EVER LOOKIN' FOR WORDS

Rain has arrived, which means this will be my last report of the Summer/Fall City Slicker Harvest in my latest update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. Kinda sucks to know that’s all I was able to manage this season in what is, after all, one of Earth’s most fertile spots. I mean, Halloween is coming but the pumpkins failed to show up!!!! Anyway, here’s moi latest list and don’t scoff at some of the novels as it reflects how I ran out of books to read during my last out-of-the-country trip and, unable to not always have my nose in a book—any book!—I just read what was available around me. Also, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.


SUMMER/FALL CITY SLICKER HARVEST
23 bunches of house grapes
65 black figs
151 green figs
30 heirloom tomatoes
35 plum tomatoes
17 jalapenos
36 cucumbers
8 strawberries
13 sprigs of mint
14 sprigs of basil
41 yellow squash
21 eggplant
28 zucchini
5 bell peppers
50 lines of chives
1 peach (doesn’t really count because while it’s the first fully formed peach we’ve mustered, it wasn’t edible. But it’s our first!)
1 pear (our first!)
3 canteloupes (our first!)
8 honeydews (our firsts! City slickers that we are, we initially thought this was ripening watermelon. Harvested it (ooh: I love claiming I “harvest” anything!) Didn’t know what they are until we cut into one and tasted. They’re tiny, though: the size of my fist. But still good miniatures!)
3 lemon cucumbers (we didn’t plant these this season; they’re last season’s which seeded themselves)
0 plums for the season (because the birds et ‘em all!)


PUBLICATIONS
ON THE TRACKS OF WILD GAME, poems by Tomaz Salamun, Trans. by Sonja Kravanja (So intelligent. So sly. Intriguing and fabulous read)

ANGLES OF INCIDENTS, poems by Jon Curley (a fabulous ear! Truly wonderful!)

ON A PLANET WITHOUT VISA: SELECTED POETRY AND OTHER WRITINGS, AD 1960-2012 by Sotere Torregian (admirable life-source/energy!)

* NERVOUS DEVICE, poems by Catherine Wagner

* ARCO IRIS, poems by Sarah Vap

HALF-LIVES, poems by Erica Jong

LIKE THE PIECES OF DRIFTWOOD, poems by Jon Francis

ROPE PAINTINGS, monograph by Darrell Nettles

POSER: MY LIFE IN 23 YOGA POSES, memoir by Claire Dederer (I adored this book!)

MY DOG TULIP, memoir by J.R. Ackerley

CRAZY FOR THE STORM: A MEMOIR FOR SURVIVAL by Norman Ollestad

THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS, essays by Nicholson Baker

THE MERRY RECLUSE: A LIFE IN ESSAYS by Caroline Knapp

MADE FROM SCRATCH: DISCOVERING THE PLEASURES OF A HANDMADE LIFE, memoir by Jenna Woginrich

SHAKE OFF, novel by Mischa Hiller

A WANTED MAN, novel by Lee Child

LAST MAN STANDING, novel by David Baldacci

DIVINE JUSTICE, novel by David Baldacci

SWEEPING UP GLASS, novel by Carolyn Wall

ONE BREATH AWAY, novel by Heather Gudenkauf

MACKENZIE’S PLEASURE, novel by Linda Howard

MACKENZIE’S LEGACY, novel by Linda Howard

ICE, novel by Linda Howard

DEFENDING HIS OWN, novel by Beverly Barton

THE ARRANGEMENT, novel by Joan Wolf


WINES
1998 Clarendon Hills shiraz Hickinbotham Vineyard
2005 Trevor Jones shiraz
2003 Rausan Despagne
2006 Peter Michael "Ma Belle-Fille" Chardonnay
2004 Jones Cabernet NV
2002 Hundred Acre Cabernet
2001 Abreu Madrona Ranch
1998 Australian Domaine Wines The Hattrick McLaren Vale grenache shiraz cabernet
2005 Dutch Henry Hillside rose NV

I LOVE BEING A SOCCER MOM!

,,,which is why I post the photo below from this evening's last game of the season. Before the game began, they had a brief ceremony saying goodbye to the graduating senior soccer players, with red roses to the parents (may I get one someday - hah!):

You can click on photo to enlarge image.  Mi guapito hijo is the one sixth from the left...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHILIP LAMANTIA!

Steven Fama offers his annual birthday gift to Philip -- and it is lovely, worthwhile reading!

TURNING ANGLES INTO ANGELS

And as I've said before, I don't assign myself poetry books to review.  I just read as widely as I can and whatever moves me to write about them end up being the books I will have reviewed!  So I'm pleased to announce the latest poetry book that moved me in this manner and that I will be reviewing for the next issue of Galatea Resurrects: ANGLES OF INCIDENTS by Jon Curley (Dos Madres Press).  What a fabulous ear this poet has--turns angles into angels!  Congrats Jon!

