BODIES AND VOICES

Bodies and Voices

What's the excuse for this vanishing
language? I need a different way to put myself
to sleep. A reading of Proust
in terms of speech-act theory would have to proceed
along different lines. This may be of interest
to those who want to know what the wealthy do
on dates, but as a guide to personal interaction
it is of marginal value. Think your material over
and determine its limits. Replace "face"
with "bosom." Describe the hero's possessions
and her response to them. We enjoy the demonstration
that a sieve can float on water. Sparks come
through the door. Reich called this energy
"orgone." So much more death.

*****

Isn't that lovely? "Bodies and Voices" is one of the poems by Mr. Mystery Poet whose book I'll be publishing this Fall through Meritage Press (see link).

Perhaps some of you have already guessed that this poet is also an active critic. I adore incompetent deconstruction (as evidenced by my first book, see Black Lightning link)....so one of my favorite activities through this blog has been trying to see a relationship between Mr. Mystery Poet's poems and the various concepts that he discusses in his critical prose. "Bodies and Voices" reminds me of something Mr. Mystery Poet once wrote about William Corbett's collection, Don't Think: Look (Zoland Books):

Everything in these poems is immediate, personal, open even to the sentimental--but they are neither diaristic (they blessedly lack that sense of facts dutifully noted for their own sake or that of the discipline of noting them) nor "confessional." The writer is not trying to draw me in to his life or freight it with broader significance. He's simply piecing his [...] lines together from material at hand, from everyday talk (of an unusually thoughtful and perceptive kind, surely) about everyday happenings. These are very much the poems of a middle-aged man, one who has been capable of deep attachment to people, places, and things he has known long enough to lose or become disenchanted with. So they are consistently elegiac in feeling, their repeated subject a "mind racing loss" ("Dejection "). A miniaturist perhaps, but no minimalist, Corbett broaches the compensatory fiction of "a world conceived/in memory alone

Bodies and Voices....and perhaps this particular poem caught my eye today, too, because I noticed WinePoetics recently mentioned in some other poets' blogs. Being coolapsed, I must now emote, "That's quite a thrill, poets! Thank you!"

And it's especially a thrill as this result -- like with results of my best performance projects (e.g. this blog) -- often occur with no premeditation on my part except to be open to whatever unfolds (Parenthetical Leap: uh, yes: I'm a "performance" poet which, cough, has led me to some tricky spaces if you read, say, the kind of poems lurking in Reproductions....). I confess being thrilled when another blog acknowledges my existence -- because, if you must know (oh and you must know!), I am a hermit who rarely receives acknowledgments of my existence [Work with me here, I feel in a fanciful mood!]. I just sit in a cave atop a mountain most days; when the eyes blink from the shimmering computer screen to look beyond the cave's entrance, there is only the occasional, deer, wild turkey, fox, rattlesnake, mountain lion, bear, Venus (the star), the Milky Way, "Sapphire" (my brand new oak tree), and a landscape of seemingly unending rows of vines to keep me company. (I'm an incompetent farmer; after nearly two decades in New York City, I'm still struggling just to expand my flower vocabulary beyond rose, daisy, lily and bougainvillea ....Leap: nasturtium -- is that the word -- is such an astringent word, don't you think, particularly for such a pretty flower?)

Still, I was, um, sort of dismayed by one mention. One poet, Lester, had surveyed poets' blogs to see which posted a link to Lester's blog. Four out of five surveyed didn't -- including WinePoetics -- and thus were called "blind." Those who did link to Lester were called "visionaries." Now, normally, I would just giggle blindly, tip the glass higher and move on. But I'm particularly sensitive at the moment (to responses to WinePoetics) because I just received my first -- MY FIRST -- e-mail from a winery! I mean, I knew poets and certain oenophiles read this blog.....but I didn't know people in the wine world were paying attention! (More on this below.)

Anyway, as regards Lester, perhaps that financially-attuned poet, the equanimitable Drew, might give Lester a lesson or two in statistical analysis. Like, if Lester's intention is to calculate the "blind" blogs, surely Lester must differentiate between blogs who do links to other poets and those who don't (because only the former might have made the decision to be "blind" to Lester). As you may notice, my blog does not link to other poets....and it's not just because I'm self-centered.

I don't link to other poets precisely because I don't wish to "choose" -- or privilege among -- poets. You see, I try to practice the Impossibles with Poetry (I mean, why bother otherwise, eh?) And, for me, this entails (as stated by the title of my latest poetics essay that will be forthcoming in PinoyPoetics, ed. by Nick Carbo; see Meritage Press link again): "A Poetics of Everything, Everything, Everything." Which is to say, I try to accept everything and not privilege among the variety that makes up our world (please note that try-ing does not mean I succeed or, in some cases, should succeed; some things should not be accepted, like war.)

So, Lester, dear, it's precisely because I don't wish to exlude you that I don't link you. In fact, I don't even incorporate the site address of your blog within the body of this post -- see how much I care for you? [If something got lost in translation in this paragraph, well, it's because ..... hic] Just make the veal and I bring the wine, Lester -- shall we meet in Kinshasa?

Leap! But then, all this muttering (on my part) leads me, too, to the more general notion of caring what others think of us....when we don't even know those other people. On one level, that's sort of....diminishing, isn't it? (This isn't directed now against dear Lester; it's a more general point.) Because if we say others should feel a certain way about us without knowing anything about them, then we've just objectified these other people into mirrors for ourselves (before which we might primp), rather than acknowledge their own entities....their own selves which contain their own subjectivities.

And then, there's the irony that, if we ever knew who these others are, we may find that such others are not the type of people whose opinions we'd care about or respect.

Leap! But apparently, some of you pay attention to my blather. And, yes, one was a representative of a winery who elicited a less-than-enthusiastic mention in my report on the recent ZAP zinfandel expo here in San Francisco. I now feel so bad over that report! I'd forgotten why I never diss poets -- now, for the same reason (of not increasing negative energy in the atmosphere), I am thinking that I also shouldn't publicly diss wines.

And the thing is, this doesn't have anything to do with not making judgments. I do have strong opinions on both poetry and wine, but prefer to keep the negative ones to myself. Why? Because I believe in subjectivity. One person's good poem is another person's brilliant gem. As for, for wines, I definitely know that the majority of wine drinkers nonetheless ENJOY wines that I would never serve at the dinner table. So why would I interfere in that process of others' enjoyments. (And have I mentioned yet that, it's not as if I turn up my nose at -- instead of holding forth my plastic cup for -- those wines served at poetry readings?)

Dear Winemaker Who Wrote to Me, I apologize if my comments seemed gratuitous. Fortunately, as I noted to you, I am not Robert Parker* and so my comments are unlikely to affect your market. For the very little that it's worth, your wine is now on my radar screen -- I don't think I was even able to taste 10% of the total wines available during the ZAP festival (one of our friends attended and began going through wineries alphabetically; she collapsed between the B and C tables). But I shall look forward to tasting your wines again.

[*Robert Parker is an influential wine critic whose ratings actually affect demand for and prices of wines.]

Anyway, all this is also to say: Peeps, this blog has never pretended to contain rigor (oh, except for my choice of Mr. Mystery Poet as someone whose collection I must publish -- that was a very RIGOROUS process requiring all my talent, um, talents ... as a, as a....well, as a very talented judge). I mean, look at the sample poems I've been sharing through this blog. Are these poems not .... talented?

So, speaking of wonderful Mr. Mystery Poet and blind deconstruction, it's also intriguing to me how this poet basically spent years practicing his poetry in private. Now, what might create such a situation? Well, I'm the wrong person to ask as I've only been practicing poetry (in this lifetime) for about 7 years; and now, I mostly live in a hermit's cave nibbling the tips of my uncut hair, walking about in holey, soot-stained gowns, cackling at dust motes, and playing with Plato's phantoms. Which is to say I'm not the best-positioned to review the "poetry world." But it also means that when a poet, like Mr. Mystery Poet, creates works that are so moving that they...um, move ... me to go voluntarily outside, eyes blinking, to present his book of poems to the world....well, isn't that something to be curious about, to anticipate, to buy, to read, to savor?

After all, you may not know who I am but, ultimately, (admit it, admit it!) you do care about my rigor-less (but still brilliant) opinions! A future post (soon, soon, it's coming) shall reveal the identity of Mr. Mystery Poet whose lovely poems yanked at my hair and led me out to the world .... where you and I now meet. You, Thou....

*****

By the way, you out there reading me: do you have bodies as well as words?

Okay, there was nothing deep (or French) about that particular question. I just wanted to suggest you take care of your bodies as much as your words. Which is why, I drink wine....like this afternoon's 1999 Monte Antico Toscano (only $8.99, I tell you....but be sure to get the right year: 1999).

And I also mention this Tuscan because, surely, even Sandy McIntosh can spring for it. Here's the "wise guy poet" now inflicting his two cents about the prior post:

SM: I'll check out the 1993 Seavey Cabernet (Napa Valley), assuming we get it here on the east coast, and toast you at dinner tonight. Does it come in the gallon jug?

ET (again, that's divine me): Seavey in a gallon jug? Que horror!

SM: Oh. I guess it was too much to hope to get the Seavey in one of those refrigerator cartons with the little plastic straws. So convenient.

…making me go Aaaackkkk and run away from the computer, pour myself another glass of Antico, and return to berate the boor….who's now winking from the computer screen with

SM: Am drinking a Canterbury cabernet--I think the vintage is 2006.

ET (Sigh. Are you making fun of WinePoetics, she thinks as she types out): Does that mean you can taste the socks?

SM: I think it was stomped by people yet unborn.

ET clamps down on her words by sipping the yummy Antico while noticing the subject header of SM's last point to be "more than you want to know."

But the sadist isn't done. SM invades the screen again with: "The socks of the people who stomped the grapes, or the sock I'm drinking it out of?"

ET tries to take the high road; looking at her glass, she types back, "The next post shall feature a wine even you can afford."

Obviously drunk by now on socks and Canterbury, SM cheerfully replies, "Will it be in one of those little bottles, like you get on airplanes, that are labeled 'Pasteurized wine-like product'?"

*****

All of which is to say, in order to remain on the high road, I end this post (hurriedly) in order to exit the Internet. Dear Sandy McIntosh, as Mr. Mystery Poet put it:

What's the excuse for this vanishing
language? I need a different way to put myself
to sleep.

YOGA AND GALLO!

WinePoetics recently received e-mails from new poets -- actually, both are seasoned poets but are new to WinePoetics): Leza Lowitz (Yoga Poems, Stone Bridge Press, http://www.lezalowitz.com) and Sandy McIntosh (Between Earth and Sky, Marsh Hawk Press, http://www.marshhawkpress.org/). I was pleased as punch, I mean, sangria. Both wrote to share their "wine poems"! Tat-ta-ta-dah: This is WinePoetics! Poets -- send me your inebriated poems!

I'm also pleased to hear from Leza given word of Judd's Hill Winery & Vineyard's Fourth Annual Poetry Contest. The theme is, naturally, "Wines & Vines"! Deadline: February 28, 2003. Send submissions to Judd's Hill, P.O. Box 415, St. Helena, CA 94574, or www.Juddshill.com. Check out this prize (yes, I've tasted their wine and it's yummy-licious):

A handpainted, gold-etched, 3-liter bottle of Judd's Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, publication in Coracle, and a feature in the Judd's Hill Newsletter and website.

And I also know Coracle to be a pretty nifty journal in which to be published (go Jane Hall, marvelous editor you!)

So, what does the Judd's Hill contest have to do with Leza (and did I tell you that Yoga Poems received a PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award?). Well, she was last year's winner of Judd's Hill's contest with this poem:

What The Vine Raises

What runs in the red river
is the heart's deepest truth
always flowing inside.
If you can mine its depths
you'll know what the vine raises,
that things grow even in the dark of night,
lit by the moon.
The wine has lit up our faces,
turning them the same color,
the quicks of our fingers are red.
When the magic is on your tongue
even the glasses lean towards laughter
and the harvest is never-ending
when you're drunk on the world.

Ahhhh! Peeps -- have you ever been drunk on the world? It is an absolutely ..... intoxicating feeling! Sigh....

Okay, from that transcendence, we now move on to Gallo...which is to say: Sandy McIntosh.

Sandy offered one "wine poem" plus two related poems that reveal why Michael Heller once said, "With a sure surrealist's touch, [he] wickedly maps out the psyche's contradictions and movingly explores family pain and grief. His clean, swift poems strike the reader's eye as well as heart as they range from hope to nightmare, from loss to social comedy."

Here's Sandy's "wine poem" (and unfortunately some of the long lines will "wrap around" given the slim column width of the blog):

Gallo’s Paisano

My mother said: “I like this Paisano. It’s good and sour, like Hungarian wine.”
I refilled her glass to the brim. I was after information that night.
“Why didn’t you let me meet your relatives?”
I had been to Europe several times
but she’d always refused to tell me where they lived.
“You wouldn’t have liked them,” she replied. “They were too poor.”

Halfway through the bottle I got the courage
to ask about her marriage to the mysterious man in Cincinnati.
“We were so young…,” she began, and then said nothing.

I refilled her glass. And then glass after glass.
In the end she started talking,
but by morning I’d forgotten it all.

“Say again what happened in Cincinnati,” I begged.
She stared at me. “No,” she answered.
“We were too young and too poor.
You wouldn’t understand.”

************

But after sharing the above "wine poem," Sandy then immediately wrote about it, "But I’m not sure it makes much sense unless you know the following:"

Dancing Across the Atlantic

The stage is dark. There is an echoic clang, as if a heavy electrical switch has been thrown. Immediately a bass thrumming noise, the muffled sound of an ocean liner’s engines, is heard. This thrumming becomes dance music, perhaps a waltz, as the lights go up on a couple dancing.

Narrator:

According to my mother, she and my father met in Paris, just before the Second World War. She was a young Hungarian girl, a student, she said, in Paris to learn the language. My father was touring with his father, a wiry old Scotsman. “I really liked your grandfather better than your father,” my mother told me. “He’d sit with me in the café for hours teaching me English. Your father… Well, he just wanted to fool around.”

Then the war began and there was only one boat leaving for America. “Your father asked me to marry him and I told him ‘yes’ because I wanted to go to America. He was not a very fun-loving person,” she reflected. “But he could dance. We danced our way across the Atlantic.”

[Lights and music gradually fade on the dancing couple.]

I carried this story with me until I was twelve. Then, one day, rummaging through my mother’s bedroom drawers, I discovered a Certificate of Divorcement. My mother, it revealed, had been married many years before she’d met my father, to a man in Cincinnati, where she’d had a family.

[The dancing couple has vanished.]

Furthermore, that same year, I got a telephone call from a woman who claimed to be my father’s real wife. “I would have been your mother,” she insisted. “I would be with you but your father put me in this place, instead.” I learned later that “this place” referred to a mental hospital.

Hence, my confusion.

************

Uh, huh. So. So then, Sandy continued again, "Or perhaps you’d need to know this, too:"

Private

On the way home from school I found a bundle of nudist magazines. I tore out some pages and hid them under my desk blotter. For days I studied them, amazed at the mysteries of pubic hair. I imagined myself in the adult world, and it seemed a strange land, compelling and lonely but full of possibility.

Later, I found the pictures on top of my desk. My mother had rummaged through my room, never saying a word, leaving the naked pictures there for me to know that she knew I had them. This was her style: to let me know that I was never beyond her grasp, that private parts would never be private, that she herself was a greater force of nature than even adulthood, and that we both knew that her name was Silence.

************

So, okay. As Denise Duhamel once said, "Sandy puts the 'wise' in wise guy poetry."

Incidentally, Sandy's second piece, "Dancing Across the Atlantic" is the opening for the forthcoming off-Broadway production of Between Earth and Sky. The production is hoped to occur in late spring or summer. But there already is music written for the opening piece: a waltz by Kurt Vega; Kurt's nifty waltz can be heard at: http://artists.iuma.com/site-bin/ramgen.ram?aid=81722&sid=310647.

One thing I do appreciate are multidisciplinary approaches to poetry. For Sandy's particular context, I asked him about his background. He then cheerfully (if garrulously) replied:

"I did a number of things during the last several decades. I taught in the Poets-in-the-Schools program (40 schools), and was an English professor (Southampton College of LIU, NY Institute of Technology, Hofstra University). In between I was in publishing. In the early '80s I edited Wok Talk, a Chinese cooking magazine. Then I wrote a software program, The Best of Wok Talk, which was published by Software Toolworks (Electronic Arts). When Wok Talk was sold I moved to LA to work for Software Toolworks. There I was one of the collaborators on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing!, which has sold millions and millions of copies, and I later conducted a lawsuit against that company that was covered by the Wall Street Journal and lots of computer magazines. Und so weiter....

Oh. I'm also a landlord (see "Louder Desperation" section of Between Earth and Sky.)

But early on, as a student at Southampton College, I met David Ignatow, who took me on as a kind of apprentice. I went with him to Columbia University, enrolling in the MFA program, where I wrote several filmscripts for Stephen Scharf, and collaborated on a documentary, Ireland: The People and the Caring (documented in Endless Staircase, 1990, Street Press) with fellow student, Steven Schwartz. The film won the Silver Medal from the Film Festival of the Americas.

I've published five collections of poems (two of which are available at Amazon.com, etc.) a business/careers book, Firing Back: Power Strategies For Cutting the Best Deal When You Are About to Lose Your Job (John Wiley & Sons), a Chinese cookbook, From A Chinese Kitchen, and some other things.

Mark Bloom, the creator of the Mystic Theater company read Between Earth and Sky, and probably encouraged by Lanford Wilson's praise of the book, asked me if I'd be interested in his company dramatizing my poems. As this would be a "star turn," featuring one actor, accompanied by dancers and music, he is looking to enlist a star actor for the part. We're working now on the dramatizing of the poems, of which "Dancing Across the Atlantic" will be the opening piece. The composer of the music for the stage version of Between Earth and Sky will be Kurt Vega. We have a long history together, and he takes the part of "best friend" in the following narrative:

I had agreed to identify my brother’s body at the morgue because there was no one else except my mother to do it. There was no way out. I had asked my best friend to go with me as a favor of ultimate loyalty and friendship. My friend agreed.

Queens County Hospital complex is perpetually busy. All sorts of people walk the streets or pass through the buildings. Some have their arms in slings. Others walk with crutches or ride wheelchairs. Some are bent over, walking slowly. A few gesticulate vigorously and direct traffic or debate invisible antagonists.

