year mark on Galatea as Moi Son (poor thing, but he survived). On Tuesday, he also turns 14. (O Moi Gawd: I'm Mom to a 14-year-old boy!!) But we're celebrating his birthday this weekend. Here's a "before and after":

ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO WHEN MICHAEL FIRST VISITED THE U.S.
(with his brand-new baseball glove and ball)


THIS PAST CHRISTMAS, FEEDING CANDY CANES TO A HORSIE AT SUNRISE STABLES:


Keep blossoming, son!

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Friday, March 19, 2010

SPRING

likes to come early on Galatea. Here's a picture of the garden just beginning to bloom...the hubby insists I give him credit for the landscape design sloping down the mountain so yadda (there are animal hay(na)ku on each panel of the octagon base of the fountain where Achilles and Ajax play draughts):



This is our last year of construction around la casa, but it is nice to be able to see this much progress, notwithstanding the still bare fruit trees. Hopefully, we'll do better with flowers than we've done with veggies & fruits. Until I start embarrassing moiself by counting a city slicker's harvest again, here's the latest Relished W(h)ine List:

PUBLICATIONS
Hay(na)ku for Haiti (Click HERE for more info and free book offer!):
#1:
PARTICLE AND WAVE and FROM THE CHAIR by Jean Vengua
#2: On A Pyre: An Ars Poetica by Eileen R. Tabios
#3: Hay(na)ku for Haiti by Tom Beckett
#4: when the earth moves by Lars Palm
#5: After René Depestre’s “My Definition of Poetry”, as translated by Edwidge Danticat, with lines at the end by Lafcadio Hearn by John Bloomberg-Rissman
#6: Mrs. Quake by Nicole Mauro
#7: Through Having Been, Vol. 1 by William Allegrezza
#8: Through Having Been, Vol. 2 by William Allegrezza
#9: blonde topography: a terse set of tercets by steve dalachinsky
#10: Drop, Portion and Assignment by Peg Duthie
#11: As I Speed to Your Place by Amanda Laughtland

NINE TEEN HOURS (RADIO EDIT), poems by Jim Warner (very clever conceptual underpinning: hay(na)ku written during a nineteen hour plane ride between the Philippines and U.S. Good for chapbookpublisher.com for yanking this out of the author!)

MUCH LIKE YOU SHARK, poems by Logan Ryan Smith (very clever music from a fallen angel)

GENJI MONOGATARI, poems by Mark Young (freshly clever and musical take on intertextual reading)

NTST: THE COLLECTED PWOERMDS OF GEOF HUTH (a freshly rolicking read)

LETTERS TO AN ALBATROSS, poems by Anita Mohan (a freshly auspicious debut)

I WAS THE JUKEBOX, poems by Sandra Beasley (the muscular confidence underlying these poems are a fresh antidote to the more common self-deprecation found in contemporary poems)

HER FRIENDS DOWN AT THE FRENCH CAFE HAD NO ENGLISH WORDS FOR ME, poems by Patrick James Dunagan and visual art by Jason Grabowski (lovely intimacy)

MORTAL, EVERLASTING, poems by Jeffrey Levine

THE FAT SHEEP EVERYONE WANTS, poems by Bern Mulvey

FATA MORGANA, poems by Reginald Shepherd

MAINSTREAM, poems by Michael Magee

THE IT-DOESN'T-MATTER SUIT, children's story by Sylvia Plath, Illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner

TOUCHING THE VOID: THE TRUE STORY OF ONE MAN'S MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL, memoir by Joe Simpson

THE INNOCENT, novel by Harlan Coben

TELL NO ONE, novel by Harlan Coben

THE WOODS, novel by Harlan Coben

FIFTY GRAND, novel by Adrian McKinty

THE DEAD YARD, novel by Adrian McKinty

DEATH MATCH, novel by Lincoln Child

HOSTAGE, novel by Robert Crais

L.A. REQUIEM, novel by Robert Crais

CHASING DARKNESS, novel by Robert Crais

THE FORGOTTEN MAN, novel by Robert Crais

KILLER INSTINCT, novel by Joseph Finder

AWAKENING, novel by S.J. Bolton


WINES
2006 Peter Michael Chardonnay "La Carriere"
2006 Long Meadow "house red" cabernet blend
Veuve Cliquot Brut
2005 Luce Abbey cabernet
1998 Torbreck "Descendant"
1994 Penfolds Bin 707 cabernet
____ Penfolds Dawson's Creek shiraz-cabernet blend

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Thursday, March 18, 2010

MOI THORNS EMBARK ON THEIR WORLD TOUR

Yay. THE THORN ROSARY is now beginning its world tour. Boxes of moi thorns are now winging their way -- okay, scratch that: ... are slogging their way through the Pacific Ocean to its Philippine copublisher Anvil Publishing. Hopefully, the book will hit the archipelago in a month or two! Komusta!

And moi thorns also shall rear their perfumed tips in Chile, with a selection of poems to be part of an anthology of contemporary North American poetry to be published by Das Kapital in Santiago:
La alteración del silencio: poesía norteamericana reciente, Edited by Galo Ghigliotto and William Allegrezza

Muy bien!

