HOOKING THE AUDIENCE BY BEING A WRECK...!

Being prolific means it takes time for certain books to get any particular attention. So I'm pleased to share that my 2007 book, SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS (published by poet-wise men Jukka Pekka Kervinen and Peter Ganick) just received a review in Litter Magazine (whose issues are being archived by the British Library--sorry, just getting a kick out of this detail!).

SILENCES is one of my "experimental" efforts and it was kewl to see such a fulsome read by the reviewer Nicholas Spatafora (who read it like it was an autobiography, indeed!). His own experimental, novelistic review is much appreciated. His is a legitimate reading even as it has nothing to do with (moi) authorial intent. I was surprised by but deem acceptable the leaps he made such that he concludes that the overall book is a

personal narrative of one woman’s plight to happiness and self-integrity in the aftermath of a shattered romantic involvement.

It's interesting to see how SILENCES' fragmented structure lends itself to such a "novelistic" read. For another type of review, but equally fulsome, Thomas Fink reviewed it in Otoliths. Hope these reads encourage more reads of SILENCES..., one of my more obscure (hah) books.


P.S. I'm honored that in response to an email thanking him for his review, Spatafora sent me an excerpt from a New York Times article quoting from (hello fello Marsh Hawk-er!) Philip Lopate:

The author Phillip Lopate complains that the problem with confessional writing is that people don’t confess enough. And I agree. The biggest mistake new writers make is going to the computer wearing a three-piece suit. They craft love letters about their wonderful parents, spouses, children and they share upbeat anecdotal slices of life. This rarely inspires brilliance or self-insight. Drama, conflict and tension are more compelling, especially when the piece starts with your “I” narrator about to fall off a cliff (metaphorically, of course). It’s counterintuitive, but qualities that make you likable and popular in real life — good looks, wild success, happy marriage, lovely home, healthy confidence — will make a reader despise you. The more of a wreck you are from the start, the more the audience is hooked.

I guess I sufficiently portrayed "myself" in the book as a wreck!  Woot!


P.P.S. I've written two (perhaps more; my memory is sketchy as, ahem, I've been prolific) books that use the words "autobiography" or "biography" and yet have nothing to do with moi life. But I'm not offended when reviewers can't separate the persona from the author (happens often with moi) -- I take that to mean something about the powered intimacy of what I wrote, even as I'm usually personally flustered by the effect (if not occasionally aghast). Comes with the territory and all that ... a point I'm belaboring now, by the by, because I can't tell you how many (so many!) conversations I've had with poets who simply can't abide a read of their work if it transcends their authorial intent....There's a Point 101 that's being missed here, ain't there...?

LIST POETRIES

I often begin lists hoping that they ultimately will generate some poetry project (I've also found lists to be a successful manifestation of autobiography without getting all emotionally invested on how to present -- including censor -- autobiography). Some successful list projects appear HERE, HERE, and HERE. I've also had lists that went nowhere, most recently viz a now-defunct blog I'd concocted on the theme of economy-stimulation related spending. Anyway, I just started a new list on the mundane notion of grocery shopping. So, if you nosily want to know what I buy at the grocery store (yes, I naughtily included a donut today), you can go HERE...

...and hopefully some day a poem will result.

THERE'S GOLD IN MOI GARBAGE!

Or so says a new Otoliths review (thanks Tom!) of one of my more obscure works -- though actually one of my own favorites among my books: SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss. Click on excerpt below for whole review:

The Oedipal pull of the poet’s tropes is in some sense “ridiculous,” too, and the strain it evinces dramatizes the difficulties of displacing social hierarchies with a new, better configuration. But perhaps the most important assertion, not far from the end of the series, involves precise political resonances: ”I am Babaylan. I have never been mastered by three centuries of invading colonizers or their religion” (70). The spirit of Filipina women has survived colonizations, and the spell-maker invites others to experience the restorative energy of its voice and scent: “Breathe in the sampaguita breeze known by warrior cultures as jasmine. Inhale my breath// into your veins to linger there, healing your ears now to hear me sing. . . .” The “autobiography of loss” moves from “silences” to articulation, and it also includes the autobiography of future gain.

The review is part of this brand new issue of Otoliths (for which I also thank Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino for the hay(na)ku!); here's Otoliths editor/publisher Mark Young's announcement:

Issue eight of Otoliths, the southern summer 2008 issue, has just gone live.

It's a few days early, but it's straining at the leash &seams so it seemed a good idea to let it loose before it ate the house up.

The issue contains, in order of appearance, work by Michele Leggott, Geof Huth, Nicholas Manning, Laurie Price, Sandy McIntosh, Reed Altemus, Alicia Dangereyes, Bill Drennan, gustave morin, Paul Hardacre, Felino Soriano, Pradip Datta, Spencer Selby, Spencer Selby &Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, David-Baptiste Chirot, Kristine Ong Muslim, Joshua A Ware, Patrick Gulke, James Sanders, Jill Chan, J. D. Nelson, Eric Burke, Philip Byron Oakes, Louie Crew, Márton Koppány, Thomas Fink &Maya Fink, Richard Kostelanetz, Paul Siegell, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Sheila E. Murphy &John M. Bennett, Luigino Solamito &John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett, Jeff Harrison, John Lowther, Alexander Jorgensen, Martin Edmond, Christopher Major, Elisa Gabbert &Kathleen Rooney, Caleb Puckett, Cecelia Chapman, Guy Beining, Vernon Frazer, Bobbi Lurie, harry k stammer, Andrew Topel, Thomas Fink &Andrew Riley Clark.

As usual, it's a marvellous mix of all sorts of things. Hie thee hither &enjoy.

Mark Young

21ST CENTURY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (A SYLLABUS)

I'm blessed by (no other word but "blessed" came to mind at) Nicholas Manning's review of THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES in the new issue of CORDITE. I can tell he spent much time and attention on my book, in part for this excerpt:

One must note, however, the risk of failure implied by such a project. This risk is, specifically, the production of a work of such overwhelming eclecticism that it turns abundance into aesthetic bedlam, largesse into graphomania. If Tabios’ vital work avoids this pitfall – though often barely, and with displays of fantastical acrobatics – it does so, in this critic’s mind, thanks largely to....