Reminder: review deadline for next issue of Galatea Resurrects is Nov. 11, 2012 (though I'm likely to do at least one one-week extension for those who need more time).

FOR TRADING POETRY BOOKS!

The following list is an update of my list of recently BOUGHT POETRY books.  It includes some books I snapped up at a local library's sale--I had some of those books already but acquiring copies also allowed me to update my Community Bookshelf.  Through this Community Bookshelf, I can trade poetry books--check it out HERE if you have spare poetry books!

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer
TRISM by Rebecca Loudon
COLEMAN HAWKINS ORNETTE COLEMAN by Norma Cole
EATING IN THE UNDERWORLD by Rachel Zucker
5 SHADES OF GRAY by Eileen R. Tabios

Bought For Cents on the Dollar at A Library Sale:
HALF LIVES by Erica Jong
BIRTHDAY LETTERS by Ted Hughes
THE HEART OF A WOMAN by Maya Angelous
LIFE WORK by Donald Hall
BORDERLANDS/ LA FRONTERA by Gloria Anzaldua
LIKE THE PIECES OF DRIFTWOOD by Jon Francis
DARK CARD by Rebecca Foust
SEASONS AT EAGLE POND by Donald Hall
EZRA POUND AND HIS WORLD by Peter Ackroyd

I WAS PRURIENT READING DU JOUR

by Jean!

Jean also reminds 5 SHADES OF GRAY isn't my first foray into BDSM. For those interested in short stories from the intersection of eros and the visual arts, there's BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS which I'd dedicated to Pauline Reage...

By the way, Jean, those are nice paintings you've been doing lately. Love "Brink City" by Jean Vengua

because I'm always on the brink of, uh, something ...
 

LET MOI WHIP YOU WITH POWS OF IDEAS!

Whip you?  Sorry, cheesy Moi couldn't resist.  Anyway...

One of Amazon's top reviewers, Grady Harp, reviews moi 5 SHADES OF GRAY!  Go HERE  for the five-star review! But here's an excerpt:

This collection of poems are in response to that bizarrely popular trilogy by EL James titled FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY -- a series of books that explore the outer limits of sexual boundaries. Tabios has attempted to read the trilogy but instead elected to explore the subject matter of bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism through her own resources and in response to all this she wrote these poems. Her poems regard the propensity of public behavior and needs as much as commenting on the strange popularity of the novels and the results are brief, terse, emotionally charged pows of ideas.

MY BEST BOOK?

That’s what Tom Beckett says about moi 20th print poetry book: 5 Shades of Gray! Check it out HERE, but also let’s consider this the official release by the following press release below:







i.e. press Announcement:

5 Shades of Gray, poems by Eileen R. Tabios
ISBN No.: 978-1-934299-09-8
Release Date: Fall 2012
Distribution: Lulu.com and Amazon.com

Fifty Shades of Grey, a 2011 erotic novel by E.L. James, has topped best-seller lists around the world. It is the first in a Trilogy which has sold over 40 million copies and book rights in 37 countries. It also set the record as the fastest-selling paperback of all time, surpassing the Harry Potter series. Eileen R. Tabios has not read E.L. James' novels, but that did not stop her from writing the poems comprising 5 Shades of Gray. She first read about BDSM ( bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism) in a New York Times article about a room in Japan set up as a private park for businessmen clad only in oversized diapers and wheeled about in oversized prams pushed by women in British nanny costumes. Ms. Tabios also appreciates Ellen Degeneres' attempts to read Fifty Shades of Grey on YouTUBE, accompanied by sound effects provided by handcuffs, ping pong paddle and a whip.

The Sphinx’s Unasked Riddle


Which is more powerful:

A moon so bright it erases night

Or

A sun so bright it darkens vision

ADVANCE WORDS:
From TOM BECKETT:
Eileen Tabios’ …latest book of poetry, 5 Shades of Gray. I want to quote one poem from this superb book:

Poetics (#2)

"Move to the limit
of what you know--

Start there"

That is quite possibly the best piece of advice a human being could be given. I really admire Eileen's book. It is for me her best book so far.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eileen R. Tabios has released 20 print, 4 electronic and 1 CD poetry collections, an art-essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, a short story book and a collection of novels. Recipient of the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry for her first poetry book Beyond Life Sentences, she has exhibited visual poetry and visual art throughout the United States and Asia. She has also edited, co-edited and/or conceptualized nine anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays. Ms. Tabios has crafted a body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, computer-generated hybrid languages, Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Music, Modern Dance and Sculpture.

