EVOCARE by AYO GUTIERREZ, EILEEN R. TABIOS and BRIAN CAIN AENE

NEIL LEADBEATER Reviews

EVOCARE: Collected Tankas by Ayo Gutierrez, Eileen R. Tabios, and Brian Cain Aene 

(GMGA, Philippines, 2019)

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Evocare from its Latin meaning “to summon”, brings together the work of three poets in this collection of tanka or “short songs” – a genre of classical Japanese poetry that was traditionally written as a single, unbroken line of 31 syllables but has since been cast in five lines of 5,7,5,7 and 7 syllables using simile, metaphor and personification. Like the sonnet, it employs a turn, a pivotal image, which marks the transition from the examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. This transition is located in the third line connecting the upper poem to the lower poem [Poets.org / tanka: glossary of poetic terms].

Ayo Gutierrez’s tankas read like a series of statements or proverbs. They are lessons from life. Her concern is with the whole of nature, both human and animal, (many different animals are mentioned in this collection), and how we can be enriched by it if we only learn to heed its wisdom. 

In keeping with the tanka tradition, her third lines, the pivot points, are full of observation drawn from experience.  Here is a selection of them taken from different tankas: To love means to give; Freedom is scary; Be careful in life; Adaptation is art; Take no life for fun; Alone means weaker and Am I forever?

Gutierrez does not shirk from spelling out the realities of life:

When two rivers meet

They become one big river

The smaller ones dies

Just the widest of the two

Allowed to retain its name.

She places her faith in the way that Nature keeps everything in balance:

Nature is balance

Between birth and death of all

Demand and supply

Too much birth brings extinction

Too much death makes life grow strong.

and she expresses herself through the use of contrast and balance to help us to understand and adapt to the changing circumstances of life. In a recent interview (Spotlight on Writers / Spillwords Press, July 13, 2019) Gutierrez, born in Makati City, Philippines, and currently living in Cebu City, reveals that she has always had an affinity with nature after trips with her parents to Tagaytay to take a break from the hustle and bustle of city life. Her love of the natural world is revealed in these tankas where each one is a scenic piece that says so much in a short space about universal truths. 

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The collection of tankas by Eileen R. Tabios is divided into twelve sections. Most, if not all of them, are drawn from her previous publications but taken together they showcase the way in which she has developed and experimented with the form. Also included is a short poetry-in-progress essay on the ethical dilemmas of writing poems based on someone else’s first hand experiences of war.

In this collection Tabios utilises a variety of styles to fit her poetic purposes. There are single stanza tankas (My First Three Tankas); tanka chains or sequences (Maple Leaf Tanka); tankas written around a common theme (Tanka for Chef Tom, The Great Grief and Emergency Room Tankas); tankas written in a shorter format to pay homage to the original Japanese form (Excavated Tankas) and tankas split into two stanzas that reflect another (older) form of the genre, the latter presented in a combination of line repetitions affording multiple permutations. 

Variety of style is matched by variety of mood and subject matter. The three examples that follow illustrate by turn the unashamedly romantic side of this poet and the political activist side with hard-hitting lines addressing topics of concern in America today: everything from gun violence to the state of the American healthcare system:

from My First Three Tankas:

#2

Last night white jasmine

Slipped through the open windows

perfume forms image

You by the open door, smiling

After two years without you

from Antarctican Vibranium Tankas:

“If only bullets

Could create peace, not make wars”

A schoolchild once hoped

This fantasy pays homage

To the students as they march.

from Emergency Room Tankas:

“Urgent Care” differs

From “Emergency.” I ask

What’s the difference

Thousands of dollars, the nurse

Says, It’s about insurance

Tabios’s ability to speak out on contemporary issues using this traditional form of poetry is one of her strong points. Her endless quest for invention is behind everything that she writes.

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A selection of tankas by Brian Cain Aene, a Filipino martial arts enthusiast who works in marketing, rounds off this collection. Aene structures his contribution through a series of exhibits. Exhibits 1 to 11 are inspired by people he encounters and the stories he creates. Exhibits 12 to 18 are, in his own words, ‘meant for the reason behind my wings, the reason why I discover many great things…for my Favourite Person, the west wind in the east.’