And, yes, I'm being mischievous by cutting off the excerpt there -- if you want to know why Nicholas didn't think I failed, click on the excerpt to read the entire review. But the above nonetheless goes to my secret fear (well, it had been a secret): that in pushing the arc of the collection, I'd push it too far and fall off the cliff....rather than winging it to soar into penetrating the sun (so to speak).

I used to work at forming a poetry collection by trying to make sure it's perfect (however I defined it at the time). But in a certain relaxation that comes with age (or just exhaustion), I've been less focused in recent books on perfecting that arc-as-pitch and more interested in pushing the arc's edge...including being willing to disclose the rawness of the sore singing throat if need be. So that I'd rather incorporate the occasional off-note to ultimately achieve a more layered book ... what's perfection anyway? The wabi sabi artists or Native American weavers, among others, realized long ago that deliberately incorporating the flaw or the break may not be perfect but nonetheless is more perfectly human/humane...

Anyway, I'm impressed that Nicholas caught on to this layer of The Light....and grateful for all of his words (thank you Nicholas!). In this case, he's an example of the dream-reader I/we long for...

*****

And Nicholas also begins his review with this

In this new century, the writing and rewritings of the poetic self seem to be at the crux of a burgeoning genre; a genre in which the self is less a “basis” for certain convictions about “what poetry is” than an opening: an aperture or aporia to diverse inventions, collaborations, languages, traditions, and histories.

which lead me to note something I'd been tinkering about mentally for a couple of months now. I think it'd be interesting to create a SYLLABUS OF 21ST CENTURY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FORMS where people write autobiography in fresh ways. I hope THE LIGHT... -- as well as SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS -- would be part of such a syllabus, but also (from my own readings) books like

THE TRANSFORMATION by Juliana Spahr

THE GRAND PIANO, by a collective of authors

[one love affair]* by Jenny Boully (actually, it seems as if all her books could fit based on their book descriptions, and I'm certainly looking forward to reading her THE BODY: AN ESSAY and THE BOOK OF BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS)

UNDER ALBANY by Ron Silliman

THE MIDDLE ROOM by Jennifer Moxley

I know there are others -- these are just the books of the top of my head (a tired head, as I write this). Is any teacher out there already doing such a class? I think the ways poets subvert, if you will, the form of autobiography is a logical extension of the larger poetry project, particularly given the latter 20th century attention to the "I" or its (so-called) alternatives. Please email Moi at GalateaTen@aol.com if you know of any books that could belong to this grouping.

UPDATE: Peeps suggest the following titles also may be relevant (though some may be 20th century):

Lyn Hejinian * My Life

Chris Kraus * I Love Dick

Cecilia Vicuna * quipoem

Stephen Ratcliffe * Portraits & Repetitions, * Real

Alan Bramhall * Days Poem [I'm embarassed I moiself didn't bring that up, but I was really tired when I originally wrote this post]

Geraldine Kim * Povel

Kenneth Goldsmith * Soliloquy, * Fidget

Everything by Hannah Weiner

Everything since * Little Houses by Alice Notley

OH HUNGRY PLANET!

And, again, if you want to keep relishing MOI, I have a new "List as Autobiography" project that I'm blogging over HERE -- the list of my daily snailmail. Among other things, it's a convenient way for you to know whether I would have received your review copy(ies) for Galatea Resurrects (though you also can always check GR's List of Review Copies).

It's interesting how some lists work and some lists don't. My Garbage List was quite fruitful (it helped generate SILENCES and POST BLING BLING); one critic out there is writing a review on SILENCES specifically because of the Garbage List section ("innovative," daw. Hee.). My POET TIC THOUGHT List, however, hasn't done much beyond its blogged self, though there's a certain poignancy that it ended with kari edwards' name....

All right. Time to relish Others. Thanks to Jack Kimball for reviewing Tom Beckett's Tiny Book, STEPS: A NOTEBOOK. Click here for his blog (Sept. 12 post), but I like his write-up so much I'ma gonna reprint it in full below:

A counterminimalist design ethos eggs on Steps A Notebook by Tom Beckett. It's one in a set of Tiny Books from Meritage Press. Publisher Eileen Tabios accompanies her poet as graphic alter ego, supplies drawings and indeed handwrites his text, a duo then stepping onto their small stage in their shared regalia to participate in what I might describe unsneeringly as an intense art dealership. The poems come inside a little page-turner, tiny even in chap terms, a 1.5-inch square thumbnail sketchbook with a cover jacket in multicolored (Navajo? Tibetan?) fabric. The poems come forward, sideways, and upside down in one or two words per line, mostly three lines or fewer to the page. They address the ambiguities of their being composed, seeming parenthetical, always germane, or as one page smack in the middle of the text inveighs: "In / the moment / (be right there)." The poems constitute a bisexuality of sketches, suave quotations, and facts on writing, both as text and process, positing that poetry writing is like composing a music made of temporary flaws ("smudged work of Arias") or like writing on a blackboard, "Looking / at blackboards / how many Ways?" Skepticism -- "Advancement / is a kind / of ____" -- abounds. If poetry is prayer, to paraphrase, prayer is programming of thought that's overexposed and torn. To get beyond the conundrum of prayer, programming, etc., the dealers work on each other and together. Tom's Eileen accommodates the torn thought idea on a ripped page and calms prayer down with a vapor of slants, blank lines, and empty boxes that enforce a silence. Eileen's Tom returns, though, with a new quiet-breaker, "A / poetry of questions / (one answer)." To clarify, he qualifies, "When / I was / a young man." Next page, "When / I was / a little girl."

The cover fabric is Guatemalan, dear Jack. And click HERE if you want info on ordering Tom's or other authors' Tiny Books!