*****

I read for the first time from THE THORN ROSARY at last night's wonderful reading at Books & Bookshelves. I only read one poem, but it was "Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaoling Kung-Fu Fist," the poem after which I'd named Meritage Press' imprint, "Open Palm Press," which is publishing the Hay(na)ku for Haiti series. I read the poems from the series' first 8 booklets penned by Jean Vengua, William Allegrezza, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Lars Palm, Nicole Mauro, and Tom Beckett. 'Twas interesting to mouth-feel all the varied ways that these poets responded to Haiti...

I loved the audience--even though they laughed at my incompetent attempt to mimic the Shaoling Kung Fu Fist, they did so affectionately! How lovely to see poets I haven't seen in as much as, we all realized, eight years: Susan Gervirtz, Norma Cole, even host David Kirschenbaum....and also lovely to meet poets for the first time whose names I've long known: Jill Stengel, Patrick Dunagan....I didn't have a chance to spend much time with most of the wonderful crowd as I had to leave early (it's schoolnight and I had to get back to wine country) but I could tell they knew their poetry from their, uh, blather. Thanks all for coming!

And I loved loved loved the venue! The concept of a store of "books and bookshelves" just makes sense! And proprietor David Highsmith is a faboo poet himself! Wonderful!

And because of writing this post, I think I'm also going to have a wonderful day and I hope you do too!

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

THAT'S SWEET

And speaking of engagements with THE THORN ROSARY, so far the Snorkeling Fabulist (what a great title) likes what it sees! Click on excerpt below for the whole thing:
Just an astoundingly collection of allusive, experimental, lush, cross-cultural poetry about every day experiences. I think it really challenges the form of prose poems.

So, Go on! Wouldn't you like a free copy? It's available through Hay(na)ku for Haiti!

*****

And I will be here tomorrow (Wednesday) touting my rosary of thorns and H for H booklets -- hope to see you!


Boog City presents

d.a. levy lives:
celebrating editors from
Northern California renegade presses


Wed. March 17, 7:30 p.m. sharp, free

Books and Bookshelves
99 Sanchez St.
San Francisco

featuring readings from

Albert Flynn DeSilver
editor The Owl Press (Woodacre, Calif.)

Travis Ortiz
co-editor Atelos Publishing Project (Berkeley, Calif.)

Jill Stengel
editor a+bend press (Davis, Calif.)

Eileen R. Tabios
editor Meritage Press (San Francisco/St. Helena, Calif.)

and from New York City
David Kirschenbaum
editor, Boog City

Curated and with an introduction by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum

For more info call Books and Bookshelves at 415-621-3761 or Boog City at 212-842-BOOG (2664)

BIOS:

**Boog City
http://welcometoboogcity.com/
Boog City is a New York City-based small press now in its 19th year and East Village community newspaper of the same name. It has also published 35 volumes of poetry and various magazines, featuring work by Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti among others, and theme issues on baseball, women's writing, and Louisville, Ky. It hosts and curates two regular performance series--d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press, where each month a non-NYC small press and its writers and a musical act of their choosing is hosted at Chelsea's ACA Galleries; and Classic Albums Live, where 5-13 local musical acts perform a classic album live at venues including The Bowery Poetry Club, CBGB's, and The Knitting Factory. Past albums have included Elvis Costello, My Aim is True; Nirvana, Nevermind; and Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville.

**Albert Flynn DeSilver
http://www.theowlpress.com/
Albert Flynn DeSilver is a poet, teacher, visual artist, and publisher living in Woodacre, Calif. He is the editor and publisher of The Owl Press, which publishes innovative poetry and poetic collaboration. He received a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Colorado, and an M.F.A. in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is the author, most recently, of Letters to Early Street, (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press), and Walking Tooth & Cloud (French Connection Press, Paris). He has published more than a hundred poems in literary journals worldwide including Zyzzyva, New American Writing, Jacket (Australia), Poetry Kanto (Japan), Van Gogh’s Ear (France), Hanging Loose, and Exquisite Corpse, among others. The most recent Owl Press title is Bill Berkson’s Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently.

**David Kirschenbaum
http://www.boogcity.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/gilmoreboysmusic
David Kirschenbaum’s work has appeared in The Brooklyn Review Online, can we have our ball back, Chain, Pavement Saw, and unpleasant event schedule, among others. He is the lyricist for the band Gilmore Boys, and the editor and publisher of Boog City, a New York City-based small press now in its 19th year and East Village community newspaper.

**Travis Ortiz
http://www.atelos.org/travis/
Travis Ortiz is a writer, publisher, dj, and designer living in San Francisco. Ortiz has work in various publications including Bay Poetics and Poetics Journal, and has written two books, Geography of Parts (Melodeon) and Variously, not Then (forthcoming, Tuumba). He is the co-director (with Lyn Hejinian) of Atelos, a literary project commissioning and publishing cross-genre work by poets. Atelos was nominated as one of the best independent literary presses by the Firecracker Awards in 2001.

**Jill Stengel
http://www.dusie.org/Langiappe_Stengel.pdf
Jill Stengel is a poet, publisher of a+bend press, and parent of three young children. Formerly of San Francisco and Los Angeles, she now resides with her family in Davis, Calif. Several of her serial poems have appeared in chapbook form—cartography (WOOD); History, Possibilities (a+bend press); ladies with babies (Boog Literature); lagniappe (Nous-Zot Press, Dusie Kollektiv); late may (Dusie); may(be) (Dusie); and the forthcoming and I would open (Ypolita) and wreath (Texfiles). Some of these chapbooks, and individual poems, can be viewed online as well as in print, and she has new work in the forthcoming anthology Kindergarde. Her first full-length collection is forthcoming this year from Black Radish Books.