UNIMAGINABLE SWEETNESS

is seeing your 82-year-old Mom see her very first book published!  Yep--first time author at age 82: that's inspiring!  Mom's book is DAWAC And Other Memoir Narratives, which was released in the U.S. but she only just saw her first copy last week when I went to the Philippines.  You see, Mom is bedridden from cancer now, which didn't stop her from knowing/feeling the  joy of her first book -- that first book is always special!  Here she is:

And here Mom is doing book-signings!  Grin!

I am so happy Mom experienced all this ...

Here's my cousin Dona at her sari-sari store, reading Mom's book (love these tiny stores that dot the Philippine landscape):

In fact, Dona will post a copy at her store for all the villagers to see that Mom wrote a book about them all!

This unimaginable sweetness of seeing your Mother experience her first book: Ay, nagsamit nga unay!

LET’S ALTER SILENCE!

Busssy Beeee. Off and offline as of tomorrow until Oct. 13: Have a good week! Busy Moi was rushing around trying to minimize her In-Box pile before taking off. Which is to say, I managed to squeeze in a blurb for a fabulous forthcoming book: ON THE ALTERACTION OF SILENCE: RECENT CHILEAN POETRY (La alteración del silencio: Poesía chilena reciente) edited by Galo Ghigliotto and William Allegrezza. Moi said:

Once, the historian Arnold Toynbee apparently named Chile as a "country of the future," which Adan Mendez calls "inexplicable" in one of his poems. The explanation, though, might be the moving bounty of poetry continuing to come out of Chile since she birthed "the first Spanish poetic expression known in the Americas,...La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga," as well as Latin America's first two Nobel Prize winners Gabriela Mistral (1945) and Pablo Neruda (1970). For Chile's contemporary poets are writing energetic poems with fresh forms, musics and perspectives which deserve wider exposure on the global stage. Chile's poets are pushing forward the known limits of poetry with compelling poems--if these poems' invitations to be inhabited are eagerly accepted, they also will share something about the hunger, astonishment, radiance, grief and desire that stews together to form Chile: "The blazing light of the sun /...Pouring heat on my body / Letting it live burning it gradually // Come see this burning."
--Eileen R. Tabios

Besides altering silence, there’s more relishes on my latest update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. Note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.


SUMMER/FALL CITY SLICKER HARVEST
23 bunches of house grapes
35 black figs
151 green figs
30 heirloom tomatoes
35 plum tomatoes
17 jalapenos
36 cucumbers
3 lemon cucumbers (we didn’t plant these this season; they’re last season’s which seeded themselves)
8 strawberries
13 sprigs of mint
14 sprigs of basil
41 yellow squash
21 eggplant
28 zucchini
5 bell peppers
50 lines of chives
1 peach (doesn’t really count because while it’s the first fully formed peach we’ve mustered, it wasn’t edible. But it’s our first!)
1 pear (our first!)
3 canteloupes (our first!)
8 honeydews (our firsts! City slickers that we are, we initially thought this was ripening watermelon. Harvested it (ooh: I love claiming I “harvest” anything!) Didn’t know what they are until we cut into one and tasted. They’re tiny, though: the size of my fist. But still good miniatures!)
0 plums for the season (because the birds et ‘em all!)


PUBLICATIONS
THE ALTERATION OF SILENCE: RECENT CHILEAN POETRY (La alteración del silencio: Poesía chilena reciente), bilingual poetry of poems translated from Spanish to English, edited by Galo Ghigliotto and William Allegrezza (a total FEAST! See above blurb)

SYMPHONY NO. 7, poems by Ric Carfagna (simply: magnificent. A feat … I wish I’d written it, I so loved it!)

DIVINE MADNESS, poems by Paul Pines (my favorite so far of his books. Wonderful poems and poetics!)

THE ORACULAR SONNETS, poems by Mark Young and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (re-read this since I first published it years ago, and it is still WONDERFUL!)

EATING IN THE UNDERWORLD, poems by Rachel Zucker (I don’t know why it took me so long to find this 2003 book, which is to say it deserves more attention. Nor do I know why it took so long for someone to reimagine the myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hades into a more fulsome reality. Stellar.)

* PLAINT, poems by Richard Darabaner, Edited by Daniel Gabriel (a moving, posthumous collection from a tortured soul)

USELYSSES, poems by Noel Black (a lot of fun!)

NOT NOT, poems by jim mcrary (as ever, quite raucous!)

* ARDOR: POEMS OF LIFE by Janine Canan (an ecstatic read!)

* EVERYONE HAS A MOUTH, poems by Ernst Herbeck

* ON POEMS ON, poems by Sandra Liu

HAIKU AND TANKA HARVEST by Victor P. Gendrano

* HOUSE ORGAN, No. 80 Fall 2012, Edited by Kenneth Warren (so much great stuff!)