Then, I must say that, from recent reading, Hungry Planet is the most enjoyable work of nonfiction I've read. (And according to its survey, which is not scientific but still enjoyable, Germany spends more on food than any country.) And here are the others in my latest list of Relished W(h)ines:


PUBLICATIONS:
COMPLICATIONS, poems by Garrett Caples

AMIGO WARFARE, poems by Eric Gamalinda

WORDFLOW: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Michael Heller

MILLENIAL HARVEST: THE LIFE & COLLECTED POEMS of Charles Greenleaf Bell

WANTON TEXTILES, poems by Reb Livingston &Ravi Shankar

FREE, poems by Amanda Laughtland

from I MEANT TO SAY, postcard poem by Amanda Laughtland

NO MATTER, poems by Joel Chace

SELECTED WRITINGS, poems by Cedar Sigo

APOSTROPHE, poems by Elizabeth Robinson

FINALMENTE / FINALLY, English poems by Hugh Fox translated into Portuguese by Glenna Luschei

ARMORED ELEVATOR, poems by Ryan Daley

) ) ), poems by Samar Abulhassan

SEDNA, poems by Michael Helsem

HOMEMADE TRAPS FOR NEW WORLD BRIANS, poems by Evan Willner

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITHOUT US? THE VOICE AND VISION OF KENNETH PATCHEN, monograph of picture-poems by Kenneth Patchen with an Afterword by James Laughlin

THE PASSIONATE SPECTATOR: ESSAYS ON ART AND POETRY by John Yau

"BURNING INTERIORS": DAVID SHAPIRO'S POETRY AND POETICS, critical study Edited by Thomas Fink and Joseph Lease

PUBLIC ACCESS #1, literary journal edited by Nicholas Grider

TEENY TINY, March 2007, Series #10 edited by Amanda Laughtland

HUNGRY PLANET: WHAT THE WORLD EATS, photographs, essays, recipes written or edited by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio

A PIG IN PROVENCE, memoir by Georgeanne Brennan

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES AND THE MIGHTY DEEDS, RISE, DOWNFALL, LIFE AND DEATH OF A. JACKS (1855), novel by Henry W. Faxon and edited with a brief commentary by Jesse Glass

ASTRID & VERONIKA, novel by Linda Olsson

SIGHT HOUND, novel by Pam Houston

VOWS, novel by Lavyle Spencer


WINES:
2004 Grifolo Poderi San Lazarro Marche
2005 Kistler chardonnay
1999 Robert Hunter Brut De Noirs, Sonoma Valley
2005 Monticello Estate, Pinot Noir, Napa Valley
2004 Matchbook Syrah, Dunnigan Hills
1999 Tokaji Aszu, 5 Puttonyos, Royal Tokaji
2003 Longwood Shiraz "The Sheep Shearer"

Speaking of Whines, Karri Kokko guesses at The Secret to Happiness. Is it, he asks,

               SOAVE

What a Cheeky radiant Finn.

ON SCALE (aka TRASH POETICS)

My three longest books -- ENGLISH (504 pages), Silences (402 pages) and now The Light (366 pages) -- allow me to do something because of their scale:

write poetry books manifesting the trash can. Not "trash". The "trash can." More specifically, a full trash can.

By which I mean, these three long collections are not neat or neatly-ordered. But though there could be the individual shitty poem here or there (as judged by the reader whose prerogative it is to so assess, albeit on both thin and thick collections), the all of it is not a mess. Because their "arc" is a really strongly-built trash can. If I did my job right, that trash bucket won't leak, collapse or fray.

So. I invite you to rummage through my trash. After all, in such repositories do I also dispose of diamonds.

And yes. I am one of those: Moi loves to talk trash!

BUT RODNEY, LET'S KEEP THIS BETWEEN US...

Okay. Rodney tagged me to share 8 FUN FACTS. I reply only because Rodney is one of my favorite poets and people (such a NICE guy; niceness counts with Moi!):

1) My first poetry collection, After The Egyptians Determined The Shape of the World Is A Circle, was published in 1996, within a year after I began writing poems. I didn't know the publishers (based in Midwest). When they ceased the poetry-publishing business, I either bought back or asked for all of the remaining copies of the collection so that it will never again see the light of day. (There was a time when Nick Carbo would often counsel, Be Kind To Your Early Work...! It took me years to find that kindness...but I still will never show a copy of moi Egyptians which I think -- or hope -- I've completely taken off the public domain...)

2) Suzanne Vega was a year ahead of me at Barnard, so I used to see her sing at various dormitories (Furnald?) at Columbia University's campus. Back then, she was young and I assume still starting out of course and so, among other things, her in-between-songs patter was still raw and self-conscious. I used to feel bad for her when some students would laugh at her awkward attempts to engage the audience in between songs. But I began remembering her and appreciating her when I began to write poems -- in attempting poems, I came to respect her more for her fortitude at such a young age in totally opening herself up to strangers through her music.

3) When I was in high school, I appeared on local TV in Los Angeles as a news anchor. This was during the period when I explored then rejected television news as a career -- because I realized from that experience that (in some areas of television news) you didn't have to be intelligent, just photogenic, to be successful at it. But I was also interning under people who were contemptuous of Connie Chung...not knowing Ms. Chung, I don't know if their contempt was because Connie Chung is "dumb" or because she was an attractive female who elicited envy and thus sexist patronizing. In any event, it's fair to say that rather than offering a role model, Connie Chung is one reason I didn't pursue a career in television news.

4) I delivered the commencement speech during my graduation from Gardena High School (at the time, and possibly still is, the largest high school west of the Mississippi). Though the speech is usually given to valedictorians by many high schools, in this case, high school seniors competed to have the position of giving that speech. But I didn't deliver my winning speech which I had crafted to "win" the competition by saying what I thought people wanted to hear. I delivered a speech that was almost anti-celebratory in nature, scoffing at various things (though I can't recall any specifics today). This is one of my biggest regrets in life -- that I think my speech ended up tarnishing what should have been a day of celebration by families....because it's not like graduating from high school (especially for various parts of that community) was not a major achievement. I was young, therefore I was stupid. If you are a 1978 graduate of Gardena High School and you find this post someday in the internet -- PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES. I repeat: I was young and stupid. (Though I mostly hope you weren't paying attention to my speech or have forgotten it...)

