THE CHATELAINE'S BLURB PROJECT

INDEX

2005-12-27T23:40:00.000-08:00

For convenience, here's an INDEX. I'll renew its post-date each time to maintain it at the top of the blog. Each new blurb contribution will continue beneath it. I invite all readers to participate by sending me blurbs to GalateaTen@aol.com . No limitations on what the blurbs can say -- just include your full name, please.

I will take blurbs until Dec. 31, 2005. I'll begin writing next year the ONE book to fit ALL blurbs. Please feel free to keep sending blurbs for the rest of the year.

To date, here are the blurb contributors (THANK YOU for participating!):

INDEX:

Sept. 28, 2005:
Project Description
Nick Carbo
Del Ray Cross
Ron Silliman
Tsipi Keller
Stephen Vincent
Andrew Joron

Sept. 29, 2005:
Brian Clements
Addie Tsai
kari edwards
Tom Beckett (1)
Aldon L. Nielsen
Michael Magee
Bob Dylan, as channeled by Chris Stroffolino
Patrick James Dunagan
Sandy McIntosh
Allen Bramhall
Irving Weiss
Kent Johnson
Martha Deed
Timothy Martin

Sept. 30, 2005
Thomas Fink
Bino A. Realuyo
Mark Lamoreaux
Veronica Montes
Jean Vengua
Ruth Lepson
Mark Young (1)

Oct. 1, 2005
Karri Kokko
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Leny M. Strobel
Chris Toph
Michael Wells

Oct. 2, 2005
Anny Ballardini
Noah Eli Gordon
Barbara Jane Reyes
Patrick Rosal (Maysa, 1)
Patrick Rosal (Duwa, 2)
Patrick Rosal (Tallo, 3)
Lee Herrick (1)
Mark Young (2)

Oct. 3, 2005
Michelle Bautista (1)
Ernesto Priego
Rich Magahiz (1)

Oct. 4, 2005
Lyle Daggett
Jade Afable
Ivy Alvarez
Benito Vergara
Emmy Catedral

Oct. 5, 2005
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen -- 100 Blurbs!
(Jukka's blurbs split in four posts)

Oct. 6, 2005
Lee Herrick (2)
Tom Beckett (2)
Aileen Ibardaloza
Paolo Javier (1)
Paolo Javier (2)
Rhett Pascual (1)
William Allegrezza

Oct. 7, 2005
Michelle Bautista (2)
Rhett Pascual (2)

Oct. 9, 2005
Rhett Pascual (3)
Rhett Pascual (4)
Catherine Daly
Steven Donald Dalachinsky

Oct. 10, 2005
Joanna Fuhrman

Oct. 11, 2005
William Allegrezza (2)

Oct. 12, 2005
Rich Magahiz (2)

Oct. 13, 2005
Rochita Ruiz
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Rene Magritte, as channeled by Mark Young

Oct. 17, 2005
Barry Schwabsky

Oct. 21, 2005
Brandon Shimoda (1)
David Delbaum

Oct. 25, 2005
Brandon Shimoda (2)

Oct. 26, 2005
Billy "The Blogging Poet" Jones

Oct. 27, 2005
Nadine Sarreal

Nov. 3, 2005
Michelle Bautista (3)

Nov. 6, 2005
Rich Magahiz (3)

Nov. 13, 2005
Rich Magahiz (4)
Sheila Murphy

Nov. 24, 2005
Rich Magahiz (5)

Nov. 27, 2005
Chris Perkins

Dec. 2, 2005
Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor

Dec. 6, 2005
Rich Magahiz (6)

Dec. 27, 2005
Dan Waber

N.B. The titles of the blog posts are by Moi, not by the participating authors.

UPDATE: A HURRICANE VICTIM RELIEF FUNDRAISER --
Are you a writer who needs a blurb for your book? Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's blurbs are available for sale; you can replace references to Moi with your name and title of your book. Contact Moi for further details. All sales/donation proceeds to be donated for hurricane relief efforts!

PREEEEN! MOI AM FOREVER OUT OF REACH!

2005-12-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

DAN WABER WRITES IN:

Throw out everything you know about the meta, the self-referential, the paradigm shift, the running gag, the subtle, the wry, the twisted and everything you only thought you knew about the beautiful lie. The very instant you think you have this book figured out it giggles "yes" in your ear and skitters just out beyond your reach again, again, again.