* THE GREAT AMERICAN POETRY SHOW, Vol. 1, anthology edited by Larry Ziman. Madeline Sharples, Nicky Schlitz

* THE GREAT AMERICAN POETRY SHOW, Vol. 2, anthology edited by Larry Ziman. Madeline Sharples, Nicky Schlitz

ABC TO ENLIGHTENMENT: GUIDEPOSTS IN OUR LIFE’S JOURNEY, advice by Victor P. Gendrano

NOT WORKING: PEOPLE TALK ABOUT LOSING A JOB AND FINDING THEIR WAY IN TODAY’S CHANGING ECONOMY, economics/journalism by DW Gibson

WIFE OF THE CHEF, memoir by Courtney Febbroriello

ADMISSION, novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz

SIMPLE, novel by Kathleen George

THE BOY WHO FOLLOWED RIPLEY, novel by Patricia Highsmith

TURBULENCE, novel by John J. Nance

STAY CLOSE, novel by Harlan Coben

LETHAL LEGACY, novel by Irene Hannon

A MAN’S HEART, novel by Lori Copeland


WINES
2004 Philippe Colim Chassagne-Montrachet La Maltroie
1997 Greenock Creek Corner Stone Grenache Barossa Valley
1992 Von Strasser cabernet
2002 Louis Jadot Corton Charlemagne
200_ Robert Foley
2001 La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Reserva Especial
1992 Von Strasser cabernet NV

"PHOTOEMS" FACING FEMINISM!

Annette Marie Hyder curated a project, "Facing Feminism: Feminists I Know." Participants were asked to send in photo and text to create "photoems" to explore the theme. Well, Annette just received a grant (yay!) to spread the word and do an exhibition, for which she is using Facebook to spread the word by posting a photoem daily over the next couple of weeks. You can see that brilliant and loving project HERE.  Please "Like it," as they apparently say ...

And, specifically, Moi am HERE! preening with my Achilles when he was still a puppy! Actually, I love this baby photo of Achilles so I'm going to repost below, but please do go visit the TOTAL PROJECT to see these wonderful Feminists!

German Shepherds are feminists, too! Just check out Arlene Ang's photoem!


[P.S.  I'm not really active on Facebook.  There's an "Eileen R. Tabios" page but Facebook created that for me because I'm famous (haha) and undoubtedly to ramp up its "user" statistic prior to its (flawed-haha) initial public offering.  Anyway, I don't use Facebook much but people do occasionally find their way onto my page and leave me messages, and I'm grateful for that ...]

THE PERILS OF ART CRITICISM

So, one of the famous local artists around here is Marvin Humphrey, who is currently having an October show at the local library, and I happened to be at the library while he was installing his exhibit. That's where I first saw -- and of course I had to get it for Galatea since what am Moi but a chatelaine?! -- a small painting called "Spanglish"! Here it is -- and I'm sure you need not be a poet to get and appreciate the pun:

Okay. So what's wrong with the above painting? [INSERT A FEW SECONDS AS 9 BILLION PEEPS LOOK AT THE IMAGE AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH SAID PAINTING]

What's "wrong" is that Mr. Humphrey, a realist master painted the key perfectly vertical when, if it was hanging like that from a non-centered hole, the key would hang slanted.

Now, of course I saw the error right away because I've got an eye (blind though it is). But I initially thought it a brilliant choice, for several reasons:

1) Re. the painting's title of "Spanglish" which refers to a combo of Spanish and English: Spanglish is pure on its own but imperfect as Spanish or English. So I thought the imperfect purity of the vertical (versus the realistic slant) to be appropriate.

2) AQUI is the painted word, which means HERE. Of course it's also a sonar pun to A KEY. I thought the vertical positioning created emphasis: A KEY RIGHT HERE! Emphasis, I thought, would be diluted by the realistic slant, compared to the vertical which is a key standing at attention, if you will.

If I were writing a piece of art criticism, I'd no doubt mention the above two points. While interesting, though, they would have been erroneous. One of the advantages of seeing the artist hanging his display is the ability to go talk to him. So, I approached Mr. Humphrey who also cheerfully allowed his pic to be taken:

And so I asked the artist about the positioning of the key in "Spanglish." He, kinda sheepishly, looked at me and said he simply made a mistake. He didn't realize until he finished his painting that he "should have painted it slanted." So much for my brilliant art criticism! Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar ...!

But of course if I were writing an art essay, I'd still expound expansively on my two points, even if I were to mention the artist's position. Because there is an artist's position, and then there is the art work's position. And sometimes -- not all the time; just sometimes -- it's the viewer who must speak on behalf of the work. This is a lesson, that is needless to say for my sophisticated readers but I tend to belabor, that also applies to poetry.  Besides, as regards this particular painting, who knows the key better than a chatelaine...?!

Good morning!