Begun in San Francisco in 1999, a+bend press published 40 chapbooks in its first 20 months of existence. Stengel produced the chapbooks in conjunction with her reading series, Second Sundays at BlueBar, held in the poetically historic North Beach district of San Francisco. The press took a chapbook-publishing hiatus for nine years, during which time she produced three children and five issues of the journal mem, focusing on writing by women mothering young children, and page mothers. Now the hiatus is on hiatus: a new a+bend press chapbook was released at the end of last year.

**Eileen R. Tabios
http://marshhawkpress.org/Tabios4.htm
Eileen R. Tabios has released 18 print, four electronic, and 1 CD poetry collections, an art essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, a short story book, and two novels. She has also exhibited visual art and visual poetry in the United States and Asia. Recipient of the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry, she’s just come out with The Thorn Rosary: Selected Prose Poems 1998-2010, edited with an introduction by poet-critic-painter-scholar Thomas Fink and with an afterword by poet-scholar Joi Barrios. In poetry, Tabios has crafted a body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, computer-generated hybrid languages, paintings, video, drawings, visual poetry, mixed media collages, Kali martial arts, music, modern dance, and sculpture. She’s the publisher of Meritage Press (St. Helena & San Francisco).

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ON ENGAGEMENTS, INCLUDING EDITING

In 2002, I released my first U.S.-published poetry collection, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE. It's still my bestselling poetry book. Among the many responses I received to it was a letter from a stranger which still stands out in my mind. Said stranger said he liked the book, but then he listed (if I recall correctly) about six points where he suggested some editing changes.

My initial response was sorta huffy. I didn't know this dude from ... any other dude. And he was offering his opinion which, in the arts, can't usually (not always but usually) be disengaged from the identity of the person offering said opinion. So I sniffed but tossed the letter in my files.

Eight years later, as we put together THE THORN ROSARY which selects from earlier books including REPRODUCTIONS..., I stumbled across this guy's letter. With years of distance from REPRODUCTIONS, I was able to cast a more objective eye on the dude's suggestions, and indeed ended up incorporating about half of his suggestions!

Let me digress for a moment to discuss the editorial change I made as it may be helpful to other poets out there putting together manuscripts. Basically, we poets have our own biases and predilections which often (unconsciously) makes us favor the use of certain words. For me, such a word used to be "azure". So, I wrote several poems where, when having to come up with a word for blue, say to describe sea or sky, I'd lapse to "azure." Nothing wrong with that. And for individual poems, it works. But when you put together a collection, what becomes presented is an over-use of the word. (Was it in BLACK LIGHTNING, Arthur Sze once said something similar to me -- how his publisher Copper Canyon Press' inhouse editors were good at pointing out a word or two that may be repeated overmuch in the pages of a new collection.) Anyway, that's just something to think about for you poets creating manuscripts from poems that perhaps were previously written in individual spaces and now must be joined together to cohere into a new collection.

So, to get back to this dude -- it took years when I found his letter again to appreciate what he did. This dude took a chance -- think about it: how many people do you know who would read a poetry book, take the time to make suggestions, and share such suggestions to a more likely negative reaction from often oversensitive poets? I can tell you that I've only received one such letter like this one. I've never written such a letter either! The dynamics nowadays of poetry-creation just doesn't create an environment for this, does it? Where you give well-meaning input to a stranger for the sake of poems (vs because you're friends with a poet and/or support each other's community, which is what I've observed to be the primary context for giving/receiving feedback outside of an academic or workshop setting)?

Anyway, so I sent this dude a quite belated THANK YOU note along with a copy of THE THORN ROSARY. Yesterday, I got a letter back from him. Among other things, the letter expressed surprise (grin) at not just receiving my newest book but that I incorporated some of his suggested changes. And by receiving his reply, I managed to find out more about who this guy is -- a visual artist. If you know Moi, that be so apt! And dang if dude ain't a good artist, too, based on the exhibition card-announcement he sent. Universe, it's so often good--what you bring Moi through poetry...!

***

It's a blessing to see people engage with your poems. It's a blessing to see others care about your poems. So, speaking of THE THORN ROSARY, thanks as well to Aileen Ibardaloza for this visual riff off of one of the thorny poems -- she was moved to photograph one of the pages and the result was not just "unexpected [but] ephemeral":



And, to moi mind, the image (which is also now up at the Academy of American Poets' Free Verse Project on Flickr) kinda fits the actual poem:
: ARCHAEOLOGY


: “You were standing by the gate of a zoo”

: to turn time into eternity, as gorillas do, by making it about presence not absence

: Oh! That hot lemon smell of gorillas, and the thicksweet smell of the hay!

: we are all born

: the haven defined as “utter lack of inspection”

: God as Love without a steeple for there has never been a roof

: smorgasbord

Yes, the above doesn't look like the typical paragraph of a prose poem. But that's why Allen Bramhall so had it right when he observed that working with the sentence won't disavow "timely subversions" (e.g. disjunction, and fragmentation, and linear discontinuity)--that's why it's prose poetry, not prose. Anyway, Woot Aileen: salamat for the lovely shadows and light--now that's poetry-in-progress!

