FACTURE by RAYMOND DE BORJA

 EILEEN TABIOS Engages 

facture by Raymond de Borja

(Broken Sleep Books, 2024)

BOOK LINK 

 

“Facture” refers to a manner of construction, often associated with how artists handle paint as they make their paintings. Oxford enchantingly provides a usage example as “Manet’s sensuous fracture.” If I were to describe Raymond de Borja’s poetry collection titled with the same word, perhaps I’d use the word “sensuous,” too. But I’d do so for how the word evokes the body and the body evokes mortality. Because facture is the first read of a poetry book (that I recall) where its impact includes bringing attention to one’s impending, unavoidable death—how every second lived is another second closer to one’s (physical) demise. It’s a response created in part from reading “(Lotze)” in which de Borja writes this stupendous line: 

“Depreciation is planned obsolescence.”

I have a difficult time not thinking of “deprecation” when I consider “depreciation.” The latter is an accounting term over the decreasing value of assets (like machines and other equipment) over time and how to account for such for, say, tax reporting purposes. But doesn’t “deprecation” also minimize? Radicalize that deprecation enough and you end up feeling like “zero,” the same end product of depreciation. And the process of both is like… aging. We all know aging’s final outcome.

Thus (thus?) does the poem “(Lotze)” mention the artist Zoe Leonard, a believer in subjectivity, and the German philosopher Hermann Lotze, a proponent of a fact’s definition including its morals and aesthetics (no doubt I simplify these descriptions, but this is a first draft-last draft flash review).

Back to accounting (as we all must, especially if we understand what the word puns), the poem notes:

We harmonize by omitting, our necessary fragments and gaps, and almost call it loving.

Our participation in this self-making…

I feel cheesy as I share this but perhaps the poem’s lesson, then, is that on at least the micro (versus macro) level, each of us is still (somewhat) a master of one’s fate. There’s an implication to that cheesy conclusion--consider it and perhaps you'll be empowered... 

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The marvelousness of this poetry collection is evidenced by how one can psychically travel a wide expanse just based on reading a short poem like “(Lotze)” which is comprised of five sentence-like lines. I can’t offer that journey for other readers so can only recommend readers explore this book. Highly Recommend, as they say. I can share the titles of some poems that were highlights for me, but that may not mean much to others except as a matter of curiosity. But if that curiosity is further encouragement to investigate this poetry collection, I offer my highlights (I actually appreciate all the poems but the ones cited below made me pause longer--and thoughtfully--before their pages):

“(L’Ordre)”

“(Marx)”

“(Point)”

“(Amazement)”

“(Fourier)”

“(Kafkaesque)”

That last cited poem, “(Kafkaesque),” contains the simply gorgeous line, “Mildews as a verb.” It also explains why the book struck me the way it does as a reason for considering one’s mortality. 

That said, I wonder what the poet would be like if he gave himself the Oulipian-type constraint of writing the opposite of what this book is: sublime.

 

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Eileen R. Tabios has released books of poetry, fiction, essays, art and experimental prose from publishers around the world. Recent publications include a children’s book Tata Efren’s Forever Laughter (with Mel Vera Cruz and Jeannie E. Celestial); the novels The Balikbayan Artist and DoveLion; the poetry collections Engkanto in the Diaspora and Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography The Inventor: A Poet's Transcolonial Autobiography; the short story collections The Erotic Space Around Art Objects and Getting To One; and an art monograph Drawing Six Directions. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.com