The Mortuary operates in building “H” of the complex. It stands at the end of the road, next to the laundry. Inside there are several bolted doors marked “No Admittance” and two open office cubicles.

I stepped into the first and waited for the clerk to finish her long telephone call. Then I spoke the horrible words: “I’m here to identify my brother’s body.”

The clerk pointed without interest to the next office. “Over there,” she said.

I turned and repeated what I had to say. The young woman behind the glass partition asked me to sit and wait. She, too, was on the phone.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rodriguez,” she was saying. “The body you’re looking for isn’t here. No. Why don’t you try the Manhattan Medical Examiner? Oh, I see. Well, how about Jacoby in the Bronx. Yes? Well, I’m sorry, we can’t help you. Um-hmm. You too. Good luck.”

She returned to the cubicle where I sat with my friend.

“May I see your identification?”

I fumbled for my driver’s license.

“Your relationship to the deceased?

I told her.

“Did the deceased use drugs?

I told her which ones.

“It is necessary at this time,” she said, “to identify the body. You’ll do that by looking at a photograph.”

She opened the envelope and from it withdrew two Polaroids. She held them with their backs facing out. At length, she chose one and turned it decisively, as if it were a Tarot car.

It was a picture of my brother, his head only, wrapped in a white sheet. His eyes were closed, his face bruised. There was blood on his lips and chin. The sneer, the public swagger my brother wore, was gone. I thought of my mother’s words earlier that morning and echoed them aloud: “That poor little boy.”

To my friend, the corpse looked naïve, surprised to be dead.

I said to myself, “That poor little boy,” and tears filled my eyes. My friend put his arm around my shoulder.

In the car driving home I told me friend, “I’m going to tell my mother that my brother looked peaceful.” It wasn’t true, but that’s what I told her.

*******

Who knows why we become poets, or anything else? No matter what else I've tried, poetry has always made the best synchronicity for me; thus I continue (see "Between Earth and Sky" in Between Earth and Sky). However, I'm not the Sandy McIntosh credited on the web with writing a pretty awful poem called "Lost, One Soul," which, nevertheless, brings me misdirected fan mail each week.

I know this is much more than you wanted, but you asked the right questions.

==========

Okay. So. The-Miss-Who-Asks-The-Right-Questions takes a sip. Sip again. Should I edit what Sandy sent, she thinks. Sip. Ah, what the heck: I'd rather focus on what's right under my nose -- and right in my glass.

So then: to multidisciplinary approaches: Sandy and films/theater/Chinese cooking, and Leza and yoga/wine, I toast you with the wine currently in my glass: the quite yummy 1993 Seavey Cabernet (Napa Valley), another wine robust enough to last three days from being first opened.

THE DIVINE JOSE GARCIA VILLA

"If bread is the great staple of the western world, and rice of the east, what does that make of the wine with which both bread and rice are taken? Bread and rice are both human images: what does that make of wine? The element divine. And that is exactly what it is -- the divine element, true, sure, pure and undeniable. Who'd dare deny that?"
--Franz Arcellana, Esq.

Franz Arcellana, one of the greatest writers to come out of the Philippines, is quoted on the back cover of THE CRITICAL VILLA: Essays in Literary Criticism by Jose Garcia Villa, arguably the most significant English-language Philippine poet in the 20th century. The book's editor, Jonathan Chua, sent me a copy which I received today. I am grateful to the Ateneo de Manila University Press for publishing this important collection of never-before-collected writings by Mr. Villa, who also was the Philippines' most significant 20th century literary critic. But I nonetheless was delighted to see Mr. Arcellana's quote because the heart of any project involving Mr. Villa is poetry which, like wine, is indeed "the element divine."

Having just finished one quick read of the book, I can say that some of the most interesting tidbits occur in the Appendices. Here's one, a letter that Mr. Villa wrote to the Manila-based Philippine Graphic in 1934. By then, Mr. Villa had left the Philippines and was living in New York. Now, I know that this is the kind of stuff that offended so many people and and I have met some of you with quite long memories. But, I am forced to admit: over this letter, I simply collapsed (coolapsed) into laughter -- making it quite hard for me, I further add, to finish my yummy slice of coconut cake at a local cafe where I was reading this book. Here's Mr. Villa's letter:

Gentlemen:

I have done a great deal of poetry -- excellent poetry if I may say so myself -- but hesitate to send it to you as the Graphic is so darn "pure" -- i.e., so passionless -- and poetry, fine poetry is passionate, sensuous, warm, alive. Also my poetry is, I fear, too advanced. I refer to the form -- for the material of all art is eternal; but the same today as in the past and as it will be tomorrow. But the form changes and should change. Last century's styles are last century's styles. The old T-Ford isn't equal to the new Ford. The form has to change to be up-to-date. You can't argue before an intelligent mind that a 1908 form is superior or even equal to a 1934 form. It doesn't make sense. In the same way, the technique and form of modern poetry is superior to the rickety, outworn "great tradition."

The poetry you print is unforgivable. It stinks. My God, if I had judicial power, I'd throw you in jail for publishing such rot and exemplifying them before the public as good poetry, thus submerging the public still more. (Nothing personal about this. Purely literary reaction.)

You haven't published any decent poem except that [Guillermo] Sison poem ["Peace"] in the Christmas number. All the rest is Tripe, and doubly offensive as they pretend to the title of poetry, and appear in the guise of poetry -- when they are farthest from it and are not even good prose. Gosh, the "poems" turn me inside out with literary nausea. There is no more poetry in those "poems" than there is poetry in a classified 'ad.' There is more poetry in one line of my poems, or even in one word of them, than in all the poetry published in the P.I. in the last five years. Sorry to shock you. But I can't stand it -- the state of poetry in the P.I.

*****

Ah, ye critics -- sometimes, y'all just send me! Do you see how, before Simon Cowell and "American Idol" there was Jose Garcia Villa?!

Unfortunately, I am unsure how widely-distributed THE CRITICAL VILLA can be beyond the Philippines' borders. But if you want to know more about Mr. Villa, check out The Anchored Angel (Kaya Press, see link) which I edited. Here's a quote from my essay which also says something about Mr. Villa's character:

"I want the absolute words, only the absolute words, used in the poem. You will notice that in any of my poems, every word has been carefully chosen. In fact, every word is a poem in itself, so pure it is. That is an emanation from my angelic divinity. Don't laugh at me Cirilo, I mean it. You are no poet if you are not divine."

I not only admire this statement for its passion, but because its thoughts do translate to perfect pitch in his poems, one of which shall end this post. Meanwhile, I note that THE CRITICAL VILLA offers many things that were not within the scope of The Anchored Angel, including the following:

On Mr. Villa's poetry collection, Have Come, Am Here (Viking Press, 1941): "Voted unanimously by the Pulitzer committee for the Pulitzer Prize but the chairman vetoed it -- not wanting to award the prize to an experimental poet -- so it was given to Robert Frost, who also had a book that year, but who was really only second choice for the prize -- this information I got from Robert Frost himself and from Louis Untermeyer. I thought it was very decent and nice of Frost to admit it to me." (Villa quote)

On Mr. Villa's poetry collection, Volume Two (New Directions, 1949): Disqualified from receiving the Bollingen Prize (eventually won by Wallace Stevens) owing to Villa's Filipino citizenship.

On Mr. Villa's Selected Poems and New (McDowell, Obolensky, 1958): Panned by Thom Gunn in the Yale Review 48, but defended by Francisco Arcellana: "Mr. Gunn thinks that Villa is a denizen of the lower slopes of parnassus. If this is so then one can't help wondering how high timberline would be. In any case, if this is true -- and it ain't necessarily so -- it would be more forgivable in Villa than in British and American poets including Mr. Gunn himself. After all, the English poet has the horse with wings and Villa has only the winged carabao (albino)..."

EXACTLY! LET MY CARABAOS GO (and particularly the winged albinos)! (See January 29 and prior posts.)

Anyway, I only met Mr. Villa once. The cocktails could do only so much to alleviate the awkward atmosphere. I hadn't ever heard of Mr. Villa before we met. The poet Luis Cabalquinto had invited me to meet "a great poet"; I went over to, cough, simply join them in promised margaritas and martinis. I've never forgotten, though, his pale face -- a face so pale my eyes could and did trace various blue veins flickering just beneath what seemed to be paper-thin skin. A fallen angel...

But the meeting was predestined. The Anchored Angel is a "recovery" project for bringing out a poet from literary obscurity (his books had been out of print for decades in the U.S.). I believe I was meant to edit this book partly because my lack of knowledge about him precluded the kind of emotional baggage (positive or negative) that many Filipino poets carried as regards Mr. Villa. On the opening page of THE CRITICAL VILLA, Jonathan inscribed the words: "To Eileen -- who came face to face with the tiger and didn't blink."

Thanks, Jonathan. That wasn't courage on my part. Just sheer ignorance made cheerful by my margaritas (specifically, wine margaritas).

Here's a poem by Jose Garcia Villa, the one who fell to become The Anchored Angel. From this poem, I once wrote a series called "Girl Singing." That series still remains within the depths of my disk drive as mine never quite captured the "divine element" sparkling within this poem:

21

Girl singing. Day. And on her way
She has to pass by the oldest mountain.
That at least is certain. Rain. That
Doth leave no stain. And again whose
Flowers move jealously. O pity me.
O if her eyes move and destroy all
Firmament. How brightly devised is
That moment. Much and muchly praised.
O day imperishably dazed. O woman
God-grazed. Succour God alone, O
Teach him Joy. O girl singing. O
For whom alone God bows out. O lovely
Throat. O world's end. O brightly
Devised crystal moment.

MY GIRL, GABRIELA and MY MAN, CARABAO

I wasn't surprised to see Gary Sullivan's blog post today (January 30, 2003) entitled "Dreams of Interpretation" (see http://garysullivan.blogspot.com/)/. Moreover, his essay was exactly about this post that I was in the middle of writing (no lie!). Have I told you that I believe one of a poet's jobs is to connect dots of synchronicity....oh, I've mentioned it three times on this blog? But have I mentioned it RECENTLY?! Anyway, to connect the dots...

Gary was discussing the issue of author intentionality -- that he's "never met an artist--writer or other artist--who did not, at some point, feel that his or her intentionality was being tossed overboard at some point, their work being misread, misinterpreted, misunderstood."

I agree. And I actually have slightly different take on this issue. Partly because I ASSUME that most readers will never glean my authorial intentions anyway -- and also because I believe that readers need not glean my intention as the works should be able to stand on their own -- I don't mind disseminating a lot of prose (poetics) about my poems. But I don't structure these poetics as (or only as) to share what I was intending at the time I wrote my poems (okay: how's that for getting away -- or not getting away -- from the "I"?). I also create poetics statements that are not lies about my true intentions but offer exagerrated emphases on issues that are of concern to me.

Barnard College's Alumna site (http://www.barnard.edu/alum/action/index.html) currently features an interview of me. The relevant excerpt is:

Many describe you as a poet-activist. What relationship do you see between poetry and activism?

I believe the role of the poet is not to write verses, but to live life in a different (hopefully better) way than that poet would otherwise if s/he were not a poet. For me, part of becoming a poet has been to be more proactively aware of my environment: "proactive lucidity," as I think of it. Through such awareness, I fine-tuned my focus into some areas where I felt I could make a difference. [...]

How I publicly describe my work is often related to my activist concerns. In 1898, the United States invaded the Philippines to make it a colony, and spread its colonialist regime through furthering the use of English as a communications tool. I am quite aware that many in the United States are not aware of its history with the Philippines; I use my poetry as a doorway to educating them about that. And, what a timely issue it's become, what with the Philippines having become another front-line in the United States' war against terrorism in the aftermath of "911"...!

*****

When I wrote the prose poems that make up my book Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, I knew that my primary (conscious) impetus was attempting to write poems in the manner of abstract expressionist brushstrokes. But I am finding, given the (war-infused) times, that I speak less of that influence, and more about how abstract language is a means for me to talk back against the narrative use of English as an imperialist tool. Does that bother me? Yawn. You can guess the answer....

By the way [and you'll have to bear this "Leap" since I haven't leaped in a while in my recent posts and I don't favor straight narratives most of the time], there's a photo of me on the Barnard site. I mention this primarily because Steve Dickison who runs The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University recently e-mailed to apologize. Apparently, in the forthcoming Poetry Center calendars (which I believe many of you reading me will receive), he took that same photo and, in Steve's words, "there is some lateral distortion to your photo... you are stretched, somewhat, east & west."

To which I promptly replied, "You mean you made me look FAT!?"

In response, Steve did the e-mail equivalent of a sheepish mumble. So I said I'll write about him in public....and there, I just did.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, so speaking of contextualizations, over the years, I would write these prose works that certainly fit the "poetics" category. And they'd often be published in teeny outposts where only the most initiated would ever find them (and of course I always consider my readers -- historically all 3 of them -- the most sophisticated, "initiated" peeps ever!). Here's an essay I wrote about a series of poems I wrote on Gabriela Silang, the Philippines' first woman general who had led one of the revolts against Spain's colonial rule. I think, given the times, there's a new resonance one can glean from it:

THROUGH POEMS, RECONFIGURING MY IDENTITY AS GABRIELA SILANG

In 1521, the world's first circumnavigator Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines and brought that country to the attention of Spain. His discovery, followed by other explorers and proselytizing Catholic friars from Spain, began nearly four centuries of Spanish colonial rule. During this period, Diego Silang witnessed the colonizers' ongoing abuse of Filipinos and began the Ilokano tribe's revolt against the Spanish authorities. Following Diego's assassination, his wife Gabriela Silang carried on the crusade for freedom. After she and the remainder of her army were finally captured, the Spaniards hanged her soldiers -- known to be among the most defiant of Filipino rebels -- and lined their bodies along the coastal towns for everyone to see. Their bodies were left to sway with the sea breeze in order to serve as a reminder to anyone who dared fight the Spaniards. Gabriela was given the doubly painful experience of witnessing the death of her followers before becoming the last to die. She was 32 years old.

I have been writing poems to fictionalize -- and create -- a new life for Gabriela Silang in the 21st century. In writing these poems, I sometimes depict Gabriela in the midst of mundane activities (for example, doing the laundry) to contrast against the larger matters of revolution and politics that took over Gabriela's life. I believe that war teaches us how to appreciate the luxury of having no other momentary concerns than, say, to clean house. Gabriela's story, in fact, reminds me of how war eliminates Home -- in Gabriela's case, the Spanish invasion eliminated home not just in terms of her specific household but in terms of psychic stability as well her country as "homeland."

In these poems that are intended to be about someone else, I nonetheless integrate elements of my own life. For instance, when I turned forty years old, I wrote a poem about Gabriela turning forty even though -- and also because -- she never experienced this particular threshold. Similarly, I wrote a poem about Gabriela reading Charles Baudelaire as I like to think that if Gabriela had a preference for how she would have spent her life, she would have spent time reading poems as I do.

I intertwined my life with Gabriela's for three reasons. First, Gabriela lived during a time when written records were scarce so that not much is actually known about her. Secondly, I felt that Gabriela had to become me -- and I had to become her -- for those moments when I was writing on her behalf. This deliberate conflation of our lives facilitated, I felt, an emotional resonance that might not otherwise exist in the poems were I, as the author, more distant from Gabriela's experiences. Thirdly and relatedly, I wanted to address the contemporary discourse about the "I" in poetry, specifically how the attempt to get away from the personal "I" is also a mode of silencing the stories of one's culture. This positioning relates to my and Gabriela's shared ethnicity as Filipinas. As an ethnic-American poet, I write during a period when certain poets wish to get away from the autobiographical "I" -- and yet that position, for me, would be a silencing of themes related to my culture. This is a tension of identity-exploration. (Indeed, Chinese-American poet and critic John Yau has pointed out [in Black Lightning; see link] that the identity issue has not been addressed well by both modernist and post-modernist poets despite the advent of so-called multiculturalism: ''The identity issue…has not been addressed by later modernist poets because many often want to assimilate and be part of the mainstream and, thus, do not question the mainstream's use of identity, how it fixes them with a narrow possibility. It's not being addressed by post-modernists because they say the author is dead. But why is the author dead at a point when demographics have changed such that all these people who were once marginalized and silenced can now talk?")

The form of my Gabriela Silang poems generally feature the subversion of narrative through my use of textual collage and seemingly non-related juxtapositions of narrative detail. I question narrative because of another component of the Philippines' colonial history. The United States succeeded Spain as the Philippines' next colonial master. In 1898, the United States claimed it owned the Philippines after buying it for $20 million dollars from Spain through the Treaty of Paris. The Filipinos -- who had won and declared their independence from Spain -- protested, and thus commenced the Philippine-American War, a war that has been called the United States' "First Vietnam." With their prowess on the military terrain, the United States defeated the Philippines to make the arkipelago its first and, to date, only colony. The United States solidified its colonial domination through the cultural and linguistic terrain with the popularization of English as the preferred language for education, administration, commerce and daily living. Thus, English is sometimes called by Filipinos to be "the borrowed tongue," though enforced tongue would be more accurate.

Faced with English's history in the Philippines, I -- a Filipina-American poet who writes poems in English -- choose to do so by attempting to subvert conventional narrative idioms. Such subversion is a deliberate strategy to talk back against the use of English as a communications (or narrative) tool for enforcing colonialism. What prevents the Gabriela Silang verses from becoming nonsense and makes them poems are (I hope) how I (successfully) weave the words based on rhythm and the text's poetic music.

Of course, the poems do incorporate references to Gabriela Silang's real life, for example, the incorporation of the words "Ilokano" or "Ilokos." Ilokano is the language of the members of the Ilokos tribe, of which Diego and Gabriela Silan were members. Certain poems also reference the Pacific ocean, the mountains where she and her rebels had fought and hid from Spanish soldiers, and "reluctant warriors" because the Filipinos were fighting a war in defense of their homeland rather than in an attempt to conquer someone else.

However, despite the occasional reference to elements from Gabriela's life, the poems's narratives are generally different from how her real life unfolded. As a poet, I am comfortable with this result because the underlying sensibility of these poems is one of sadness. It is the poem's combination of loss and desire that, for me, ultimately captures Gabriela's life. For one of the few things known about her is that she became a martyr, but that martyrdom was not her choice. Gabriela inherited a set of circumstances which perhaps she would not have wanted to be her fate.

Even the manner of Gabriela's death retained its moment of sad ironies. Because Gabriela's men were tough warriors, a special kind of death was planned for them. One by one, each soldier was hanged and lined along the coastal towns for the public to witness. The Spaniards wanted to use their executions as a disincentive for those who considered fighting the colonial regime. In addition, the Spaniards wanted Gabriela to see how each of her men would die. She had fought like a man. Thus, she also deserved a man's sentence, according to the Spaniards.

