"OH GOOD: MOI CAN CONTINUE TO DEGENERATE..."

for some reason, was one of my initial responses to Barry Schwabsky's contribution to a celebration of the 90th birthday of his teacher, Daniel Hoffman, over HERE. 

A more important reaction was my thought of how complicated it can be to teach/model compassion ... and I'm glad Mr. Hoffman was successful with Mr. Schwabsky. 

I once wrote to Mr. Hoffman.  He replied.  Utterly gracious of him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Daniel Hoffman.

And Barry Schwabsky?  Bless you, dear ...

Oh, and Jose Garcia Villa?  Calm down: you know I love you.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPOT ON EARTH

Geez. I've touched down on five continents not knowing the most beautiful spot on earth is in one's backyard!

The most masterful colorist? Bacteria:

Okay. Here's obligatory shot of Old Faithful--you should now know where I went!

No wonder I was happy to toast the occasion with an Elk [Cove] pinot noir (albeit from Oregon), naturally next to to some Moose butter

followed by some 1950 Graham's with, yep, Bison chocolates!

Yes--Yellowstone proved government can work!  HIGHLY RECOMMEND visiting the world's first national park -- I saw herds (herds!) of bison and elk!  Didn't see the wolves I was reading about, but I  knew they saw me ....

HAVE [G]O[N]E, AM HERE...!

MUSEUM-OFFIED!

I am apparently exhibited in a museum! Pretty good since I'm not dead. To wit, perhaps you wish to stop by the National Steinbeck Center's marvelous exhibit. Among other marvels, you'll see a photo from when I first met (then ate with since no Pinoy meeting is authentic unless food is involved) Jose Garcia Villa:

Villa's face is cut off in that photo but that photo of me and him is starting to be replicated more and more.  What may not be as well known is the photographer: it was either XX (an artist-photographer who joined us for lunch but whose name I can't recall--I'll fill it in here when I do) or Luis Cabalquinto, another fine poet.  Luis is the one who introduced me to Jose Garcia Villa.

I continue to watch with amusement my ongoing ossification!  Mortality -- ye amuse Moi!

YOU'RE WELCOME,

Jon Pineda, who writes an interesting poetry writing prompt regarding the caesura--check it HERE!

USING ART TO INCORPORATE THE FUTURE INTO THE PRESENT

I create abstract personal systems to investigate my own perception of time through the world around me. In my drawings, repetitive lines or marks create a visual build-up of time that has passed. "Memories of the Past at the Present" is an interpretation of the idea that the present is made up of both the past and the incipient future.
--Rebekah May

I enjoy including "About The Cover" sections in my books (e.g. The Secret Lives of Punctuations and Nota Bene Eiswein) -- it's another way to discuss poetry and/or its effects. So I was delighted to see that 1000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING includes such a section, and I loved it so much that I got permission to post the entire thing for your reading pleasure! The artist Rebekah May (whose website is worth checking out!) did a wonderfully inventive collaboration with ten other artists -- mirroring the collaborative approach of the book's poetry. Here is what Rebekah first presented to the participating artists -- I love the idea of riffing off of the Fibonacci sequence:

Having a selection of artists follow the directions allowed me to create a collaborative cover with unique variations on a theme, just like the interpretations of the poem “Girl Singing” in this anthology. These are the directions:

1) Draw a square that’s about a quarter of an inch

2) Draw another square the same size next to the 1st square

3) Draw a square the size of the first 2 squares combined on top of the first two squares

4) Draw a square the size of the first 3 squares combined to the right of the other squares

5) Draw a square the size of the first 4 squares combined below the first 4 squares

6) Draw a square the size of the first 5 squares combined to the left of the first 5 squares

7) Draw a square the size of the first 6 squares combined on top of the first 6 squares

8) Draw a square the same size as the first 7 squares combined to the right of the first 7 squares

9) Draw a line that connects the squares in the order that you drew them

Below is a drawing of the Fibonacci sequence.

Participating Artists were Zina Al-Shukri, Claire Belby, Pablo Cristi, Joshua Ferris, Patrick Hillman, Justin Hurty, Cameron Kelly, Hilary Pecis, Maya Ruznic, and Ashley Lauren Saks.

