POMO-ING THAT POMO!

Dredging for Atlantis is one of my favorites among my books because it contains my "scumbled" poems. So why am I reminding you of my 2006 book (which was so lovingly published by Otoliths--thank you Mark Young!)? Well, because for some reason I just got in today's mail some hard-copies of a review done of it in 2009 by "America's oldest literary magazine" North American Review! I can't recall, but it's possible I hadn't seen this mini-review previously ...

Anyway, you can see the review by clicking on this excerpt below whose pinoy-punning I adore:

An intelligent collection that definitely pomo's the pomo.

More reviews are referenced HERE. If you want to know what those critics are talking about, it's not too late to get your copy (least expensive copies available HERE). And have I mentioned it offers my baby photo? I was big-eyed even back then....

FOR BIRTHDAY, MOI IS A NEO-MODERNIST!

Well well what a wonderful morning I've had so far! Several more birthday wishes, including one who gave THIS LINK as his birthday present (laugh), wherein Ron Silliman is interviewed by Anish Shivani in The Huffington Post and is quoted as saying:

Have American poets betrayed the great legacy of modernism? One might make this argument for those poets who write as if modernism itself never existed. But with friends like Ezra Pound &/or T.S. Eliot, modernism hardly needed enemies. I've often thought that the real question here is what would happen if we went back and actually attempted to answer the great questions of form & function that literary modernism asks. In that sense, I tend to think the best current writing isn't post-modern, but rather neo-modern. The work of Linh Dinh, Prageeta Sharma, Tao Lin, Tan Lin, Eileen Tabios, Hung Q. Tu, Mytili Jagannathan, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Brian Kim Stefans, Pamela Lu, Bhanu Kapil & other younger writers who excite me all strike me this way.

Well, so thank you, too, Ron!

And Sandy and Barbara made Moi and family a faboo brunch! The picture above is of eggs poaching for the main course in this menu:

Eggs Benedict with chipotle hollandaise sause over arepas (instead of English muffins) and Canadian bacon with oregano and paprika. Arepas are a Colombian staple so it was really thoughtful of the McIntoshes to consider Michael in the menu planning.

Also on the table were papas con chorizo and "quick pickled fig salad". The lovely all of it enhanced by mimosas with some 2005 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs from the hubby's wine cellar. Fabulous! Here are the final results



and this morning's chefs:



Last but not least for now, Happy Birthday as well to Jim McCrary! And yes, Jim: this

Pat the doggies, pat the kitties, hug em all. kids and hubby. (does that ryhme?)

rhymes!

More later for one of my favorite presents yet involving a whole crowd of Big, Burly Men!

GO (TO) LULU BEFORE JANUARY ENDS!

Maybe I should have blogged this last weekend when Lulu was running a 20% discount on all orders. But I'll blog this now to say that if you order a poetry book (or any book) from Lulu during month of January, you can get 10% off. Just insert the coupon code

READMORE2010

Recent Lulu releases, that I recommend, include GOD DAMSEL by Reb Livingston. Old Lulu releases that I recommend include this BABY.

And here's latest update to my BOUGHT POETRY LIST:

TRAJE DE BODA by Aileen Ibardaloza (await details of SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER! Forthcoming from Meritage Press)

AUTOPSY TURVY, poems by Thomas Fink & Maya Diablo Mason (await details of SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER! Forthcoming from Meritage Press)

OPEN CLOSED OPEN by Yehuda Amichai

IOWA by Travis Nichols

TEXTURE NOTES by Sawako Nakayasu

NIGHTBIRDS by Garin Cycholl (through Galatea Resurrects' Publisher's Prize)

COOKING WITH ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES by Francis Raven Galatea Resurrects' Publisher's Prize)

DAYS POEM, VOL. 1 and VOL. 2 by Allen Bramhall (this is one of the most ambitious and successful poetry projects about -- y'all should check it out)

KALI'S BLADE, poems by Michelle Bautista

UNPROTECTED TEXTS: SELECTED POEMS 1978-2007 by Tom Beckett

STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AMERICAN DANCE & THEATER ARTISTS (featuring, among others, Jessica Hagedorn), Ed. Theo Gonsalvez

POEMCRAZY: FREEING YOUR LIFE WITH WORDS, essays by Susan G. Wooldridge

May my recent economic stimulation save a job or two because that's what Poetry also does: saves you!

APPARENTLY, MOI WAS READY FOR MOI CLOSE-UP!

Sniffle. Wasn't expecting THIS. Thank you Reme Grefalda and Luisa Igloria for putting this all together.

And, of course, none of this would have been possible without Marsh Hawk Press (New York), Giraffe Books (Philippines), Otoliths Books (Australia), among others.

And, hm, couldn't help noticing how all those poetry paperbacks suddenly became HARDBACKS! I guess that's what happens when you become a Poetry Book Exhibited in the United States Library of Congress! (Do those hardback-dresses make Moi look fat?)

I should also thank Dusie (Switzerland) and Ahadada (Tokyo & Toronto, in early 2009) for chap- and book-publishing the poems that represent Moi.

Salamats y'all. Moi calorie-ridden goblets runneth over...