For her own execution, Gabriela was taken to a plaza in the town of Vigan. She was hanged before a crowd of Spaniards and Filipinos. Apparently, all in a holiday mood as the event was part of the celebration of a dreaded enemy of the government. Thus, among the last words reverberating in Gabriela's ears must have been the sound of her own countrymen proclaiming "Long live Spain!" These were the same people for whom she had fought and now faced death.

Nonetheless, it is said that Gabriela remained calm and courageous during her final moments - as she took the 13 steps that led to the scaffold. She exchanged her life for freedom on September 30, 1763.

******

Here are two poems (first published in Feminist Art Speaks) from my "Gabriela Silang" series. I recall now that the two "blondes" referenced in the first poem were wonderful poets Michelle Murphy (I highly recommend Michelle's book Jacknife and Light, Avec) and Rosemary Griggs with whom I once attended a poetry reading:

Treason’s Etymology
or, Gabriela Discusses A Poet

She lacks a reputation
for waking at quantum velocity

an absence of self-possession
masked by her ability

to guzzle Black Star beer
and note its “violet finish”

She was flanked by two blondes
beneath a red-globed street lamp

penetrating the concrete
of Mission Street

Slitting eyes, she applied
“wine speak” in a manner similar

to shoplifting oxygen
from children never to be born

when she engendered
the type of infidelity

that fails to solder
fragments of a marriage

She notes we have yet
to identify

whose bones
erupted mountains

in Peru and Guatemala--
she was attempting consolation

She would have compromised
for fortitude

She does not recall
a green stalk brimming

with white ylang-ylang orchids--
how the thin limb refused

to bend before the weight
of lush petals

and fertile stamen--
how this plant sat patiently

on her doorstep
as a gift

from someone she considers
“anonymous”

for never inflicting pain
as if “to hurt is to feel”

She begins to agonize
over mountains sharing

the pallor of melted candles
vis a vis skeletal fragments--

an agony that denies
a type of knowledge

whose burden capsizes
streets into fog-sweatered nights

She keeps losing
the same lesson:

“white” does not signify
a bleached bone

and an orchid petal
share each other’s complexion

She keeps losing
this same lesson

No metaphors exist
for genocide

----------

Dusk
As Gabriela Reads Baudelaire (II)

I remember the rice fields
sometimes melancholy at dusk

sometimes a rippling mirror
of a sunset’s maidenly blush

In San Francisco and New York City
where the sky is a presence

witnessed “through a ventilation
or between two chimneys”

the visual compression offers a “more
profound idea of the infinite

than a great panorama
seen from a mountaintop” (1)

I could continue, but long poems--
“they’re the resource of those

who can’t write short ones” (1)
As one “who has so deeply loved

the perfume of woman,” (2) I sadly
observe, “You’re always armed

to stone me
along with the world” (3)


Footnotes:
(1) from a 18 February 1860 letter from Charles Baudelaire to Armand Fraisse
(2) from a 24 January 1862 letter from Charles Baudelaire to Charles-Agustin Sainte-Beuve
(3) from a February or March 1861 letter from Charles Baudelaire to his mother Caroline Aupick

================

LEAP.

Leny Strobel (who wrote the quite visionary book about Filipino decolonialism, Coming Full Circle, Giraffe Books) chimes in about my posts on freeing the Filipino carabao from the tentacles of the U.S. military (see January 29, 2003 posts):

Eileen, Bravo!! I went to their website and tried to see if I could forward your letter but they have no 'contact us' address but found their snailmail: The Military Order of the Carabao, The Army and Navy Club, 901 17th NW, Farragut Square, Washington DC 9001-2503. Should we inundate them?

Leny also just returned from visiting the Philippines and she reports, "Today in the Philippines, the carabao is almost an endangered specie. Driving down countryroads I only saw emaciated imported white cows from Australia and New Zealand (I hear) languishing in the tropical sun. When I inquired as to the state of the carabao, I was told: well, they're eaten before they could breed!"

Well, Leny, this post's recommendation is the lambanog as I exhort you Pinoys to send your protests to the snailmail address offered by Leny for The Military Order of the Carabao.

I end by sharing my new title [hic], just bestowed on me by Jose "Joey" Ayala: Muse of the Carabao and the Lambanog River!

OVER MY CEREBRALLY-BREWED COFFEE: "What idiot thought Sam Hamill would be a good candidate for Laura Bush's tea party?" and "Rice For Peace"

Anti-war poets force scrapping of White House symposium
By Sarah Left
Thursday January 30, 2003
The Guardian

The White House yesterday confirmed that it had cancelled a poetry symposium after a number of American poets threatened to turn the event into an anti-war protest.

The February 12 symposium on Poetry and the American Voice, which was meant to focus on the works of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, was one of a number of literary gatherings organised by the first lady, Laura Bush.

When Washington-based poet Sam Hamill received an invitation to the event, he said he was "overcome by a kind of nausea" and refused to attend. Then he decided to email fellow poets, asking them to compose anti-war works and urging anyone attending the symposium to read works of protest.

Explaining the cancellation, Noelia Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Mrs Bush, said: "While Mrs Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions, and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum."

A former librarian, the first lady has made teaching and early childhood development her signature issues. Her series of White House symposiums to salute America's authors have been lively affairs, featuring discussions about literature and its impact on society.

No future date for the poetry event has been announced.

Mr Hamill, the founder of Copper Canyon Press, set up a website in a bid to turn February 12 into Poetry Against the War day. He said that he had received poems or personal statements from more than 2,000 poets during the last week, and plans to present an anthology of the poems to the White House.

In an open letter on the site, Mr Hamill explained: "I believe the only legitimate response to such a morally bankrupt and unconscionable idea is to reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organised to speak out against the war in Vietnam."

Contributors have included WS Merwin, Galway Kinnell, Ursula K Le Guin, Adrienne Rich and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

"I'm putting in 18-hour days. I'm 60 and I'm tired, but it's pretty wonderful," said Mr Hamill.

Marilyn Nelson, Connecticut's poet laureate, said that she had accepted the White House invitation, and had planned to wear a specially-commissioned silk scarf with peace signs.

"I had decided to go because I felt my presence would promote peace," she said.

Mr Hamill's more forthright form of protest, however, may have tipped the balance for White House planners, however. He told the Seattle Times: "What idiot thought Sam Hamill would be a good candidate for Laura Bush's tea party? Someone's going to get fired over this."

His is not the only protest in verse. Canadian poet Todd Swift took only one week to compile an ebook, 100 Poets Against the War, which he released on Monday to mark the report by weapons inspectors to the UN security council.

"We're trying to create something that is like the Vietnam war protest," said Mr Swift, speaking from his home in Paris. He said he was amazed by how quickly the collection had spread around the world.

"About 25 of the poets in the collection are from the UK or Ireland, and we are adding John Kinsella and a few others this weekend to the revised version, which will be released next Monday to meet Mr Blair on his return from Bush's ranch," he added.

Contributors to the ebook include George Murray, Ethan Gilsdorf and Maggie Helwig.

State of the Union, 2003

I have not been to Jerusalem,
but Shirley talks about the bombs.
I have no god, but have seen the children praying
for it to stop. They pray to different gods.
The news is all old news again, repeated
like a bad habit, cheap tobacco, the social lie.

The children have seen so much death
that death means nothing to them now.
They wait in line for bread.
They wait in line for water.
Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness.
We've seen them a thousand times.

Soon, the president will speak.
He will have something to say about bombs
and freedom and our way of life.
I will turn the TV off. I always do.
Because I can't bear to look
at the monuments in his eyes.

--Sam Hamill

============================

"Rice for Peace"

Decolonialism scholar Leny M. Strobel shares a forwarded suggestion from the National Assoc of Fil Am Methodists, noting, "Every protest counts."

------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends:
There is a grassroots campaign underway to protest war in Iraq in a simple, but potentially powerful way.

Place 1/2 cup uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a snack-size bag or sandwich bag work fine). Squeeze out excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it in a piece of paper on which you have written, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Romans 12:20. Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them."

Place the paper and bag of rice in an envelope (either a letter-sized or padded mailing envelope--both are the same cost to mail) and address them to:

President George Bush
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Attach $1.06 in postage. (Three 37-cent stamps equal $1.11.) Please note that if your bag is in any way bulky, you must send it in a padded envelope. A fat regular envelope will not go through sorting machinery. In Eisenhower's time, all mail was hand sorted so this wasn't an issue. Hope Bush will be in some way touched by this effort. Drop this in the mail TODAY. It is important to act NOW so that President Bush gets the letters ASAP. In order for this protest to be effective, there must be hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House. We can do this if you each forward this message to your friends and family.

There is a positive history of this protest! In the 1950s, Fellowship of Reconciliation began a similar protest, which is credited with influencing President Eisenhower against attacking China. Read on:

"In the mid-1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a 'Feed Thine Enemy' campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him."

As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no rice was ever sent to China. "What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear weapons against them."

From:
People Power: Applying Nonviolence Theory by David H. Albert, p. 43, New Society, 19.

============================

Consequently, the post recommends rice wine, tapey (see January 8, 2003 post, "Tapey").

"WHO IS THE MYSTERY POET?"

one of you -- but speaking for more than one of you -- asks about the poet whose poetry initially instigated the formation of WinePoetics (see January 28, 2003 post on "Heavenly Hurt"). Who is this poet whom I've called one of the greatest secrets in contemporary poetry, and whose first book Meritage Press shall release this Fall?

Who is this poet whose name I will reveal soon, but not yet -- a poet about whom David Shapiro observes: "each page..., so compressed, so lenient, so observed, keeps to an erotic variety: the experiment, the experience is all"?

So observed. With that phrase, David Shapiro observed this poet well. For among the many qualities I appreciate about Mr. Mystery Poet is the acuteness of his seeings that allows him to distill so marvelously when he finally pens his verses. The open-minded experience of his vision is such that his poems offer a balance that I equate with both geometry and archetypes, e.g. the circle, triangle and square. Such acuity may be seen in this excerpt from one of his essays in which which he discusses a (1994) group exhibition of visual artists:

I began by considering a large group of disparate artists, trying to see what some of them might have in common. What this process of sifting led me to realize was that among the things I've learned to appreciate in art is a certain lightness of touch. But as I brooded [...], "light" as an adjective, the opposite of "heavy," began to be illuminated by its homonym, "light" the noun, contrary of "darkness." Just a pun perhaps, and yet this crossing of qualities started to look like a subject: mutually inflecting one another, "light" and "lightness" began to assume manifold forms: a critical disposition attuned to qualities rather than categories invites us to consider the projected radiance of a coloristically brilliant painting (Karsten Wittke's pictorial meditations on Goethe's theories of light) along with the hushed halo of light that, reflected onto a wall from the back of the work, subtly dilates the presence of a fragile paper sculpture by Siobhan Liddell, the material delicacy of works with only the most tenuous physical embodiment (certain sculptures by Ava Gerber, for instance, as well as those of Liddell) next to unwieldy objects whose lightness has to do instead with the effortless way they bear their cultural baggage, as in the frescos on styrofoam of James Hyde. I began to realize that while the works I wanted to see engage a variety of styles, media, and themes, they share a degree of modesty, wit, or obliquity in their approach to the viewer--taking pointed exception to the overly spectacular or monumentalized presence of much contemporary art--and that they use this indirection to seduce us (rather than exhort us) to see something differently, in a different light.

It is this "modesty, wit, or obliquity in their approach to the viewer"/reader which I often find in Mr. Mystery Poet's verses -- a charm evident in these two poems (the asterisked line below is supposed to be indented, but this blog doesn't allow indents):

From "Ecclesiasticus"

I'm glad to know that Paradise exists.
I don't care if it's a secret. The light
was cleaner there. Your desperate trust defined it
the day of our arrival.
I'd love to know the name*
of this statue. These knees
are splendid, living metal, but not
what counts as time. It's not the kind of hand
you can clap with. Remove those
sandals, please. Such beautiful heels...
Let's just say nobody was home.

*****

Banging Around

Companionable daylight
shifting through rubble

upends certain brightness,
the mirror’s approach

to one who listens in us.
We may step on a snail because

it’s something less
than a life, more

the stolidity of stone
though cracking, and yet details

this flush debouch of human
evidence, the city’s works.

*****

I can't resist. I must share one more poem -- a poem that also illustrates why David Shapiro noticed this Mystery Poet's "erotic variety":

A Crazy Toy

Beams collect. Laughter drips

from the can. The way she spars
with just one pillow suggests

sampling air as a form of "natural"
self. Here is no he; we've

never been less willful. I want you
to see me as they do, as lines

of traffic in which further weaving takes place.
Morning cottons remain dry. Another

green necklace in thought.

******

Today contained much intensity -- the prior two posts hint at the day's tumult. And, today, political protest required the engagement of exhortation...

So it's a relief to lean back against night with poems like these three. Mr. Mystery Poet's poetry collection spans 1981-2003; these three are among his earliest poems -- and he only gets better.

Tonight, my reading of his poems .... calm me with their meditative quality. Tonight, they are stilling the mind .... into that "hushed halo of light." Perhaps this is all to say, Mr. Mystery Poet also has achieved something I usually find in the poets I most admire: Compassion -- and specifically a compassion engendered by lucidity.

*****

Reading his poems tonight evoke the yogic term "tapas," which I learned from my yoga teacher Liza Chapman to mean partly "an internal heat. It's a heat that can occur through the practice of austerities. It burns off negative karma...."

Am I being too fanciful to see a metaphor between Mr. Mystery Poet's linear "compressions" with "austerities"? It seems to me that this marvelous poet, on one level, also practices the abstraction that occurs through (poetic) distillation. Alchemy is in the air...! Whatever the explanation, I read through his poems now, such as the three above -- to result in me beginning to breathe more deeply. Inhale/Exhale. Deeper, deepening....

I exhale out the day's turmoil -- the repleteness of bad karma in the atmosphere that misshapes the ink on newspapers into DefCon charges. But, tonight, I anticipate an ease to my sleep, for sleep will have been introduced through an engagement with this poet's finely- or, as David Shapiro put it, "lenient"-ly (or as I also might call it, gently-) chosen words. Thus, do I lift my glass to you, Mr. Mystery Poet -- a toast with the 1993 Seavey Cabernet (Napa Valley).

DECOLONIZE THE CARABAO!

http://www.carabao.org/ offers more information about the "Military Order of the Carabao," one of the subjects of my prior post. Here is a description from its site:

"The Military Order of the Carabao is one of the most unique organizations associated with our nation's military history. It was founded in 1900 to counter and satirize the very pompous Order of the Dragon, which was founded by those who had defeated the very short-lived Boxer uprising in China. This idea for a lampoon was conceived by several Army officers one night at the Army-Navy Club in Manila during the Philippine Insurrection. As with most jests, it contained a serious ingredient which gradually surfaced to eclipse the initial joke. While the original spoof was real enough, the Carabao Order came to epitomize the camaraderie that grows among members of the armed forces who face the dangers and privations of extensive military service far from home. By the way, the effete Order of the Dragon was disbanded many years ago."

I offer an OPEN LETTER to the organization's Executive Committee:

A carabao, as you know, is a water buffalo from the Philippines. The carabao is one of my most treasured memories from my childhood. As a young(er) poet, I even once wrote this poem which appears in my first book, Beyond Life Sentences (Anvil, Manila, 1998):

CARABAO

I shared him with tiny black flies
who sneered at my waving hands
before diving deeper
into the folds of his old, cracked skin.

Still, I relished my throne,
the back of my grandfather's water buffalo,
while the beast provided a lumbering tour
of my kingdom whose borders

my six-year-old-eyes could not see.

*****

You also know that the reason your "Military Order" references my beloved "Carabao'" is because of a specific war that is one of the most ignominious ever fought by the U.S. military: the Philippine-American War through which you colonized the Philippines.

Thus, while there may be merit in your described desire to set up an organization "to epitomize the camaraderie that grows among members of the armed forces who face the dangers and privations of extensive military service far from home," please amend your organization's name.

Once, you renamed the Order of the Dragon which you describe as "very pompous" and "effete." Well, to describe your organization after the "Carabao" is worse by de facto instituting an homage to colonialism.

And, by the way, how has your Military Order worked on behalf of the disgraceful plight of Filipino war veterans who served the U.S. and yet have been denied such rights as the military pensions?

The carabaos have asked me, Babaylan, to speak on their behalf: Release the "Carabao" from your Military Order!

This Open Letter is directed to the White House, the U.S. Department of Defense, and last but not least, the Military Order's "Executive Committee" revealed on its site to be:

Grand Patriarch of the Herd (First Vice Cmdr.) - LTG MARVIN L. MCNICKLE USAF
Grand Concillior of the Herd (Second Vice Cmdr.) - LT. COL OLIVER GASCH USA
Grand Jefe de los Amigos (Third Vice Cmdr.) - LT. COL ROGER HB. DAVIS, USAF
Jefe de Vaqueros - HOMER C. SAUNDERS
Consejero General - COL. JAMES L. FOWLER, USMC
Grand Padre de los Carabaos - LT. COL. KARL A. CHIMIAK, USAF
Director de Artistes - SSGT. ROBERT L. GEORGE, USA
Historiador - R.ADM. RALPH M. GHORMLEY, USN
Grand Paramount Carabao - GEN. CHARLES G. BOYD, USAF
Grand Lead and Wheel Carabao - CAPT. WILLIAM W. HARRIS JR., USAF
Lead and Wheel Carabao - COL. JOHN S. ROOSMA, JR., USAF
Grand Lead and Swing - C.W.O. GORDON F. Heim, USM,
Lead and Swing - R. ADM. JOHN N. FAIGLE, USCG
Director del Banquets - CAPT. I.C. KIDD III, USN
Auxiliar - SGT. RAYMOND F. DUBOIS, JR., USA
Producer de Is Fiesta - COL. JOHN R. BOURGEOIS, USMC
Winders of the Horn - COL- JEROME E. EILER, USAFLCOL ROBERT J. WACHTER, USAFLT. WILLIAM 0. RITTER, USNCOL. DAVIS T. MOORHEAD, USA
Director de Musica - LT. COL. TIMOTHY W. FOLEY, USMC
Auxiliars - MAJ. DENNIS R. BURIAN, USMCC.W.O. JOSEPH M. HURLEY, USMC
Gamboling Carabaos - MR. RANDELL G. COOKMGYSGT. CHARLES V. CORRADO, USMCLCDR. CARL V. COSTANZO, USNMGYSGT. MICHAEL S. RYAN, USMCSGT. ERNEST SULT, USA
Compositor Lirico - SGT. ALVIN SPIVAK, USAF

**********

I know that deleting "carabao" from your Military Order's name will require you to delete such fanciful designations as "Grand Patriarch of the Herd," "Grand Paramount Carabao," "Winders of the Horn," or "Gamboling Carabaos." But if you change your name, I promise to offer my advice on similarly fanciful appellations -- an offer you should value (have I mentioned I am an award-winning poet?)