What I adore about the artists' approach was how they created something new based on poetry, rather than the more common book cover method of finding an "illustration" to use as a cover image. I thank these artists for their openness and their work which resulted in this book cover:



There is a further & helpful discussion of the background to (and larger-size book cover image at) 1000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING over at Zeitgeist Spam. Editor John Bloomberg-Rissman is soon to be off to Europe to release the book at the London Small Publishers Fair. Do check out the Leafe Press table for this release!

GARCIA VILLA, MOI & TOI!

Although 1,000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING won't be released until November 13, 2009 at the London Small Publishers Fair, it is now available through Amazon for ordering (and early sales figures are already strong -- why don'tcha see what's up with these melodic palabras?!).

To remind (from an earlier post):

...GIRL SINGING is global music produced, in many cases, among strangers from nearly 50 poets worldwide....based on a song, that is poem (inspired by a Jose Garcia Villa poem), I wrote when I was exploring poem-as-song back in the day. I certainly didn't know back then that the poem's desire for audience inherently means the poem-song is really a chorus (or, at a minimum, a duet).

There are poems who just talk the talk. Then there are poems who are lucky enough to find a reader who paused and paid attention for as long as that poem required to release its full blossoming, in this case, on the universal e-stage -- THANK YOU to editor John Bloomberg-Rissman for making this project sing on a world stage!

WAY BETTER THAN A THOUSAND VIEWS OF MOI

is this about-to-be-released 1,000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING!

...GIRL SINGING is global music produced, in many cases, among strangers from nearly 50 poets worldwide....based on a song, that is poem (inspired by a Jose Garcia Villa poem), I wrote when I was exploring poem-as-song back in the day. I certainly didn't know back then that the poem's desire for audience inherently means the poem-song is really a chorus (or, at a minimum, a duet).

There are poems who just talk the talk. Then there are poems who are lucky enough to find a reader who paused and paid attention for as long as that poem required to release its full blossoming, in this case, on the universal e-stage -- THANK YOU John Bloomberg-Rissman (if you click on John's blog-link, btw, you can see an encyclopediac -- gorgeously ambitious! -- hay(na)ku sequence in blossom-progress...)

Relatedly, much gratitude to Ernesto for his post about both 1,000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING and FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA. Ernesto's view is arguably the healthiest writing I've seen among the texts addressing the role of blogging in poetry. Do nota bene in particular his eloquence on the joy of sharing and collaboration!

I was also glad to see Ernesto's post because I was among that group of bloggers who began blogging before hordes of poets got into blogworld. Back then, it was a different zeitgeist...even as it's been fascinating to see what happens to the mix when more capitalist concerns (from selling books to selves) enter into the fray (tho, not to worry: Poetry not only survives everything, but it can blossom from anything).

FOR THE RECORD, ON JOSE GARCIA VILLA

Over at Zoland Poetry, Craig Santos Perez reviews DOVEGLION: COLLECTED POEMS OF JOSE GARCIA VILLA released by Penguin.

Many fine points in this review for which I am appreciative -- thanks to Craig for his attention and work.

Unfortunately, it recycles a widespread misperception about Villa, to wit Craig's last paragraph which mentions Villa's "blind spot" in that Villa presumably possessed an "unwavering belief that social, cultural and historical concerns had no place in poetry."

WRONG.

Factually, Villa believed no such thing. I feel the need to e-note a correction as this is such a common enough misperception that I wasn't surprised -- though was dismayed -- to see it pop up in Craig's review.

I could wax longer but ... let me just note that for the record.

Right now, I just wish to Rock with You, Michael Jackson...R.I.P.

YOU GO, SONNY!

I still grin when I recall a reader of The Anchored Angel once telling me that he was happy to see E. San Juan, Jr.'s contribution because it's a prose piece rare for being comprehensible. Which is to say, "Sonny"'s particular brilliance is such that, uh, words often fail him. Grin.

But not in this article on Jose Garcia Villa (viz Ron Silliman where I seem ironically to be getting much of my e-news re Filipino poets nowadays...and who also helpfully links to Screaming Monkeys) headlined

"Salvaging The Disappeared Poet: The Case of Jose Garcia Villa"

It's really worthwhile reading...and One need not be a Communist to appreciate that judicious use of the word "salvaging...", di ba? Pinoys have such pungent sense of humor...

