Tuesday, February 2, 2016

READERS SHOW SOME LOVE TO A FILIPINO AUTHOR (HHR#2)

This Feature presents readers sharing some love about the talent of Filipino authors. We would welcome your participation. This section is for readers. You don't have to write "like a professional," "like a critic," "like an intellectual," "like a well-rounded reader," etc. Just write honestly about how you were moved. Live authors (let alone the dead) don't get to hear enough from reader(s) they may not know even read their works. To know someone read their stories and poems and books is already to receive a gift. Just share from your heart. It will be more than enough. DEADLINE: July 15, 2016 for Issue #3. Duplications of authors and more than one testimonial are fine.


Mangozine's Issue #2 Presents


Eileen R. Tabios on Jessica Hagedorn
Tony Robles on Marianne Villanueva
Eileen R. Tabios on Nick Carbo
Jason Koo on Patrick Rosal
Metta Sáma on Barbara Jane Reyes
Dave Bonta on Luisa A. Igloria
Cristina Querrer on Bino A. Realuyo
Paul Pines and John Bloomberg-Rissman on Eileen R. Tabios


Eileen R. Tabios on Jessica Hagedorn
I just saw the play version of the novel Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. If there is a list of must-reading by Filipinos from post WWII literature, it should be this moving, intense, resonant and innovative book (of course non-Filipinos should read this as well).  Seeing the stage version reminded me of why, yes, I LOVE JESSICA HAGEDORN AND HER WORK! I was reminded that not only is she a brilliant and versatile writer but -- and I think this is the other reason why I adore her -- she is a hard and focused worker.  She's not like, say, many of us wasting her time on Facebook (I believe her FB page was put there by Facebook robots, not her). I've learned that she is highly-disciplined, and takes time to make sure the work is done right, or by her standards (as it should be: it is her work). I first met her when I interviewed her for my book on Asian American poets, BLACK LIGHTNING (Asian American Writers Workshop, New York, 1998). For that project, I visited her at her apartment and saw the attention she paid to details of her poetry-in-progress interview. I also recall her mentioning an incident of a group of writers wanting to visit her, and her having to pass as she had little time for socializing -- she may not recall that moment, but I've never forgotten it as a lesson to a young writer on making sure you have your priorities right as regards your work, your art. I was delighted to see the play Dogeaters as yet another proof of Jessica's prolific and wonderful output; relatedly, I learned through the Dogeaters play catalog that Jessica's novel, The Gangster of Love, also will be adapted to the stage.  What an inspiring artist!



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Tony Robles on Marianne Villanueva

I want to show love and appreciation for the writer Marianne Villanueva.  I recall seeing Marianne a few years ago at the I-Hotel.  I approached her and said, "Hello Leny...so great to see you", thinking it was Leny Strobel.  And Marianne, painfully but gracefully embarrassed replied, "Tony...I'm not Leny".  What I love about Marianne is that she is a healer, a seer, a curandera, a babaylan in a business suit who knows that that skin is much more sham than shaman and, in her writing, extricates the false from the truth by presenting our contradictions, laughter, lies, truth, delusions and love which is the act of shedding the false skin and presenting our own.  Marianne is the aunt who knows our secrets, who we can go to with our secrets--the aunt who knows how to keep a secret.  In her stories we see our physical, spiritual and community disembodiment and with irony and humor, she puts our sense of self and community back together with a patchwork of narratives which cling to our culture, our memory.  Marianne is--may i say--quirky, which is one of the things I like most about her--in that she sees our idiosyncrasies, which are her own, as well as our goofiness with eyes that make those things beautiful.  She is a bridge between worlds, a sign post that tells us to stop and breathe and look and listen before proceeding.  I am blessed to know Marianne (and Leny too) and I never tire of her stories in Mayor of the Roses.  



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Eileen R. Tabios on Nick Carbo

Do you recognize what's in this photo?