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Monday, March 15, 2010

ANOTHER PLACE WHERE A BOOKLET LANDED

from the Hay(na)ku for Haiti series may be found HERE! Of course it's atop Whitman and Rumi and Salinger....grin.

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MORE BOOKLETS FROM "HAY(NA)KU FOR HAITI"!

I'm so pleased that poets who've never done hay(na)ku are choosing to do so for the Hay(na)ku for Haiti project. See the list below for the latest editions of H for H booklets, with more promised for the future!

============================

Open Palm Press
(an imprint of Meritage Press)
is pleased to announce the series:

Hay(na)ku for Haiti


-- a fundraiser for Haiti, edited by Eileen R. Tabios and blessed by support from chapbookpublisher.com.

Poets who write in the hay(na)ku form (about which more information is available at http://haynakupoetry.blogspot.com) have consented to create hay(na)ku for helping Haiti's recovery efforts. The results are to be released as "pocket poem booklets" by Open Palm Press. Each will be sold for $3.00, reflecting the hay(na)ku's three lines, with all proceeds to be donated for Haiti relief.

The series begins with:

#1: PARTICLE AND WAVE and FROM THE CHAIR, two hay(na)ku sequences by Jean Vengua
#2: On A Pyre: An Ars Poetica by Eileen R. Tabios
#3: Hay(na)ku for Haiti by Tom Beckett
#4: when the earth moves by Lars Palm
#5: After René Depestre’s “My Definition of Poetry”, as translated by Edwidge Danticat, with lines at the end by Lafcadio Hearn by John Bloomberg-Rissman.
#6: Mrs. Quake by Nicole Mauro
#7: Through Having Been, Vol. 1 by William Allegrezza
#8: Through Having Been, Vol. 2 by William Allegrezza
#9: blonde topography: a terse set of tercets by steve dalachinsky
#10: Drop, Portion and Assignment by Peg Duthie
#11: As I Speed to Your Place by Amanda Laughtland

Over time, more releases will occur as it is anticipated that Haiti's relief requirements will be prolonged and deep. Poets interested in exploring the hay(na)ku through this fundraising effort may contact the series editor at MeritagePress@aol.com



"H for H" booklets are lovingly produced by http://chapbookpublisher.com on lilac-colored paper to fit, at 2.75" x 4.5 X 2", on an open palm -- ideal for giving engagements.

To order some or all of the series, please send checks made out to "Meritage Press" for $3 per booklet and send to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

This offer is also available to non-U.S. residents, but with extra arrangements required for international shipping.


For more information, including on international orders: MeritagePress@aol.com
*****

Marsh Hawk Press has teamed up with Meritage Press to support this poetry fundraiser for Haiti Relief.

Those who order five or more "Hay(na)ku for Haiti" booklets from Meritage Press' Open Palm Press will also receive a complimentary copy of Eileen R. Tabios' latest Marsh Hawk Press book, THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems & New, edited by Thomas Fink.

As five booklets are available for $15 and Ms. Tabios' book retails for $19.95, we hope poetry lovers will find this offer an attractive way to contribute to Haiti relief.
*****

A REVIEW:
Mischievoice, March 10, 2010: Review of Hay(na)ku for Haiti by Lars Palm
AT: http://larspalm.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/reading-haiti/

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Saturday, March 13, 2010

RECESSION PURCHASING

I recently realized how few poetry-related titles I bought in all of last year; I cutnpaste my 2009 "Bought Poetry List" below: a mere 36 titles. I could say "Great Recession", but it's more that I get most of my poetry books from other sources (gifts, trades, etc.) than through purchasing. That I have huge access to poetry's "gift economy" actually makes me more conscious -- or I try to be -- of buying books, but I don't think 2009 was a good result (particularly when the list is so stacked for my own titles-sheesh). Self-awareness: it's a good thing! I shall try to do better. Meanwhile, Dear Blog File, here are the poetry titles (either poetry collections or other works by poets) I bought last year:

2009 PURCHASED POETRY TITLES:

THE SUBURBAN ECSTASIES by Seth Abramson

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

CHRISTMAS POEM (book & CD) by Maya Angelou

KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista

1000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING, Ed. John Bloomberg-Rissman

AT THE PULSE by Laura Carter

RHAPSODY IN PLAIN YELLOW by Marilyn Chin

FOR GIRLS & OTHERS by Shanna Compton

SELECTED POEMS 1956-1975 by Diane di Prima

KA-CHING! by Denise Duhamel

WORLD BALL NOTEBOOK by Sesshu Foster

DELIVERED by Sarah Gambito

POEM, HOME: AN ANTHOLOGY OF ARS POETICA, Eds. Jennifer Hill and Dan Waber

VANITAS literary/arts journal, Ed. Vincent Katz

MAID OF HEAVEN: THE STORY OF SAINT JOAN OF ARC by Ben D. Kennedy

THE NIGHT SKY: WRITINGS ON THE POETICS OF EXPERIENCE by Ann Lauterbach

THE BEDSIDE GUIDE TO NO TELL MOTEL SECOND FLOOR, Eds. Reb Livingston and Molly Arden