MOI ANSWERS "WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

2005-12-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

RICH MAGAHIZ WRITES IN, SIXTHLY:

One standout in the week's mailbag is the überchapbook *To Beef the Poet*, which recasts Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics from the point of a contemporaneous Melanesian peasant who spends his days singing of his fine carabao and planting his rice paddy and wandering through the bamboo grove then to come home in the evening to his little nipa hut to sip sweet, sweet tuba all night long whilst gazing on the lissome bare-breasted neighbor girl and ay hesus maria hosep it's all so very freaking quaint it's SICK!

Whoa...

CELEBRATE WITH MOI THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF EINSTEIN'S RELATIVITY!!

2005-12-02T16:05:00.000-08:00

REBECCA MABANGLO-MAYOR WRITES IN:

Whether expounding upon the complex refractive index of highly concentrated hemoglobin solutions, birefringence control, or thin-film optimization strategies, Tabios’ newest collection of traditional and avant-garde poetry crystallizes and refines the beauty of photonics and optics, revealing a depth of complexity and artistry never before seen. Her creativity combines the highest levels of scientific investigation with the pure vision of an imagined and intuitive submicrometer poetic field to reveal the innermost weavings between science and art.

The visual poetry contained in this volume not only reveal the newest, most novel approaches to microlithography, but also illuminate the transient yet practical splendor of microsystems on the nanoscale. Diagrams are further enhanced by Tabios’ often peculiar way of segmenting language, exposing the language and cultural gaps so often overlooked in our high-technology society. Critical dimension variation in high-NA optical lithography is used to illustrate the strained and intricate relationship between the working poor and the affluent world investor. Complex propagating wave formulae and Bragg wavelength definitions combined with simple lists of consumables and commodities acronyms provide a new vision of line enjambment sure to be the topic of intense scrutiny by the critical elite for many years to come.

Although Tabios’ approaches to utilizing Fourier-imaging applications in magnetic resonance spectroscopy seem simplistic, by using Bayesian image reconstruction algorithms to investigate the deformation and commoditization of women’s bodies, this poet for the 21st century shows that she is unafraid of edge distortion and pixilation when it comes to cultural critique. On the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s special theory of relativity in the Year of Physics, it is appropriate that Eileen Tabios has given voice to a new level of scientific and poetic achievement.

MOI MOVES SHORELINES!

2005-11-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

CHRIS PERKINS WRITES IN:

Outrageous: a true archetype! Mme Tabios throws another thought into the supremacist pond -- then somehow delights with us; redefining our shoreline boundaries and challenging our inner architectonic sophistry.

MORE SUCCINCTLY FOR THANKGIVING!

2005-11-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

RICH MAGAHIZ WRITES IN, FIFTHLY:

Bastos!

LET MOI UNPIN YE FROM FOSSILS!

2005-11-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

SHEILA MURPHY WRITES IN:

The full comPRendium: dollops turned spatchfuls of punctual, lyrical flow, as far from leaning on crusts of punctuation as they go. Is she for REAL, this dynamo of informal forms? Surrender while she unpins you from your fossilized state of UNendorse, meant to share firm, free unwrinkled poesy in tune with times to come, all mathematically unbundled for the tutored and untutored eyes.

THE BASTOS ARE COMING IN TIME FOR THANKSGIVING!

2005-11-13T11:01:00.000-08:00

RICH MAGAHIZ WRITES IN, FOURTHLY:

The writerly landscape of The Storming of the Bastos is compelling in just the same way a traditional Thanksgiving dinner is compelling at the moment when the lid of a heavy chrome salver is raised to reveal a severed chimpanzee arm flecked with gore. A heady romp through an anthrax-ridden meadow!

MOI AM A "FABOO" DIAMOND!

2005-11-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

RICH MAGAHIZ WRITES IN, THIRDLY:

Simultaneously promising much but witholding that which is most at issue from view, this "faboo" new author has produced a new work in her randy oeuvre which leaves the distinct impression of a spirited cakewalk draped in a diaphanous burqa. Yet if nothing else must needs compel, one is drawn to the droll notion that once you have seen one pachyderm inseminated, you don't have to see another. Or, as another reviewer put it succinctly, the perserverant reader is likely to encounter here a "diamond passing the first water."

