WHILE I WAS CLEARING THE CAT LITTER,

an idea for a new poetry book surfaced. This is why I clean the cat litter. Anyhoo: this new poetry book (is about and) will be entitled KING LEAR'S FOOL. Excited am Moi!

Speaking of books, 'twas a pleasure to have a poetry discussion rise with the son this morning. I happened to have my manuscript-in-progress -- MICHEL'S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES -- on the counter and he asked about it. And, among other things, we discussed the evolution of its title per

Sculptures of Reproductions

Sculpting Reproductions of Emptiness

Sculptures of Reproductions of Emptiness

Reproductions of the reproductions of the empty

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES

to finally its final (I think) title:

MICHEL’S REPRODUCTIONS OF THE LOST FLAG: SCULPTURES

I explained how this book is based on sculpting verses out of the prose poem blocks in my 1998 book, REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE. And that I'd found it unexpectedly complicated to generate a title that hewed to the new collection's concepcual underpinnings that might be evident in its two epigraphs:

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
—Michelangelo (1475-1564)

What if the block of stone was a block of prose?
—Eileen R. Tabios

I said that the reference to "Michel" referred to "Michelangelo" but that since a reproduction is not quite the thing itself, I shortened the name to approximate-due-to-reproduction the name. I said, "It's just like when you take a photograph. Your photograph is not the same thing as what you capture in your camera."

That made my photographer-son's eyes light up in understanding. What a blessing to see that light. Such a different nature of conversation than what he encapsulates in his Facebook post where he claims that when I talk about being a poet, I usually only talk about making books.  I look forward to more poetry discussions with moi son!

But here's the thing, when I was clearing the cat litter this morning and an idea for a new poetry project came up, I didn't think of writing a new poem entitled "King Lear's Fool." I thought specifically of a new BOOK with that title. That says something about Moi as a poet -- I'll leave it to others, though, to articulate that matter...

MEME

Thanks to Karen An-hwei Lee for inviting me to participate in the Next Big Thing, a meme I'd not known was a meme when Moi was asked. (Thanks as well to wonderful poet Marthe Reed for asking.) Karen is the author of several poetry books, about which more info can be found HERE.


*Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing*

What is your working title of your book?
I have three manuscripts-in-progress. The one I’ll focus on, as it’s possible it’ll be the first to be published, has a working title of Reproductions of the Empty. (Don’t know if the title will stick.)


Where did the idea come from for the book?
It’s a poetry collection of verse. The text come out of lines from prose poems published in my first U.S.-published poetry book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. You can see the relationship between the two titles. I was thinking, with the second collection, of the idea of chiseling sculptures out of blocks of stone—I thought of “chiseling” verses out of the prose blocks in the first book, which is a collection of prose poems.


What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry. But that’s not saying much in terms of categorization. If I designed, say, a miniature chair, I’d consider that poetry.


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Whoever would pass the auditions/screen tests, which would include but not be limited to reading the poems out loud.


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
“______________________—Fill in the blank.”


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How interesting that you give just two choices…


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
For this, I consider the concept its first draft. It took about 14 years to conceive it.


What other books would you compare this story (sic) to within your genre?
Not applicable.  Or, "Genesis" from The Holy Bible.


Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Moi. With a huge dose of laziness desire for the Seventh Day of Rest…


What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
If it’s published when I think it’ll be published, it’ll be my 25th poetry collection. Actually, that’s boring. Try this: It’s either what would have been written by the violinist while Rome burned, or what Rimbaud might have considered if he hadn’t decided to traffic in guns.



WHO I INVITED (supposed to invite at least five and I did, but only one confirmed participation):

John Bloomberg-Rissman  (which incorporates Ivy Alvarez's Meme...)

FEATURE MOI IN THE MUDDY RIVER!

Thanks to editor Zvi A. Sesling for choosing me to be one of the Featured Poets for the latest issue of Muddy River Poetry Review!

It's neat to see the FIVE POEMS  from a manuscript-in-progress all together. Because the manuscript is of poems that I'm chiseling out of the prose blocks in my first U.S. book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. Hence, the new manuscript's title of Sculptures from Reproductions of Emptiness.

