"THE LinkedIn POETRY ALL-STARS"

is a list of poetry publications that I've read and loved/love (this list will be updated over time as I read and love what I read). I read poetry frequently and stylistically as widely as I can.

Why LinkedIn? After joining it this year, I realized I could use it as a forum for recommending (others') poetry. My choices mostly reflect poetry readings beginning in 2013, though if I recall a poetry book I read pre-2013 and loved, I'll add it on the list.

I am fortunate in having roles that expose me to much poetry (e.g. editing the most fun online poetry review, Galatea Resurrects, and I do try to read every single review copy sent, whether or not I review it). I hope my "LinkedIn Poetry All-Stars" (sorry but that title amuses Moi) will be another way for people to discover poetry that might not otherwise receive their attention.  That's really all I'm doing: paying attention and drawing attention to ...


LINKED-IN POETRY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Most publications are poetry collections, unless stated otherwise.

[UPDATE:  The list of LinkedIn Poetry Recommendations has been moved to http://linkedinpoetry.blogspot.com/  Please go to that link for all recommendations, which will be updated frequently.]



#18: THE HISTORY OF VIOLETS by Marosa Di Giorgio, Trans. By Jeannine Marie Pitas (Ugly Duckling Presse, Brooklyn, 2010)

#17: LARYNX GALAXY: PROSE POEMS by John Olson (Black Widow Press, 2012)

#16: THE MIDDLE ROOM, a poet's memoir by Jennifer Moxley (Subpress, 2007)

#15: CHINOISERIE by Karen Rigby (Ahsahta Press, 2012)

#14: MADNESS, RACK, AND HONEY: COLLECTED LECTURES (on poetry) by Mary Ruefle (Wave Books, 2012)

#13: FRIGHT CATALOG, poetry and visual poetry by Joseph Mosconi (Insert Blanc Press, 2013)

#12: RED WALLS by James Tolan (Dos Madres Press, 2011)

#11: AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN: AN ETHERDOME ANTHOLOGY: TEN YEARS OF WOMEN'S WRITING, Edited by Colleen Lookingbill & Elizabeth Robinson, featuring Merle Bachman, Faith Barrett, Margaret Butterfield, Erica Carpenter, Valerie Coulton, Caroline Crumpacker, Susanne Dyckman, Kelly Everding, Renata Ewing, Amanda Field, Kate Greenstreet, Anne Heide, Brydie MPherson Kuchi, Erica Lewis, Susan Manchester, Linda Norton, Roberta Olson, Megan Pruiett, Lisa Rappoport, Sarah Suzor, and Stacy Szymaszek (EtherDome Chapbooks / Instance, 2012)

#10: A THING AMONG THINGS: THE ART OF JASPER JOHNS (essays / art criticism / meditations which also reveal something about ars poetica) by John Yau (Distributed Arts Publishers, 2008)

#9: HAD SLAVES by Catherine Sasanov (Firewheel Editions, 2010)

#8: PEOPLE ARE STRANGE (short stories w/ poetry references) by Eric Gamalinda (Black Lawrence Press, 2012)

#7: THIRTY-FIVE NEW PAGES by Lev Rubinstein, note-card poems translated from Russian by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky (Ugly Duckling Presse Eastern European Poetry Series No. 28, 2011)

#6: VARIATIONS ON PAINTING A ROOM: POEMS 2000-2010 by Alan Baker (Skysill Press, 2011)

#5: COUNTERPART by Elizabeth Robinson (Ahsahta Press, 2012)

#4: NEW ORLEANS VARIATIONS AND PARIS OUROBOROS by Paul Pines (Dos Madres, 2013)

#3: IN THE LAURELS, CAUGHT by Lee Ann Brown (Fence Books, 2013)

#2: ALL IS FORGOTTEN, NOTHING IS LOST (novel involving poets and ars poetica) by Lan Samantha Chang (Norton, 2010)

#1: HE LOOKED BEYOND MY FAULTS AND SAW MY NEEDS by Leonard Gontarek (Hanging Loose Press, 2013)


More to come...

Happy Reading!
Eileen R. Tabios

A GUARANTEED WAY TO BE REVIEWED BY MOI!

Ach!  I am just having so much fun SITTING AROUND!

And now, absolutely delightful MINI BOOKS! have started trickling past Galatea's gates to perch themselves on moi mini chairs!  Thank you for those who are sending books!  I need more!  Please peruse YOUR INVITATION.