SOULS OF WIND, novel by John Olson

MY ZORBA by Danielle Pafunda

SELECTED POEMS OF OCTAVIO PAZ, bilingual edition with translations by Muriel Rukeyser

GRAVITY & GRACE by Ernesto Priego

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino A. Realuyo

LEAFLETS: POEMS 1965-1968 by Adrienne Rich

LENINGRAD: AMERICAN WRITERS IN THE SOVIET UNION, memoir by Ron Silliman, Bruce Watten, Michael Davidson and Lyn Hejinian

WARSAW BIKINI by Sandra Simonds

THE MYTH OF SIMPLE MACHINES by Laurel Snyder

FACINGS by Jordan Stempleman

WHAT'S THE MATTER by Jordan Stempleman

THE GINKGO LIGHT by Arthur Sze

THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS by Eileen Tabios

DREDGING FOR ATLANTIS by Eileen Tabios

FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA: UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1995-2009 by Eileen Tabios

NOTA BENE EISWEIN by Eileen Tabios

ROMAN HOLIDAY by Eileen Tabios

TRANSCENDENTAL STUDIES: A TRILOGY by Keith Waldrop

COLLECTED POEMS by C.K. Williams

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Friday, March 12, 2010

YOU GO, SON!

One of the interesting things about observing Michael is seeing the elements surface that, together, make him a survivor. One of these elements is an extremely competitive nature. Coupled with a huge work ethic, he's able to overcome much.

Recently, his middle school competed in World's Math Day challenge, involving middle school-age students around the world. Attesting to the quality of the local middle school, Michael's school ranked 30th in the world and 7th in the U.S. All well and good. But what was totally unexpected is that Michael was in the top three of his school's 7th grade participants -- that's just amazing, considering how a year ago, he had known of addition, still barely knew subtraction, and did not know multiplication or division. But the Math Day challenge was a competition -- something about how many math problems a student can complete in as quick a time frame; the global winner was a 12-year-old from Australia who was answering two questions per second for an overall total of 43,007 correct replies.

In any competition, Michael pushes himself hard. He loathes the idea of *being behind* in, for example, academics (partly because of his past). Well, he got the right parents: we've discovered ourselves to be Type A parents who focus him to excel and don't accept excuses for not trying his best (though I also think fear is an issue as I admit to being scared that his background might overcome his potential...a story for another day). I can imagine how we might be too much for some other children but Michael seems to relish the consistency of our bottom-line orientation to get the most effective result. It's a tough balancing act when one realizes one's job as a parent is not only to cuddle (especially when he's missed so much cuddling as a child) but to prepare him for the world. And I do second-guess myself all the time as to whether we're putting too much pressure on him.

Still, we've told him that we aren't as concerned that he gets the top grade (or top whatever) so much as we wish him to always try his best. But isn't it interesting that the fact that he tries his best inevitably means he also ends up among the best? Effort as much as, if not more than, genius, as the saying goes, leads to success.

Fortunately, balance is achieved through our family dynamic that incorporates four furry creatures. Dogs, for one, are Pure Love and I can see how Michael relaxes in their company in ways he can never relax in ours. I'm grateful to the dogs -- they offset the necessary strictness of certain structures that he also needs. Here is Michael wrestling/cuddling with Achilles on the rug:

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

ATTENTION BABAYLANS!

You know, I always joke that the hubby married the first Filipina who can't cook. That's not quite true, of course. My Mom was the first, which explains why I'm the second Filipina who can't cook. (Filipinas, in case you don't get it, are often fabulous in the kitchen...well, and elsewhere of course!)

Coming to the U.S. forced my Mom to learn to cook, but it was too late for her to mentor me in the kitchen. Now, this week Mom visited my brother in Los Angeles. This meant I had to cook dinner for Michael -- for those who've asked me what's been most difficult about being a parent, I can straight up tell you that it's been having to become responsible for feeding (in hopefully a responsible way) another human being.

Anyway, from sheer embarrassment I won't share what I fed the hijo tonight. But his reaction was something like this (from another meal -- I get this reaction a lot):



Fortunately for Moi, I will be presenting and charming peeps at THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL BABAYLAN CONFERENCE taking place April 17-18 at Sonoma State University. Which is to say, I will be meeting a lot of you Pinays. So I have an offer for you:

BRING ME AN EASY-TO-MAKE RECIPE

and I'll give you comp copy of a book. Actually, it's not just an offer. It's an order--kapisch?

C'mon Babaylan--have pity on Moi.

***

Just looked at Michael's pic above. Sigh: I feel sorry for him and I hope he'll survive me, or at least my cooking. Here he is in a happier context with my first son Achilles, who actually loves my cooking! No one can mix canned dog food and kibble with such flair as I do!

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

FROM SMALL THINGS, BIG THINGS!

So far, we've raised $155 from the Hay(na)ku for Haiti Fundraiser. Given that each H for H booklet costs $3, that's a wonderful to-date result. Those three bucks add up! As chapbookpublisher.com editor Dan Waber notes,
"In the immortal words of Dave Edmunds: from small things, mama, big things one day come"

of which a visual metaphor might be one of Michael's holiday presents and new hobby: making rockets from scratch and launching them out into the universe!