Here's a photo of my sculpting -- for text, that is annotating -- process:

A word can never be empty. I had no narrative intention going into these poems, yet they manage ultimately to communicate something ... and it's cool figuring out what the poem wants to say since, for this grouping, I was more clueless than usual.

Hope you enjoy the clarity in mud!

SCULPTING TO REPRODUCE EMPTINESS

Recently, (at least) three things converged unexpectedly to generate what looks to be a new poetry manuscript: some recent personal turmoil resulting in Loss, Marc Gaba's inaugural poetry collection HAVE that made me reconsider poetic line and (or, versus) the prose poem paragraph, and a weariness with the message-ridden form of poems I'd been writing as I explored the subject of orphans.

I was delighted, by the way, to see Tupelo Press publish Marc Gaba's HAVE. I'd been aware of this poet's writings and am pleased to see him get attention for his, among other things, tensile minimalism. In HAVE, the attention to the poetic line is so evident that reading through this collection was the final impetus – there were earlier ones which I never acted on until now – to create poems by annotating Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. This was my first U.S. book which, by being all prose poems, had always contained (I thought) wonderful phrases that could be recontextualized into new poems if they were chipped out, a la sculpting, out of their prose blocks.

Annotation is not, of course, a new poetic technique though I again stress that I wasn't focused so much on textual inspiration as pretending to be Michelangelo. To illustrate, here's a photo of my poem "The Chase" from the book--the green highlights depict phrases that I used as raw material for a new poem entitled "(The Chase". The difference in the title is the insertion of an open parenthesis mark without the close parenthesis, signifying the poem's open-endedness.



"(The Chase" and other such poems sculpted out of the poems in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole will form a new manuscript entitled

Reproductions of the reproductions of the empty

Emptiness here is partly the opposite of message-bearing. I had nothing in mind to say when I sculpted these new poems -- I was simply relying on what was already written in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. The emptiness also relates to Loss; and I just realized that this new manuscript actually bears the opposite sensibility to what underpinned Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, which was Desire.

Without going into details, my recent personal loss certainly was the negation of Desire.

Anyway, you can compare the six prose paragraphs in the original poem "The Chase" with newly-sculpted poem "(The Chase" comprised of 18 thin stanzas which has just been published in that fabulous poetic space curated by Halvard Johnson, On Barcelona. It's in great company -- do check out the other poems (I most recently enjoyed Ric Carfagna's!). Not only do my two poems look different but they really are different in content, as different as Loss vs. Desire.

ON ALTERING THAT SILENCE...!

I'm so grateful to be part of a new anthology which offers my first appearance in Chile: La Alteración del Silencio: Poesía Norteamericana Reciente, co-edited by William Allegrezza and Galo Ghigliotto (Editorial Cuneta, 2011). English translation of that title is The Alteration of Silence: Recent North American Poetry, and I'm delighted to be with so many poets I admire -- I understand Chile's main newspaper has already reviewed it favorably!

But I'm really mostly grateful because appearing in Chile allowed me to mention to Michael how another Spanish-speaking country has welcomed his mom as a poet. This intrigued him enough to drop the teenagish grunts to have a real conversation. It began when he quirked his brows at me and said, "I'm not sure how poetry and publishing works ....?" (Heh: join the crowd, son.) Anyway, 'twas a great conversation as I've long thought the kids were confused as to what exactly I do with moi time ... laugh...

Poets in the anthology are

Paul Hoover, Rae Armantrout, Charles Bernstein, Maxine Chernoff, Deborah Meadows, Tyrone Williams, Geof Huth, Camille Martin, Sheila E. Murphy, Peter Gizzi, Jennifer Moxley, Garin Cycholl, Roberto Harrison, Eileen Tabios, William Allegrezza, Catherine Daly, Noah Eli Gordon, Jennifer Scappettone, Linh Dinh, Gabriel Gudding, Anselm Berrigan, Simone Muench, Sawako Nakayasu, Tao Lin, Katie Degentesh

My poems were taken from my books Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved and THE THORN ROSARY. Muchas gracias!

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!

HOW LOVELY TO HEAR YOUR TOUCH...