*****

A review of Jose Garcia Villa's Collected Poems (Penguin) will be in the next issue of Galatea Resurrects. As the deadline for the next issue is Nov. 15, it's not too late for you reviewers to consider writing one for said next issue! Review copy information HERE.

MERCI ET MERCY!, SOPHIE

I'm really honored by the attention visual artist Cecilia Sophia Ibardaloza has been paying to my poem "The Secret Life of an Angel." Recent ekphrasis HERE.

Merci bow-coooooo, Sophie!

LISSEN TO ANGELIC MOI

and you will be TRANSPORTED.

It's as cool as Obama, as
cool as this evening caped around Moi....

Yeah, Baby: that couplet rhymes!

Gracias y Salamat y Agyamanak, Lucy y Ernesto!

GAZE AT MOI A THOUSAND TIMES

Over at Zeitgeist Spam, the project continues on creating ONE THOUSAND views of my poem "The Secret Life of an Angel" written after Jose Garcia Villa's "Girl Singing". Though a bit flattered, I'm mostly bemused by how such a project has blossomed from a poem that I kinda thought wasn't that hot in the first place (Villa's poem is hot, mine less so). I mean, I think my poem, as a song, really grates in places. Still, look at the participants to date -- AND I do thank you all for improving on my modest effort:

Geof Huth
Rebeka Lembo
³Lolabola²
Mark Young
Ernesto Priego
Sam Bloomberg-Rissman
Robert Rissman
Sheila E Murphy
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Rebekah May
Jean Vengua
Lucy Morris/Ernesto Priego
Alan Baker
Franek Wygoda
harry k stammer
Kuei Chiu
Claire Rissman-Sherr
Rupert M Loydell
Ivy Alvarez
Ed Baker
Giles Goodland
Jared Schickling
Mike Cannell
Yichen Chiu
Steve Mitchell
John Bloomberg-Rissman
Cecilia Sophia Ibardaloza
Rolly delos Santos
Tim Gaze (we're looking for you)

Well, I'm grateful and looking forward to the book project that will come out of this (the notes on translation methodologies alone is worth perusing the project). To mitigate my embarassment, I'm just glad the editor/publisher are allowing me to write an "Afterword" where I rewrite (I mean, translate) my own original poem into something less, um, tone-deaf.

Meanwhile, I keep wondering, if a project like this can grow from one of my bad poems, just think of what can grow from a ... good poem! It's not like I've not written a few others pow-ems....

But maybe it's like dating? Does the bad boy vs the good boy still get more girls (so to speak; haven't dated in decades)? And the thing about Poetry is that maturity is not a prerequisite....

John Bloomberg-Rissman is open to more of your translations, mature or otherwise. Email him at J@johnbr.com

AND THANK YOU, JOHN DEAR.

FRIDAY MISCELLANY

Sam Rasnake's reading of Jose Garcia Villa's Lyric 22 is as "lovely as a panther."

I've just discovered this blog whose energy is as beautiful as the poets who make up its community: Upset Press.

Also, I wish I could attend but suggest y'all in the area go to:

Vanitas Magazine Launch Party
Vanitas 3 : Popular Song

Readings by Elaine Equi, Cliff Fyman, Alix Lambert, Charles North, Raphael Rubinstein, and Susan Wheeler
Jack Pierson, Master of Ceremonies
Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 6 PM
FREE
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery St. (between Houston and Bleecker)

Note that the issue is themed "Popular Song". Which I nota bene for y'all because it contains my first attempt at translation (a numerical poem by kari edwards into Ilokano) and the poetics/translation theories underlying such.

Then, like others, I've been quite moved at reading Tom Beckett's recollections over The Difficulties and how Yale came to get The Difficulties archive. Two things came to mind (well, more than two things but I'll blog about two):

1) The notion that other poets/writers lost interest in keeping in touch with Tom once he ceased to be a magazine editor. This is a topic folks rarely talk about (or that I've observed) but which I'm quite aware of (forced to be aware of) because of my activities as an editor, sometime-critic and publisher. Thinking as I type, now that I've raised the topic, I find it doesn't interest me enough to discuss. Except that, today vs, uh yesterday, I think I'm more Zen about the whole thing -- we're all just lousy humans, after all, which makes those rare ones with authentic empathy more special among us lovely humans. It is best, I think, to approach this topic with ... compassion. (Huh, I guess I did do a bit of discussion...)