5) I love to take out the trash. I've lived in several NYC apartment buildings where there are trash chutes on each floor. In those places, I used to empty trash from the apartment more than once a day just for the joy of walking down the hallway, opening the chute and releasing the plastic bag of trash. Now, because I live on a mountain, I have to haul trash and recyclables myself to a nearby trash dump on weekends. I love the experience so much I've written poems, a blog and a book on or about that beloved garbage...

6) I once wrote a "graphic novel" (before I knew the term) through collaging from various pages of glossy magazines. I sent each chapter to another poet. I didn't know each letter was a "chapter" and that the whole of it was a "novel" until the poet said so because she'd been out of town and let the mail pile up. When the poet retrieved my correspondence, she thus was able to read them all in one sitting, and that's when she called it a "novel." As a novel, that work was probably my only successful novel attempt so far -- I speak as one who's trashed rain forests worth of paper attempting the long novel viz words. I don't know whether the poet ever kept my graphic novel. But I like the possibility that ... that novel has evaporated. I am, indeed, explicably thrilled over that possibility. I think I'm someone who writes, but doesn't write words so much as spaces for engagement.

7) [] because some things must not be revealed...

8) Long before I paid attention to poetry, in college, I once went out with a guy I met at a bar at 110th and Broadway (NYC) because he slipped me a matchbook whose cover unfolded to reveal a poem he'd written. Because I have no formal education in poetry, I didn't realize until years later that he didn't write that poem -- it was an excerpt from a T.S. Eliot poem. That Eliot -- always a mischief-maker.

FLY OFF THE PAGE WITH MOI & CO.!

I guess AWP likes wine-tippling farmers. I think I've got a near-thousand batting average with getting approvals for panels that includes Moi. For next year's AWP Conference, I was pushed (grin) by Catherine Daly to organize and moderate a panel. So a wingtip scratched a lovely head, brewed up something, and sent it over to AWP. Well, it was approved! Over 900 panel applications were received and mine got in -- causing Nick Carbo over in France to celebrate this morning by drinking "dark red brulhois wine" (huh?).

Here's some panel information I sent to AWP and I hope it also interests you enough to attend next year!

"OFF THE PAGE: MULTIDIMENSIONAL WRITINGS"
presenting

Nick Carbo (sculptures and video)
Catherine Daly (paper craft, innovative book art)
Thomas Fink (painting)
Thylias Moss (film / video / sonic performances)
Eileen Tabios (conceptual/performance/community-based/visual art)

This panel presents poets and writers who work in a variety of disciplines encompassing video, sculptures, paper craft, innovative book art, painting, performance events, conceptual art, drawings, film, multimedia events, among others. Panelists discuss how other disciplines affect their texts and presentation of such texts. In some cases, the poetry book was transformed to not just present written poems. In other situations, community-based performances inspired new poetic forms and theories.

from STATEMENT OF MERIT
This panel explores a multidisciplinary approach to making poems. Eileen Tabios and Thylias Moss have created two new poetic forms (respectively, "hay(na)ku" and "poams"). Thomas Fink, by being a New York resident, will be able to bring actual small paintings to illustrate his paper. All panelists are at the forefront of poets exploring the making of poems beyond the writing of verse on page -- not just to create fetishized objects but to integrate communities / the world.

I was going to drop by next year's AWP anyway because I'd be in New York then, so now it'll be great to meet Thylias Moss in person! I'm particularly intrigued to meet her non-stinky "poams" -- "products of acts of making in which form embraces the possibilities of the assisted and unassisted senses in any combination in any location at any scale simultaneously, with a majority of her poams, most of which are available for free in the Limited Fork and the Limited Fork Music podcasts at iTunes, currently taking on visual and sonic iterations, with text existing as part of larger visual systems."

Here are some bios skewed by the poets to address their leap off the page:

Nick Carbo is the author of three books of poetry, the latest being Andalusian Dawn (2004). He is the winner of fellowships in poetry from the N.E.A. and N.Y.F.A. and residencies to Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain), Le Chateau de Lavigny (Switzerland), Moulin a Nef (France), and Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and VCCA (USA). His visual poems have been exhibited at Harvard University's "Infinity" show, and at galleries like Blueten Weis (Berlin), and The Studio Alternative (Armonk, NY). He recently taught visual poetry courses at the New College of Florida.

Catherine Daly is author of six books and eBooks, most recently Secret Kitty, a flarfy critique of flarf, To Delite and Instruct, a meditation on the poetry exercise, Paper Craft, including sound and visual poems in a foldable format, and Chanteuse / Cantatrice, a book of verse about collaboration and complicity that can be read in reverse.  She is also the publisher of i.e. Press, that is to say, a press publishing books appealing to the eye and ear.

Thomas Fink, a Professor of English at City University of New York—LaGuardia, is the author of four books of poetry, including No Appointment Necessary (Moria Poetry, 2006) and After Taxes (Marsh Hawk Press, 2004,)and two books of criticism.  In 2007, Fairleigh Dickinson UP will publish a collection of essays on David Shapiro that he and Joseph Lease edited. Heather McHugh and David Lehman chose his poem “Yinglish Strophes IX” for The Best American Poetry 2007 (Scribner’s).  His abstract paintings hang in various collections.  Recently, he has developed series of poems in abstract shapes that had also been used in series of paintings. 