I will be "reviewing" each mini book sent for SithWithMoi's library of "Books on Chairs".  That's guaranteed!

Meanwhile, please check out my latest mini-blather: how I turned a Godiva box (after I emptied it of chocolates, but of course) into a book!

Nota Bene to you poetry sophisticates: I tend to get a big pedantic on the Sitting Blog when I discuss poetry and poetics (e.g. my "Lucidity Poetics" blather).  Sorry about that.  It's just that not everyone going to that blog are poets and so I'm trying, but of course, to talk poetry to them, too.  And you know what happens when one tries to articulate Poetry: occasional pedantics, among other things...

"MONUMENTAL PUBLIC ART FOR SEA CHANGE!"

My nephew -- artist Matt Pollock! -- has information and invitation for you. That'd be you, especially if you're in the Boston area!

My dearest friends and family,

As you may know, I recently have become Executive Director at HarborArts, Inc. HarborArts is a collaborative, global community whose sole purpose is to protect and preserve our oceans and waterways by helping each of us to understand the issues and solutions facing our blue planet. HarborArts is a platform for dialogue; it creates the stage for creative individuals and groups to express themselves using monumental public art to create environmental awareness. We are HarborArts, Inc. - Monumental Public Art for Sea Change!

Starting in Boston, HarborArts, Inc. sees its call to action attracting worldwide attention as it increasingly plays host to public art projects, community events, a marketplace for reclaimed materials, educational programs that further HarborArts’ goal of helping people understand and respect our valuable water resources, and hosting an International Outdoor Gallery of monumental public art. Nowhere else can the public visit and view art while engaging with an active working shipyard. HarborArts effectively utilizes our waterfront neighborhood to invigorate great civic pride for communities neighboring Boston Harbor. Located on the Boston Harbor Walk, the site of this outdoor exhibition offers views of downtown Boston and the Seaport District. Equally, HarborArts is part of the vista from the Boston waterfront, with clear sight lines to it from the city’s landmark contemporary art museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Right now, I am organizing this year's HarborArts Festival. HarborArts, Inc. is hosting the Two-Year Anniversary Celebration of the grand opening of our Outdoor Gallery in the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina. The shipyard sculpture park opened in 2010 with our exhibition of 30 large-scale outdoor pieces of public art by artists from three continents, curated by Randi Hopkins from the ICA. The International Outdoor Gallery is a collection of “art with a purpose.” I would like to invite you to engage in this celebration with us and the Boston art community on September 22nd, 2012. In 2011, our festival brought nearly a thousand visitors to the pier, and we expect many more this year. The festival will honor the current international exhibition as well as the local arts with food, drinks, activities, art, vendors, live music, performance, galleries and much more.

As well as your attendance at this event, I would also like to invite each of you to participate in this spectacular Festival. Right now, I am $2,500 short of my pre-festival goal. I have launched a RocketHub Campaign to try to make it to our goal. By raising $2,500 for the festival, it will cover the leftover expenses of production and raise that much more for "Monumental Art for Sea Change" on the day of the event!

I wish you all well, and I hope to see those of you who can make it on September 22nd, 2012!

If you can, help us reach our goal for HarborArts Festival 2012 - Check out the RocketHub link below and pass it along. Thanks!

Please pass this link along to family and friends. Thanks!

http://rkthb.co/10407
Warmly,
Matthew

Always lovely to have artists in the family! And, of course, Go GREEN!

SIGN UP ... POEM

I’m happy to share a poetic reminder of a worthy cause, petitioning for Bill Lavender to remain Director of University of New Orleans press. Please sign at https://www.change.org/petitions/provost-louis-paradise-keep-bill-lavender-as-the-director-of-uno-press


Here is a poem by Anny Ballardini for Bill Lavender:

Erynnis funeralis

             For Bill Lavender

The life of a person is made of nothing: a smile, a little kindness, a peach, an ex-student’s postcard with a thank you, the book of a friend in your mailbox. What disruptive forces can uproot precarious equilibriums steadily, tirelessly built, day by day, year by year, night after day after night: dismissals, cuts, hate growing and growling in increasingly suffocating spiraling guts, thick sticky envy, filthy strangling jealousies. Power, never enough, emerging from stagnant ignorance, the superficial projection of incompetent people, their finger raised, the hammer slammed.

The Moirae will be knocking for you.