Meanwhile, over in Sweden, Lars Palm does a sweet review of the first five H for H series. Hope that persuades you all to continue supporting this project. More H for H booklets from poets are forthcoming!

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Tuesday, March 09, 2010

BEFORE AND AFTER



Artemis healed well, but of course she'll favor her leg for probably a couple more weeks at least:


Isn't she purty?! Remember: I'll post a pic of your pet if you review for Galatea Resurrects! Whatever it takes to move those reviews...

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Monday, March 08, 2010

QUICKSILVER SUBLIMITY

John Olson is so often SUBLIME. Click on excerpt below for the totality of his essay inaugurating itself at Steven Fama's blog:
One day I pulled a meaning out of a word I did not expect and it grew into an orchard of fruit, peaches and plums swollen with light, a larynx extending the granite of a wooded solitude.

But now I don’t remember what the word was.

It was in a book. I know that. And the book was full of words like drops of rain. And the streams had meanings and the eggnog was aloud and robins were alert to the worms in the dirt and the amber sweat on the handle of a paragraph was like the dry chrome of form bending in the light of the afternoon which slid down from the sky and became a chin of thought frisky as any abstraction high and sweet and smooth as the circulation of blood and a studio full of spinning excuses forged a crucial understanding of buffalo and a voyage took place in a web of words where veins of silver converged in a pool and the only noise was my mind squeezing the fruit of hypothetical absences.

Now, THAT is what I call writing!

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THIS CORK BOBS!

I have something in common with shopping malls: I always would be honored to be the subject of Allen Bramhall's divagations. Which is to say, what a generous response Allen provides to moi BRICKHOUSE known as THE THORN ROSARY! Thank you, Sir...click on excerpt below for the whole thing -- it is educational. And, after all, it puts Moi in lovely light:
I mean, what is poetry and what is prose?

Some 11 years ago, I shook off my accrued sense of poetry. I studied under Robert Grenier who, despite his obvious preference towards a poetry that would be identified as LANGUAGE poetry (not that that lump sum term can really define any territory properly), was very supportive of the discovering writer. I performed a slow discovery, over years and years, of where my writing came from and burgeoned towards, until I finally realized that the sentence worked for me. That the metre of the sentence could preside over the words that I knew.

I began making poetry, then, in prose. It is poetry because it is not just guided by the mentor called Good English (or good whatever language, but English is what I use). I allow disjunction, and fragmentation, and linear discontinuity to make their reports. Poetry, I see, insists on timely subversions. I learned that from Emily Dickinson.

Eileen uses different insistencies to provoke the heart of language. Her sentences are largely straightforward in their report, yet she maintains a relentless twining. Themes are immediate and conjunctive. And adjunctive. That is how this book, that is sifted from other books, is a NEW book. The returns are instructive and spiral to new vantage.

Eileen’s subversions are headturning. The curious embrace of Ferdinand Marcos’ daughter, in the office of writing towards her late father, is a feat of telling surprise. Eileen is a cork bobbing in the meeting of streams.

So interesting to be a bobbing cork. After all, I can't swim -- which is as well a metaphoric encapsulation of Moi and Poetry...

***

Elsewhere in the review, Allen observes: "The serial urge is an urge to complete, at least in some sense. Complete and yet to invite furtherance. I mean, when a series ends, invisible threads continue to stretch, the process does not stop. That is how I see poems in series."

There's a continued stretching of a theme I'm just starting to develop in a new poem included in the newly completed HEALTH & ILLNESS Anthology co-edited by Anny Ballardini and Obododimma Oha. Here are the other writers below and, speaking of educational, do check out the two editorial introductions by Anny and Obododimma:
· Editorial - Obododimma Oha - · Editorial - Anny Ballardini - · Michael Rothenberg · Dennis Barone · Daniel Zimmerman & Mom · Ned Condini · Elizabeth Smither · Douglas Clark · Jeff Harrison · John M. Bennett · Tony Trigilio · Peter Ganick · Charlotte Mandel · Ingrid Wendt · Sohrab Sepehri · Geoffrey Gatza · Wendy Carlisle · Peter Ciccariello · Jim Leftwich · Marilyn Hacker · Ric Carfagne · Jessica Fiorini · George Bowering · Márton Koppány · Silvia Levenson · Jameela ‘Nishat’ · Hoshang Merchant · Halvard Johnson · Meg Withers · Christina Pacosz · Ruth Fainlight · Jerry McGuire · Jerry McGuire - 2nd part · Evelyn Posamentier · Evelyn Posamentier 2nd Part · Wendy Vardaman · Malaika King Albrecht · Grzegorz Wróblewski · Rebecca Seiferle · Luc Fierens · Helen Ruggieri · Ed Baker · Daniel Godston · David Howard · Fan Ogilvie · Christopher Flynn · Nuri Gene Cos · Penelope Scambly Schott · Alan Sondheim Part 1 · Alan Sondheim Part 2 · Alan Sondheim Part 3 · Alan Sondheim Part 4 · Alan Sondheim Part 5 · Eileen Tabios · Barry Alpert · Jean Vengua and Michael A. Fink · Kathrine Durham Oldmixon · Sarah Rae · harry k stammer · Amy MacLennan · Margo Berdeshevsky · Obiwu · Marco Giovenale · Tom Savage · Richard Dillon · Drew Riley · Richard M. Berlin · Sola Olatunji · Musa Idris Okpanachi · Elizabeth Oakes · Marian Veverka · Judith E. Johnson · Penny Harter · Emma Bolden · Marjory Wentworth · Obododimma Oha