AFTER THE CHOCOLATES, A POST-HALLOWEEN BLURB!

2005-11-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

MICHELLE BAUTISTA WRITES IN:

A wickedly boiling cauldron of tricks and treats. It whisks you away on a magical broom ride. A magic potion book that will get you cackling by the end.

MOI SEEKS TO FUDDLE AND MUDDLE TOI!

2005-10-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

NADINE SARREAL WRITES IN:

She was born into poverty. She's a survivor. She's sexual. She's mysterious. She's the writer inside Eileen Tabios' new BDSM/GLBT/OCW/OIC/RP/USA/IMF/DBF/HCMC book of letters home from the diaspora. Bookstores will be fuddled and muddled when they try to shelve Tears of the Laughing Woman because it's so multi-genre, so cross-cultural and pan-discipline that the staff will decide to keep copies by the cash register instead. Abner Ramos of the UP-SICC-RTI department of interstudy academe says, "Ms. Tabios has written 14 books before Tears of the Laughing Woman and each book proves to be a mother or father or uncle or grandaunt to this latest ouvre. Her universally rurban (sic) outlook will draw you in from the first paragraph. Set aside the $22.95, the price of the book in hardcover. It's an investment you will rejoice over for decades to come.

WAS MOI PARENTED BY A NAG AND AN ASS???!!!

2005-10-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

BILLY JONES AKA BILLY THE BLOGGING POET WRITES IN:

Eileen Tabios' latest reminds me of a talking mule's story from SWEETFEED, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JACK T. MULE:

"I was born a poor brown mule -- my mother, an old gray nag, my father, an ass -- destined to a life, no more than a beast of burden. While I was born in Kentucky, it wasn't long before I was sold to a man folks called, Grandpa, and was taken to Virginia where I was to pull a wagon, pull a plow, pull logs to the sawmill, and let stupid little children jump up on my back, pull on my mane, and kick me in the ribs to get me to go faster. It wasn't the life I had envisioned."

MOI LIPS WANNA SMOOCH YOUR WEATHERING EAR!

2005-10-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

BRANDON SHIMODA WRITES IN, SECONDLY:

When the weathering voice modifies that of your weathering ear, put the experience by immediately. This angles well beyond the feat of the merely astro-competent to become blood unbounded by truth: the beginnings, for example, of how old people shift when they arrive into their life’s payment, sea urchins splintered by seagulls. These are acreaged moments, and unworried – surfaces of love, secreted with a gutsy quart du circle, the happy pull that draws the low hem back. Eileen Tabios plays the provident note to brilliant effect – a double wave of national assemblage and international bronze. This is the motion of which we will all eventually be made aware: the grace of fear, the transpiration of crystal, and the chin of brine desire. We cannot claim this as our own, but as the next, and supple.

MOI BEGAN WITH DUCK-PIN BOWLING!

2005-10-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

DAVID DELBAUM WRITES IN:

The heroine's sudden obsessive interest in duck-pin bowling leads her into a search for self-discovery through deeply Proustian reminiscences which propel her into an introspective road-trip of the mind as well as a cross-country journey as exciting and suspenseful as Cary Grant's in Hitchcock's "North By Northwest". The reader follows to the carefully contrived yet seemingly inevitable conclusion. That this resolution is both ambiguous and deeply satisfying is a tribute to the author's skill.

"BEHOLD. IT IS MOI."

2005-10-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

BRANDON SHIMODA WRITES IN:

Execution, which always crosses with fact, requires both muscle and inferior powers. This, to keep the influence simple: gild the damage, plate it across your body towards the first and only revelation: “Behold, it is I.” Eileen Tabios, in her perfectly forged miraculex, has put process in the window, illuminating the corridor that has been threatening darkness once again. Her diagrams stop: are they of love, or lucky traction? Condensation or evaporation? It is in the richly difficult space between these two measurements that Tabios seems to be working: beyond eye and ear, lens and anvil, pole and hammer, to the elegant ball, fixed in its absolute solemnity, tireless. Behold, it is Tabios.

LOVINGLY, MOI WANTS TO KNIFE YOU!