Dies Irae, the furies strike madly howling, the clock hits the hour of doom. Homer: “those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath,” Burkert: “an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath.” Born from the power of the Sea with the blood of Uranus’s genitals in black Nyx, Alecto’s, Megaera’s, and Tisiphone’s serpents will slide poisonous in your dreams. Athena, engulfed by the advancing mud does not want to help, the frightening Erinyes will eat you down always at your back.

© Anny Ballardini
Homer’s and Burkert’s quotations were taken from Wikipedia.

SIGN & REPRESENT FINE LITERATURE!

So I'm sitting here enjoying the first English-translations of Venezuelan poet Jose Antonio Ramos Sucre, winner of the 2006 Rufino Blanco Fombono Prize, translated by Guillermo Parra and published by UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS press! Which is why I signed this petition and you should too! Here's letter from petition organizers:

Authors, translators, editors, scholars, and readers of fine literature,

As you may well have already heard the University of New Orleans Press has just recently been put on "hiatus" and its innovative and energetic editor, Bill Lavender, fired. The presumptive reason concerned budget constraints, but in fact the Press was cost free, and gained UNO a significant reputation for the past five years (since Bill Lavender’s tenure). It also published an international range of writers, many of them prize winners or otherwise notable. As you are probably aware, Bill Lavender had taken a rather lifeless creature in 2007 and enlivened it with over 80 publications, a remarkable achievement
In support of UNO Press, Bill Lavender, fine literature and good reading, please consider signing a petition indicating your support. The petition has many more details concerning the recent (5-6 day) history of events.

Petition site:
https://www.change.org/petitions/uno-president-peter-fos-provost-louis-paradise-and-dean-susan-krantz-keep-bill-lavender-as-the-director-of-uno-press-4


There was a significant item in The Times Picayune and one in Inside Higher Ed in the past few days:

Times-Picayune:
http://www.nola.com/books/index.ssf/2012/08/visionary_director_of_uno_pres.html

Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/06/university-new-orleans-plans-put-university-press-hiatus

Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/director-of-u-of-new-orleans-press-loses-job-amid-budget-cuts/46549

You may also wish to pass this information on to other writers through a blog, facebook, etc., or even write personal letters to the President and Provost of UNO:

Provost Louis Paradise, lparadis@uno.edu

President Peter Fos, pfos@uno.edu

Thank you,

Marthe Reed
Skip Fox
Anny Ballardini

FORTHCOMING: THE POWERFUL "POETS ON ADOPTION"!

Below is my latest account of poetry book-buying. And I actually purchased Judith Roitman's NO FACE (SELECTED & NEW POEMS) because of this excerpt that Susan Schultz used as epigraph in this wonderful blog post. The excerpt is

Just whose eyes did you think you would look out from anyway?

I happen to be in discussion with Judith (and many other lovely poets) on a new poetry project that will relate poetry to adoption and/or adoption to poetry (await more details on this forthcoming powerful POETS ON ADOPTION site!). And one of the worries I had over this project -- which I actually thought about for two years before I finally decided to inaugurate it -- was how not to be anthropologically reductive as one links poetry and adoption.

With Judith, she happened to mention the possibility that perhaps her poetry is so thoroughly infused with her adoption experience that she wouldn't be able to recognize it. If you look at the above excerpt, there's nothing there that relates adoption to those words. But I also can see how such could be so infused with the adoption experience.

(Identity poems is a subject I've had to deal with when I was more active as an advocate for Asian American/Filipino poetry; interestingly, while I consider my writings "thoroughly infused" with my Filipino background, my texts are not popular with courses on such, perhaps because it's not easy to do cultural anthropology on them. I'm not complaining, btw, just mentioning this as I feel there could be more progress in how teachers approach identity in poetry.)

Certainly, what I suspected and am discovering is how the adoption experience can also be a source for interesting and intriguing "identity poems", regardless of whether poets (consciously) intended such for their writings. Of course, identity poems are not the only result from this linkage of poetry and adoption...