Yes, indeed. That is a toilet regulator.  And there's a Nick Carbo poem on it, part of a collaboration I did with Nick back in 2005; it's partly documented by the literary magazine quarrtsiluni over HERE. I note this unique collaboration because Nick Carbo has always been, and is, one of our most innovative poets. But I admire him, too, because he doesn't just rest on his poetry laurels (he's won various poetry awards) -- he has been a responsible member of the community by noticing, addressing, and then working to redress the long-time marginalization of Filipino-American literature. He edited the important anthology RETURNING THE BORROWED TONGUE: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino American Poetry which, I believe, partly reflects what he discovered as a young MFA student: the dearth of such texts on Filipino writings. A similar impetus underlies an anthology we co-edited, BABAYLAN: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina-American Writers, as well as another seminal anthology he edited, PINOY POETICS: A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino-American Poetics.  I keep thinking about him as a young student discovering and lamenting the lack of Pin@y texts, and how he didn't just complain or whine but did something about the problem! Thus, does it become very easy to show love and GRATITUDE to this true poet-activist.  Mabuhay Ka, Ka Nick!



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Jason Koo on Patrick Rosal

I first heard of Patrick Rosal from John Murillo, when I was driving John back to Brooklyn from a reading he’d done at my school and asked him if he knew of any other strong young Asian American male poets I should check out. The ones I knew were all well-known (to me anyway) already—Yau, Hongo, Lee, Mura, Liu, Seshadri—and I knew of a few other guys close to my age (Rick Barot, Ken Chen, Oliver de La Paz, Ed Bok Lee), but it seemed to me there were so few Asian American men in poetry compared to the women, and I figured there had to be some people I was missing. I still feel I can count on two hands the number of Asian American male poets that a well-read poetry reader has heard of, and maybe half of one hand the number that mainstream America has heard of. This makes me a little sad, and looking through the poets already written about in this forum I’m not surprised to find that, with the exception of Hieu Minh Nguyen—a new name! Thank you, Danez Smith—all of the men are already part of my well-known list above.

Patrick was the first poet that came to mind for John; he said he was one of the best poets he knew and one of the best readers of poetry he knew. He was surprised I hadn’t heard of him. I looked Patrick up and saw he had three books and lived in Brooklyn! Here I was running Brooklyn Poets and on the lookout for Asian American male poets and I hadn’t heard of one in my own backyard. Perhaps the saddest thing about the invisibility of Asian American male poets is how invisible we are even to each other. Here’s Patrick, this incredibly vital, dynamic, lyrical poet with so much swagger, who has such physical presence and charisma at his readings, who writes so well about urban experience and family and culture and love and sex and sports and music, terrain I have been trying to cover in my own work, and I didn’t know him. This was a failure on my part, and America’s. So I’m hoping this contribution makes Patrick Rosal known to all of you who haven’t heard of him, especially you young Asian American male poets looking for a brother to emulate. This is a poet equal parts badassery and tenderness, ferocity and quiet, schooling you about the UFC and the joy of eating tamarinds. Check him out.




[First published in Literary Hub's "#Actual Asian Poets" Celebration, Oct. 8, 2015]


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Metta Sáma on Barbara Jane Reyes

I’m scrolling through pages and pages of Barbara Jane Reyes’ blog, trying to find the one I remember reading years ago about race, creative writing and teaching back in the aughts, when it felt like no one was listening to anyone talk about race, creative writing and teaching. For every page of posts there is no fewer than one shout-out per page to other writers. This is Barbara Jane Reyes a poet of invention whose voice and style shifts from book to book and who exerts tremendous energy promoting the works of writers. How she is able to hone in to house these voices while expending time and energy honoring other writers in print is beyond me. Re-reading “[a compendium of angels]” I am struck by the expansiveness and compression of line and image and idea and sound (lines pulled out and stacked to show how sound constricts and amplifies)

angel of blades beating air synthetic sound chemical rain. . .

angel of descent’s interlocked confessions

angel of black smoke air raid sirens

angel of morphine’s shrapnel

angel of rock and roll first world impotence

angel of autumn patrol ambush upriver clarity clean

angel of racial epithet

angel of machetes

angel of proper burials

angel of heathen incantation

the opposite of eden: angel of guerrilla resistance



[First published in Literary Hub's "#Actual Asian Poets" Celebration, Oct. 8, 2015]


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Dave Bonta on Luisa A. Igloria

