With The Great American Novel: Selected Visual Poetry (2001-2019), Eileen Tabios not only presents 19 years of her forays into visual poetry, but takes the reader on an extremely personal journey of exploration of cultural identity, the ramifications of colonialism, the functions of language and the possibilities of connectivity in love and pain where each poem acts as a poignant marker along the way. Each sequence in this collection vastly differs--from asemic chance operations composed of Tabios's plucked white hairs let fall into place (recalling how Duchamp composed 3 Standard Stoppages) to a description of each poem-object in a destroyed mail art correspondence of sculptural visual poems. Tabios's openness to possibility has created poems radiating with life which are as heavy as they are celebratory. If you're looking for bubblegum, move on--here is something entirely different for your eyes to chew on. --Sacha Archer, author of Detour Eileen Tabios takes part by taking apart then seaming beyond seeming. Commas as visuals take form, flight, shape. Real lines of once alive things plucked from hair inventing poetry without genuflection. Achromotricia re(de)fines asemia, emerging a new version of whiteness against cloth backdrops. Finding poetry as poetry is. Eileen asserts in natural form the joining of worlds by being knowing learning doing becoming fascinated by what creates itself around her as she fascinates us by what she makes herself. --Sheila E. Murphy, author of Reporting Live From You Know Where I immediately got attracted to the first images, documenting an installation titled "Pilipinz Cloudygenous." Then I read the notes, and went back to the images. The effect got stronger and stronger. While the mobiles of say, Fischli & Weiss, are about the funny chain of causality, Tabios' work is about a funnily represented, rather absurd, but still functioning chain--leading back to the sources. "Hanging (from a ceiling)," roots in the sky. --Márton Koppány, author of Endgames
Poetry. Asian- American Studies. DREDGING FOR ATLANTIS, this new collection from prolific poet Eilieen Tabios, introduces her translation of the painterly technique of scumbling, painting light colors over dark colors to create an opalescent effect, creating poems from other poets' words. Tabios publications include fourteen poetry collections. Her books REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE, I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED, MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21ST CENTURY, and THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATION, VOL 1, are all available from SPD.
The Blind Chatelaine's Keys takes its impetus from three impossibilities: (i) biography (and autobiography) - something is always left out, (ii) artistic criticism - the critic,s subjectivity inevitably comes to play, and (iii) pure persona in poems -the poet's self remains a presence no matter how much a poet may wish to disrupt the 'I'. Eileen R. Tabios, known as 'Chatelaine' in poetry blogland, uses others' criticisms and engagements of her writings to create a narrative arc that serves as a biography. Since the biography is based (mostly) on her poems, it conceptually pushes the idea summed up by Ted Berrigan: 'there is a self inside almost all of the poems'. The Blind Chatelaine's Keys is also a poetics, but laid out by others based on Tabios' poems. Not only is this ideal as one doesn't want to apply proscriptive paradigms on art, but, according to Tabios, it reflects the way of 'Kapwa' - a Filipino cultural concept of interconnectedness whereby other people are not 'others' but part of what one is. The featured critical engagements were also chosen for what the reviews say about their authors. The results address the Chatelaine's core poetics: while Rimbaud says, 'I is Another,' the Chatelaine cheerfully notes, 'Moi is all about Toi.' When Tabios finally speaks for herself - it is to inaugurate a new poetic form: the 'haybun.' While this form is inspired by the 'haibun' associated with Basho, the 'haybun' relies on the 'hay(na)ku'. The ?hay(na)ku' is an earlier invention by Tabios which has become a popular 21st century form, undertaken by numerous poets worldwide. Through the haybun, Tabios offers a memoir of a failed adoption attempt, 'Looking for M.', which has been praised by adoption professionals.
Poetry. Eileen R. Tabios' new poetry collection revolves around recovering 21st century lives for the Mesopotamian priestess Enheduanna and the 18th century Philippine general Gabriela Silang. Of this book, Kevin Killian proclaims: "Half diary of dildo desire, half rhapsodic insurgent mediation between art and life, Tabios' book moves from a melting prose poetry to fully lineated, musical demand for action. You, reader, fully implicated in this intercontinental love triangle, shall find yourself asking, 'Where is the world that is waiting to happen?' The question that haunted Enheduanna and Gabriela plunges out of the book, ferocious, tongue dippedin fire, dragon with sapphire eyes and no conscience." xPress(ed) is a publisher based in Espoo, Finland.
In these twenty-six complex, finely-crafted poems, we see Eileen Tabios at the height of her poetic powers, fighting, changing, and embracing two languages to wrest new meanings not only from the words themselves, but from hyphens, slashes, and empty spaces. Sometimes intensely personal, sometimes fiercely political, Tabios plunges the reader into a universe of ecstatic images as she repeatedly attempts to freeze each 'inevitable stutter of love.' --Mary Mackey Layering memory soaked through with heart / home sickness where 'paper is too / soft a field for your hand leaving my waist, ' Eileen Tabios's HIRAETH: TERCETS FROM THE LAST ARCHIPELAGO mesmerizes. With its title borrowing the Welsh word for the feeling of homesickness tinged with grief expressed for dear ones departed, the collection is partly inspired by British painter Andrew Bick's series of multi-layered wax paintings wherein each layer presents new imagery as well as ghostly images of older layers. Just as an Archipelago Sea is studded with so many isles, each of these poems arrives so 'studded' with some lines intentionally faded out as though possessed by the 'Unreasonable ghost of a ghost / who'd persuaded the world its name is Unicorn'. There are recollections, imagined or not, of 'poetry readings where I ripped pages / from my books. Sometimes I autographed them; sometimes / I crumpled them into balls I'd toss towards the audience as / if they were money or my underwear' seeking 'to alchemize the reader into / the author!' Maybe the poet, too, needs to be reminded out of amnesia: 'I forgot my poetry is going to change the world ... I forgot my words are holy. / I forgot my words will lift you--all of you!--towards Joy'. But readers should never forget the fruit of such devotion to poetry. How terrific to have it here at hand. --Patrick James Dunagan
MANHATTAN: An Archaeology presents Eileen R. Tabios' latest innovative approach to poetry-making. In this book, she uses a diverse set of "artifacts" to excavate a version of New York City's historical birthplace. Artifacts include the unexpected and the ineffable to create a city only she can imagine-while they include a pearl necklace, piece of pineapple skin, yoga mat, black sateen, and bullet, the "objects" for perusal also range over moonlight, "withheld forgiveness," and duende. The result, too, is unexpected and ineffable: Poetry that delights and intrigues. Some receptive readers will wake from the book missing something they hadn't realized they missed, longing for something they hadn't realized they desired.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.