2005-10-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

BARRY SCHWABSKY WRITES IN:

A day in the world. A magic foreground. A treasury of appearing. Books circling trees. Innocence lunging backward. Many knife lyrics. Much of the face. Remember the true page counts. The community of death. The eye sees less than a saw. The scrapped interior famous for its vodka. Your name here.

ATTENTION SOTHEBY'S!! MOI BOOKS ARE AS VALUABLE AS MAGRITTE'S PAINTINGS!!!

2005-10-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

RENE MAGRITTE WRITES IN, AS CHANNELED BY MARK YOUNG:

I am most impressed with the recent output of this Eileen Tabios woman, so many books, almost as many as I have paintings. But the performance of her publisher, Marat/Sade Press, leaves much to be desired.

Admittedly Bruxelles has only a few English language bookshops, but none of them could supply any of the titles from the ten page list I took with me. In one place I was even offered the latest Tom Clancy book, Beware The Odes of Horace, as an appropriate replacement. I was tempted, but declined.

Could you please pass on to Mme Tabios my request that if she cares to send me a selection of her titles, I will do a copy of any one of my paintings for her in return. Something like The Month of the Grape Harvest might be appropriate.

Could you also tell her that my wife enjoyed La Brique immensely. It is really for Georgette that I am making this request. When she reads certain books she likes she becomes content and is at her best as a model. And when she reads other books she becomes aroused and is at her best in bed. Mme. Tabios’ books seem to be able to provide equal parts of these two desired qualities. I, of course, benefit greatly.

Maybe Mme Tabios would like two paintings.

With best wishes
René Magritte

OMOIGAWD: MOI'S GOTTA LEARN HOW TO COOK?!!!!!

2005-10-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL WRITES IN:

Especially thrilling in Eileen Tabios' work is the sugary concoction of cake recipes that will send you running into the streets, looking for a pink box full of sweet surprises.

MOI FOUNTAIN IS A TREAT FOR YOUR BRAIN!!!!

2005-10-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

ROCHITA RUIZ WRITES IN:

Eileen Tabios's latest poetry collection challenges the reader to look beyond what is. Her poems are cerebral and evocative, seductive and commanding, compelling the reader to look beyond the color of the other person's skin, to listen to what lies behind the cadence of the other's voice, to discover that underneath the surface, we are all the same.

She draws the reader into the reality of the myths that she creates. Breaking through the rigidity of forms, she reshapes the landscape of poetry as we know it.

We drown in the fountain of words, break through the jagged walls of colons and ellipses and rise up embracing the nakedness of her truth. With this body of work, she gives us the equivalent of abstract art in literature.

Give your brain a treat, buy this book today!

EH? MOI AM VERBOTEN WITHIN THE E.U.??!!

2005-10-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

RICH MAGAHIZ WRITES IN, SECONDLY:

This new collection of prose poems Principles of Sputum Mechanics by E Tabios starts off deceptively gently, with marzipan horsies and candy floss clown faces, but quickly descends to the depths of a Midwest demimonde, one in which the autoerotic possibilities of the Heimlich maneuver owe much to the imagery of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch. The last piece in this slim volume toys with the possibilities of the "fourth person" viewpoint (also known as the omniscient second person), where the poet channels God incarnate, beginning from such unprepossessing details as the infield fly rule, the banality of American beer, and the financial Rule of 72, to build a convincing and powerful case for the extinction of all multicellular life on Earth.

338 pages, Dimensions: 912x608x88, discreetly packaged. Sale prohibited within the countries of the E.U.

MOI EVEN GO WAY BACK TO PRE-COLUMBIAN!

2005-10-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA WRITES IN, SECONDLY:

Eileen Tabios’ new book traces the interesting pathways of dialogue while at the same time denies any hint of narrative--interesting enough in itself even before you begin to ponder the images from pre-Columbian art that show up here and there in the work. Incredible!

NEW JERSEY: THE SECOND COMING IS DESCENDING!!!!

2005-10-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

JOANNA FUHRMAN WRITES IN:

In Eileen Tabios sci-fi novel-in-verse, a time-traveling Li Po finds himself too drunk to be able to write any more poems or drink any more wine. Her book’s spiraling language perfectly captures the poet’s descent into New Jersey.

LET MOI REAM YOU IN YOUR DREAMS AND MAKE YOU CREAM (SLYLY)!