Let my carabaos go -- which is to say: Let My People Go!

Or the waters of the rivers shall turn into lambanog and the carabaos shall run amok...!
Eileen Tabios

P.S. Your site also notes that your "Grand Paramount" is "formally sworn in at the Annual Wallow, which is held each year on the Saturday closest to February 4, the date of the Philippine Insurrection."

Wallow in this: READ MY LIPS: It was NOT a Philippine "Insurrection." It was an appropriate Philippine defensive response to U.S. invasion! It was not an "insurrection" for that word implies that the U.S. armed forces then represented either civil authority or an established government against which the people were rebelling. No, sweethearts: the Americans were invading. Now Repeat After Me (And Amend Your Childrens' Schoolbooks): It was NOT a ….!

PISSED OFF PINOYS TALK BACK
(AKA: LET OUR CARABAOS GO!)

I think compadre Vince Gotera, a poet and editor of Radical Visions: Poetry by Vietnam Veterans (University of Georgia Press, 1994) had a good idea when he replied to Sam Hamill's Open Letter (see January 28, 2003 post on "Poets and Baconauts Against War") with his own Open Letter containing the following suggestion (and sure: why let genre stand in the way of activism?):

Sam:

This is indeed the proper response--as we saw with the Vietnam war, poems can accomplish much in opposing war (and the preparation for war, as Vonnegut puts it).

I hope you will pass along my additional suggestions:

First, let's ask all writers, not just poets. Each writer (whether fiction writer, Dramatist, screenwriter, essayist, even student) can send in something in verse or else a statement of conscience ... and the movement can still be called "Poets Against the War." Let's not let genre stand in the way of this activism.

Second, let's all hold readings against the war on 2/12. If we could get the national (and local) media to take notice, there will be even greater impact at all levels.

Those of you who are receiving this message, please pass this along to all writers you know. As Sam says below, there is not much time.

Vince Gotera
Editor
North American Review

==============

Then, as what brilliant poet Jean Gier calls "Just the right chaser to go with Bush's State of the Nation address -- if you can swallow it...," here are some pinapaitan (a Filipino dish with a key ingredient of beef bile):

Ian Urbina, a journalist based at the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington, D.C., wrote an article for the January 29 - February 4, 2003 Village Voice (which can be accessed at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/urbina.php). Here are excerpts:

The Tribal Rites of America's Military Leaders. No Wonder They're Bullish on War.
The Empire Strikes Back

This Saturday, more than a thousand of America's top military and government leaders and their guests are scheduled to gather at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., for a secretive tribal rite called the 103rd Annual Wallow of the Military Order of the Carabao. And they won't be singing "Kumbaya."

In fact, on what these days feels like the eve of war, nothing says "imperialism" better than the annual Wallow, which celebrates the bloody conquest of the nascent Philippine Republic a century ago in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. The exclusive Military Order of the Carabao (named after the mud-loving water buffalo) was founded in 1900 by American officers fighting in the Philippines, so naturally there will be a lot of singing and cigar smoking by the 99.9 percent male crowd. Recent guests have included Colin Powell and General Richard B. Myers, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many of the country's top military leaders are listed as members. [...] Acting like a cluster of Klingons, the guys will toss around revered imperial slogans, such as "Civilize 'em with a Krag!" referring to the rifles used by Americans to kill thousands of Filipinos, who had fought Spain for their freedom and didn't want to be handed over to another colonial power.

[...]The Carabaos rarely rear their heads in public [...]. But a guest who had been attending the Wallow for several years was fully debriefed right after the 2002 bash last February and furnished the evening's seating chart, song lyrics, and other documents. As our mole reported, the mood of the Wallow varies from year to year, depending on how much military spending is going on. The February 2002 crowd, basking in the second year of Bush's rule, was enthusiastic. "This year was totally different," one attendee said at the time. "With the current White House and all the overseas activity, military confidence is way up. I can't tell you how many excited comments there were about the new budgetary reality."

This Saturday, after another year of even more frenzied military spending, the Carabaos ought to be friskier than the bulls in Pamplona. "This year is extremely packed," Rear Admiral Ralph Ghormley, a Carabao official, told the Voice last week. "In fact, we had to turn away over 100 people who wanted to attend." One thing that fires up the bulls never changes: the bellowing of the Carabao anthem, "The Soldier's Song." At the 2002 Wallow, the room was already thick with smoke—every place setting had been adorned with (forget that embargo) an authentic Cuban cigar—when a voice said, "Gentlemen, please turn to your songbooks," and the U.S. Marine Band, seated to the side, struck up a tune. The Carabaos, most of whom seemed to know the words by heart, lustily sang the first stanza's story of the dreaded "bolo" (the Filipino revolutionaries' machete—they had few guns) and deceitful "ladrones" ("thieves"):

In the days of dopey dreams—happy, peaceful Philippines,
when the bolomen were busy all night long.
When ladrones would steal and lie, and Americanos die,
Then you heard the soldiers sing this evening song:

And then the bulls and their guests rhythmically banged their fists on the tables during each rendition of the chorus:

Damn, damn, damn the insurrectos!
Cross-eyed kakiac ladrones!
Underneath the starry flag, civilize 'em with a Krag,
And return us to our own beloved homes.

The chorus originally began: Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos! The U.S. soldiers chanted the second line's surviving racial slur about Filipinos as "khaki-colored thieves" while marching through the jungle. Some accounts say that, as the Americans marched and sang, some of them carried ears they had lopped off the Filipinos' heads and kept as souvenirs. Bloody ears aren't part of the rites of a modern-day Wallow, but most of the Carabaos' other traditions have survived intact. And if this year's mud-fest holds true to form, the revelry will be even more enthusiastic than usual, and it will no longer simply feel like nostalgia. The drumbeats of war against Iraq will sound to this crowd like the rebirth of an American Empire.

[...] An aide to Secretary of State Powell said the general didn't make last year's Wallow but confirmed his presence at the 2000 bash and told the Voice that he has often attended them. Ancient Strom Thurmond was plunked down at the 2002 Wallow's head table, where he was assigned a cigar alongside those reserved for Schlesinger, General Myers, Pete Aldridge (the Pentagon's chief of acquisition, technology, and logistics), Dov Zakheim (the Pentagon's comptroller), Gordon England (top deputy to Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge), Sean O'Keefe (the NASA director), and other bigwigs. Marine General Peter Pace, the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, and Air Force Secretary James Roche, both Carabaos, were assigned the roles of hosting tables of their own.

[...] Last year's Grand Paramount Carabao-Elect, presumably the bull who will lead the charge this Saturday, is Admiral James M. Loy, a former coast guard commandant who heads the Transportation Security Administration, the agency now responsible for U.S. airport security. His experience in making fun of Filipinos may come in handy when his security personnel run into dark-skinned travelers: Last August, Loy told The Boston Globe that the controversial practice of profiling "has the capacity to serve as one of the growth elements" of his brand-new agency.

[...]Sometimes it's difficult to tell who's working for the government and who's working for the defense contractors. Pentagon official Aldridge, who decides which defense contractors get the boodle, used to head a big defense contractor, the Aerospace Corporation. Schlesinger not only has ties to Wall Street, but is also chairman of the board of trustees of the Mitre Corporation, a huge quasi-public operation, registered as a nonprofit organization, which runs an array of research facilities working with both the government and defense contractors and which has received billions of dollars in government contracts.

The Carabao gatherings remain a good place for all these people to meet because, even though the Philippine war's combatants may have died out, the organization has relaxed its admission rules so it can always find high-flying hawks it can turn into bulls. [...] Saddam Hussein, of course, is likely to dominate this Saturday's sketches, skits, and songs. Last year's villain was an obvious choice, sparking such ditties as "Big Bad Bin Laden" and "An Afghan Lullaby." [...]

=================

Journalist and poet Luis H. Francia (check out his e-chapbook "Selections From A Museum of Absences" at http://www.meritagepress.com/babaylanpubs.htm) wrote a Sidebar to Urbina's article, which can be seen fully at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/francia.php. Excerpts follow:

In 1896, Filipinos rose up against their Spanish overlords, in the first Asian revolution against a Western colonial power. They had largely succeeded in defeating the Spanish when the United States, eager to join the ranks of empire, declared war on Spain in 1898. [...]

What they are not taught about is its more vicious sequel, the 1899 Philippine-American War. Through the Treaty of Paris in December 1898, and for $20 million (or about $3 for each of the country's 7 million inhabitants), Spain had ceded the Philippines to the U.S. rather than to its brown-skinned inhabitants, who had, after all, proven ungrateful for their more than 300 years of colonial tutelage by establishing the Philippine Republic. The new nation, headed by Emilio Aguinaldo, refused to acquiesce to this early instance of U.S.-induced regime change. The resulting war officially ended in 1902 but dragged on in guerrilla skirmishes until 1910. The costs to the U.S. were much larger than those of the Spanish-American War: by 1902, 4234 American war dead and 2818 wounded; $600 million in military expenditures; and at least $8 billion disbursed in pensions. The burden on Filipinos was enormous: at least 250,000 to 1 million mostly civilian lives (a seventh of the population), indicative of the ferocity of the American campaign—the nature of which is celebrated in the songs of the Military Order of the Carabao, founded in 1900.

[...] Today, with American troops in their country once more, many Filipinos are uncomfortably reminded of a time when their aspirations to self-determination were hijacked by the U.S. in its self-proclaimed role as a champion of democracy.

=================

As regards the concluding statement above about the U.S. hijacking of Philippine self-determination, it is useful to read Luis H. Francia's February 20 - 26, 2002 article for the Village Voice entitled "War on Terrorism or Retaking a Choice Outpost? / U.S. Troops in the Philippines." Excerpts from the article, fully available at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0208/francia.php, are as follows:

In the current hostage drama unfolding in the southern Philippine island of Basilan—involving two American missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and a Filipina nurse, Deborah Yap—the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) has made no political or ideological demands.

[...]Founded by Ustadz Abdurajack Janjalani, a fundamentalist preacher who had trained as a mujahideen in Afghanistan and befriended Osama bin Laden, the ASG is thought to have ties to the Al Qaeda network through bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mustapha Jammal Khalifa, and a charity organization he set up in the 1980s, the International Islamic Relief Organization. This personal relationship is why the Abu Sayyaf, and the Philippines, have been targeted as the second front in the Bush administration's global war on terrorism, and why more than 600 U.S. troops are currently deployed in the Philippines. But since Janjalani's death in a 1998 firefight with the police, those links, tenuous at best, have most likely evaporated.

[...] While a prickly thorn in the side of the government, the Abu Sayyaf is clearly a domestic problem. However, the group serves as a Trojan horse, allowing both governments to pursue their own agendas. For the United States, helping to eliminate the ASG bolsters its claim of winning the war against terrorism. More importantly, it gives the U.S. once again a military presence, not only in its former colony but also in Southeast Asia—a regional presence that was crucial in, for instance, the Vietnam and Gulf wars.

=================

So, Dear Fake Carabaos And Your Cohorts,
Please accept this poem dedicated to you (rumors of a machete hidden within its words are greatly exaggerated), and written by Nick Carbo:

ANG TUNAY NA LALAKI
LIES NUDE ON THE BED

with klieg lights illuminating his brown muscles.
His body is the subject of Sally’s new 16mm film—

20 minutes—brown nipple
20 minutes—brown butt cheeks
20 minutes—brown knee
20 minutes—brown penis—

he feels odd being the object of desire.

Sally splices the footage of his body
with images of American soldiers posing
during the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902.
She asks him to urinate on the strips of negative.
She asks him to masturbate with baby oil
twenty times and ejaculate on the negatives.
She records the sounds of his hand on his penis
to use in a loop as the sound-track for the film.
She projects the crusty but textured film on the wall,
asks him to pose nude in front of the image
and produce several cowering poses,
pretending the projector is a Krag-Jorgensen rifle.
She shoots 30 more minutes of this scene
with the earlier images playing over his brown body
and around the white background.
She also projects the texts of racist songs
sung by the American soldiers:

Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos!
Cut-throat khakiac ladrones!
Underneath the starry flag,
Civilize them with a Krag,
And return us to our beloved home.

and

They say I’ve got brown brothers here,
But still I draw the line.
He may be a brother of Big Bill Taft,
But he ain’t no brother of mine.

Sally edits the film down to 28 minutes,
she titles it Pissing On Our Past
and it wins a funding grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts.

("Ang Tunay Na Lalaki" means "The Real Man." Nick's poem is featured in his poetry collection, Secret Asian Man, Tia Chucha Press)

=================

Many Filipinos prefer to conduct our various revolutions while eating (recall the Manila socialites and other peeps passing out lunches to the masses en massed for "People Power" demonstrations to oust Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada). Well, we all know that my cooking skills don't much exceed boiling water for my morning coffee (did I ever tell you that I cooked a teapot when I left it boiling and boiling....and boiling because I forgot I'd put a teapot on to boil?) So, someone else shall provide the foodie comment, to wit:

Barbara Jane Reyes SCOFFED (!!!!) at the idea of taking off the shrimp heads while preparing the dissonantly-named dish, "ukoy" (see January 27, 2003 post "Accenting the Kundiman"). The young un' proffers, "I'm sorry, 'remove the heads' of the shrimps? NO!"

BrilIiantly, I replied, "Huh?" Barbara explains, "the shrimp heads add texture (plus, all the gunk inside them is yummy)! keep them on!"

Hmmm: "all the gunk inside them" -- well, that was quite palatably put, dear. And what is it with you poets anyway who write me without capitalizing words. is that a trend i've missed like the word 'peeps'?"

Then, while I had her long-haired attention, I asked Barbara what she might bring to a revolution. She replied, "Laing!" Yum!! Here's her recipe, though she caveats it with "this is an imprecise, mom told me once and i have to call her every time i make it just to make sure kind of recipe. it's actually more of a use-yr-common-sense-eyeball-everything kind of recipe":

LAING
3 large handfuls of dried, chopped taro leaves, washed and drained.
2 cans of coconut milk
1/2 pound of bay shrimp
as many cloves of garlic as you like, chopped
as much ginger root as you like, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 or so teaspoons of bagoong (the purple-colored "alimango" is best)
2-3 jalapeno peppers (keep these intact otherwise your laing will be HOT)

Saute the garlic, onion, ginger in a little oil (i use olive oil, of course), and bagoong (add this last, after the onions appear glassy). add the coconut milk, jalapenos, and shrimp, and stir. when the coconut milk comes to a slow boil, add the taro leaves and make sure they are submerged in the coconut milk, but DO NOT STIR. cover the pot and let simmer on low heat for at least 30 minutes. 1 hour is probably best.

Barbara adds, "this is really good with steamed rice (of course) and some fried rock cod filets. my mom used to make this with pork. and abe ignacio uses dried tinapa fish in his."

Salamat, Barbara! By the way, Barbara thinks a good Riesling would go well with laing. Fine, but for this post's recommendation: tuba (coconut wine)!

Incidentally, Salamat as well to Bino A. Realuyo for food consultancy services, including this note (since I know the non-Filipino readership is just dying of curiosity about tuba: Tuba is made through a process of extracting the sap of an unopened coconut bud. It has a stinging sweet and bittersweet taste. The tip of the bud is lopped and the pale juice allowed to trickle into bamboo containers. A sturdy tree yields about a gallon of liquid daily. From coconut water, comes a syrup concentrate for tuba. Tuba is a sweet, fresh or mildly fermented sap taken from tapping the young expanded flowers of the coconut. In certain barrios of Malolos, Bulacan, tuberculosis patients are advised to drink or even bathe in tuba as a cure. Nursing babies in Bantayan, Cebu is fed with this beverage. Tuba when distilled produces a 96 proof lambanog.

=============

Now, the only problem with ending the post with Barbara's recipe is that laing is an extremely delicious dish. It's really too nice for the faux Carabaos. So, instead, here indeed is a recipe for a edgy dish whose yumminess relies on the bitter. Make sure to "SERVE HOT":

(From "Philippine Cooking in America" by Marilyn Ranada Donato, 1991 edition)

PINAPAITAN (Bitter-Flavored Meat)

1 lb. beef tripe, sliced fine or diced
1 lb. beef, boneless, sliced fine or diced
1/2 lb. beef liver, sliced fine or diced, soaked in 2 to 3 Tbsp. vinegar
1 Tbsp. salt
2 Tbsp. oil
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 medium onion, sliced fine
2 Tbsp. fresh ginger root, sliced fine
1/4 tsp. beef bile

Prepare meats and sprinkle salt on them. Set aside.

In hot oil saute garlic until fragrant; add onion, saute a minute then add ginger root, sauteeing another 2 minutes. Keeping heat on high, add tripe and beef, constantly stirring until most of liquid evaporates.

Now, add about 4 cups water and let simmer, covered for 1 hour or until meats are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if desired. Add liver, soaked in vinegar, and simmer, covered, for another 7 minutes or until liver is tender. Stir in beef bile; boil 1 minute.

Serve hot.

Serves 4.

NOTE: This dish is popular in the Ilocos region - beef bile being the unique ingredient. Ask your butcher or friends who kill their own cattle to save the beef bile for you. Bile can be frozen.

Okay! Don't forget to freeze that bile! Sige na!

"HEAVENLY HURT" FROM HIS FINELY-BONED POEMS

Dear Ones, I began this blog on January 4, 2003. I blogged and blogged and blogged: over 71,000 words to date. It's almost as if I didn't have any other life but this blog....when, of course, I have a life (Cough).

Moreover, in the process of volcanically erupting, I loosened words in such a way as to annihilate the very cool persona I'd built up over the years. Yes, it's hard to believe: certain people thought me cool -- or is it that I cooly thought certain people felt so? In any event, I am aware that as a result of this blog, people also now think me coolapsed. It was a sacrifice I was honored to make.