2) Ye matter of archives in an e-age. For years now, and because my blather generates so much blather, I've been putting together cardboard boxes in the "garage" labeled by year. Basically, without any atttempt to organize because there's so much of it, I just toss in each box until it gets filled up any detritus, souvenir, hard-copy print-out of anything related to the work I do in poetry. But I don't print-out and archive e-mails or blog posts or most of what I do in the internet (I tried doing so once but there's just too much for me to keep up with such...and I'm not, hard to believe, that fascinated with moiself). And that's fine with me. Rather than bemoan putting my files at risk to the internet's whim, I actually find that it makes more precious to me the objects that do have a physical presence--for example, that someone bothered to hand-write a letter than dash off an e-mail. Besides, it's impossible to archive Poetry.

Last but not least, I just bought Moi sum poetree: String Light by C.D. Wright (University of Georgia Press, Athens and London, 1991)--$4.50 (50% off) from used poetry shelves of the wonderful Main Street Bookstore, St. Helena.

THOSE SEX-ED UP PUNCTUATIONS

Speaking of Jose Garcia Villa, he is known in part for his "comma poems", where there's a comma after each word, a structure that he says could help regulate the reading of the poems. One of moi 9 billion peeps, m.cb sez

Eileen, I'm such a gossip gecko flicking my tongue all over, about the comma poems. But I don't think it's a scandal really. Whatever Jose's sexual orientation, the comma poems are, I think, an indication how he sucks a male organ, in slow rhythms, pause, suck, pause, suck, investing meaning in each pause meditating his energetic tongue against the beneficiary's glans, meditating on cock as life-giver, art fertilizer. I think Jose has a great sense of humor, and that, to a point, influenced his comma poems. Sex as, is text. Literature and sex are irresistibly entwined; and the other two, of course, are religion and politics. (Please don't spank and hate me, for saying this (somewhat) childish bit, about Jose.)

Right. Like I believe that spanking parenthetical. Honey--that ain't the meaning I invest in that pause.

Moi loves moi Peeps especially when they peep.

Now, m.cb has ordered a copy of THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOL. I where I yank out of their closets the semi-colon, colon, parenthesis, ellipsis, among others. I can hardly wait for m.cb's meditations on their sexual proclivities and such.

Until that Relish, here's the latest Relished W(h)ine List:

THE CITY SLICKER'S HARVEST (to date)
12 Santa Rosa plums
50 apricots
86 strawberries
1,451 basil leaves
327 purple basil leaves
267 mint leaves
405 pinches of parsley
3 zucchini
2 yellow squash
1 orange squash
114 tomatoes
40 green figs
17 green onion stalks
167 green peppers
5 red peppers
8 Japanese eggplants
45 purple table grapes


PUBLICATIONS
SHORT MOVIES, luminous poetry by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen and Márton Koppány (free .pdf here)

WARDOLLY, poems by Elizabeth Treadwell (Impressive: it's tenderly but fully realized poetry!)

WALDEN BOOK, poems by Allen Bramhall (lyrical pleasing & smart poems in a wonderfully designed chap presentation)

DOVEGLION: COLLECTED POEMS by Jose Garcia Villa (must-reading, to the extent any poetry collection is a must-read)

THE SINGERS, poems by Logan Ryan Smith (this poet has among the best ears of his generation)

SUBSISTENCE EQUIPMENT, poems by Brenda Iijima

THE CITY, poems by Ed Baker

NEIGHBOR, BOOK 4: FU: SION, poems by Ed Baker

ONE ARROW, A Flim Forum Press anthology featuring Brandon Shimoda, Thom Donovan, Jonathan Minton, Adam Golaski, Lori Anderson Moseman, Katie Kemple, Christopher Fritton, Eric Gelsinger, Jacqueline Lyons, John Cotter, Jeff Parris, Michael Ives, Jaime Corbacho, Matthew Klane, Pierre Joris and Aaron Lowinger, Edited by Matthew Klane and Adam Golaski

SHADOW MOUNTAIN, poems by Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan

BOX OF LIGHT / CAJA DE LUZ, poems by Susan Gardner

SALU-SALO: IN CONVERSATION WITH FILIPINOS, AN ANTHOLOGY OF PHILIPPINE-AUSTRALIAN WRITINGS, Ed. by Jose Wendell P. Capili and John Cheeseman