Once, in a distant land and distant time, I was dancing in Bino Realuyo's NYC apartment, in a dim room. I wasn't dancing the dance. I was being (in an action that never again will be replicated) the dance entitled

"Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin Shaoling Kung-Fu Fist"

Peeps who knew me long before poetry blogland existed will also recognize the above as the ending to my poem "The Fairy Child's Prayer" (reproduced in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole). In the same room was Bino of course; I remember him in some one-legged stance...and then the man who was the reason we were both there: Rene Navarro. I call him "Master Dragon". That's him in the photo above with which I began this post--he's formed "Snake Creeps Down" (from the Tai chi chuan 108 movement set of the Yang Family). But I suppose I should share this photo, too, which is more relevant to my poem about him--here he is in a Shaolin martial dance called "Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin," a Buddhist form:



I don't know where he was when he emailed me today. Perhaps Egypt where he took or was taken in this photo--'twas high noon in Giza:


Rene is Mr. Positive Energy. I am blessed to know him. And from the poem I wrote for him:

Because the sky can never be a margin against my desire, I raise my hand to you and, in so doing, compel the swoop of the falcon with jade eyes, cobalt breast and ebony feathers. I have emptied my bag of tricks, released the barbed wire from its tattooed bracelet about my left wrist. The shade recedes...

NAUTICAL (AND NAUGHTY) POETICS

I'm appreciative of New Mystics' review (thank you Joey Madia) of Ernesto Priego's NOT EVEN DOGS! The review -- picked up as well by Book Masons -- can be seen HERE, though I am purred to feature this excerpt:

The poems of Mornings and Territories operate like prayers and self-assessments (calling to mind the poetry of McKuen and Kerouac), referencing both directly and indirectly, Buddhism, haiku, koans, quantum physics, Tao, and the like, with lines such as:

A
poem is
more than this

A
world in
a sand grain

&
heaven in
a wild flower (p. 16)

Grass moving slowly
the sculpture
watches (p. 45)

I have grown accustomed to the artist reflecting on one’s art through the art itself as part and parcel of the Meritage Press philosophy, and Priego does it as well as anyone I’ve read thus far.

The review also waxes enthusiastically about the hay(na)ku. But it does something new in locating the book within the "Meritage Press philosophy". While people are aware of my press (that Kevin Killian has called "small but mighty"), MP's eclecticism, you see, doesn't make it one of the hip presses to talk about -- not that I'm complaining; I like the difficulty of being categorized whether it's for moiself or moi projects. But Madia observed something about MP that even I was unaware of. To wit, this excerpt:

Meritage Press philosophy, and Priego does it as well as anyone I’ve read thus far. He also works with similar metaphorical themes as, for instance, Jean Vengua in Prau (which was published a year after Not Even Dogs), when he employs nautical imagery:

A writer is
a sailor,
reading

Stars
considering wreckages, […] (p. 22)

Got that, MP authors? Michelle? Tom? Mark? Allen? Jukka? Bruna? Garrett? Bill? Nick?, just to name a few.... If you haven't already, you need to write a poem employing "nautical imagery" to be authentic.

Synchronistically, whilst editing the manuscript for THE THORN ROSARY, I just had to change in one poem the word "masts" to "sails" (since I hadn't been aware of the error, which did appear in its first book appearance at REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE). There is something about the sea/ocean that grabs me as a diasporic.

Having said that, I can't swim. Such, are the paradoxes of poetry.

LEMONADE

Chuckle. I got a Peep to purchase the copy of Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole that was up for a penny at Amazon, per moi prior post. Thankee, Peep.

BUT. I think this means that, so far, I've found it easier to sell a poetry book for a penny than to give it away gratis. Poetry, ye paradox...

.

LEMONS: A PERSPECTIVE POETICS

Insomnia led me to peruse Mel Vera Cruz's photographs of lemons. Here's one:



Yah. I guess they be organic lemons. Now, check out this close-up--what part of the human body does said close-up remind you of?



Oh, Peeps: I love it when your minds wallow in the gutter....

I also appreciate this visual manifestation of an aspect of moi poetics that Alfred "Krip" Yuson, in blurbing Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, once articulated as:

Much of Eileen Tabios' poetry hits us right in the gut. Or should we say groin, since it is at once scintillating, skittish and seductive. Primal in its experimentation, fugitive in its tactile manipulation of recalcitrance and romance, ultimately there blooms a hardcore quality to her corpus' radical engagements.

I know one of you picked up Reproductions... when I said Amazon has a used copy available for a penny; surely this post will make one of you go hardcore and liberate the other copy that's still available at that obscene price.