Why did I do it? To help fund the next book to be published by my fragile small press: Meritage Press (see January 25, 2003 post). But for whom was I fundraising, you ask? (Oh, yes: you ask!) Who is this poet I've described as "one of the greatest secrets in contemporary poetry"? A poet whose forthcoming book will encompass poems written during 22 years (1981-2003) of mostly private perseverance?

Well, I can tell you that David Shapiro calls him "a wonderful poet and a poet of wonders. His poetry is exactly as strange as the familiar may permit. His work, born of a strange encounter between American poetry and European masters such as Celan and Novalis, always surprises me by its exploratory investigations. He writes one of the most loving poetries today, filled with a sexual myth as strong as anyone's."

In a future post, I'll reveal the name of this poet -- also a marvelous intellect whose inspirations range from "anyone who wrote a sonnet in the 16th century" to New York and language poets ("esp Heijinian, Silliman and Scalapino") to the French (e.g. Rimbaud and Reverdy). About his poems, I might say something similar to what he once observed about certain artists in one of his numerous marvelous essays:

"Art is a poison. It administers a dose of disturbance, disorientation, of 'internal difference' -- and often deceptively in the guise of beauty and pleasure. You might not notice it for quite some times. Perhaps you won't notice it at all....Perhaps it would simply be better to speak of the sadness in the music of Mozart, and of how no one learns to love his music until they've learned to hear the melancholy in the elegance. But if you begin to see one of these artists in a certain slant of light, the one in which the work gives you that 'Heavenly Hurt,' then be forewarned: it can only be assuaged by more of the same. What the Viennese critic Karl Kraus once said of psychoanalysis might more properly be said of art: it is the affliction for which it claims to offer the remedy."

*****

Okay, so I'm a bit of a tease. I won't share this poet's identity yet. But, for now, here is a poem he wrote, as partly inspired by the drawings of Italian artist Luisa Rabbia. One can correlate it to the 1990 Jaboulet Hermitage White (which Rena Rosenwasser revealed she recently enjoyed). The Hermitage is a finely-boned wine -- as elegant as the works of this poet whose book gives me much Heavenly Hurt to support....and to enjoy:


Drafts (of Water)

A drowning breath, Luisa,
begins the poem
of our making

and unmaking--night drifting
between two days. The sea
was calm, its music impossibly

translated. Flames
curl like waves, or was it
waves curl like flames?

*

Travel homeward
seemed to
dream, such
strange relationship
made no
grace of
misgiving. When
the door
with its
beautiful narrator
shook her head
then proceeded
“Our
other
selves, being similar
but
away,
remain
awake to
the sparks,”
united, then untied.

*

Hello again but in reverse
to the far-flung alarm
of stars through a window.

This sleep whose disheveled night
untunes your island, Luisa.

Silver eyes and hair and
the roaring heavens your definitions of water
pretermit.

*

Impossibly-translated water, Luisa:

Water impossibly-translated as “the path
that leads away from itself.” What the knight saw
could be implausibly translated as “I study,
I make out your face through my stare.”
Even the most imperfectly rendered water
flows downward, widening, wearing away its ground
in the void.

*

Unless patterns pursue themselves like waves, Luisa,
unless patterns…unless they
pursue themselves….unless
waves…but let me put it this way:
sea-light will not be cajoled, Luisa,

into sufficient confusion
except on condition you explain realism at the dinner table:
subscription to water
wilderness of water
rivers fluctuating in quarter tones
reservoir to be read as temporary relief from insomnia

and the same assuming your place in the book
of perpetually writhing liquid.

*

He eyes her eyes,
starminded.

*

Sleeping ends by distracting
itself. Drunken eye-journeys
arouse a sealed lid.

Begin
comparing notes
on pleasure, passing birds
from hand to hand.

*

What one dreams
the other describes:
a drowned water,
unmade breath.

Mischievous weather
we’ve been having,
hey Luisa? Flooded distances

impossibly translated
on this drier tongue
as the capitol of mists.

POETS AND BACONAUTS AGAINST WAR

Dear Friends and Fellow Poets,

The 100 Poets Against The War project continues to gain momentum. Thank you for sharing the PDF file and hosting it on your sites. We have received excellent coverage in today's Globe and Mail, one of Canada's leading national papers (see below). Please do send this along to your local and national papers in America, the UK, Ireland, Australia and wherever else you may be, so that the media will get a sense of how exciting, inspiring and vital this ongoing story of the power of poetic protest can be.

peace
Todd Swift
-----------------------------------------------------------

100 poets enlisted in protest against war
Montreal-born Todd Swift has organized an e-mail demonstration of antiwar verse
By GAYLE MacDONALD

One week ago, the Montreal-born poet Todd Swift was sitting in a Paris cafe, reading The Guardian, fuming about the hard-line American stance on war with Iraq.

He decided to organize a protest -- of powerful words and haunting images. And yesterday, to coincide with the release of the UN weapons inspectors' report, Swift e-mailed an anthology called 100 Poets Against the War to friends, family and far-flung acquaintances.

In one day, the book (available at http://www.nthposition.com) spread like wildfire on the Internet, with people around the world reading the works of these poets, who congregated in one place to beat the antiwar drum.

"What I was hoping to do with this book is contribute to a growing sense that we're not a minority in opposing this war any more," said Swift, 36, who was reached by phone yesterday in the French capital where he is currently living with his fiancee. "In fact, we're becoming a cultural majority.

"Most Europeans are quite upset by what looks like an aggressive, unilateral push by the United States for war, at a time when everyone else wants time for further discussion and more reflection," added Swift.

"I thought, let's move quickly and get something out that inspires and contains a powerful message. I wanted to let people who are opposed to the war know they're not alone."

Canadian contributors include Robert Priest, bill bissett, Maggie Helwig, Di Brandt and George Murray.

The Toronto-born Murray, who now lives in New York, said the 100 Poets Against the War initiative is important for what it awakens and also for the values it attempts to instill. "So many people seem to think that the poet or poetry doesn't have a useful place in society," said Murray, who contributed his poem The Field.

"But poetry is the oldest form of the evening news, and it used to play a very critical role politically. First, by disseminating information and second, by commenting on it.

"This kind of effort, regardless of how valuable each poem is on its own, as a collection represents a step forward for the kind of activism that poets need to be part of, that the arts community needs to be part of."

Murray says he just received an e-mail from the American poet Sam Hamill, who is trying to organize a project similar to Swift's 100 Poets Against the War.

Hamill was inspired by a letter he received from the White House, which requested his company at an afternoon reception and symposium on "Poetry and the American Voice" on Feb. 12. In his e-mail, Hamill told literary colleagues: "When I picked up my mail and saw the letter marked 'The White House,' I felt no joy. Rather I was overcome by a kind of nausea."

In his note, Hamill said, "Only the day before I had read a lengthy report on President Bush's proposed 'Shock and Awe' attack on Iraq, calling for saturation bombing that would be like the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo, killing countless innocent civilians.

"I believe the only legitimate response to such a morally bankrupt and unconscionable idea is to reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam." (Hamill is referring to the 1967 antiwar demonstration that featured leading literary lights such as Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer, who attempted to "levitate" the Pentagon. Mailer later celebrated the march in his work The Armies of the Night.)

Hamill then asked every poet "to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend his or her name to our petitition against this war," which he plans to present to first lady Laura Bush on Feb. 12, a day he hopes will become dedicated to poetry against the war.

From globeandmail.com, Tuesday, January 28, 2003
News: http://www.globeandmail.com
Copyright 2003 | Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc.

**********

Here is the original Sam Hamill Open Letter:

January 19, 2003

Dear Friends and Fellow Poets:

When I picked up my mail and saw the letter marked "The White House," I felt no joy. Rather I was overcome by a kind of nausea as I read the card enclosed:

Laura Bush
requests the pleasure of your company
at a reception and
White House Symposium on
"Poetry and the American Voice"
on Wednesday, February 12, 2003
at one o'clock

Only the day before I had read a lengthy report on the President's proposed "Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq, calling for saturation bombing tthat would be like the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo, killing countless innocent civilians.

I believe the only legitimate response to such a morally bankrupt and unconscionable idea is to reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam.

I am asking every poet to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend his or her name to our petition against this war, and to make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War. We will compile an anthology of protest to be presented to the White House on that afternoon.

Please submit your name and a poem or statement of conscience to:

kokua@olympus.net

There is little time to organize and compile. I urge you to pass along this letter to any poets you know. Please join me in making February 12 a day when the White House can truly hear the voices of American poets.

Sam Hamill

**********

Nor will war ever silence....wine! But I'll defer the usual wine recommendation per post. I prefer to enjoy wine when I'm in a good mood.

ACCENTING THE "KUNDIMAN"

Allow the mind the implication of the kundiman, a love song that bears roots in a military ballad.
--from "Franz Kline Kindly Says About Three Gesture-Laden Brushstrokes" (Reproductions; see link)

So Paolo Javier asked me to spread the word on this charity reading for a new Asian American poetry organization called "kundiman." Paolo writes, "Ur pull wd mos def make a difference [in attendance]." As Paolo appropriately showed his adoration, you can consider the word spread; details below.

Meanwhile, Bino A. Realuyo (a native Tagalog speaker) opined this morning, "I'd hate for 'kundiman' to be mispronounced."

ET (that's divine me): "What's the correct pronunciation?"

BR: "KOON-DEE-MUN. accent on DEE"

ET: "thank you. i had this preconception accent was on koon... why are you sensitive to its mispronunciation, btw"

BR: "the meaning of certain words in tagalog changes with the placement of accent. generally, filipino words have accent on the second syllable, never the first, just like spanish words (it might have been derived from there). // i was imagining prageeta sharma saying KOON-diman. making me think did she say something familiar? am i supposed to know what she meant. i just hope the filipinos in the group have enough sense to tell non-pinoys how to say these words correctly. // english words seem to always be accented on the first syllable."

Then Bino leapt [Leap!] and added: "u know, your last name has accent on the last syllable? // which was the smallest fish."

Ah, yes, "tabios" is the name of the world's smallest fish. I replied, "velly interesting...and all this time i pronounce it accented on 1st syllable. i guess that makes me an english speaker. // i shall document this exchange in my winepoetics because i'm bored."

BA: "ur not mispronouncing ur last name. // but the tabios fish has accent on the last syllable. which quite frankly, sounds weird. because in spanish, if it ends in an S, the accent is on the second to the last syllable."

Before I could respond, BA again: "dont change ur pronunciation. they shd change the way they call pronounce the tabios fish. // oh, we had it again for my father's 82nd bday. my park avenue aunties all came, and were in awe of the fact that my mother found tabios in new jersey!!! when they left, they had a flat tire on their mercedes. my brother and i came to the rescue. there they were, in the middle of nowhere, wearing MINK coats."

Finally I got a word(s) in to say: "that's what you all get for eating me"

To which BA quickly replied (my, my he's irrepressible this morning! dontcha have The Nation or someone awaiting a poem from you?): "speaking of eating you, so we had this dish, 'ukoy,' but it was tabios fish, the smallesh fish in the world apparently, mixed in flour and egg, and fried, and we drank my aunt's favorite wine, CONDE DE VALDEMAR. and it was perfect. the wine weighed well in the mouth, not as thick as i would have prefered, but then filipino dishes have a tendency towards density. so it was a great chaser. it made people laugh. it made my mother speak spanish. to everyone's surprise. even the aunt born in spain."

Okay. Well, so. Fortunately, Paolo Javier doesn't consider me a mere "small fish." Here's information on the Kundiman (accent on DEE) reading:

Kundiman Charity Reading
at The Asian American Writer’s Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(between 5th Ave & Broadway)

Thursday, January 30th, 8 pm
$10

featuring performances by

REGIE CABICO
KONTRAST
TINA CHANG
JENNIFER ESTARIS
THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI
PRAGEETA SHARMA
SALADIN AHMED
KRUZADA ESKRIMA

hosted by
D’lo

Kundiman is a non-profit organization committed to the discovery and cultivation of emerging Asian-American poets. Through instruction and collaboration programs with established Asian-American poets, Kundiman hopes to advance the work of Asian-American writing. Through poetry, we aim to celebrate and promote a strong and positive Asian-American culture and identity.

www.kundiman.org
email: kundiman_info@yahoo.com

*****

Just when I thought I was safe, Bino writes again. This time, he shares the URL for where you might see a picture of the Filipino dish "ukoy" featuring the shrimp, not the tabios fish (sniff!): http://www.tribo.org/filipinofood/recipes/ukoy.html.

And here's the recipe:

Ukoy -- Shrimp and Sweet Potato Fritters

Ingredients
200 g small shrimps 75 g cornstarch
1300 g camote (sweet potatoes),
julienned salt and pepper to taste
3 egg whites oil for frying

WASH shrimps, remove the heads and place in a bowl, then add the sweet potato, and egg-whites. Mix the cornstarch with a small quantity of cold water and add to the bowl, then season to taste with salt and pepper and stir to blend. Drain and remove excess liquid.
Heat the oil in a shallow frying pan and drop in a tablespoonful of the mixture and press with a spatula to flatten. Repat the process to fry a few fritters at a time. Fry until golden brown and crispy, then drain off excess oil on absorbent paper. Serve with garlic-vinegar dip.

Source: Glenda Rosales-Barretto's Flavors of the Philippines, soon to be available at Made in the Philippines Online Store of Filipino Art and Culture.

THIS MORNING'S MOURNINGS

My poem about Bacon's anti-war sentiments (written here in WinePoetics -- see January 19 and 20, 2003 posts) is part of the following anthology:

RECORD-BREAKING GLOBAL COLLECTION OF POETRY TIMED TO COINCIDE WITH BLIX UN REPORT

In a remarkable show of global protest against a possible war with Iraq, over 100 of the world's leading, mid-career and emerging poets who work in the English language, have gathered their work together in a book of new peace poems.

100 Poets Against The War is perhaps the fastest-assembled world anthology ever. Editor Todd Swift, working with Val Stevenson of Nthposition.com, announced the first call for poems last Monday, January 20, 2003. Within hours, poems from dozens of countries were pouring in.

"Poets usually take weeks, if not months, to submit poems for an anthology," says editor Swift, "so I was astonished when they sent me poems within hours and days of my call for new work."

Over the week, Swift and Stevenson selected, edited and arranged the collection of powerful poems, into a format designed for maximum impact. The anthology of poems will be presented on the website http://www.nthposition.com as a PDF file.

As all contributors have donated their poems, any and all interested readers, writers and peace activists are encouraged to download the file, share it, host it on their own sites, and ultimately print it up and make it into a book of poetry.

"It would have been impossible to complete the project within this time-scale without the Internet," added Stevenson. "The poems come from all over the world, they were commissioned and edited in Paris, page lay-out was in London, and file conversion was done in the States."

"The plan is to make a book of poems against the attack on Iraq instantly available to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world," says editor and poet Todd Swift.

The collection features many widely-published and award-winning poets across a broad spectrum, from performance to new formalism, and seeks to fuse a political, inspiring message with well-written verse.

For further information, please contact the editor, Todd Swift: todd@toddswift.com

or Val Stevenson, of nthposition.com: val@nthposition.com
tel: (London) (0)20 7485 5002

**********

Excerpt from Philippine Daily Inquirer article by Stella O. Gonzales, January 25, 2003:
Torture persists in R[epublic of the] P[hilippines], Amnesty International reports

TORTURE continues to be a widespread practice in the Philippines despite international and domestic legal safeguards put in place by the government.

This was the conclusion of the human rights group and Nobel Peace Prize awardee Amnesty International [AI] in its report on the Philippines. Entitled "Torture Persists: Appearance and Reality Within the Criminal Justice System," the report was launched yesterday.

"The persistence of torture and ill-treatment in the Philippines today, despite the broad array of legal and institutional human rights safeguards instituted since the ousting of former President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, highlights a serious discrepancy between the law and its application within the criminal justice system by law enforcement agencies," AI said.

AI said torture techniques employed by law enforcement authorities remained consistent over the past three decades.

"The government of the Philippines must take immediate steps to prevent torture and ill-treatment in custody," AI stressed. "Urgent action is required to break the cycle of impunity."

[...T]orture persists, constituting one of the most serious assaults on the principle of respect for human dignity," AI said of torture cases in the Philippines. [...] Torture continues because perpetrators believe that they will go unpunished.

"They are aware that criminal convictions of law enforcement officers accused of torture are extremely rare and that administrative sanctions tend to be short-lived. They have few qualms about threatening further reprisals if a victim attempts to pursue a complaint," AI said. "With no compelling incentive to change their behavior, patterns of violations persist."

The report said many law enforcers seem to believe that "third degree" interrogation methods are necessary in fighting crime or in intelligence gathering.[...] The report listed the most common torture methods resorted to by law enforcement officers in extracting information and forcing confessions:

Placing a plastic bag over the head of the detainee and holding it tightly at the back to induce suffocation (known as dry submarine or sinupot).

Giving electo-shocks either directly onto the skin, or with water poured over the body and bare electric wires touched against the genitals, lips, ears, arms or legs.

Placing or tying a cloth over the face of the detainee and pouring or dripping water over the cloth to create gradual suffocation (known as "water cure"). Water may also be poured directly onto the nostrils or mouth, or the detainee's head forced down toilet bowls or into water containers.

Assault, including being punched with fists (at times with bullets held between the interrogator's fingers), beaten with rifle butts or batons which may be wrapped in newspaper or other material. Beating is often concentrated on the stomach area, which tends not to leave such visible bruising as elsewhere on the body.

Burning the skin (including the lips, nipples and ears) with cigarettes.

Placing bullets between the fingers and squeezing tightly.

Placing pistol or rifle barrels against the detainee's head or in his or her mouth and threatening the suspect with death while discharging firearms nearby.

Repeatedly hitting the detainee's fingers and toes with metal pipes or gun barrels.

Tying the detainee's neck tightly with nylon rope. Sometimes plastic bags have also been wrapped around the detainee's head using masking tape.

Forcing the suspect to drink excessive amounts of water or other liquids.

Placing chili pepper on the suspect's eyes or genitals, or inserting the detainee's penis into bottles containing gasoline mixed with chili.

Recommendations
The AI report made several recommendations based on the detailed safeguards set out by the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on torture.

Legislation defining and penalizing torture which fully reflect the provisions of the Convention Against Torture.

Operational codes ensuring that officers identify themselves, inform suspects of the reason for arrest and of their rights including access to counsel, family members and medical assistance.

Re-informing detainees of their rights (including the right against self-incrimination, the right to remain silent and the right to have a lawyer present) prior to interrogation.

Keeping thorough documentation of interrogations including the names of all participants and prohibiting the blindfolding and hooding of suspects and the use of unofficial places of detention.