Anyway, more later on adoption and its effects on poetry -- AND VICE VERSA. For now, here's my latest list of BOUGHT POETRY OR BOOKS BY POETS:

NO FACE (SELECTED & NEW POEMS) by Judith Roitman

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer

FREE CELL by Anselm Berrigan

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ICELAND: TRAVEL ESSAYS IN ART by Eileen Myles

LIKE THE RAINS COME: SELECTED POEMS 1987-2006 by Mercedes Roffé

IMMIGRANTS IN OUR LWN LAND AND SELECTED EARLY POEMS by Jimmy Santiago Baca

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

UNION: POEMS by Don Share

THE LONG BIRTH by Jan VanStavern

TILLIE OLSEN: ONE WOMAN, MANY READERS by Panthea Reid (got curious about this due to Kevin Killian's Amazon review which, along with comments, is also worth reading)

SILK EGG: COLLECTED NOVELS (2009-2009) by Eileen R. Tabios (As this blog is about Moi, I non-apologetically suggest you buy it, too! GO HERE for the ordering links through various venues)

TO-DO LIST

Wow. It's really true: everything takes much much longer once one becomes a parent. I believed it intellectually but never really understood it until I became a parent myself. E.G., here's a literary to-do list below (which I blog to not forget to do) which, pre-parenting, I would have done a month ago in addition to have created a hundred new poetry manuscripts (grin):

--proof/print next Meritage Press anthology
--contact anthology participants for mailing logistics of contributor copies
--proof next Meritage Press poetry collection
--calculate and pay state taxes for Meritage Press
--revise chap manuscript
--write two book reviews
--write up a blurb for a forthcoming poetry book
--write a letter of recommendation for a poet
--update art blog

What doesn't fall behind as much, though, is the fitful reading this insomniac does. To wit, here's my latest Recently Relished W(h)ine List.

SPRING/SUMMER HARVEST:
1 stalk of "miner's weed"
100 stalks of green onion
97 strawberries
2 artichokes
2 cherries
7 zucchini
4 stalks of scallions
3 summer squash
6 cucumbers
34 tomatoes
1 fig


PUBLICATIONS
EXHIBITS, poem by John Yau (mischievous delirium)

SALINE, poems by Kimberly Lyons (so many poems are wondrously delicate)

APPARITION POEMS by Adam Fieled (admirable. deceptively multi-layered)

THE APPLE TREES AT OLEMA: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Robert Hass (Dude decided to relax in his newer work...)

KING OF THE JUNGLE, poems by Zvi Sesling (unornamented and totally effective poems)

THE PRECARIOUS RHETORIC OF ANGELS, poems by George Looney

THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT, curated by Ivy Alvarez, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ernesto Priego & Eileen Tabios (yes it's out in book form! But it's a proof book, so it'll take a few more weeks to straighten out some last minute details...but all very exciting to see it!)

DEAR SANDY, HELLO: LETTERS FROM TED TO SANDY BERRIGAN, Eds. Sandy Berrigan and Ron Padgett (fascinating. compulsive reading--I meant to flip through the book when it first arrived and instead ended up reading it all in one sitting)

WALANG HIYA: LITERATURE TAKING RISKS TOWARD LIBERATORY PRACTICE, Eds. Lolan Buhain Sevilla and Roseli Ilano (nice to see younger generation of poet-editors come up)

MiPOesias, Summer 2010, literary/arts journal, Ed.Didi Menendez

THE ASIAN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW, Spring 2010, Eds. Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and Gerard Maa (kewl. And, just accepted invite to serve on its Advisory Board)

HOUSE ORGAN, Summer 2010, literary review edited by Kenneth Warren

THE MAN WHO LOVED BOOKS TOO MUCH: THE TRUE STORY OF A THIEF, A DETECTIVE, AND A WORLD OF LITERARY OBSESSION, journalism by Allison Hoovert Bartlett

WISDOM OF THE LAST FARMER, memoir by David Mas Masumoto

RESCUE INK: HOW TEN GUYS SAVED COUNTLESS DOGS AND CATS, TWELVE HORSES, FIVE PIGS, ONE DUCK AND A FEW TURTLES, memoir by Rescue Ink with Denise Flaim

SCENT OF THE MISSING: LOVE & PARTNERSHIP WITH A SEARCH-AND-RESCUE DOG, memoir by Susannah Charleson

NEVER LOOK AWAY, novel by Linwood Barclay

TOO CLOSE TO HOME, novel by Linwood Barclay

CREATION IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb

THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE, novel by Mary Higgins Clark


WINES
2006 Aubert chardonnay
Tra Vigne house chardonnay
2009 Dutch Henry sauvignon blanc Chafen Family Vineyards
2006 Dutch Henry merlot Yountville
1983 Graham's vintage port
2007 Rebellious Red NV
2005 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese

"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 2009-2010 FILAMORE TABIOS, SR. MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE!