***

Speaking of recontextualizations, Elaine Equi also sends out an announcement of a guest-edited Jacket issue, THE HOLIDAY ALBUM. My poem in it is of a thread I write about because I'm just so unsuccessful at it in real life: cooking. But, WOW!, what a company as well:
Elaine Equi, David Lehman, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rae Armantrout, Nick Piombino, Kim Lyons, David Shapiro, Tom Clark, Vincent Katz, Eileen Tabios, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Martine Bellen, Cathy McArthur, Jerome Sala, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Patricia Spears Jones, Chris Martin, Mark Lamoureux, Stacy Szymaszek, Erica Kaufman, Erica Kaufman, Fanny Howe, Joanna Fuhrman, Jerome Sala, Gregory Crosby, Connie Deanovich, Bruce Covey, Amy Gerstler, Joe Brainard, David Trinidad, David Shapiro, Ron Padgett, Ryan Stechler.

*****

Thank you Allen, Anny, Obododimma and Elaine for your continued receptivity to my poems. Smooches.

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Sunday, March 07, 2010

SKIING: A POETICS

First, we ripped underwear.

To wit, one of the many, uh, complications of suddenly finding yourself a parent of a teenage boy -- a "culture" about which I am totally ignorant -- is that one has to be prepared for what it takes to help said boy meet his potential. Well, not only is Michael on the Honor Roll (oh pardon Moi but have I already bragged about that...?), but he is a natural athlete.

So parenting Michael has meant, among other things, that I and the hubby have had to dust off many a sports outfit to accommodate the hijo's athleticism. Last summer, I played tennis for the first time in a decade as part of the process of introducing him to the game. A carabao in white ... whatever. Well, this weekend, off we trotted to Northstar Tahoe to introduce him to skiing and snowboarding. Again, Michael was a natural -- his instructor ended up taking him on intermediate slopes before Saturday ended. Louis, from Chile, was so enthused he moaned in both Castilian-Espanol and English that we should live closer to the slopes so Michael could immediately join the racing team! Sunday was for snowboarding and Michael also excelled. Looks like this family is back to hitting the slopes every winter! (Save us green chile, ye peeps in New Mexico!)

But about that underwear -- I and the hubby also haven't skiied in a decade. So a week ago, we delved deep -- deeeeeep! -- into the closet to take out the old ski clothes and see what equipment still stayed relevant to today's sport. Well, we hoped of course that thermal underwear would still be in fine condition. And they were...until we put them on. The rip was ugly to hear. Uh huh...okay, so all that fine wine apparently expanded our fleshly expanse as much as living on a mountain surrounded mostly by furry critters expanded moi internet blather. Fortunately, this was such a busy winter that by the time we returned to the ski stores for new clothing and some equipment, the near-end-of-winter sales were on!

Anyhoo, all this reminds me of poetry (work with me here; this is a poetics blog). For the past decade until Michael joined the family nearly a year ago, I'd just basically -- and cheerfully, mind you -- tossed exercise aside except for working the right arm's bicep from lifting all those wine bottles. But as Jessica Hagedorn once pointed out and I paraphrase, A poem shouldn't be sitting on its ass fanning itself!

So, you see, parenting Michael means that I'm being aided into be-ing instead of writing the poem. Not that the poet is the poem, of course, but that in the writing or making of the poem, it's best for the poem that it comes into being rather than being authored. Kapisch? No? Whatever.

Meanwhile, here are photos of Michael during his snowboarding lessons (he apparently prefers skiing, though -- dude after Moi own heart). Second photo shows him with his instructor whose (nick)name, I think, is Nemo.





As for how Moi did after ten years of absence from the ski slopes? Dude -- I was hot. I was on. Bump me a knuckle bump, why dontcha! I can see with much relief, as Michael is just getting started, that I can take this sport back up again! But classic Moi story -- after two days of flexing muscles I'd forgotten I possessed and not just surviving but looking fantabulous (I'm gonna ignore the "Moose on skis" crack that just wafted from another room), here's what happened on my last run.

I was holding hands with the hubby as we got off the ski lift. I suddenly tripped on something and fell. But instead of letting go of his hand, I tightened my hold on it. I dislocated his thumb as I fell on my ass...though, happily, there was more cushioning on that ass than ten years ago and said thumb seemed to have gone back into its groove. Pause. I just checked -- the hubby is still not speaking to me.

But, we all know, don't we: Poetry is difficult, especially when it wants to do something more than sit on its ass and fan itself!

How I suffer for Poetry. I. Suffer.

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Friday, March 05, 2010

KUDOS TO BARBARA GUEST AND WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

Remember the poetry contest I was judging? The results are official--CONGRATULATIONS to Barbara Guest whose posthumous COLLECTED POEMS is the recipient of THE POETRY CENTER BOOK AWARD.

The contest sponsors kindly allowed me to list Finalists and Semi-Finalists, which I believe is the first time this contest has done so. I asked to list other top-notch contenders because I wanted to provide some context for the award recipient. Judging poetry is also subjective so you can assume that perhaps any of the other names could have been winners by other judges' tastes (and all of the books listed are certainly legit winners).