RECOVERING: A JOURNAL by May Sarton

THE SOLACE OF OPEN SPACES, essays by Gretel Ehrlich

HOLY THE FIRM, meditations by Annie Dillard

TEACHING A STONE TO TALK: EXPEDITIONS AND ENCOUNTERS by Annie Dillard

OUT OF POVERTY: WHAT WORKS WHEN TRADITIONAL APPROACHES FAIL, poverty study by Paul Polak

GROWTH OF THE SOIL, novel by Knut Hamsun

DAMAGE CONTROL, novel by J.A. Vance

THE LAST PATRIOT, novel by Brad Thor

RESTRAINT, novel by Sherry Sonnett

PURSUIT, novel by Thomas Perry

DEAD AIM, novel by Thomas Perry

MY DREAM OF YOU, novel by Nuala O'Faolain

THE INFORMANT, novel by James Grippando


WINES
2005 Aubert chardonnay Sonoma
2005 Kistler chardonnay
2005 Kistler pinot noir
2005 Travigne house cabernet
1991 Beringer Cabernet
1999 Behrens & Hitchcock "Ode to Picasso" NV
2006 Marquis Phillips Shiraz

FOR THE RECORD RE. JOSE GARCIA VILLA

Ron Silliman's blog today notes several links to Filipino poetry/poets which is how I discover ABS-CBN quoting me as saying something about Edith Sitwell and Jose Garcia Villa, to wit--in a Q&A with Joel Toledo, there's this question worded as:

Q. Eileen Tabios once said that Villa was so well-supported by Edith Sitwell because he was exoticized as an Oriental--nothing like that happened to you?

For the record, this is not a claim I make. I have no idea (nor could I give a bucket of carabao spit) as to why Sitwell "supported" Villa. Now, I suspect the interviewer is quoting me once referencing (and snorting over) some sentences in a Sitwell biography (too lazy to look up the title) where Edith says something about Villa that in politically-correct quarters would be considered "exoticization". But this doesn't necessarily mean I believe Sitwell didn't like Villa's poetry for other reasons than how ABS-CBN phrased it (for all I know, Sitwell genuinely liked Villa's poetry....even as she, cough, edited it with a hand as heavy as, yes,s a carabao).

You know, when erroneous stuff gets said about me, I don't usually respond. But as regards Jose Garcia Villa, I'm feeling compelled to respond -- maybe because his COLLECTED POEMS just came out from Penguin Classics.

So, since we're on the subject of Jose Garcia Villa, may I also correct something frequently said about me when it comes to linking my name with Villa. For the record, I am not a "heir" to Villa. I admire his poems and, yes, edited a book on his work. But as a poet I am not his heir. (I'm reminded of this point because Ron Silliman also links to a Manila Times article on Villa that, while not mentioning me by name, mentions Villa's "heirs". Not to say I'm claiming the author Ordonez even had me in mind, but just that I was reminded of having been called one of Villa's "heirs" a number of times before.)

As a poet, I am nobody's heir, even as I occasionally act as certain puwets' herrings.

Last but not least, as regards the question posed by Ordonez's article and repeated on Silliman's Blog on whether "Philippine literature should 'move on' from Jose Garcia Villa?"....Dude and Dudettes, that cart was pulled beyond the horizon a long, long time ago by yet another carabao. That'd be obvious if, ahem, one were to actually read contemporary Philippine poetry....Like, how's 'bout this idea: MY books!

In this BRICK, for instance, my non-ancestor Villa would probably find much to detest!

Sigh. Isn't it a pain in the butt when, in discussing poetics, one must be led to actually read ... poems?

GIRL SINGING! WHILE DOVEGLION ROARS AND SOARS!

Synchronicity is frequently interesting. Over at John Bloomberg-Rissman's, more and more poets are singing more and more, extending the aria I was moved to release after reading Jose Garcia Villa's poem "Girl Singing".

And so, how very apt, that yesterday I received a copy from Penguin Classics of the just-released DOVEGLION: COLLECTED POEMS of Jose Garcia Villa, Edited by John Cowen and with an introduction by (Meritage Press author) Luis H. Francia. This is the book for which I'd hoped the recovery project The Anchored Angel would help raise interest among publishers. Well, it's great and it's here! It's a major literary (and socio-political) event....and you will be blessed should you check it out.