What to say about a writer who is also a co-blogger? What can I tell you about Luisa A. Igloria that won't be dismissed as the boosterism of a loyal friend? I can certainly vouch for her being just as warm and generous in person as she seems on social media. I can also tell you that her dedication to the culinary arts is second only to her dedication to writing, which is something I greatly admire as a fellow cook and poet. I'd go so far as to suggest that embracing the dailiness, ephemerality and physicality of culinary creation may have helped prepare Luisa for her extraordinary discipline of writing and blogging at least one poem a day for more than five years now. At Via Negativa, I've often had occasion to see just how quickly she works, a draft post appearing on the back-end of the site sometimes as little as half an hour before I get an email (via RSS subscription) of the published poem. Of course, not all these poems are fully formed, final drafts, but a high percentage do seem to be nearly ready for prime time, judging by how relatively few changes I've noticed in the versions appearing in her recent collections drawn largely from the blog: Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), and The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013). But it's her willingness to blog less-than-perfect poems that really impresses me. How many of us will gladly risk public failure on a daily basis? And how many can cultivate the quality of attention necessary to create in such a focused way, with such time constraints in the midst of a very full and busy life? Luisa's example has made me realize I can work harder as a poet, and her facility with diverse forms and approaches has enlarged my understanding of what poetry can be and do. Simply stated, she is a master poet, and it's been a privilege to know and work with her.



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Cristina Querrer on Bino A. Realuyo

I remember meeting Bino A. Realuyo in 2002 at the Asian American Writers Workshop in NYC when Eileen R. Tabios had her book launch of her newly released poetry collection, Reproductions of an Empty Flagpole, where I was invited to sing a jazz rendition of her poem “Corolla” with Don Proffitt. Bino was of course young, dapper and down-to-earth, and although a little older now, he still is young, dapper and down-to-earth in my eyes.  

I have read his novel The Umbrella Country which was published in 1999 and have conversed with him via email prior to and after that and have always felt a strong kinship with him like a lost-long cousin. Through his novel I was able to be transported to a place and time of my own childhood growing up in the Philippines, though somewhat different than the protagonist of his novel, I can still very much relate. 

I still have his signed copy of The Umbrella Country and through the years Bino has sent me customized Christmas cards. This past Christmas, he sent me a sonnet from his working poetry collection,The Rebel Sonnets, typed up and autographed on orange paper and inserted in a colorful Christmas card of a New York Taxi Cab in the NYC wintery scene. Bino, as long as I’ve known him, approximately 16 years or so now (wow!), has always been thoughtful, and we have always managed to check in with each other. 

We found ourselves on Facebook with many of my Filipino-American writers and artists I have met along the way, posting often funny videos on his Facebook wall, and sometimes a rant here or there, like most of us do. Bino is a very accomplished poet and writer touting major awards and publications under his belt, always busy, whether creating sonnets in a café, working on his latest novel, Huff Post essay, or being an advocate. Whatever literary morsel Bino creates, I know he creates with his whole heart and soul. He is without a doubt an inspiring and talented writer and a great friend I am always so grateful to have. Of course, if I was Bino, I’d have a wittier ending here. J Long live the Don!


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Paul Pines and John Bloomberg-Rissman on Eileen R. Tabios

I received the SUN STIGMATA (Sculpture Poems) book and look, in-the-holding of it, for the light to pass through my hands.  I expect to be nailed in its reading -- though what comes forth, I am sure, will be more in the order of that Blakean Energy is Eternal Delight nailed to the Tree of Life.  Where  "Sometimes one simply must flee / from what one loves the most /".  As does every Laurel her Apollo.  It's wonderful: SUN STIGMATA is challenging, breaks new ground at times, and does so with intelligence and grace, and I find real beauty in it for all of its edginess.  (PP)


SUN STIGMATA(Sculpture Poems) is wonderful. A long time ago my brother said to me, the weirder your work gets (meaning the less driven by me and the more by processes and "algorithms") the more it sounds like you. He meant it as a compliment. Not as in "ego-driven lyric" but as in Charles Olson's "we only stand more revealed". Since this seems to apply to Eileen's work as well, it's a compliment / observation which I will pass on. It doesn't matter whether Eileen is making poems from her [Murder, Death, Resurrection] generator or hacking them out of previous work or … : they sound so "Eileen” -- which means crazy great and fascinating. No comma between crazy and great. (JBR)







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