Mom, btw, detests Krip's blurb. I, however, giggle. Oh how I love to be amused....

.

MOI AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

Were I younger by a year, by a mere six months even, I would begin and headline this post with something like: THE NEW YEAR IS ABOUT MOI. Instead, Moi thought she'd try to grow up and preeen less. But then -- and this is the truth -- how do I begin the first day of 2009? By seeing Moi as "Personal Favorite" (right next to Mother Teresa!) and then this generous review by Joey Madia over at New Mystics. Maybe I shouldn't fight it. Maybe this year is about MOI!

Sip. Morning coffee. Preen.

Okay, actually, it's interesting to see this review of a book I published seven years ago. Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole was my first U.S.-published book. Sold out its first printing in something like six months. To date, I've sold more of that book than ALL OF MY SUBSEQUENT BOOKS combined. Maybe you should check it out. Joey Madia thinks so:

In an age of electronic and "disposable art," where surfing the 'Net is akin to flipping endlessly through cable TV channels in search of reconnection in an atmosphere of isolation (calling to mind Robert Pirsig's line from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that looking at nature through the car window is just more TV…), the meditative works in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole defy the reader to simply skim and move on. The hooks are finely barbed and grab you in the deepest places ....ENTIRE REVIEW HERE

"Barbed" is a word I welcome for moi poems. Roses exist only with thorns.

Yah -- check it out why not? I'm cheap, I mean, moi book is cheap. Amazon.com, one of only two companies whose revenues went up this holiday season, even has it available for an effin' penny. Quite obviously, Amazon ain't makin' its profits from poetry... Anyhooooo, let Moi not be diverted from Grace by meditating on the dollar sign, or its lack thereof. To wit:

Thank you, Joey Madia and New Mystics! And thank you Karen An-hwei Lee!

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...

WHEN THORNS PRAY...

It is fitting that Eileen R. Tabios' first Selected book should consist of prose poems, as the bulk of her first collection and recipient of the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry, Beyond Life Sentences (Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil, 1998) and the entirety of her second, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2002), are prose poetry. While Tabios is also noted as the inventor of the concise diasporic Filipino poetic form, the hay(na)ku, she has steadily produced prose poems throughout this decade.
--from "Introduction" by Thomas Fink

Sometimes I'm dense. I don't know why it took so long for me to figure out that my (forthcoming) Selected Prose Poems book should be titled

THE THORN ROSARY

rather than A ROSARY OF THORNS. The latter be so clunky, yah?

Anyway, I'm putting together the manuscript which includes poems published in early books by Philippine publishers, which is to say they've not been read much in the U.S. or elsewhere beyond the Philippines' borders. And as I put together said manuscript, I realize I'd forgotten that I first dived into the prose poem form through the doorway of writing poems where each line is a complete (or almost complete) sentence. Thus, one section from my first book is subtitled "Life Sentences"....and contains the epigraph:

She was beginning to understand
some pale bravado
in her horizontal line
-from "Pack Rat Sieve" by Mei-mei Berssenbruge

Pack Rat Sieve was also once published as a teensy chap; I remember carrying it in my purse until it literally wore apart. I retaped it several times before, finally, the physical object totally evaporated and the poem continued its life in me as a dream.

Here's the first poem in "Life Sentences", probably written in about 1996 (remember I only started writing poems in 1995):

The Forced Departure

I consider the woman's choice in liberating a red dress with pale-green sandals.
My penury depresses me into a staring contest with a melting ice cube.
A friend excited my husband with an invitation to pilot a boat with powerful thrusters.
My gift of chocolate in pink cellophane failed to make the blonde smile.
Consequently, I remind the party-goers that Trans World Airlines distributed stars in the sky.

I could be happy in Alphabet City, buildings crumbling around my notepad.
I could be happy sipping iced tea while admiring the seamless face of a pool.
I could be happy gurgling back at an infant dribbling green saliva down his chin.
I could be happy downing Absolut gimlets (ice-cold, no ice) in a neighborhood bar with pool players providing the music, or a hotel whose walls are laminated with mahogany and where tuxedos prevail.
I could be happy with your hand on my waist as you try to identify the scent hollowing my throat.