[Please Forward]

Meritage Press Announcement

Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary literary & arts press based in San Francisco & St. Helena, is pleased to announce the recipient of The 2009-2010 Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize ("Prize"): Karen Llagas, with her manuscript entitled ARCHIPELAGO DUST. Congratulations to Karen, whose book is scheduled to be published in 2010 by Meritage Press.

The Prize results from a global competition among Filipino poets; more information about the Prize is available HERE.

As regards the Prize's recipient, Karen Llagas' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, {m}aganda magazine, Broadsided Press, Quay and Wompherence, as well as in the anthologies Field of Mirrors (PAWA, 2008) and Poems of the San Francisco Bay Area Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010). A recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2007, she holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and a BA in Economics from Ateneo de Manila. She lives in San Francisco and works as a small business consultant, a Tagalog interpreter & instructor, and a poet-teacher with the California Poets in the Schools (CPITS). ARCHIPELAGO DUST will be her first poetry book.

Meritage Press also would like to congratulate the following Finalists, listed in alphabetical order of authors' last names:

Loved Letters: Mailed Without a Scent of Home by Niki Eskobar
traje de boda by Aileen Ibardaloza
A Dark Continent Companion by Sean Labrador y Manzano
RIZAL IN SAN FRANCISCO AND OTHER POEMS by Don Pacis
TATTOO by Joel Vega

Meritage Press would like to thank all the poets who participated by sharing their poetry manuscripts. We are honored to have read all of the poems, and are delighted to conclude that the high quality of participation bodes well for the future of Filipino-authored poetry.

Eileen R. Tabios, Publisher, Meritage Press
Beatriz Tabios, Poetry Judge

+++++

Click on http://www.meritagepress.com/prau.htm for information about the inaugural recipient of THE FILAMORE TABIOS, SR. MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE: Prau by Jean Vengua.

MOI IS WOMYN, HEAR ME ... PURR

FLOWERS AND CHOCOLATES--That's what I and Leny received last night following our readings for Filipino Women's Day at UC Berkeley. The flowers are gracing the kitchen, and my eyes are gracing that huge Symphony chocolate bar. Not since Zack Linmark gave me puto following my first San Francisco reading about ten years ago have I received yum-yums after offering poetry. Thank you UC Berkeley. You asked for poems on "empowerment" and yet you all are the ones who've inspired me with your energy, commitment, non-metaphorical activism and much Matalina!

What exactly did I do to earn last night's chocolates? Some blather about being an "intelligent" poet being like a "Pinay navigating one's self through an inherited universe and turning it into a world she also has made". Both require thinking out of the balikbayan box...

And what a treat seeing Joi Barrios again whom I met only once in person and that seven years ago. She's another inspiration: she should be invited as a "Keynote Speaker" over ... somewhere...(wink)

ATTENTION OENOPHILES & SUPPORTERS OF BARNARD COLLEGE

Please pardon Moi while I interrupt Moi's regularly-scheduled programming to give Advance Warning to ye Oenophiles: as part of an auction to raise funds for scholarships to Barnard College, Galatea is donating the following item to an upcoming auction that will take place April 15-May 7, 2009 viz Charity Buzz. This special item is:

THE TRUE CALIFORNIA CULTS: THE BEST WINES FROM THE BEST YEAR

A bottle each of the 1997 Screaming Eagle, 1997 Harlan, 1997 Bryant Family, 1997 Colgin Herb Lamb Vineyard, 1997 Abreu Madrona Vineyard and 1997 Araujo Eisele Vineyard. Cellared impeccably since release. (All rated 100 or near 100 by wine guru Robert Parker).

If you're in the wine-know, you know that it is very difficult to get all of the above bottles in one package. So participate in the auction ... but be forewarned, too, that the highest online bid will just become the entry bid in the live auction during the actual Scholarship Gala & Auction dinner on April 29 at Gustavino's in New York City. So bid high for this special lot!

Barnard being so special, there are other special lots available, like Shepard Fairey's "Be the Change" Official Inauguration Poster. Check it out!

As much as over half of Barnard College's students receive scholarships -- I was one of them. I'm happy to be supportive...EDUCATION IS A GOOD THING!

BOARD, NOT BORED!

I'm newly on the Board of Kundiman, along with some pretty fabulous poets (scroll down).

I've also served for a long while now on the Boards of Kelsey Street Press (which has a fabulous blog HERE) and Small Press Traffic (who's looking for a new Executive Director).