"NEVER ENOUGH!"

Back and exhausted. Back from a trip that had me, among other things, having to sit through two pig races. Each pig -- or perhaps piglet since they were small -- were clad in the colors of a different country. England was always a loser. The winners in the two races I witnessed -- slack-jawed at the surreality of the experience -- wore red and blue as colors and, of course, are colors in many countries' flags.

Geezus. I am discussing pigs.

Anyway, catching up and, among other things, am thankful to Geof Huth for his engagement with Tom Beckett's Tiny Book and the significance of the Hows of its publication form. Click on excerpt below for whole thing -- Geof aptly has great things to say about Tom's poems but I focus on this excerpt that focuses on me not just because it's about Moi but because there have been less reactions to the Tiny Books series, to date, that addresses the publication format:

What is interesting in this book is how Eileen Tabios, the transcriber, has ostensibly taken on the role of co-writer of the book. My interpretation—possibly inaccurate—is that Eileen is the one who has visualized this writing, who has not just handwritten these words, but who has added the visual character of words presented as shapes, colored text, and varying sizes of text. When “a map” starts sloping down the page, taking text and giving it shape, I see Eileen’s hand and mind involved. She is not simply a transcriber; she is a writer. And she does more than just visualize the text intentionally; she does it unintentionally as well. Every book is in Eileen’s loose hand, one that doesn’t go for prettiness, but instead depends on speed and a kind of demotic script, generic, loose, easygoing—just about the opposite of what a book handwritten by me would look like. And this visual presence gives the book a different feel, a different message and meaning, than a typed book, even than a book written in a careful calligraphic hand. This visual presence of the text becomes an essential characteristic of the text—a source of its meaning.

And thanks, too, to Krip Yuson for his column in The Philippine Star reviewing Dredging for Atlantis as well as The Light Sang... Click on excerpt below for whole thing:

...a prose rendering on a lower, right-hand column. It's too long to quote in full, so let's skip to its arc of closure, which could well be read as Tabios' ars poetica: "... you will conclude, no matter how many poets have labored, are laboring, will labor, there are never enough poems. Never enough poems. And as you read me now, you feel me sitting before a small desk, buried in a man's plaid bathrobe, unkempt hair falling over bloodshot eyes, ink smudging all fingers, munching on 'a cookie chock full of mountainous chunks of rich milk chocolate and munchable macadamia nuts,' as I write, as I write, as I write: Never enough."

Damn right that's Moi arse poetica: chocolate and Never Enough!

RELISH MOI!

Preen Alert!

I was about to post my latest "Relished List" update when a Peep directed me to a review of my Dredging for Atlantis. Wow (hey dear publisher Mark, I didn't even bribe the dude). I love this so much I'm posting it in full below. (Is this why SPD's been clamoring for more books to restock their inventory?):

Last but not least, Thank you Jeffrey! Now, you enjoy, too my Pretty Miscalculations:

from BROOKLYN RAIL:

Eileen Tabios, Dredging for Atlantis
(Otoliths, 2006)

by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

Imagine the poet as a diver exploring oceans of ancient texts, extracting gems, polishing and resetting them. In her 11th book, Eileen Tabios refers to ekphrasis, or speaking out in a dramatic way about a work of art. She chose “The Last Lunar Baedekar” by Mina Loy, to scumble and work over to create her own startling and original poems. Sleek and economic, they glitter with unexpected imagery and musicality in an atmosphere charged by crinoline and cufflinks, grace and salvation.

“Minor Riddle” (an apposite title) is avant and high-toned and flirts with academe. Yet the ensuing freedom and consequent surprises are compelling and reveal an interior logic unbeholden to straight-up narrative. Embedded in the backdrop of Florence is this joyous one-line stanza: “Minarets growing within muddy whirlpools.”

In “White as Grecian Marble” the poet creates a shiny column of couplets, a classic pastoral. “A trolley loaded/with ivory busts//glides against air/overtaken by snow//beyond this crocheted lace of white dandelions//and one orchid// recalling its youthful orgies.”

Wow! Sappho meets the Objectivisits! Ivory, snow, crocheted lace and white dandelions line up perfectly. And echoing orchid with orgies—the last line is all punch.

Jack Kerouac wrote, “Vision is deception.” Eileen Tabios’ version goes like this: “Go forth and prettily miscalculate.”

ACH, YE PURPLE PATCHES OF LIT CRIT!

I was pleased by this review in The Feminist Review by Vita Foster of moi's Dredging For Atlantis. Pleased, not because it's a ravingly positive review (it's not) but because of this paragraph (click on it for whole review):

Most of the poems are short and in many cases did not grab my attention right away. Yet, many contained a startling turn of phrase that invited deeper contemplation, an effect I crave and the reason why I read poetry. Others just made me wonder what Tabios was smoking.

Someone once paid me the highest compliment possible (though I don't know if he knew he was paying a compliment) when he said about some of my poems (in ENGLISH): "I don't understand your poems but I like them."

Love it.

As for what I smoke? If you must know: ye olde Cuban cigar, the tip dipped first in the Chatelaine's Chalice which, in this instance, would probably bear the 1945 Taylor's Fladgate!