An entire landscape in Antarctica disappears--evaporates until salt becomes the only debris.
There are keys to everything, even handcuffs.
You could have been happy, too.

Poor disappearing glaciers -- I was weeping over y'all more than a decade ago...

Elsewhere in his Introduction, Tom Fink notes (and the referred "Purity", btw, is one of the poems in moi first U.S.-published book, Reproductions of the Empthy Flagpole):

When the prose poem's aesthetic freedom took hold of Tabios in the mid- to late-nineties, she was not yet aware of how "Language Poets," building on earlier work by such figures as Gertrude Stein and the John Ashbery of Three Poems, had developed new possibilities in this hybrid genre. She had yet to read, for example, Ron Silliman's "The New Sentence," and yet "Purity" and similar prose poems in this volume-had they existed in the eighties-could have served as excellent specimen texts for that crucial essay.

So, while I had developed my prose poem body of work under the influence of trans-colonial and ekphrastic concerns, it's easy enough to rewrite my work's context as *post-Langpo* (not that I mind it), if a critic were inclined to do so. This, of course, exemplifies what many non-American poets have referred to in the past when they complain about U.S.- or Euro-centrism in the writing of literary history. And such also is why I'm blessed on many levels when Tom Fink desired both to edit and write an Introduction to THE THORN ROSARY. Because he appropriately refers to decolonialism as relevant to my work -- a sensitivity that allowed him chops to do something like his book of criticism A DIFFERENT SENSE OF POWER (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2001). ). That seamless recognition of worlds beyond perceived canons bespeak why Tom, too, is such an effective poet.

GREY PARADOX

Fires appear most numerous in Northern California. The Northern region of California has experienced record low levels of rainfall this spring, leaving dry vegetation in the area. This in conjunction with windy weather has made firefighting efforts difficult."

The world is on fire. Galatea’s mountain is safe, but the skies -- no, the very air -- is grey. Northern California is grey.

Grey is not a “hot” color, which is a paradox as it’s generated by fire which is indeed … hot.

Prayers for nature, the animals, the firefighters, those who’ve lost or are in danger of losing their homes…

Once, I wrote a poem about grey-ness. From Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole:

Grey, Surreptitiously

Sometimes I am not tired. And I begin to pace the perimeter of Manhattan. I am always drawn to the East River, how the water is consistently grey and this sensibility mists over the entire East Side: it swathes the total territory in a wool suit. And it makes me recall interchangeable cities in Eastern Europe where the only spots of color are offered by tiny pastries silently waiting behind glass. Afterwards, I finish with memories of museum exhibits salvaging dusty armors from the crusades of a different century.

I am surprised that I linger in this part of the city, that the river's surface loses its drabness to enfold me like cashmere. Unexpectedly, patchouli and cinnabar begin to linger in the air though I see no one dodging my careful steps. I feel the birth of pearls in tropical ocean beds tended by boys burnt by the sun. Then I feel one pearl's inexplicable caress in the hollow between my breasts.

A woman rounds a bend and sees me. I pause by a white birch tree stripped by winter of its leaves. She smiles as she approaches. I wish to feel my fingers loosening her jeweled combs. Already, I can feel her hair curl shyly against my fingers like the breaking of surreptitious surf. No words would be spoken, but a window from an anonymous building would open to loosen the faint tinkling of piano notes. They would be plucked from the highest scale.

My fingers would turn blue in the cold. They would freeze in their fraught pose, laid against a stranger's scented cheek while her hair would continue to flutter in a faint breeze. And her lashes would trap a beginning snow. And her life-generating breaths would occur through parted lips. And her eyes, too, would be the deadening of a river: translucent and grey.

Grey eyes of she who generates life....Ah: the redemption through Love.

SLEEPY MOON OVER NAPA VALLEY

as seen during dawn from Galatea's mountain.


Yes, that's a pink swimming pool as the Big, Burly Men crafted my desire for a pool as sky mirror....Nice Big, Burly Men, the Chatelaine coos...Pink rose petals deliquescing to sky, mirror, water...

***

The poet must be primarily concerned with beauty. When all other explanations fail, remember this rule, and you will understand the poems contained in Eileen Tabios’s Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole.
--Barbara Jane Reyes, as quoted in the forthcoming THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS

ON POLITICAL ABSTRACTIONS

Stephen Vincent's Haptics series -- including the poetics prose about such -- is as good an example of what is meant when we/certainly-I say that the act of creativity makes its author a better human being. Better in terms of being a more engaged person.