The 200 tankas that make up these exhibits are all titled as portraits. Each of these portraits presents us with a vivid description in words that collectively form a public presentation or manifestation of a particular theme which often takes the form of a depiction of a relationship with a loved one. Most are highly personal in nature (first and second personal pronouns are often in evidence) but some offer up a more universal theme. These two tankas, the first intimate and the second spelling out a truth gleaned by experience serve as examples of his work:

Exhibit 6: Romance and Intimacy

Portrait 51:

Exploring the curves

Of your body with my lips –

A secret voyage;

Sliding my fingertips on

Your skin – my kind of playtime

Exhibit 15: Letters to the Wind

Portrait 169:

The greatest lesson

Love can teach in a lifetime

Is making days count,

As if each is a last day –

This we know when days are gone

Taken together, all three contributors have much to say about love, life and contemporary issues which concern us all and they say it with eloquence within the strictures of this compressed form. Small is indeed beautiful.

*****

Neil Leadbeater is an author, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, 2011); The Worcester Fragments (Original Plus, 2013); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, 2014), Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017) and Punching Cork Stoppers (Original Plus, 2018). His work has been translated into several languages.

POST-BOOK: REINE ARCACHE MELVIN

The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of a book’s release. This issue’s featured writers include Reine Arcache Melvin.

What is your most recent book? 

My most recent book is The Betrayed: A Novel.

When was it released? 

At the end of 2018.

What has been the response/what has surprised you most about the response? 

Many people contacted me after reading the book, often with very strong opinions about the characters. Readers — including many I didn’t know — wrote to discuss the main characters, especially the two sisters. Some argued about what the sisters did and didn’t do; others disagreed with me about the choices the sisters had made. Some told me how I should have ended the book. An old friend, not a writer but a very good reader, gave me numerous suggestions for the next edition of the book — basically a brand-new plot. (I thought, but didn’t say: perhaps you should write that book yourself?) I heard a lot of positive things, I heard arguments and disagreements — but all these were responses from readers who seemed to have really engaged with the book and characters. I was also surprised (and gratified, and relieved) that, although it is a long book, many people told me they couldn’t put it down. Of course, I’m talking only about people who contacted me…

I had been concerned about what the response — or absence of response — might be. I spent years on the book, sacrificing more than I’d like to acknowledge on the altar of getting-it-done. The novel isn’t autofiction or autobiographical,  but it is very intimate. There’s a lot of sex and longing, with women who start out as pawn and prey, then try to turn that around, sometimes disastrously… It’s not my story, but in many ways it’s my skin, and the skin of people I’ve known. Also, the book is set among the so-called elites of the Philippines, in a time of political turmoil, and I thought there would be a backlash against my portrayal of that world, too. So, I worried the book would be savaged and, at the same time and the other extreme, that it would be ignored. As a writer, I was afraid of coming up short, of failing in what I had set out to do, of the idea that all those years of work, the bartering and losses along the way, were for nothing, or nothing much. 

That’s why I felt so grateful — impossible to describe how much — for the reviews the book received and for readers’ responses, for the fact that many took the time to write and comment on the book. And I was stunned, and again so grateful, when the book won both the National Book Award and the Palanca Grand Prize for the novel in 2019. When the news came for one of them, by text message on my phone, I dropped my phone on the quay of the Paris metro, and I still carry it with me, cracked screen and all.

Please share something not obvious or known about the book.

I wanted to introduce voices of other writers — especially poets — into the book, because poetry fed the writing. I can’t write poetry, but poetry is what I turn to when I need succor, or when it’s time for some serious soul-bandaging. I started almost every chapter with quotes from poets I’ve read and re-read. Other things: My oldest daughter, who read the next-to-final draft, called me early one morning after finishing the book and told me I absolutely couldn’t end it the way I did — her response made me write a new ending. Also, I struggled for a long time about whether to name Marcos in the novel or call him “the dictator.” I chose the latter because I was compressing and re-inventing historical facts in the novel — I wanted that freedom. I’m not sure I made the right decision. Finally, my ex-husband gave me the faith to continue the book, though I didn’t have the courage/largeness of heart to thank him in the credits.  

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on the plot for a new book, organizing notes I’ve made erratically over the years. There’s a man, a woman, an erotic game that turns bad. I read Milan Kundera’s story, The Hitchhiking Game, after I started working on this idea and thought: oh no, he’s already done it. But of course it’s not the same story. No hitchhikers involved, not the same kind of erotic game. And not a short story, at least not yet. I also have an idea and notes for a book based on stories I’ve heard about my grandmother and my great-grandmother in Pulupandan and Silay, but I want to write a short book now, so I’m putting that idea aside. I don’t know how much time I have left to write so I am going for the shorter projects! I wish I could write quickly.