Evidence at trial which has been obtained through torture should not be accepted except as testimony against those who have used torture.

**********

Excerpt from San Francisco Chronicle article by Bob Egelko:
WWII slave-labor lawsuits ruled illegal / Appellate court says state law infringes on federal prerogative

Thousands of aging veterans and civilians who say they were forced to work as slaves for Japanese corporations during World War II suffered a blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that a California law allowing them to sue for reparations was unconstitutional.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said it concluded, reluctantly, that the 1999 law violates "the federal government's exclusive power to make and resolve war, including the procedure for resolving war claims."

The state law sought to open California's courts to residents of the United States and its wartime allies who were taken captive and forced to
work long hours at arduous jobs in fields, roads and mines, with minimal food, frequent beatings and no pay.

Defendants include corporate giants Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Nippon Steel, all of which deny links to companies that were liquidated after the war.

The plaintiffs included survivors of the Bataan Death March in 1942, who were shipped to Japan as slave laborers, mainly in mines. About 2,000 of them are alive today.[...]

The ruling upheld a decision by a federal judge in September 2001 to dismiss 28 consolidated suits on behalf of many thousands of former
civilian laborers and military prisoners of war, and their heirs.

Attorney Joseph Cotchett of Burlingame, who represented Filipinos in the case, predicted that the issue will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

[...] "The claim here is very simple, that human beings were treated like slaves by a corporation," Cotchett said. "The fact that it was during a war is immaterial."

Among those disappointed by the ruling was Alberto Saldajeno, 82, of Daly City, who was a 22-year-old civilian when Japanese troops occupied Antique province in the Philippines in 1942.

Saldajeno said he spent more than two years in copper mines, working 12 to 16 hours a day in rain and mud with malaria rampant and no medical care.

He said more than two-thirds of the workers died, but he survived with the help of quinine extracted from tree bark, and escaped to join Filipino forces before U.S. troops arrived.

He immigrated to the United States with his wife in 1992 under a law for Filipino war veterans and said they live hand to mouth on his small pension. Saldajeno seeks reparations from Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha, the alleged successor of the company that owned the mines.

The article may be found in its entirety at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/01/22/MN194516.DTL

*****

Consequently, this post's wine recommendations are tapey and lambanog.

BUT: “'Attitude Becomes Form' -– what does it mean
about me that I am beginning to write in fragments?"

Seriously. The fact that I am catching up on reading yesterday's newspapers -- and it is 4:18 p.m. California time -- does not mean that I do not care about the Superbowl. But may I share something I just read (during a commercial break, of course, since I naturally have my eyes glued onto the T.V. screen where they are dunking that basketball): Russell Crowe has been informed that he will be welcome at this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, despite last year's controversy when he manhandled a producer for editing out his reading of a poem. If you recall, the hefty one had read a poem as part of his acceptance speech of the best actor award, but that reading was excluded from the T.V. coverage of the event. This year, the organizers alerted the media: Crowe has been invited to the 2003 awards and that he will be allowed to read his poetry. Now that's the kind of news I like to read!

Oh, and pardon me -- that's "Super Bowl," of course. Again. Seriously, the fact that I didn't know that Super Bowl is not one word does not mean, naturally, that I do not pay attention to this glorious game.

Indeed, just this morning, shortly after waking up and whilst cerebrally brewing my one-mug coffee, I was thinking of what would be considered a Superbowl -- sorry for that typo again; I guess I keep thinking of the bowling league version -- a Super Bowl wine. Well, after much brow-furrowing, I realize that it has to be a wine made by a U.S. producer since this is a, uh, U.S. game.

Okay. A U.S. winemaker.

Then, given that the game is brutish but also requires strategic skills, I thought that the wine needs to be powerful and yet also smooth. After more brow-furrowing, a lit lightbulb. Thus, I share the mystical revelation of my morning: the perfect Super Bowl wine is a Fred Schrader Cabernet (either 1999 or 2000). It's not surprising to me that winemaker Fred Schrader is also an antique's dealer (which is to say, possesses a fine sensibility required by that profession). In fact, in downtown Calistoga, Mr. Schrader shares space with the lovely wine purveyor, ENOTECA (owned by lovely Margaux Singleton). Mr. Schrader's offerings of wine paraphernalia (including corkscrews and decanters), paintings, jewelry and pottery, among other artifacts, reside amidst bottles of fine wines. I am particularly taken by Mr. Schrader's offerings of prehistoric Native American pots....

Are you getting as bored as I am? This post is getting sluggish. Which means it's always time to mention a Revolution!

Like, I just sent a journal some collaborations with Nick Carbo, with whom I (and others) co-founded the New Poets Army. The journal asked for a poetics statement from the two of us; here are excerpts from that statement relating to our decision to collaborate on writing poems:

[...Carbo and Tabios] consider their NPA not so much Communist (like its Philippine-based namesake) but rebel-agitators on behalf of its cause. And what is the poetic NPA’s cause? It may be addressed through a description of a panel they helped organize for the 2003 Associated Writers Program (AWP) Conference.* Entitled “Pinoy Poetics: What is Filipino Poetry?” the panel’s description explains:

"Filipino and Filipino-American poets have been the bastard children of American poetry for more than a hundred years, spawned by the U.Ss invasion of the Philippines in 1898. Although often overlooked, marginalized, disinherited, alienated, or forgotten, this rich tradition of poetry proves itself worthy of inclusion in the main fabric of American and English literature."

[...] The collaborative nature of authorship also relates to Carbo’s and Tabios’s consciousness that both, today, are writing in English –- a language that became widespread in the Philippines as a tool of colonialism. That is, the U.S. invaded the Philippines in 1898, thus commencing the Philippine-American War which has been called the U.S.’s “First Vietnam.” Following the U.S.’ victory on the military terrain, they spread English across the archipelago to solidify their imperialist rule: thus, English became the preferred language for commerce, education and politics. Consequently, when Carbo and Tabios collaborate to write poems, they do so partly to shield their autobiographical “I” as being an author of these poems. For these poems are written in English.

[*Incidentally, I was originally scheduled to go to AWP, and my name is still in the AWP material and website; I won't be able to make it to Baltimore after all, but do check out this panel if you can.]

*****

Recently, I was trying to clean up my hard drive and got distracted by an old poem I'd forgotten I'd written. It was supposed to have been published in 1999 by a journal called ingraveink but I never saw a copy. It makes me wonder if they folded shortly after accepting this poem (anyone ever heard of this journal?). Anyway, here's the poem -- I want to share it just so I can release it from the depths of the hard-drive-closet. For poems should have light, light, light .... even if I wonder now whether it was indeed 1999 when I began writing in fragments (which is to say, what caused me to ... fragment? Ah: poor memory -- is there a reason you have become replete with fractures?):


THE OBVIATION TRIPTYCH

(i)
....waiting for scars to fall off the body

I consider “the silent baggage that accompanies all knowledge”

e.g. the French destroyed an entire theater on Samothrace looking for the marble head of Nike

A man found Africa too small, relegating Hannibal to a theme for Livy who died still writing the history of Rome. Yet, I must remind a beloved poet that only 35 of Livy’s 142 books survive.

Is not Nike of Samothrace more moving without a face whose expression would limit the viewer’s response to drapes molding strong thighs and muscled wings battling the wind?

....land become ocean, evershifting beneath man’s faltering steps

A ship’s prow slices air and I feel its cut keenly.

“Attitude Becomes Form” -– what does it mean about me that I am beginning to write in fragments?

(ii)
He says, “Interpret this tear leaking slowly from my right blue eye as an admission: I am 15 years old and I never intended murder.”

She says, “I am 90 years old. I have no commitments -– this, I highly recommend. Interpret these statements as a Cyclop’s eye, unblinking amidst houses and horses flying by in an unwielding storm.”

I would like my poems to inspire warships. We do not listen to Greeks who illustrated the futility of abstractions obviating chaos. The child must always feel the heat of the iron. I would like to see warships invading the still water of a bay. I am moved by angels who lose their heads but retain their wings. I am moved by those who leap towards their fall. I am moved by beasts who rip out my guts before I wake to a sunlit sky, no horizon in sight. I am moved by a vision that dissipates into edges of white light.

(iii)
Dream:
She is seated on a stage. He is the only one seated in the front row, directly opposite her. The director enters stage left. He is dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and a purple silk tie. He enters the stage to too much applause from an invisible source. He tells her, “Look directly at the man in the front row, then tell him how you would complete this sentence directed to him: I would like to teach you…”

She looks at the man’s gray eyes. She feels him waiting for her response. She whispers unsmilingly to his gray eyes:

“I would like to teach you kindly what you already know.”

He smiles at her. The director is again applauded after he proclaims, “This is a miracle. This is the first time I have ever seen him smile.”

“The man with gray eyes stands, walks towards her and whispers sweetly, “Do not be sad. The gender of water does not confuse.”


*****


"Attitude Becomes Form," eh? Okay, here's another fragment -- an excerpt from "Overcoming Aesthetic Apartheid" (forthcoming this week from OurOwnVoice.com; see January 23, 2003 post on "Dear Pinoy Critics..."), an article which also focuses on the paintings of Cristina Querrer:

"Querrer's aesthetic sensibility cannot be separated from her history. Her resume includes this paragraph:

Born in 1967 in the Philippines, Cristina Querrer says the roots of her poetry and artwork began in the Philippines and reflect her childhood experiences growing up in and around Clark Air Force Base. Struggling for her self-acceptance as an Amerasian child during the aftermath of the Vietnam War in the Philippines, Querrer's artwork and poetry is a rendering of loss and an ambiguous future, but certainly not without hope for our "terse attempt at redemption" from our human tendencies and suffering. There has been another phase, more regional: the assimilation back to the U.S. after 1985 living in Connecticut and the East Coast.

Until recently, Querrer was also a member of the U.S. Army Reserves who could have been called in to serve in potential battle involving U.S. personnel. She certainly understands the irony of service in the U.S. military, given the history of her birth—something that was particularly difficult to address given the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Shortly after '9-1-1,' Querrer disseminated an open letter in cyberspace, in which she said, 'Most of you might not know me. I'm usually the quiet one standing in the corner. Today I would like to say something like everyone else on the state of affairs. I am a mother of two, a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in the Philippines. I am a Filipina American woman who is currently a member of the U.S. Army, who will probably be called in to defend/support our country, United States. Lastly, I am poet who is ruled by emotion. To say the least, my conscience is torn and pulled in many directions. …As a soldier's duty I will defend and sacrifice myself to protect you; country, your children and mine...but I still believe foremost what pragmatists proclaim as intangible: hope, the power of prayer and love.'"

In conclusion: Love,
Eileen

NO VINOS SIN HUEVOS (AKA: WHAT A POET
HAS TO DO NOWADAYS TO RAISE MONEY)

As I admired a ruddy-cheeked man clad in a blazer made entirely of wine corks, Tom picked up an empty wine glass and a baguette. He turned to look at me. He proclaimed with gusto: I am armed and dangerous!

We were at the Twelth Annual Zinfandel Festival in San Francisco, sponsored by the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP). Fort Mason's two buildings were lined up with tables and tables of zin producers pouring samples of their wines, interrupted only by tables heaped with mountains of cheese and bread. I looked at Tom's waving baguette threatening to zap a lady standing behind him but before I could caution him, I had to get out of the way from being trampled by someone trumpeting: "I love wild women on wine!"

******

Poets -- I know you think WinePoetics is about us. But -- and I know it's almost unbelievable -- WinePoetics is actually not about me and what you think of me. I did not begin this blog because I wanted to publicly expound my thoughts -- brilliant though they are and publicly expounded they should be.

I did not begin this blog because I wanted to seduce all sorts of poets (male and female) -- though I have (preen). (Thank you, you Thous, for your wonderful love poems -- you all have marvelous taste. How unfortunate that I must not inflict, um, publish them here for the world to savor.)

I did not begin this blog to be hip -- though I apparently blathered my way into being mentioned by some hip poet bloggers (causing me recently to buy the tightest pair of jeans I've bought in years in an attempt to be "hip"...and, surprise, my ass is bigger than my memory of it).

I did not begin this blog to generate a way to promote my books -- though I shamelessly promoted them, if only to aid some of my non-profit publishers who can use all the support they can get given the economically beleaguered times for the arts.

I did not begin this blog to subtly (and not so subtly) question several assumptions and/or paradigms that exist about the practice of poetry -- though I am glad to have had the chance to conduct such questioning (not that I have answers).

I did not begin this blog to write out discoveries about myself -- though I have discovered (at times to my disconcertion) that a rapscallion imp lurks within the folds of my witch's gowns.

I did not begin this blog as a means of publishing a sample chapter from the aborted BESTSELLER I could write on a house-building-based memoir in Napa Valley -- but I am glad to have published that chapter as, if you are a potential commercial publisher out there, I am ready to repent and admit I was wrong: I am now willing to write for money; hand me a contract!

I did not begin this blog to elucidate you all about some aspects of Filipino and/or Asian American culture and (literary) history -- though I am happy to have done so in order to help alleviate a history of invisibility and silencing (which reminds me: you poet-peeps out there claiming the poet should "wear a mask" or that the blog should be used "to let others escape from us" need to understand how that is simply not appropriate for many poets whose contexts include historically silenced communities.)

I did not begin this blog to offer another space for anti-war sentiment -- though I did so and should have done so because (though I detest thoughts that begin with the phrase "poets should _____") poets should acknowledge politics and their very real effects on whether people live or die.

I did not begin this blog to promote other poets -- though I did so because it is my way of -- as Robert Creeley has put it -- "keeping company."

I did not begin this blog to promote bacon -- but I did so because bacon should be promoted (which reminds me that the best dish I have ever eaten is the truffle-laden grilled pork fat in the Fifth Floor restaurant; they probably called it by a fancier name but, still, it was pure bacon fat).

I did not begin this blog to have sex in the Internet -- and I haven't...but I'm still trying.

I did not begin this blog to share Gandhi's "Seven Deadly Sins" -- but I did, and it's worth sharing again so here it is:

GANDHI'S "SEVEN DEADLY SINS"
Wealth Without Work
Pleasure Without Conscience
Science Without Humanity
Knowledge Without Character
Politics Without Principle
Commerce Without Morality
Worship Without Sacrifice

I did not begin this blog to play with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's name -- but can you blame me?

I did not begin this blog to indulge myself -- I indulge myself and so began this blog.

*****

So why did I begin this blog? Believe it or not, it was a FUNDRAISER.

Ah, yes, people -- I was trying to persuade some oenophiles to donate resources in support of some poetry books I wish to publish in the future. Some of them have not really paid attention to poetry before, and so were curious about my thoughts on poetry. Indeed, I believe some were more curious about said thoughts rather than my actual poems -- which is why I couldn't just send them copies of my books. So I thought to share my thoughts on poetry -- all two thoughts of them.

I chose to share my two thoughts through the "blog" -- which subsequently forced me to make up more thoughts...and, you have seen the result.

And the result has not been pretty at times. But, now, I would like to acknowledge the real original reason for this blog because (perhaps in an attempt to make me shut up now), my oenophile-friends have committed to donate the funds necessary for my Meritage Press (link at right) to publish a book later this year by a poet who is one of the greatest secrets in contemporary poetry. Tat-ta-ta-dah! This is WinePoetics!

Yes, that's a very obvious tease. A future post will provide more details about what will be my next major publishing project. But in the meantime, do join with me in thanking "Oenophiles For Poetry" by sitting patiently (if water-drinking Jukka can do so, so can you!) through my report on today's major zinfandel wine tasting event. The wines bold-faced below may be considered this post's wine recommendations.

Let me start by first noting my most enjoyable encounter among the nearly 300 producers who showed up to pour wines. The Ravenswood booth not only featured bottles but tons of freebies like bumperstickers, pins and calendars featuring several of their witticisms. You've heard me crow earlier about their slogan, "No Wimpy Wines!" Today, I picked up a pin with the phrase, "No vinos sin huevos." I looked at the lady pouring the 2001 Bellino into my glass. Blushing, she translated, "No wines without eggs."

Didn't make sense to me...until the guy next to her snorted and said what she was apparently too shy to say: "NO WINES WITHOUT BALLS!"

(Ah, indeed, dear Cline Vineyards: To zin is divine!)

Anyway, my first stop was actually with Turley who poured the 2001 Hayne Vineyard zin. "Fabulously intense, like Kirsch liqueur. Candy undertones."

Then we trotted on over to Schrader who was pouring the 2001 Vieux-Os ("Old Bones" in French) from the Ira Carter Vineyard ("well-balanced; good fruit"). Fred Schrader is mostly known for his cabernet wines but made an exception by acquiring this fabulous vineyard. Fred, by the way, is the ex of Ann Colgin whose winery is one of the top cult wines* in California -- a detail I mention only because I've always been amused to hear that, as part of their divorce decree, Fred receives a case or two a year from Ann's valuable and delicious production.

Next, I tasted the Neyers 2001 Tofanelli Vineyards (with Ehren Jordan as winemaker). It was clearly a well-made wine but I was flustered by its style in the aftermath of Turley and Schrader whose wines were sweeter. But after a bite of Tom's baguette and some cheese, the Neyer started drinking well (obviously a good food wine then).

Then we stopped off at Rancho Zabaco Chiotti Vineyard. I freely admit that they got my attention first because they were serving complimentary beef jerky (yum). They poured the 2001 Dry Creek Valley zin ("earthy nose, bluberries, dusty. good but style is lighter than my preferred concentrated fruit").

At this point, I nearly crashed onto a couple who were wearing....wine glass necklaces. Their pendants were literally wine glasses, allowing them to carry three wine glasses at any point in time. As the lady had her wine glass necklace encased in strips of black leather, I cheerfully asked, "Is that the dominatrix version?" She looked at me. Cough. I backed up onto...the booth serving Ridge 2001 Pagani Ranch. Logically, I held out my glass. Logically, they poured. Unfortunately, the Ridge style seems to have changed: its zin is now a bit too light for my taste.

Next up, the Mondavi booth because they were pouring the 2000 Coastal Private Selection as well as the North Coast Private Selection. I preferred the latter because it was bigger, though that's not saying much as the Central Coast had little flavor.

We then walked over to Rosenblum who was pouring the 2001 Carla's Vineyard ("overly oaked; not balanced") and the Pato Vineyard ("a little astringent but still quite good").

Just as I was getting grumpy, I thankfully tasted next the Williams Selyem 2001 Russian River Valley. Yum! Plus a baby powder nose (I should copyright that phrase and, btw, totally accurate!). Concentrated blueberry flavor. And a fabulously smooth and rich finish.