Thylias Moss, the author of ten books, most recently TOKYO BUTTER, her first collection of poetry written entirely according to principles of Limited Fork Poetics: the study of interacting language systems, a literary theory she developed in October 2004 while at the Quality 16 cinema watching a film she can't recall.  The revelation led this MacArthur Fellowship and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient to the making of poams (products of acts of making) in which form embraces the possibilities of the assisted and unassisted senses in any combination in any location at any scale simultaneously, with a majority of her poams, most of which are available for free in the Limited Fork and the Limited Fork Music podcasts at iTunes, currently taking on visual and sonic iterations, with text existing as part of larger visual systems.  So far, her poams are not odor-emitting, so are consistent with neglect of olfactory systems, neglect which, in understanding the principles and interactions of Limited Fork, should be overcome eventually.  She teaches Limited Fork Poetics at the University of Michigan where she is a professor of English and of Art & Design.  Her other awards and honors include: a Whiting Writer's Award, the Witter Bynner Prize from the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Dewards profiles performance Artist Award, an NEA grant, and inclusion in the Best of the Best American Poetry series.

Eileen R. Tabios has released 15 poetry collections, an art essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, and a short story book. Recipient of the Philippines' Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, she released two multi-genre collections in 2007: SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss (Blue Lion Books) and The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007). Her conceptual/visual art and poetry performances have been exhibited or presented in art galleries in California and Manila. Her poems have been translated by other artists into Spanish, Tagalog, Japanese and Italian, as well as Paintings, Video, Drawings, Mixed Media Collages and Sculpture. She is the publisher of Meritage Press (San Francisco & St. Helena), a multidisciplinary arts press.

PETER GANICK EXTENDS...

Now this is a spiritually meaty conversation -- this interview of Peter Ganick by Sheila Murphy. I'm so glad this was done as, while I'd encountered Peter over the years (he published some of my poems in his now-defunct but I always thought fabulously idealistic venture of a literary journal, poethia), I don't know much about Peter. There's much meat in the conversation, like this excerpt which, as Peter discusses his methodology, is one of the finest articulations of architecture and song in poetry that I've seen:

i must confess the process is not analyzed much by me while writing. sort of start, maintain, continue, then, peter-out. it's rather an organic process. even though i might use abstract terms in writing, the course of the poem is like the life of a creature. the poem starts: there's a springtime/honeymoon time where i imagine the energy of the poem to be light and airy. whether or not this is true i don’t know, i observe it as such from my own view. whether or not, it makes for a poem-interpretation with which i can live.

from there is a developing complication. the text's springtime is over, though traces remain. negative concepts enter and though they are received by the poet, with the same engagement as the spring terms, the energy becomes gradually more clouded.

there is a book i wrote which is an example of this, TWO TEXTS. the first text, about 2/3rds of the book is called, 'apparitional corsairs'; the second, 'with-ness'. 'apparitional corsairs' was started to be a text that would be very long. in this text, the energy be-came more and more dark, even troubled. to pull a sufficient ending from it, i had to start another text with a regular lineation, in one form a sestina. after that, i changed the margins and the font size and let the poem run-on, so there is little evidence of the sestina-beginning. that text, 'withness' maintains a spiritual sense; this, because there is a sufficient period of difficulty overcome, overcome by 'going through it' to support the spiritual part.

in this work i am using the model of the symphony in the late romantic period european classical music. an energetic part, the 1st movement; a deep, engaging part, the 2nd movement; the third movement, a scherzo leading with life to the last part, the tour de force. [this is the model of beethoven's 9th symphony. each musical work of that period was somewhat different, though the 9th's model was primary.]

Not only is the above illuminating as regards the energy of a poem as it unfolds, but as a deeply-thought consideration of extended texts, it reveals why Peter (along with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen) would have conceived of Blue Lion Books which specializes in texts that are "250pp or more" as such scale facilitates developing "an idea in total. a long book for a complete idea, that's the point. and an experimental, or previously-unseen idea, even an innovation, is preferred. so far we've kept to this pretty well."

Of course, this makes me ever more grateful that Blue Lion Books published one of my books, SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss. Blessings.

AND NOW I EVACUATE

this morning...HERE.

MOVING FROM ONLINE TO PRINT

I'm fascinated by the aborted issue of HCE: And Here Comes Everybody, Eds Lance Phillips with Geoffrey Gatza (Blaze Vox Books, 2007). This is a print anthology based on a project put together on the blog HERE COMES EVERYBODY . But within 48 (if not 24) hours of receiving word of its release, I learned that the publisher and editor announced that they were forced to cancel the book anthology; there seems to be a dispute as to whether some participants had agreed to be in the book in addition to the online site.

Because of the dispute -- which caused a poet(s) to threaten to sue the publisher/editor -- I won't be able to see the book HCE and see how it relates to a larger issue of anthologies created from online websites. Because I'm lazy, I'll just cutnpaste an excerpt from a review I'm writing on one such anthology, to share my thoughts on this larger issue which is relevant to other projects besides HCE:

REVIEW EXCERPT:
As a blogger, I've set up individual blogs related to presenting works-in-progress as they progressed. Some of the contents in these blogs later ended up in books. So I've long been interested in the difference between the "same" material presented in a blog versus a book.

I believe all of the materials in my blog can stand on their own. But I sought to have a reason to move them from blog to print. For examples, the material in my former garbage blog was recontextualized to be part of a poet's fictionalized autobiography in my most recent book SILENCES. Some of the material in my former poem blog was recontextualized to become a novel in my book ENGLISH. The material in my former shopping blog came to generate POST BLING BLING, a book project addressing commodification. And the material in this now defunct poetry-in-progress blog was recontextualized to exemplify a Filipino poetics in my fothcoming book THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES.

In other words, I've been very conscious that there has to be a reason why material that's already available in the internet (viz blogs) would come to cut down trees to form books.

The challenge is ably met in, say, the anthology E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: the first XI interviews, Ed. Tom Beckett (Otoliths, forthcoming 2007). Full disclosure requires that I note that I am one of the interviewees in this first volume -- but being part of the anthology has offered me a behind-the-scenes look at what will be in the print volume. In addition to the interviews which already are available online, there will be sample poems by each interviewee which are good to have in terms of presumably exemplifying the poetics discussed in the interviews, as well as an Editor's Introduction by Tom Beckett whose astute editorship is known (Beckett edited The Difficulties (1980-1990), a now legendary critical journal)

This is all a long introduction to noting my disappointment with ________, which puts in book form an anthology of poems culled from its ___website. Their Introduction offers no aesthetic/editorial rationale for their choices ...