2005-10-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

STEVEN DONALD DALACHINSKY WRITES IN:

her book was if it were the first book never written
meant as parch(ed) lips thirsting for words
the meta and beta fours filled
spilled out of the pages
onto my plate -- cave symbols duplicated
inauthentic replicas s(i)miles like happy faces
mocking the eyes then closed tightly between the covers
a volume of (c)reamed (d)reams
slyly recommended

MOI SAGELY NOTES: HISTORY ALWAYS INFLUENCES!

2005-10-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

CATHERINE DALY WRITES IN

to suggest that I "include all of [my] previous book blurbs, to truly show how blurbs influence the writing of the book...." Why not, I thought to moiself. So the following are titles of my previous books and their blurbs; because they are listed in books' release dates' chronological order, the discerning reader may sense something about my general attitude towards blurbs:

BEYOND LIFE SENTENCES (1998)
PREMIUM CHAMPAGNE: My initial surprise and delight at first encountering Eileen Tabios’ poetry (and fiction) have turned into high admiration as I continue to read more of her recent work. Her achievements are remarkable, revealing innate gifts and well-sharpened skills. Among other advantages, Eileen Tabios’ poems exhibit two qualities which are not often pared in the work of writers of her generation – an assured, clearly-pitched poetic diction which serves as a compelling vehicle for a mature vision. Her voice stands alone in its effervescent illuminations.
--Luis Cabalquinto

Eileen Tabios incorporates the American precision of Marianne Moore, the language of Angela Manalang-Gloria’s blood, and the emotive epower of Gabriela Mistral in this astounding collection of poems. A world-class literary debut. Bravo!
--Nick Carbo

It is always striking to witness the birth of a poet; but with Eileen Tabios, there is this haunting sense that although she has only taken poetry seriously for the past few years, she has always been a poet: her voice possesses an absolute command of the seasoned, her diction an intersection of the emotional falling and rising, and her language an echo of precision and unpredictability. Much can be said for someone who is born a poet – I am glad that Eileen Tabios has found herself. Here is a poet to be deciphered for years to come.
--Bino A. Realuyo

ECSTATIC MUTATIONS: EXPERIMENTS IN THE POETRY LABORATORY (prose and poetry, 2000)
The multi-faceted Eileen Tabios -- who emerges a fullblown member of the new generation of poets -- writes with a sure hand of an artisan whose writing style ranges from the lyrical voice of the young -- vulnerable and accessible -- to the philosophical certainty of the old -- hard knocking, gritty and diamond sharp. When her lyrics sing, they clutch at your throat with the tenacity of a drowning child hoping for the helping hand to allow survival. Her prose poems contain some of the philosophical truths that always startle you with their honesty. Her poems give you the most compelling notion that poetry is poetry when your nape hair stands on end – and yu say, “How true. How true.”
--Carlos A. Angeles

In Eileen Tabios’ writings, one is seeking to be free, like brushstrokes on a framed canvas where the desired portrait is the world around it. Tabios’ world is one without walls, without lines, without time, and it is luminously manifested in her works. In her attempts to capture ht emoments of the ever curious and the ever questioning. In her poetics, she unravels the unknown. But isn’t the gift of a writer her limitless imagination? In this collection ,Tabios’ yearnings are as demanding as the worlds thorugh which she expresses them, as mysterious as our world full of life, imagined and real.
--Bino A. Realuyo

MY ROMANCE (art essays with poetry, 2001)
Eileen Tabios knows with all her heart and soul that both poetry and visual art involve distillation, essence, mystery and grandeur of experience. Her poetry is an analog for abstraction in the visual arts.
--Miriam Bloom, sculptor

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE (2002)
Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole is full of lovely, surprising conjunctions: "the sound of fireflies mating, the thin sliver of a distant moon, ... no premonition for such blinding light."
—Arthur Sze

Her poems allow our minds to be excited twice, by the psychological and artistic reference points from which the words zoom-out like handpicked bees from a hive, and by the vivid hum of the poems themselves demonstrating a captivating, utterly original imagination. In her lines, which are at once strict and sensual, Eileen Tabios inserts stingers barbed with wit and political incisiveness. The crisp, almost scientific clarity of her syntax is relentlessly undermined by fabulous leaps from sentence to sentence, by paradox, radical juxtaposition, lurking sexual innuendo, and unpredictable narrative swerve. Hers is a poetics of social and cultural interrogation in which she succeeds in uniting what she would call "the convex with the concave." Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole will stand you straight up.
—Forrest Gander