I remember when I came out with my first U.S.-published book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. And I had claimed that these 'abstract" poems are political (for part of its political impetus, check HERE, per linkie from Jean). This claim bemused some. But now I point you to Stephen saying about his haptics which, to me, are abstract in the sense of being non-figurative:

The consciousness becomes awakened, refreshed, alert to the present. A haptic does not decide anything for anyone, or make any kind of claim on the representation of objects in either formal or an historic sense. These are not ‘things’ as such.

However, it would be disingenuous for me to suggest that the work is made oblivious to historical and/or personal and social content. Again, to the contrary. In the pressure of making a haptic, one’s consciousness it quite open and alert to the currents of public, domestic and other ‘orders’ of current knowledge.

Thank you for creating these, Stephen!

FRESHET POETICS

"One of the most beautiful words in English describes these waters streams where a river becomes the sea—they are called freshets."

"...what is being Filipino? For me, it is the grand conspiracy to be ourselves—once more or at last, or for the first time ever. I don't know what or where it is, when it is going to be. It is both an act and a possibility...Maybe it is a place, a feeling, a heart, a memory. The memory of one and the memory of many. It is a decision to remember. It is the rejection of oblivion."
--Marne Kilates

Have you been reading one of the greatest Filipino poets out there -- Marne Kilates? Coz you should have been. And if you want to know where I'll be for the first half of August, you can read him too HERE and HERE as he's synchronistically blogging about the Ilocos, my birthplace and also for "19th CENTURY ILOCANO POET Leona Florentino, [who] couldn't study because he was a woman, privately instructed first by her mother, then by a priest, both of [whom] saw her talent early, before long her poem was included in an in an international anthology published in France".

Leona is one of the three poets to whom I dedicated Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole...where, in the U.S., I began this freshet turning into YOUR sea, oh lovely Peeps.

And Marne's photos! Gorgeous. Check 'em out to see the logic as to why your Chatelaine is hirself quite GAWWWWW-JUUUUICE!

BIT BY THE SHARK!

Wow and Whee! I got bit!

Which is to say, I'm honored to have my poem "Corolla" featured as "Poem of the Week" over at SharkForum! The poem is from my first U.S.-published book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. Thanks to La Dr. Simone Muench who curated my appearance at this site which gets about 25,000 unique visits per month.

Simone, btw, is the author of one of the books in my poetry library which is in that rare category of having been bought after perusal at a bookstore. I don't buy that many poetry collections on bookstore shelves (most bookstores' poetry buyers just don't satisfy my own taste) -- and I'd never heard of Simone when I perused her Lampblack & Ash. Not only did I end up reading it once through at the bookstore, but I bought it! So I'm really honored that a poet I admire liked one of my own poems!

All I can say is a cheerful "Bite Me!"

POETIC (IM)MORTALITY AND STUDENTS

Hmm. Over at the still fresh-smelling Galatea Resurrects #6, the comment on my favorite COLLECTED POEMS discovery to date, In A Dybbuk's Raincoat by Bert Meyers, may be interesting as regards poetic (im)mortality: click HERE for the referenced Q&A with Barry Schwabsky.

Meanwhile, several of my books -- along with other Filipino authors -- had been donated to the Sonoma State University. These pictures -- thank you, Leny -- are simply lovely. And I'm just so moved to see moi babies -- Reproductions here, ENGLISH there, Punctuations here, Menage A Trois there, et al -- being clasped in those students' eager loving hands. I tell ya with a sniffle: feeds a poet's soul all the time!

APPRECIATIONS

I sure appreciate Richard Lopez for reading PINOY POETICS and presenting a discussion about it in an unexpected (to me) but certainly apt context!

I'm always happy to see discussions re PINOY POETICS. I think it's an important project (it's the primary reason I created Meritage Press in the first place), but I, as its one-peep publisher, am always concerned I don't have the resources to do enough spreading the word about it. Anyway, please do check out this historically-significant project that's a perfect teaching text and important to poetry lovers and distributed viz SPD!

And speaking of Filipino poetry, more celebration of diversity HERE (thanks to moi New York publisher)!