In recent decades, enough anthologies have come out so as to enable a lively dialogue on what makes an anthology successful or not. (As an editor or co-editor of five anthologies of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, I've been attuned to this matter, too.) But the ____ anthology barely makes it into this discussion arena with its basic claim that its existence simply manifests the editors' claims to present what's representative of the web site's content.
[end of excerpt]

As you might glean from above, my review basically is critical of this new anthology created as a result of its online presence. I won't reveal the name of that anthology yet as I'm still mulling over whether I want to come out publicly against the book (or any poetry project. Note that I say publicly -- privately, I bash a number of poetry projects to the dark angels, but to make my criticism public is an extra step which I am loathe to do for numerous reasons, not because I wanna be a Polyanna but due to how my poetics unfolds).

Prior to HCE's cancellation, I thought that HCE may be an example of a print anthology warranting its print-ness as it doesn't just repeat material on its blog. If you go to Blaze Box Book's web site regarding HCE, you will see an excerpt from the Editor's Introduction that presents a context as well as expansion of the initial blog-based concept. But I won't know for sure, now that the book has been yanked.

Anyway, the confluence of print-on-demand technology with blogs/websites is facilitating print versions of online projects. But on behalf of the trees, I hope that editors/publishers of such future anthologies do something besides making print replicate e-content -- if only, too, to respect the intelligence of your readers. At a minimum, mere replication is abuse of the technology that has allowed many to expand their use of the internet.

Meanwhile, my condolences (is that the right word) to Lance Philipps who I know has worked very hard on HCE and on behalf of poetry.

HOW LOOKING AT ART EXHIBITS AFFECTED MY FORMATION OF THE ARC OF POETRY BOOKS

There was a time when I was writing art reviews much more than I do nowadays. These weren't conventional art crits. They manifested a period when I was deep into exploring notions of subjectivity, and so I was exploring the insertion of my "I/Eye" into art reviewing prose.

A selection of this art prose comprises my favorite section in SILENCES. And you can see an example of such art "reviews" at the BEACH HOUSE. It's a review of a 2001 exhibition by Christian Vincent (in entertainment mode, I nota bene that he's married to the actress Peri Gilpin best known for playing "Roz" in the TV sitcom Frasier, although Gilpin's Wikipedia entry erroneously links her husband to be a dancer of the same name instead of the artist -- ah, the things you learn from reading Moi!).

Anyway, my review of this Christian Vincent exhibit also exemplifies a narrative reading/viewing that I applied to groupings of paintings -- which I just realized might have influenced how I've chosen to structure poetry books for some intended arc (versus to present a collection of individual poems). I've long thought that looking at artwork is my single most significant teacher in how I might write poems.

And to further differentiate my art reviews from others, I'd often inserted poems in such prose (often playing with the seeming arbitrariness of the juxtapositions). In this review, I inserted poems by Edgar Allan Poe....just for the heck of it. As in this excerpt from Poe's "Coliseum"

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
…These stones—alas! These gray stones—are they all—
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED

the first time I ordered a copy of SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS, my new release from Blue Lion Books. I ordered SILENCES through Blue Lion Books' Cafe Press site....and what I received was a book with the correct text inside, but covered by the cover of the prior Blue Lion Books release by Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennett.

It had never happened before in my, or (Blue Lion publishers) Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's or Peter Ganick's experience that a book would come covered with the wrong cover. But I suppose that's part of the possibilities now with print-on-demand systems, like Cafe Press'!

Cafe Press quickly remedied the error, sending me a new and correct copy of SILENCES. But I actually love having the erroeneously-covered version -- and not just because that's the kind of error that could be worth BIG BUCKS someday to book collectors (oh let me dream...). I love my errant copy because, synchronistically, the title of the Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennet book is

Furtherest Fictions/BACKWORDS

Given the nature of SILENCES as "a disruption of conventional autobiography," I think "Furtherest Fictions" and "BACKWORDS" are equally legitimate titles for my work. And the identification of the author as "Richard Kostelanetz & John M. Bennet" rather than "Eileen Tabios" also fits!

One of my epigraphs in SILENCES is an excerpt from the poem "Epipoem: Conversation" by Marne L. Kilates which goes

Who minds our journeys?
Who remembers we ever left?
In our absence are places ever less?
What do our words mean
When everything has been said?

Anyway, I love the company SILENCES keeps in Blue Lion Books. For some of the most innovative literary work out there, check out Blue Lion Books' *catalogue*, conveniently encapsulated in a recent email from Peter Ganick to Buffalo Poetics List which I share here:

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:45:40 +0000
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group
From: P Ganick
Subject: revised list of BLUE LION BOOKS

someone asked me to include the author's names along with corresponding titles in the previous BLUELIONBOOKS post. at our site at www.cafepress.com/bluelionbooks66
we cannot easily list authors at first view, only titles

[[from most recent then
backwards to the first book]]

SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss
Eileen Tabios

Furtherest FIctions/BACKWORDS
Richard Kostelanetz/John M. Bennett

Huddles
John Crouse

To Delite and Instruct
Catherine Daly

Post ~ Twyla
Jack Kimball

In The Weaver's Valley
William Allegrezza

Hotel di Roma [novel]
J Hayes Hurley

myesis, vol. 1, and
myesis, vol. 2
Jim Leftwich

Proletariaria (Vol.1)
Proletariaria (Vol.2)
Kevin Magee

Structure of Experience
Peter Ganick

0x03
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

Post Empire
Scott MacLeod

why: ...1 ...2 ...3 ...4
Peter Ganick

Motion and Rest
J Hayes Hurley

thetextasifsuch
Jim LEftwich

(no subject)
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

[[available at: www.cafepress.com/bluelionbooks66]]

SILENCE IS GOLDEN!

SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS is now officially released by Blue Lion Books (thank you Jukka-Pekka Kervinen and Peter Ganick!). You can order it from Blue Lion's Cafe Press site HERE!

This is my 15th poetry collection, and 12th print poetry collection. Part of the challenge of being so prolific is creating books that are very different from each other. I can promise you that this poetry collection is very different from others I've done in the past -- who else can present a hidden tale of eros within a 34-day list of (real-life) garbage? Moi, but of course!

My favorite section of SILENCES' nine sections is a compilation of art criticism that meld to create a de facto autobiography ... so that though each essay was written as individual assignments covering specific art exhibits, when bundled up together, they manifest the section's title of "Art Criticism: A Recovered Memoir".

This is also a 402-page book spanning genres. And it's what I consider my authentic "black book" ... for such works as "What You Don't Know About Me" which begins

Someone once called you a file cabinet. Careful not to slur his words, the stranger explained that you are too democratic: you lack discrimination about what slips into the dark recesses of your memory. As drunks often do, he belabored his point. To be "meticulously clear," the stranger proclaimed as he waved his empty glass at the bartender, he added that your body has even come to look like a filing cabinet: dusty, dented in places, and always in the corner of a room uninvolved in the activity surrounding it. Actually, the stranger--everyone is a stranger to you--was attempting a joke. But you didn't laugh and neither did I.

Or this excerpt from the poem "Samba Pa Ti (#3)":

For fire to bloom a rose
in the middle of an ocean
a boat must burn

For our pens to mate
the red velvet chair
in the dungeon must crash

For a steeple
to spiral across night sky
a man will lose a hand

Okay. That should be enough of a tease. Hopefully, you're intrigued enough to order it.

And please to contact me at GalateaTen@aol.com if you're interested in reviewing it (though not for my Galatea Resurrects since I edit it). Oh, okay okay -- one more tease: here's an excerpt from "The Artist Looks at the Model":

*

"Never before," she acknowledged through a set of contexts as varied as my promiscuous judgments on the same slice of weather. Plus, I am a Grand Master at using names to create. Once, I called her a "landlady." I was riveted, watching her try to fix my plumbing. I counted as, one by one, her fingernails betrayed their French manicures.

*

She became the wind after she lost all misgivings about drying my feet with her hair. It was a day bequeathed by a leap year. She forgot the word she had saved secretly for a special occasion to unload on me--such a big world of meaning in what would have been spelt as a couple of letters: N-O. It would have been. Such a big world.

*

This time, I used both palms to shape "L"s into a frame. She was the wind, but still too gentle. "You can do it!" I egged her on with sincere irritation on my unshaven face. I molded wind into a body for nothing is risked without bacteria. I felled her to her knees. She was up to it. Once, she jutted out her lower lip. I bit it. She was up to it.

COVER ME STOCHASTICALLY...& ECSTATICALLY!

And I'm ecstatic to present the cover to my next book: SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss (Blue Lion Books, Spring-March 2007):



Jukka Pekka-Kervinen designed the book cover through a program he wrote that generates a stochastic layout based on the letters of my name. After the layout phase, the program chooses one photograph from a big group of Jukka's photos, makes some manipulations, and then superimposes the manipulated fragment with the letter combination. Part of Jukka's poetics has to do with not allowing editing. Thus, after each (cover) image is generated, Jukka always destroys the original file.

The process reflects what Jukka calls one of his "basic" principles: "simply, if I use programs to generate works, I'm not allowed to edit them afterwards, otherwise I will make them manually."

Not only do I appreciate the thoughtfulness of Jukka's process, but I appreciate how it reflects the fragility of life and poetry. And how poetry, ultimately, cannot be pinned down. Thank you, Jukka!

"TWIN ME"! -- AUTOBIOGRAPHY POETICS

"Twin Me" is an aphorism by Jose Garcia Villa which I was pleasantly surprised to discover in Laura Moriarty's fabulous poetry collection, SELF-DESTRUCTION. And it also relates to my thought that -- ATTENTION TEACHERS -- there are some new books out there that could comprise a very interesting syllabus for exploring autobiography. From recent readings, I include THE GRAND PIANO: AN EXPERIMENT IN COLLECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Bob Perelman et al and DISPLEASURES OF THE TABLE: MEMOIR AS CARICATURE by Martha Ronk (as an aside, I happened to read these two books one after the other and they rub quite interestingly against each other).

Autobiography is on my mind as my two 2007 books continue my attempts to disrupt its notion. TOOTING MY OWN HORN ALERT! Here's an excerpt from the book description for my book SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS which will come out next month from Blue Lion Books:

...extends a body of transcolonial writings. Here, she uses poetry to disrupt conventional autobiography. Utilizing an anthology structure, she presents poems, art criticism, prose poetry, and lists to convey a narrative arc for a poet's biography -- specifically how a poet's life logically lapses to a multiplicity of silences, to varied forms of Loss.

And here's an excerpt from the book description of my Fall 2007 book forthcoming from Marsh Hawk Press:

On April 11, 2006, Filamore B. Tabios, Sr. died of brain cancer and its complications. In writing about her father, Eileen R. Tabios explores reconciliation with Ferdinand Marcos’ legacy through deliberate empathy with the former Philippine dictator's daughter Imee; pays homage to Judas Iscariot whose Gospel, discovered during her vigil by her father's deathbed, reveals him to be the most loyal disciple, instead of greatest betrayer, of Jesus Christ; meditates on the murder statistics of the 20th century's leading killers, from Idi Amin to Adolf Hitler; considers the global Filipina pen pal phenomena; and engages with Dante Aleghieri's Purgatorio.