How often do you come across language so lavishly expansive that any description you can think of seems laughably one-sided? Better just to slap a warning label on it: "Danger: Contents combustible on contact with reading. Includes poems so fired up they'll sear your fingerprints off as you feel your way through them (instant identity loss). Others brilliant enough to burn after images into your retina. Handle recklessly if at all.
—Barry Schwabsky

"And what is seeing?" asks Eileen Tabios, in this volume of prose meditations on travel, eros, art, and innumerable other subjects, objects. Tabios' answers--her seeings--come out of an amazing range of references, from Buddha to Salman Rushdie to Anais Nin to Anne Truitt to a nameless investment banker; from the Ancients to the Romantics to the Moderns and back again; from the Philippines, as from the United States. Through it all, reader and writer find themselves "losing uncertainty" through Tabios' "eroticized history," which earns its final exclamation, "worthy is the price: Yes!"
—Susan M. Schultz

Primal in its experimentation, fugitive in its tactile manipulation of recalcitrance and romance, ultimately there blooms a hardcore quality to her corpus' radical engagements. None of the formulaic ploys is on show here; rather a robust desire to attach, if so subtly, vivid back stories that pique and shape our palpable interest with full-bodied allure. The uniformly sensuous appeal of her wide-ranging work -- from the lyric to the exegesic, to the imperial prose units -- is served by no less than either a canny courtesan or a come-hither voluptuary. Or both. Universally is she betrothed.
—Alfred Yuson

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21ST CENTURY (2004)
“I have experienced your great punishment,” wrote Enheduanna, the Mesopotamian poet-priestess who wrote the Hymns to Inanna some 43 centuries ago. She lives again, in New York City, under a “gilded sky,” in Eileen R. Tabios’ new book Menage a Trois with the 21st Century. Gabriela Silang, who survived her husband’s assassination at a traitor’s hands, and spent the rest of the 1763 summer continuing his revolution, the Philippines’ first woman general, was hanged by the Spanish colonial government the year that Sade was born. Now she too lives, “traversing the red and green traffic lights” in Jack Spicer’s San Francisco. And reader, who did you used to be before you entered the world of this book, this “ménage a trios”?

Love is a source of difficulty

and pyres of ashes rise with a verve
exceeding Babel’s ambition –

Half diary of dildo desire, half rhapsodic inisurgent mediation between art and life, Tabios’ book moves from a melting prose poetry to a fully lineated, musical demand for action. You, reader, fully implicated in this intercontinental love triangle, shall find yourself asking, “Where is the world waiting to happen?” The question that haunted Enheduanna and Gabriela plunges out of the book, ferocious, tongue dipped in fire, dragon with sapphire eyes and no conscience.
--Kevin Killian

BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS (short stories with poetry, 2004)
A rich, sensual collection of stories -- a breathtaking, pulsating ride through art, sex, love and longing.
--Noel Alumit

In reading the stories of Eileen Tabios, seductive in their imagery and language, we are drawn into a world peopled by artists, art lovers and art tasters who, variously, are either yielding to or struggling against the irresistible lures of passion. We are compelled to share the characters’ ecstasy or torment, recognizing the universality of their human engagements. Our recognition comes quickly, given the finesse and integrity of Ms. Tabios’ writings.
--Luis Cabalquinto

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED (2005)
None (though some may feel the excerpting from a Ron Silliman essay is a blurb)

POST BLING BLING (2005)
None

MOI AM BUT A CHILD BARE FIST BOXING!!

2005-10-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

RHETT PASCUAL WRITES IN, FOURTHLY:

Following the explosive revelations of "E: Secrets of a Spin Doctor," Eileen Tabios took a 24 minute break before beginning on the poetry book "Evolution & Creationism: From One Into Many." A simple examination of evolution leads Tabios into a world of alternative realities where "the wolf lies with the lamb, the leopard lies down with the foal, the calf and the lion and the yearling are together; and a little child leads them. (Isiah 11: 1-9)" It's a bare fist boxing match between creationism and evolution. True, raw, animalistic, and bloody. The book is pure delight! You will need a towel to wipe off the sweat!