I choose to be affiliated with these organizations because they deserve support. Do check out their offerings, their books and readings -- they elevate contemporary poetry.

GROW THAT CULTURE BY CRITIQUING IT!

Kritika Kultura, an on-line journal published by Ateneo de Manila University, is worth noting for several reasons.

On a personal note, the first two articles which revolve around Jose Garcia Villa, reference the book I edited on him, The Anchored Angel (Kaya, 1999). There's a sense of passage here for me. I've never considered myself a critic -- but as a cultural activist on behalf of Filipino poetry, I'd felt the need in the past to take on tasks usually taken on by *professional* critics because no one else was doing so (for instance, there's really no reason why I had to be the one to edit a recovery project like The Anchored Angel, when so many poets and critics among my peers knew him better....well, there's something to be said about the more objective voice, I suppose, but I digress). As I've discussed a number of times with various Filipino scholars, creating poetry is one thing but drawing global attention to Filipino poetry on a sustained basis would be aided significantly by the involvement of more scholars. I should note here that Timothy Yu's articles on Villa also are referenced by Kritika Kultura. (I'm also enjoying Tim's recent takes on the presidential campaigns.)

Anyway, all to the good to see these criticisms come up involving Filipino poetry. I just hope that critical expansion will get beyond the Modernist constraint (that, too, is limited). Still and all, a lot of meat here (check out the forum on Vicente Rafael's latest book), so do check it out!
 

STAGE PRESENCE: MORE THAN "YOGA BOOTY BALLET"

Am in the middle of reviewing the final manuscript for STAGE PRESENCE edited by Theo Gonsalvez. It's ground-breaking. I can't wait to release it. Theo and I must have been going back and forth on it for about [five] years? STAGE PRESENCE, along with PINOY POETICS, is why I founded Meritage Press. Yes, I've done many other projects since but these two books were the impetus for my becoming a publisher. The artists in STAGE PRESENCE (the link has to be updated) are

1. Eleanor Academia (music)
2. Jessica Hagedorn (music)
3. Joel Jacinto (dance)
4. Danny Kalanduyan (music)
5. Allan Manalo (theater)
6. Alleluia Panis (dance)
7. Reme Grefalda(theater)
8. Pearl Ubungen (dance)
9. Gabe Baltazar, Jr. (music)
10. Ralph Pena (theater)

It'll be interesting to feature Jessica Hagedorn as, not a poet but as, a bandleader.

A brilliant foreword by Ricardo D. Trimillos.

If you don't know these names, you will want to know them. Here's an excerpt below from the essay by Pearl Ubungen, the first movement artist with whom I did a collaboration with a poem providing the "music" to Pearl's dance. I was honored to work with Pearl as I empathize with how she incorporates cultural activism into her work, as in the brilliant community-involved Tagulaylay):

Dance training has the potential to be very powerful because the deep somatic practices are placed in a performance context. Internal to the body are traces of lineage and ancestral memory that can be drawn into the creative process of making and performing work. This is significant at a time when the body has been so stripped of embodiment and the influences of very aggressive technology and mass media pervert notions of how we "think" about the body. I am really talking about two intertwined strands--which I referred to as the subtle/subversive body earlier. Somatic practice in itself doesn't address the contextual -- but can be a pathway to deepening those traces. For example: These days more of our time is spent in relationship to computers. Rather than a face-to-face conversation, we have text messages or even computer-based viewing that allows us to "see" the other person. This cannot be equated with the kind of embodiment that occurs when we are in each other's physical presnce -- face-to-face/body-to-body. Furthermore, the body becomes more constricted; less full of its organic presence when technology drives its daily activities. In terms of a radical artistic approach to the legacies of colonialism, racism, classism, etc., it is my belief that that the body needs to come more into itself and serve as the essential ground for making work. For me this means more stillness, contemplation and a simplification of one's daily activities. This is what I've come to learn through meditation practice and study. Another aspect of the culture that we are challenged with is the body being hyper-involved in body-based activities but from a materialistic/entertainment-based attitude. In other words, the urban physical body culture now tells everyone "yoga booty ballet" is what we need to have a great bod. This distorts how we relate to the body as a source of home or wisdom from which we can source intelligence and creativity.

So, please to anticipate the Meritage Press release of STAGE PRESENCE! The performers are philosophers in their own right, but despite such and the complexity of the discussed contexts, the artists' words are deliberately accessible viz kuwentuhans (conversations). Because this poet believes in this instance: Words should not create distance, but offer bridges.