In enacting Nietzsche's notion that "Punishment is the making of memory," Ms. Tabios also makes poetry by using commodity lists to create autobiography, practicing ekphrasis to translate the painterly technique of scumbling, offering variations of the hay(na)ku [...], and blurring the boundary between poetry and prose through texts originally written as blog posts. In addition, the book's overall trajectory reflects her disruption of narrative linearity in favor of Dante's conception of the Trinity. For Dante, creation is simultaneous as regards What (God) creates, How (Son) creation unfolds, and the Form (Spirit) taken by what is created.

I hope you check out these books. SILENCES is interesting for another reason -- SEX ALERT!! -- it's my "authentic black book" (and isn't it synchronistic that it gets to be published by a publisher partly known for their black book covers!); SILENCES also sheds light on John Bloomberg-Rissman's reference to Moi "Decolonialism / As a / Poetics of dominant// Submissive Sex"? Heee--reading that phrase now, I crack up.)

Meanwhile, here below is my latest list of Relished Whines and Wines -- if you must know, and you must if you read this blog, Wine is what fuels my reading and writing books. Missy WinePoetics!

BOOKS:
THE POSTMAN POEMS by Mark Young (you, too, can get a free pdf of this enchanting collection by simply emailing the author!)

ANOTHER SILENT ATTACK, poems by Franck Andre Jamme, trans. by Michael Tweed

ON HER FACE THE LIGHT OF LA LUNA, poems by Mairym Cruz-Bernal

SELF-DESTRUCTION, poems by Laura Moriarty

MEXICO CITY BLUES, poems by Jack Kerouac

BIRDS & FANCIES, poems by Elizabeth Treadwell

CENSORY IMPULSE, poems by Erica Kaufman

STIGMATA ERRATA ETCETERA, poems by Bill Knott & collages by Star Black

BODY OF CRIMSON LEAVES, poems by Celia Homesley

GREEN SQUALL, poems by Jay Hopler

WEDDING DAY, poems by Dana Levin

THE GRAND PIANO: AN EXPERIMENT IN COLLECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Bob Perelman et al

DISPLEASURES OF THE TABLE: MEMOIR AS CARICATURE by Martha Ronk

DOOR WIDE OPEN: A BEAT LOVE AFFAIR IN LETTERS 1957-1958 by Jack Kerouac and Joyce Johnson

ELIZABETH BISHOP: THE COLLECTED PROSE, Ed. by Robert Giroux

I WAS VERMEER: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S GREATEST FORGER, investigative journalism by Frank Wynne

LEONARDO DA VINCI'S ADVICE TO ARTISTS, Ed. by Emery Kelen

AN ALPHABETICAL LIFE: LIVING IT UP IN THE WORLD OF BOOKS, memoir by Wendy Werris

TWENTY-FIVE CHICKENS AND A PIG FOR A BRIDE: GROWING UP IN A FILIPINO IMIGRANT FAMILY, memoir by Evangeline Canonizado Buell

MY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES (A SURVIVOR'S TALE), essays by James Atlas

SUMMER OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN, novel by Tracie Peterson


WINES:
1990 CNP Domaine De Marcoux
1999 Behrens & Hitchcock syrah Alder Springs Ranch "Homage to Ed Oliveira"
1999 Pietre Rosse Dalla Valle
1989 Barbaresco Riserva Asiti
2000 Ritratti Trentino cabernet
1978 William Hill Mt. Veeder cabernet
1990 Monticello Cellars cabernet

SILENT POETRY & NOISY W(H)INE

SILENCES: The Autobiography of Loss. The 265-page manuscript collects works written over the past 7 years or so. But I didn't come up with the appropriate book arc for them until last week. Took a couple of days to organize, and there was a brand-spankin' new manuscript on Friday.

I submitted it Saturday.

It got accepted yesterday (Monday).

To put together (not write, but put together) a book, submit it, and get it accepted for publication in three days.

Even I am amazed at Moiself.

But pleased. And not just because I got a book accepted. But because I am getting closer to my goal as a poet -- SILENCES.

And along that path, here are my latest-relished read and imbibed lists -- it's interesting how I want to write silence and yet I can be quite slurpily-noisy drinking that wine:

BOOKS:
THE ALLEGREZA FICCIONE, novella with poems by Mark Young

BOYS, A-Z: A Primer, poems and visual art by Dan Waber

YUMMY ZEST, poem by Jukka Pekka Kervinen

THE TAR PIT DIATOMS, poems by Sandra Simonds

EXERTIONS, poems by Scott Glassman

TO DELITE AND INSTRUCT, poems by Catherine Daly

DOVEY & ME, poems by Lynn Strongin

EVACUATION ROUTES: A USER'S GUIDE, poems by A.L. Nielsen

POSTCARD MEMOIRS (1-100), prose poems by Alex Gildzen

GILDZEN AT 50, tribute to Alex Gildzen

FOX, poems by Adrienne Rich

HEART ON A TRIPOD, poems by Kaia Sand

CASE SENSITIVE, poems by Kate Greenstreet

OUT OF WEDLOCK, poems by Jennifer Reimer & Craig Perez

BLUE OUTLINE: After Hiroshige, poems by Craig Perez

CROP, poems by Yedda Morrison

HOMELESS AT HOME, poems by Gloria Frym

VAUDEVILLE, poems by Alyssa Wolf

TEN THOUSAND SORROWS: THE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY OF A KOREAN WAR ORPHAN, memoir by Elizabeth Kim

THE STATIONS OF SOLITUDE, memoir/meditation by Alice Koller

MAKING LOVE TO THE MINOR POETS OF CHICAGO, novel by James Conrad

ALL SHE EVER WANTED, novel by Lynn Austin

A DOG'S LIFE, novel by Peter Mayle

THIS HEAVY SILENCE, novel by Nicole Mazzarella

WINES:
1996 Greenock Creek Creek Block Shiraz
1982 Chateau Petit Villages (Pomerol)
2001 Kistler Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard
1990 Moccagatta Bric Balin Barbaresco
1988 Brunello di Montalcino Sanetti Livio
2004 Chianti Classico Roberto Stucchi Coltibuono
2004 Ramey claret
1991 Ravenswood Pickberry