*****

Reine Arcache Melvin, born and raised in Manila, is a Filipina-American writer. She is the author of A Normal Life and Other Stories (Ateneo de Manila University, 1999) and The Betrayed (Ateneo de Manila University, November 2018). A Normal Life was translated into French and published as Une Vie Normale (Esprit des Peninsules, Paris, 2003). Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and anthologies in the United States, France and the Philippines. She has worked as a journalist, translator and editor for various publications, including more than 20 years with the International Herald Tribune in Paris. She co-edited literary reviews in New York and Paris and edited an anthology of contemporary Philippine poetry. She studied at Assumption Convent and Ateneo University in Manila, and has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Warren Wilson College. 

POST-BOOK: LENY MENDOZA STROBEL

The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of a book’s release. This issue’s featured writers include Leny Mendoza Strobel.

What is your most recent book?

Glimpses: A Poetic Memoir (Paloma Press, 2019).

When was it released? 

2019

What has been the response/what has surprised you most about the response? 

Many readers tell me that they read the book a few pages at a time because there's a lot to reflect and meditate on. I'm glad that readers can see the movement or flow of my stories from the small to the big stories in ever enlarging circles of interconnectedness ... that the personal story is always embedded in historical, cultural, ideological, and social contexts whose foundations are always in question. Then there are readers who really appreciate the book's collaborative approach with Eileen Tabios' Murder, Death, Resurrection (MDR) and I've been told that it has also inspired them to write responses to my lines. One of my friends responded to the lines in my book and returned the book to me so I can see how she is corresponding with me. That is very special. 

A reviewer, Christopher Bowers, said: And her poetic critique is so sharp that at some point the reader must wonder if they are the one glimpsing or the one being glimpsed. This is what I had hoped for -- a call and response. A conversation. An engagement that could turn into entanglement. Some of the readers who know me as an academic appreciated knowing about aspects of my personal life that I have not revealed in my other books; they tell me that it gave them an even better understanding of how I came to do the work that I'm doing regarding the process of decolonization and re-indigenization. Oh, there are readers who are new to my work and are asking what these concepts mean and I'm glad that the book is reaching new readers. 

Please share something not obvious or known about the book. 

Sheila Bare asked me if I would talk to her writing group about my craft and process of writing the book. I told her that I don't how how to talk about craft and process from a literary perspective. I could, however, talk about decades-long phenomenological meditations on the issues and questions that I asked in order to heal myself and my communities. So while Glimpses is a small book with very short entries on each page, all the lines that wanted to be written came from a deep and long period of working and wrestling with life's meaning and purpose. The daily journal response to a line in Eileen R. Tabios' book-length poem (MDR) was prompted by a desire to be seen and known not just as an academic/scholar, but as a fully embodied and hopefully, a wisened human. I felt that I owed this to the young ones who are looking to understand my work. Yet, I didn't do this daily journal writing with the intention of publishing. When I showed this journal to Eileen and Aileen [Cassinetto, publisher of Paloma Press], I was surprised that they thought it ought to be published. And of course, Perla Daly who has designed all of my book covers, signing on to do the cover surprised me because I expected that her plate is full and would not have time. But she did and the cover is beautiful and truly holds the glimpses really well. 

What are you working on right now?

I am working on a 200-hour yoga teacher training course this year! Why? I want to learn how to be still, how to quiet my mind, how to watch my breath, how to surrender more fully to Life. I am not journaling; I am doodling. Maybe someday there will be another book. I don't make plans anymore. I am learning to let go and not be in control. I working on that kind of freedom and trust in the Universe to open my hand, heart, and eyes and move me or dance me into the alchemy of energy and spirit and the surprising forms that might take someday.

*****

Leny Mendoza Strobel is Emeritus Professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University. She recently stepped down as the Director of the Center for Babaylan Studies and she is now an Elder to the organization. Her books, journal articles, recent online interviews and podcasts continue to reach new readers/audiences. These days, however, you are more likely to find her in the garden, weeding, gathering herbs, making bouquets, making sage bundles, making herb-infused salad dressing, harvesting lettuce and chard and pretty edible flowers. She continues to mentor graduate students and other seekers who find her personal website.