Here are the winners below -- allow me to nota bene a BIG KUDOS to Wesleyan University Press (they published 2 of the finalists as well); from these results, this press clearly is doing what it takes to extend the boundaries of published poetry:

2008 The Poetry Center Book Award

WINNER
THE COLLECTED POEMS OF BARBARA GUEST, ed. Hadley Haden Guest

FINALISTS
ZONG! by M. Nourbese Philip
MY VOCABULARY DID THIS TO ME: THE COLLECTED POETRY OF JACK SPICER, eds. Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian
THE IMPORTANCE OF PEELING POTATOES IN UKRAINE by Mark Yakich

SEMI-FINALISTS
ALL OF IT SINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Linda Gregg
INSTALLATIONS by Joe Bonomo
THE MATERIALIST by Rick London
THE TRANSLATOR'S DIARY by Jon Pineda
THE DARK CARD by Rebecca Foust
THE COSMOPOLITAN by Donna Stonecipher
BRIEF UNDER WATER by Cyrus Console
THE WARRIOR by Frances Richey
THE FLOATING BRIDGE by David Shumate
NOW YOU'RE THE ENEMY by James Allen Hall

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'TWAS A PLEASURE

While I've done many interviews, it's rare for me to see reactions to an interview. THANK YOU again, Cynthia and everyone in your comments section. The All of this experience is a gift.

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Tuesday, March 02, 2010

POETRY FUNDRAISER FOR HAITI

My very deep gratitude to Marsh Hawk Press for allowing the following to be possible:


MARSH HAWK PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

A Haiti Fundraiser with Complimentary New Book by Eileen R. Tabios

Marsh Hawk Press has teamed up with Meritage Press to provide a poetry fundraiser for Haiti Relief.

Those who order five or more "Hay(na)ku for Haiti" booklets from Meritage Press' Open Palm Press will also receive a complimentary copy of Eileen R. Tabios' latest Marsh Hawk Press book, THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems & New, edited by Thomas Fink.

As five booklets are available for $15 and Ms. Tabios' book retails for $19.95, we hope poetry lovers will find this offer an attractive way to contribute to Haiti relief. The following provides details on this Haiti fundraiser:


Open Palm Press
(an imprint of Meritage Press)
is pleased to announce the series:

Hay(na)ku for Haiti


-- a fundraiser for Haiti, edited by Eileen R. Tabios and blessed by support from chapbookpublisher.com.

Poets who write in the hay(na)ku form (about which more information is available at http://haynakupoetry.blogspot.com) have consented to create hay(na)ku for helping Haiti's recovery efforts. The results are to be released as "pocket poem booklets" by Open Palm Press. Each will be sold for $3.00, reflecting the hay(na)ku's three lines, with all proceeds to be donated for Haiti relief.

The series begins with:

#1: PARTICLE AND WAVE and FROM THE CHAIR, two hay(na)ku sequences by Jean Vengua
#2: On A Pyre: An Ars Poetica by Eileen R. Tabios
#3: Hay(na)ku for Haiti by Tom Beckett
#4: when the earth moves by Lars Palm
#5: After René Depestre’s “My Definition of Poetry”, as translated by Edwidge Danticat, with lines at the end by Lafcadio Hearn by John Bloomberg-Rissman.
#6: Mrs. Quake by Nicole Mauro
#7: Through Having Been, Vol. 1 by William Allegrezza
#8: Through Having Been, Vol. 2 by William Allegrezza
#9: blonde topography: a terse set of tercets by steve dalachinsky
#10: Drop, Portion and Assignment by Peg Duthie
#11: As I Speed to Your Place by Amanda Laughtland

Over time, more releases will occur as it is anticipated that Haiti's relief requirements will be prolonged and deep. Poets interested in exploring the hay(na)ku through this fundraising effort may contact the series editor at MeritagePress@aol.com



"H for H" booklets are lovingly produced by http://chapbookpublisher.com on lilac-colored paper to fit, at 2.75" x 4.5 X 2", on an open palm -- ideal for giving engagements.

To order some or all of the series, please send checks made out to "Meritage Press" for $3 per booklet and send to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

This offer is also available to non-U.S. residents, but with extra arrangements required for international shipping.

For more information, including on international orders: MeritagePress@aol.com

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Monday, March 01, 2010

GALATEA RESURRECTS WANTS YOU!

In the past couple of weeks, I've gotten a whole bunch of absolutely fabulous review copies for Galatea Resurrects -- and I am looking looking looking for more reviewers to take advantage! Please consider doing a review (next review submission deadline is April 15) and go HERE for list of available review copies!

Now, I'd never thought 80-plus review issues were sustainable....but, looking over moi files, I see that we certainly could use more reviewer involvement for the next issue. Why, I even had to drag in a lawyer (hi Mere!) to do a book review for a law and poetry anthology recently published by the U. of Iowa. Whilst I enjoy ever expanding the audience for and interest in poetry, I sure can use more poets to participate in the next issue! Please consider squeezing in a review or engagement amidst your busy schedules -- we all know that an un-engaged poetry book is not healthy for kult-chah!

Onward! Email moi at GalateaTen@aol.com and let's get some poetry read!

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