Over on to Joseph Swan to taste its 2001 Zeigler Barrel Sample, which was okay. But we were totally blown away -- and this is the event's wine favorite discovery! -- by the excellent 2000 Mancini Ranch, Russian River Valley ("liquid candy cane"). The Mancini was the only wine for which we requested a second sampling -- which was something as we already knew we were not going to be able to go through everything offered.

Of course we had to stop by our neighbors: Dutch Henry who poured us their wonderful 2000 regular and reserve.

Then Tom and I went over to the Dickerson booth. There was a line in front of it and as we waited, we thought to try Domaine Danica; unfortunately, it was too light with a bitter finish. Fortunately, we quickly recovered with the 2000 Dickerson ("ripe fruit, well-integrated and very concentrated").

I backed up again against some people -- a three-some this time delightedly nuzzling each other. Zin-lovers!

Then we went over to the Chase Family Vineyard for their 2000. Granted, we approached them initially because one of the owners had engineered the road that we had to carve into the mountain in order to build our house (I'm telling you, Mr/s Commercial Publisher: I've got a BestSelling Book Waiting for you!). But I can sincerely report that the 2000, only their third production, is the best they've made yet and worth tasting -- a result that reflects how they began making the wine in their own facilities (previously, they relied on a custom crush facility, which means they had to abide by that facility's schedule and thus could not control when exactly to pick their grapes).

*****

So, I accomplished this blog's fundraising goal in 21 days. I had thought to shut down the blog after achieving the goal. But, I confess, your adoration is making me reconsider. And there is still that future post I need to write on what should be one of 2003's poetry highlights: a poetry collection spanning 1981-2003 by one of the most intoxicating poets working today. I find his poems astonishing for many reasons -- including a deft balance between his huge (humongous!) intellect and nonetheless very "loving" heart. Hint: he was published in POETRY as a college undergraduate, then published through Rosmarie Waldrop's Burning Deck chapbook series....before dropping into an obscurity from which yours truly is honored and blessed to lead him out for your reading pleasure.

Await the Word!

Meanwhile, it's "Disco Saturday Night on Star 101.3" here in wine country. I must go as more sins, um, zin await me this evening....

-----

*Other California cult wines are Abreu, Screaming Eagle, Araujo, Harlan, Bryant Family, and Maya. These cult wines have limited productions (perhaps a few hundred cases a year) so that it's almost impossible to get their wines unless you're on their mailing lists. In the past, this has caused for some interesting arbitrage. For example, a bottle of Screaming Eagle that sells for up to $275 on the mailing list has been flipped at auction immediately after purchase to sell in the thousands of dollars.

RIGOR, THE MORTIS WAY

Thomas Fink sends me a poem that he says he wrote for WinePoetics. But he sends it with this caveat-ish cover note:

Here's a poem for WinePoetics. I wish it were more positive about alcohol or, rather, the social contexts of drinking, or even more overtly about wine, but what comes out, comes out. (I'll understand if it's too negative or not wine-oriented enough for inclusion.)

Tom. I love ya. But remind me never to come to you when I have a strategic question involving promotion or marketing. Still, I do love the guy...and enjoyed his poem. So here's his poem:

THERE'S CENSORED HOSPITALITY

in a certain bouncer's lucrative
hypocrite teeth. Slum moves out, abetting casual evolution

into pre-faded empire. Vampire.
Scratchmouth turntable follows chili-nosed dowager
primping for vowel

immersion. Through the punted hall, figment of a
tigress tuxedo floating on balcony cedar. Festering
duffel can't hide gall. Sooty beret. Sousing cowed fake.
Mercilessly parted fat. Fickle knees spew tetanus salute, but curried
dufus clings to drowning. Or sunbathing

in scissors.
My flask accomplice spills gored pearl.
Election docks at cask labeled primordial. Cartoon pendulum's
steely dance stirring disco
clients' coquette stew. Dependable adrenalin escalation
administered

expensively by a heartbreak cashier.
Bar nuns sniffing infernal appeal, thong
clinking to tame godthirsty doubloons. Rug sot or
plainclothes faith healer: Which
does the wine drain?
And a poor rumor squadron will remind us of mounds.
Intimate tirade that someone must squeegee.

*****

Tom, by the way, isn't just a fine poet but an excellent critic who's provided intelligent words on such poets as John Yau, Ann Lauterbach, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Joseph Lease, David Shapiro, Charles Bernstein (catch some of his stuff over at Boston Review), among many many others -- including ME! something I reveal in order to honor The New York Times' recently announced attempts at obviating conflicts of interest. That is, the Times has a new (and 52-page!) code of ethics which includes several provisions that apply to the paper's art critics and art journalists. Titled "Ethical Journalism: Code of Conduct for the News and Editorial Departments," the code prohibits critics (and their editors) from suggesting galleries to aspiring artists or recommending artists to galleries. Furthermore, "they may not serve on advisory boards, awards juries, study committees or other panels organized by the people they cover" or "accept awards from such people." Last but not least, arts writers who own "art of exhibition quality (and thus have a financial stake in the reputation of the artist)" must "annually submit a list of their acquisitions and sales" for review. (I could tell you about the art critic I once saw exiting a gallery with an object in hand, shortly after publicly praising the exhibited artist -- leap; ah, ye who see with your ears instead of eyes! But, that's negative energy and, as such, does not belong on WinePoetics!) But why am I conceding that I'm good friends with a critic who happens to have reviewed my work (albeit, more on my art writings rather than on my poetry because we actually were sensitized to potential conflicts of interest)? Well, I can tell you that there are certainly significant implications to this issue....but I'm too bored at the moment to detail them out. So you figure them out....

Huh, to return where I was before I leaped: Tom is such a fine critic that I do believe he should review Ron Silliman's reissued TJANTING. Pause. Okay, actually, I was just looking for an excuse to mention Ron Silliman's name because I just learned he reads WinePoetics! I am so honored (really!)! And tickled lavender! (Lavender? Well, this is WinePoetics -- this is WinePoetics! -- and so I must react baroquely, you see.) But I must confess that I did first react to this flaw in Ron Silliman's reading habits by wondering whether I should start displaying more rigor underlying my blather (hic). Okay. So: rigor mortis.

[Pause. Tom just walked into my studio. He watches me cackling in front of the computer as I type out this post. He shakes his head. "I don't want to know," he says before I can tell him about my rigor-ed pun. He turns to leave the room. Before I can call him back, AOL announces: YOU'VE GOT MAIL. Another piece of junk e-mail. But the subject header announces, "New Product Gives Women Instant Orgasms!" I let Tom leave. But seriously....]

So, listen. I'm quite aware that notwithstanding this blog's name, I have not been particularly stellar -- rigorous, even -- with my wine tasting notes. So what am I going to do about it? Well, nothing, Dear Ones. Do you really think that if I cared about my reputation I'd be cheeky with my reference to ... Ron Silliman? (Am I being too subtle here, peeps, about....poets caring about "reputations"?)

What I will do, since it doesn't require much effort on my part, is direct you to a site where you can learn wine lovers' lexicon (as you obviously won't learn anything here, given that I'm only planning to be as rigorous on discussing wine as I am when I discuss....poetry). Thanks to Nick Carbo for alerting me to this site. Written by Robin Garr, this wine lexicon site is called...Wine Lexicon, and it's at http://www.wineloverspage.com/lexicon/

Now, I skimmed it briefly (as briefly as I skim how-to-write tomes; see prior post). Some things I noted (amidst my yawns):

Chateauneuf-du-Pape (Shot-toe-noof duh Pop): An excellent, complex red dry wine from the Rhone region of Southern France, made from a blend of up to 13 specified grapes and boasting a heritage that reaches back to the Fourteenth Century sojourn of the Catholic Popes in nearby Avignon (hence, "new castle of the Popes").

Yadda. I believe the Chateauneuf-du-Pape elicited my attention (my, my: I'm so bored today!) just because I adore its moniker amongs the initiated, to wit: "NUKE THE PUPPY!" Shot-toe-noof duh Pop, indeed!

[Stop it! I love dogs!]

Here's another sampling from Wine Lexicon:

Dumb: An ageworthy wine that has lost its youthful fruit but not yet gained the complex bouquet of bottle age, and not showing much of anything during the interim.

Gads! The pathos when you apply that specific definition to a "dumb" human!

In honor of Ron Silliman (have I mentioned he reads me?), I look up lavender:

Lavender: Specific herbal type, sometimes found in Provence and Languedoc reds. See also "garrigues."

Being the obedient type (is that a snort I hear, peeps?), I go to

Garrigues: The hillsides of Languedoc and Provence are covered with low, aromatic herbs like lavender, and it's traditional among the wine makers of those regions to report these herbal aromas in their wines. It's a useful term, but I try never to use it in a tasting note without explaining it.

Well, but at least it's explainable, dear Simon Garr, unlike "dew in Sri Lanka" (see January 11, 2003 post) which someone actually told me about a wine we were sharing during a mutual friend's dinner party. He was lucky what was in my mouth didn't end up Jackson Pollocking his shirt.

Okay, yawn. One more look-see and I go polish off the 1997 Rockford Dry Country Grenache -- still great after three days, which means if you amortize its $35/$40 cost over three days, it's not so pricey. Ooops. Amortize -- a term from my former banking days; forgive the reference. It's just that one of you poets just opined "business" is "sexy" and, cough, I wanted to be sexy (yes, I'm sure some of you would like to hear more about that particular conversation but, you know, Poetry is about "high modernism and hermeticism." Did that sound rigorous?)

Anyway, one more:

In-Your-Face: As the name implies, a forward wine, even "outrageous," that's anything but subtle. More often than not, I'll use this term in an approving way for a wine that's memorable.

IN YOUR FACE! Exactly! Folks, your intrepid WinePoetics reporter shall be conducting research tomorrow at the annual Zinfandel Advocates Producers' Convention. This will be rigorous duty, indeed, requiring me to taste 2,000 zins from 400 wineries during three-and-a-half hours. I do it all for you, for you, for you reading me. Because This is WinePoetics!

Sigh. Exhausted by that last proclamation, the bored one goes off to the sofa to collapse.

POETRY IS KARMIC (AKA HOMAGE TO JOHN OLSON)

Sometimes I skim through those how-to-write tomes to see if anyone is recommending that aspiring writers do what I (think I) am doing. In doing so, I often discover that I'm not doing what I should be doing if I want to be a huge success -- which may explain why I do my skim-reads at bookstores, rarely ever buying them. There was one book, though, that I thought to buy -- not because I longed for it to be in my library but because I wanted to show my appreciation for one of its concepts. First, a caveat: I think the book was So You Want To Write by Madge Piercy and Ira Wood. My memory is uncertain because though I recall walking around with it in a bookstore, I ultimately put it down and used the money for lunch....oh, okay: I don't mind a saintly reputation: I also used the money to buy a wonderful poetry book: Yoga Poems by Leza Lowitz.

Anyway, the concept I appreciated in the Piercy/Wood book (if it was that book) was the idea that a writer should do something positive once a day for another writer or to promote literature -- without expecting anything back in return. This concept is something with which I try to adhere because I believe Poetry is karmic (in fact, every single one of the ten books I've come out with has been opportunities that arose SPECIFICALLY because I was trying to do something else on behalf of another writer or on behalf of Poetry, rather than trying to pitch myself. There's a lesson there, peeps!) Well, tonight, I am so enjoying my glass of the 1982 Monfortino that I feel expansive. (Monfortino: Medium ruby color. Incredible nose of crushed roses, tar, cherries, oak and spice. Rich, lingering red and black fruits, roses, leather, green leaf tobacco and vanilla flavors. Wonderful integration of fruit and acid. Rich finish.) Expansively, I remembered this dictum and so felt like posting something nice about some poet I have never met.

Thus, John Olson.

One of my most enjoyable poetry experiences in the past three years was reading John Olson's collection, ECHO REGIME (Black Square Editions, 2000). I so enjoyed it that I wrote a poem based on its Table of Contents, i.e. each line in the poem contains the title of one of his poems in his collection. The subtitle references "Gabriela," which relates to Gabriela Silang, the first woman general of the Philippines who had led one of the Filipino revolts against the colonialist rule of Spain. My homage to John Olson was part of a series for Gabriela Silang; here's the background to Gabriela and the poetry series I wrote:

The Philippines became a colony of Spain in the 18th century. After witnessing the colonizers’ ongoing abuse of Filipinos, the Filipino Diego Silang started the Ilokano revolt against the Spanish authorities. Following Diego’s assassination, his wife Gabriela Silang carried on the crusade for freedom. After she and the remainder of her army were finally captured, the Spaniards hanged her soldiers—known to be among the most defiant of the Filipino rebels—and lined their bodies along the coastal towns for everyone to see. Their bodies were left to sway with the sea breeze in order to serve as a reminder to anyone who dared fight the Spaniards. Gabriela Silang was given the doubly painful experience of witnessing the death of her followers before becoming the last to die. She was 32 years old.

I have been writing poems to fictionalize—and create—a new life for Gabriela Silang in the 21st century. In writing these poems, I sometimes focus on mundane activities (for example, doing the laundry) to contrast against the larger matters of revolution and politics that took over Gabriela’s history. When I turned forty years old, I also wrote a poem about Gabriela turning forty since she never experienced this particular threshold. For Life unfolds, too, through its minutiae—a luxury never granted Gabriela whose life was prematurely cut short. Finally, I wanted to recover a life for Gabriela through my poems because she lived during a time when written records were scarce and not much is known about the Philippines’ first woman general.

In this poem, I fictionalized Gabriela falling in love with John Olson's poems simply because I did so. This poem is comprised of couplets -- something I mention as lines may continue "wrapping around" due to the narrowness of the blog's column:

ECHO REGIME ECHO
As Gabriela Falls In Love With John Olson

Attempting the conciliatory pose, I suggest “That’s reason enough”
when you slide drapes away from your ultramarine tongue.

The owl by the window wakes at its iridescent caulk
as if it envies your recipe for “Glossolalia.”

Tell me, Amphibious Muse, would you spank the ass
of a cello trailing “Reelism” as a peignoir or oranges,

scars and foam? Do you choose your movies
by the contrabassoon gurgling through a pipe behind a wall?

Do you bagpipe your knives with the giggles of knots, Spain and kites?
Somehow, the xylophone intrudes and I must wiggle-waggle

into a geisha’s green underwear to strum the chateaux’s red guitars.
High notes rattle weights and measures of dreams

photographed as stars leaning into Schubert as if
the “Water in Mahler” lacked chrysanthemums to lament.

Cup sweat to preserve Paganini’s bow and define respect
for leitmotifs imported from Norway to pin luminous squid

behind Roman glass. Vermeer and chestnuts comprise Art’s alchemy
and echo the mote in a Black Sun‘s eye. With a prostitute, imagine

“The Booth of Both” as the temperature of Texan twangs
locked in a suitcase instead of elastic discoveries declaiming

pecans into “hump speed” without invested nuance.
Restrictions unbound have signified the privilege of honey bees

over radio parts released like manna “sudden from heaven.”
I desire yellow diamonds littering an inside drawer of his wife’s armoire

not the fake balloon of benign neglects, its aborted semi off the road.
Ginger ale bubbles much mathematical lessons against intuition

including the dead reckoning over Spinoza’s Halloween pumpkin.
I would like to release the heliotrope’s vowels but the ginko

conspired until tone is a jail of hydrogen replete and bleak
with a pepper mill’s radiance and melody. Foie gras and opals

carry the day as Captain Nemo Serves Professor Aronnax.
Nor do umbrellas hover over grapefruit in Greenland.

Why bother defining the name of the game when desires wither
against Gillespie’s self-portraits? He could have painted Homage

To The Ballpoint (1950) to evaporate trembling giblets of language
from Artaud’s babble apparatus. I have read your secret

diary, complete with Incan treasure map, in the Rosette brochure.
Capsized logic is delicious like unbridled papaya. Civilized are egg

whites submitting to wave mechanics a la independent Africa
in order to obviate the sadness of the King. None of this lingers

as odd—night days lactate morphine. Kiss me, dear Twin:
the night is lactating morphine. And roses. And vampires about to sin

*****

Speaking of another wonderful poet: Andrew Joron (The Removes, Hard Press Editions 1999). I once told Andrew how much I admired John Olson's poetry. Andrew -- who knows John -- suggested I so inform John Olson. But I'm shy (stop that laughter, peeps!). So I'm just going to post my homage here in this blog and perhaps John Olson will find out. And perhaps not. It doesn't matter. This is a post written just to do something positive for literature by recommending John Olson's works: Thank you, Poet -- you did good with writing poems that provide much pleasure. Full stop.

DEAR PINOY CRITICS OF PINOY POETRY: GO EASY ON
THE TAPEY, YAH? (AKA, WHAT IS THE REAL STRUGGLE?)


[Tapey = rice wine; see post dated January 08, 2003 for more information, including recipe.]

I'd like to share the following excerpt from an article that will appear later this month on OurOwnVoice: Filipinos In The Diaspora literary journal (www.oovrag.com/~oov). The message is self-explanatory. The title of "Overcoming Aesthetic Apartheid" was inspired by a quote by Haryette Mullen: "While I celebrate the differences that create distinct aesthetic preferences, I seek to overcome the social segregation that enforces aesthetic apartheid."

*****

I've been forced recently to consider how the use of ethnicity as an adjective can be problematic because it opens the way for others to exclude someone from the definition. I've been thinking further about the irony of that exclusion coming from the inside, rather than from the outside, of a particular ethnic group.

In 1999 I moved from New York City to San Francisco (and St. Helena), CA. I immediately appreciated the presence of so many Filipinos in the Bay Area, CA, the largest Filipino population to surround me since I immigrated from the Philippines. The move facilitated my focusing on Filipino literature; while in New York, I had been active in the more general Asian American literary community. The releases of my edited books, The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings by Jose Garcia Villa and Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina-American Women Writers (co-edited with Nick Carbo) coincided with my move and also provided ample reasons for me to meet many of the local Filipino literati right away, and I have felt blessed by their welcome.

Fast forward three years. I hear through the grapevine that a Filipino editor of a Bay Area-based Filipino literary journal was discussing my work. This person apparently does not consider my work "Filipino poetry" and that, in fact (as if it were a horrible thing) I am a "language poet." I believe this person meant to dismiss (many of) my poems for how their focus does not privilege meaning. One result is that many of my poems are written to evoke an emotion without me, as author, specifying the nature of that hoped-for emotion; this has meant that these poems are not necessarily addressing particular topics but are more interested in combining words to generate some sort of energy. Occasionally, my poems have been called "abstract."

Given my obvious public interest in Filipino literature (I even published my first poetry collection in the Philippines in 1998, partly to challenge the “colonial mentality” of privileging publication in the West), I was astonished that I could be charged with not writing "Filipino poetry." I now realize, however, that the person was probably questioning why I do not write the kind of poems many Bay Area-based Filipino poets have written. Actually, I don't write the kind of poems many poets (Filipino or not) have written but, more specific to this issue, this person was contrasting my work to the area's poetic history. This is a poetry described to me by a long-time Bay Area resident poet as poetry rooted in cultural activism, hence the creation of poems that not only are narrative but, indeed, sometimes “journalistic. “

Recently, in anticipation of a special issue dedicated to Filipino literature to be published by MELUS: The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States, I also shared a discussion with other poets and critics about various ways of viewing poetry. At one point, I noted that it took theorists decades to understand that the disruption of poetic form can be as valid a way to agitate or activate as narrative poetry non-elliptically bemoaning racism and other abuses.

For example, in the issue of INTERLOPE #8: INNOVATIVE WRITING BY FILIPINO/A AMERICANS (for more information see http://www.interlope.org/issue8writers.html), Nick Carbo offers what he calls "Cube Dice Poems*." One poem is comprised of the lines:

Kiss along the ochre edge

Take your half of my soul

Obsidian songs sliding along your neck

An apple, an ankle, a tickle touch

I found your fragmented forgiveness under the bed

Verdigris is how I feel your shadow

The poem is a "cube dice poem" because each line is featured within a square. Squares form a pattern on the page that the reader can cut out and, using tape, use to form a cube. The reader then can roll the paper cube and each time, a different square, i.e. a different line, would end up facing upward. Carbo explains, "Roll the cube as you would a die. Repeat rolling and write down lines that are facing up. Keep rolling until you get all combinations (if you so desire)."

This means that there can be many resulting poems, even if their material is the same six lines, depending on the roll of the die and the reader's decision on how many times to roll the it. While the six lines themselves do not seem political in any way, Carbo's approach to this poem is, indeed, political! It laughs (well, giggles) at the literary canon! It subverts the traditional approaches to how the poem is taught, read and written! It is not a coincidence that someone who engages in this approach is a Filipino poet who is aware of English's background as a colonizing tool used by the U.S. in the Philippines.

It seems like such a basic idea but I find that I keep having to make this point in a variety of settings and contexts: art and poetry can be created in a multiplicity of ways. Let us not limit the Filipino artist to any particular mode just because it might serve a temporal political purpose. Would not such self-victimization be the greatest victimization of all?

For a related discussion on this issue involving African American poetics, I recommend the June-July 2002 online interview on Harryette Mullen (HM) available on the "Poets On Poetry" website (see http://www.writenet.org/poetschat/poetschat.html). The interview was conducted by Daniel Kane (DK) and partly addresses how Mullen’s book Sleeping With the Dictionary can be read as lacking allusions to race. Here is an excerpt:

DK: You say that you're interested in "the interaction of language and identity in poetry," and that "this is evident in all of my work." Muse & Drudge alludes to a recognizably African-American history on every page, while your most recent book Sleeping with the Dictionary is not so consistently "raced." I wonder if your choice to use word games and Oulipo-inspired procedures to compose poems in Sleeping with the Dictionary was made to enhance the very constructedness of racial identity and to complicate a potentially limiting sense of Harryette Mullen as "African-American poet." That is, are these kinds of language games a way of undermining identity and associating oneself with a kind of cosmopolitanism in distinction to a regionalist voice?

HM: Well, I thought I was working "beyond category" (as Ellington said of his compositions that mix jazz and classical influences) in […] Muse & Drudge. A few of the poems in Sleeping with the Dictionary are older than Muse & Drudge. As language and identity come together in the work, a concern with collective experience and cultural representation may be more evident in some poems, while wordplay and poetic experiment are more conspicuous in others. I don't know if I'm undermining identity so much as continually rewriting and revising it.

*****

Exactly. Not "undermining identity so much as continually rewriting and revising it." Oulipo stands for the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature, a group of writers and mathematicians whose members include Raymond Queneau, François Le Lionnais, Claude Berge, Georges Perec, and Italo Calvino. Just as Mullen uses Oulipo’s constraint-based technique to make poems, I often use visual art techniques to write poems; similarly, Bay Area poet Jean Gier reflects the internet’s influence to write some of her recent work (see http://www.geocities.com/gier99/nightjar2.html).

One can honor, as I do, the history of Bay Area political activism and how it was reflected in its poetry. But respect for that history need not mean imitating the form of the poems written during those times. Poetry is not static and need not be stuck in derivation. Thus, a Bay Area home-grown poet like Barbara Jane Reyes can create a prose poem like "Tenderly" (which appears in Reyes' first poetry collection, Gravities of Center, to be published in Spring 2003 by Arkipelago Books):

TENDERLY

what divides you down your center what sets you reeling into blissfulness what shatters you irreparably what is your flow to where inside your body do you recoil during full moons who will remind you to restore the shards of you to wholeness when everyone has been driven away and if these shards of you could speak would they tell you they would rather not be restored in what fractured language do you dream when you sleep alone

i have been tenderly cautioned memory is retained in my hair now flowing in heavy black cascades below my diminishing waistline i have been warned i must take care to worship and guard memory fiercely for even the most comfortless of these have given me flight

*****

I hope that the "Filipino"-ness of this poem is evident ('what divides you down your center," "fractured language" and so on certainly can denote the Filipino diasporic experience without alluding specifically to particular events that comprise journalistic narratives). Moreover, its form that obviates the use of the period may be considered, like Carbo's, to be a manner of questioning the unfolding of the English language which, when "Filipinized" as an issue, is a matter that inevitably hearkens back to English's imperialistic history in the Philippines. But let me also offer Reyes' own views on this form:

"The lack of line breaks and punctuation is strongly influenced by the poems in Dust and Conscience by truong tran. [...] The questions posed in the poem are also unclear and hence unanswerable. The lack of line breaks is to facilitate the continuity of the flow. I don't want the reader to have any resting places as the poem builds up and pulls the reader in. Even the break before the 2nd verse paragraph, I do not believe, offers any kind of reprieve even though it cuts the flow and introduces to the reader a 'new' rhythm or 'flow.' This 2nd verse paragraph may be seen as a response to the 1st verse paragraph's barrage of questions. But it doesn't provide any answers as much as compound the uncertainty."

Synchronistically, truong tran is a former refugee from Vietnam and postcolonial writer; the development of his own poetic form certainly reflects the backdrop of his experiences. Whether one chooses to read Reyes' poem in the manner she intended (of facilitating "uncertainty," a not unfamiliar element for the diasporic), her well-considered approach warrants respect. Jaime Jacinto, whose poetry and “Bay Area” credentials are unassailable, has noted that Reyes writes poems differently from her Bay Area poet-predecessors. Yet Jacinto obviously is not being dismissive. Like Jacinto, we should be accepting of differences among our community -- including our community's aesthetic approaches. To be so narrow-minded about our artists' multiplicity of approaches would certainly imply how little we have learned from our own history of being perceived as, and suffering from that perception of being, "Other."

*****

So. You Pinoys out there out to critique our community's poetry -- let's not become our own worst enemies. Forego that third jar of tapey; share a glass of what I'll be drinking today: the 1997 Rockford Dry Country Grenache from Australia's Barossa Valley. It'll make your lips pucker....in a non-disdainful way.

By the way, I like sharing back label information from certain bottles, and Rockford presents a note from Winemaker Robert O'Callaghan: "Barossa grape grower's folklore says vines never give their best flavour unless they're struggling. The sunburnt old timers that produced this wine have been doing it real hard for about eighty years. The only drink they get comes from the clouds, every year the growers prune them back hard. It's a great pity that we always look to the horizon, hoping to get some rub off from Europe's viticultural heritage, while we have our own, which vines like these have built over 150 seasons. It was a real joy to be able to vintage these grapes through my Bagshaw crusher, open fermenter and basket press which are as old as the vines. This wine is a pretty good indication of how well they got on together."

Well, I see two metaphors there: one relates wine -- or Mr. O'Callaghan's views of wine -- to poetry and the other doesn't (or not all the time). First, Mr. O'Callaghan's observation of "hoping to get some rub off from Europe's viticultural heritage" resonates for me in terms of noting how certain Filipino poets write in ways that seem more fitting with the "Western literary canon" (whatever that may be).

More interesting to me is the notion that "vines never give their best flavour unless they're struggling." I believe this is true agriculturally, but as a metaphor for how poetry works, I only agree half-way. That is, I don't believe a good poet needs adversity as material. I think a good poet can create a poem without necessarily suffering through privations (the fact that it's rare to find a poet who doesn't suffer is a different story); how about all those "sunset" poems? In fact, I first came to consider this issue when someone once told me years ago that I was lucky to be from the Philippines if I was going to be a writer and poet. When I asked what he meant, the person (whose name I've gladly forgotten) replied in so many words, "Well, you come from a beleaguered country. There was Marcos with his dictatorship and now the political corruption and economic privations -- these all provide great material for your work!"

Ah -- ye failure of multiculturalism! I replied then with, I believe, an obscenity or two (I was younger then) before noting the obvious, "I'd much rather that Filipinos weren't suffering. You can't really think I feel lucky to have poetic raw material from baboy-politicians torturing my people!?" [baboy = pig]

Where I do agree that Mr. O'Callaghan's statement applies to poetry is by defining "struggle" to be the poet's ongoing effort to improve his/her craft, open his/her vision, be as human as possible, be as engaged as possible with one's environment, be as naked as possible before the demands of the Poem (sorry to capitalize that word, Dear Gruff Bear), and whatever else might make one be a better poet. One of the 40 wine country poems I wrote shortly after moving to the Bay Area might be relevant:

Justice

I was wrong
to believe

the sun is impartial.
Among the fields

undulating
within wine country

the sun lingers
on the slopes

then peaks
of hills and knolls.

It traverses
lightly

and quickly
upon the flatlands.

Is this not justice
at work—

that gnarled vines
working harder

on steep terrain
amid gravel

receive more attention
than placid recipients

of earth fertile
with natural nutrients

and easily accessible
to water?

Thus, a glass of wine
answers many questions:

What are the taste
and bouquet

of an embrace
between crushed rocks and sun?

How might one feel
a sunbeam

wink against
a stone?

Perhaps gods
exist

and are not indifferent?
Perhaps gods

after all
are not always cruel?

-----
*[An e-chapbook of Nick's "Cube Dice Poems" will be published soon by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's xPress(ed); http://www.xpressed.org/]

DRAWING WHITE FLOWERS AGAINST SNOW
WHILE BUSH STEPS UP WAR RHETORIC

Earlier this week while going through the usual internet sites I try to read each morning with my specially-brewed coffee (see post entitled "The Way Of Poetry," January 17, 2003, for my cerebral brewing technique), I stumbled across Paul Cezanne's statement, "Art addresses itself only to an exceptionally small handful of people."

And it occurred to me that I frequently hear that -- or variations of Cezanne's statement. I can't tell you how SO MANY POETS have told me that they believe they're only writing for a community of a dozen or so people, or that (in terms of input to their work) they privilege a certain reader (usually some highly-respected figure within the "poetry world") over another reader -- an example of the latter perhaps being someone who does not usually read poetry (like, someone who might have stumbled across their book in an airport bookstore if airport bookstores ever stocked poetry books. [Temporary leap -- and why don't you airport bookstores stock poetry books anyway?!! Uh, other poetry collections besides the kid's, that is.]).

Listen: I prefer first growth Bordeauxes to white zinfandel so I don't mean to be naive here. But I think there are constraints to relying on how Cezanne spake above. Let me tell you about myself since, cough, I know I've been quite shy about doing that here. In 1996, three months after I began paying attention to poetry, I began writing a book about how 15 poets write their poems. Which is to say, I didn't know anything about poetry so I concocted that project partly to facilitate my education in what I thought would be a most efficient way; but, still, while writing that book (Black Lightning -- see link to right), I was perpetually fumbling. That book was recognized by the Witter Bynner Foundation and is now being used as a textbook -- a book written by a neophyte. Then, a poetry collection I wrote within my first two years of writing poems won the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry (I know many of you don't realize it so let me state it here: one of the greatest secrets in English-language poetry is the wealth of poetic talent living in the Philippines as well as within the Filipino-American community....AND YOU WILL BE HEARING FROM US THIS CENTURY!). So I mention these things not to highlight how brilliant I am but to suggest that perhaps we shouldn't presume (thus, limit) our assumptions on who comprises a poetry audience.

Nor does, say, an award-winning poet necessarily bring more intelligence or what-have-you to the reading of a poem. I know: look at me -- I have awards. Pause. Wait -- did I just insult myself? I must watch that alcoholic intake.....

Anyway, the point is, people are more smart ... and more dumb .... than we may assume them to be. So why not try to reach out to others beyond what we might initially preconceive to be our poetry "community" -- beyond, dare I say it, our individual poetry "scenes"? Why not welcome them into our "poetry world"? The stakes are high, as evident by the times -- I have faith that engaging in poetry mitigates engaging in .... war.

I do believe that the unmediated experience (to the extent unmediated-ness is possible) with Art is the ideal. Bow. But I've taken some of my most "abstract" poems and brought them to the attention of people who have never paid much attention before to poetry -- as well as people who, having read some of my works, had given up on them ("I don't get it" or variations of "Ugh"). (And perhaps one should give up on my poems or respond ugh-like -- but that's another story.) In response to these people who had thrown up barriers (including indifference) against engaging with Poetry, I didn't lapse to the attitude summed up by Cezanne. I engaged in dialogue (which is to say, I committed the "sin" of not simply letting the poems speak for themselves). And, dang if most (not a few, not some, but MOST) of them didn't respond with appreciation! Then some continued to engage with poems, and I subsequently would hear some offer appraisals on poems -- appraisals as intelligent as any I'd heard from longer-time members of the poetry world.

Indran Amirthanayagam mentions in Black Lightning that, as a diplomat, he tries to adjust cultural events so that various poets can add their presence (and poems) at embassy social gatherings -- "small things" like that matter, he says and I agree. It's a process that expands the audience for poetry. The "expansion" might be incremental, but that increment has value. (Surely we know the value of the increment, poets? All we have to do is consider how difficult it is to sell that second or third poetry book at a crowded poetry reading?)

Perhaps Cezanne is right (actually, to be frank, I do agree with him). But "small" is such a relative term. And should assessments like Cezanne's operate as blueprints for how one might behave as cultural activists on behalf of the very art form we practice? Pause. Oh, yes. I guess I had a thought that it's quite fitting and logical and appropriate for poets to be cultural activists. If you disagree, then you obviously live in a different world as I do and, though I'm open to learning about your type of world where poets can remain insular and defend your right to believe as such and won't hold it against any poems of yours that I might read....Oooops: such a lo-o-ong sentence! I just lost my train of thought!

Well, never mind: hectoring lecture du jour is done (and I was beginning to be bored). Y'all make up a very smart readership and I know you get my point, even if you may not agree....

Now, on to more fun stuff: San Francisco's International Art Exposition which just ended. The dealers with whom I chattered generally felt that the expo was a success, despite earlier talks of cancelling the event. I'm glad the dealers felt it went well as that means the event is more likely to continue; as one major gallerist proclaimed, "It's not economy; it's not war. What determines whether the expo continues is if dealers continue to sell!" Still, as I walked through the two pavilions at Fort Mason, the attendance only numbered in the hundreds (so that total attendance might be in the low thousands). Such attendance may be more than adequate, but I couldn't help but compare it to what I know will be much more robust this coming weekend as the same two pavilions host the annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers convention (YAY!!). Based on last year's affair (I attend it annually, of course), attendance runs closer to 10,000.

But zin lovers are a special breed among wine lovers, you know. They're the "poet-rebel" equivalents among the oenophiles. I -- and this is no lie -- have been wearing a fleece vest during most of the winter and ensconced happily above my heart is a pin labeled "ZAP 2002" from last year's convention. Thus, this post's wine recommendation is the zinfandel of Ravenswood, who also has concocted one of my most favored slogans in the wine world: NO WIMPY WINES! I could just as easily apply it to Poetry: NO WIMPY POEMS!

Pause as I get new e-mail -- touting the latest version of free Viagra (this one has to do with being an "herbal" version) -- and delete said e-mail.

So, to continue, here are some highlights for me from the art expo; I specifically note those artists I discovered for the first time through the expo (which is the point of these affairs, no?):

Jenny Dubnau's paintings at Bucheon Gallery (San Francisco);

Sara Eichner's paintings at Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia, PA);

Mark Shainkmann's works at Gallery Joe (Philadelphia, PA); and

Tom Birkner's paintings at Paul Thiebaud Gallery (San Francisco, CA).

Then there was my one purchase, a drawing by Reanne Estrada from Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery (San Francisco). Interestingly, my SF Art Expo purchase last year was from this same gallery of then unknown Stella Lai (she may have been a last-minute addition to the show year). This year, Stella Lai is clearly a gallery star with her works flying off the walls like....like hotcakes that first were flung at the walls? (How does that simile work again? Anyway...)

Then, not new to me as artists but whose works were nice to see (among many many others I enjoyed; I just feel like specifying these because their references are the ones I can read in my notes; I have medicalese handwriting):

Daniel Douke's paintings at Jerald Melberg Gallery (Charlotte, NC);

Ann Wilson's smart and lyrical drawings at Roy Boyd Gallery (Chicago);

Jackson Pollock's intimate canvas "No. 27" (orange background and black and white brushstrokes that show how he had tapped into that internal zen space when he made the work; a small work that was nice to add to my memory of his works since my memory is dominated by his larger canvases) at Salamander O'Reilly (New York); and

"Fueling the Fire," a large 2002 painting by Christian Vincent. This is a richly-surfaced painting depicting an old guy being fed plates and plates of cakes. Serving him are a line of young men all rushing to feed his seemingly insatiable appetite. Adding mystery to the narrative is how all men are clothed in business suits. The elegant frame of black wood (?) enhances the theme of power -- and pathos through the failure of power -- that is strongly present in the lushly-painted work.

Christian apparently sells well (perhaps partly due to the Hollywood crowd since he's married to Peri Gilpin, the actress who plays "Roz" on hit T.V. show "Frasier"). But, critically (vs. commercially) speaking, I also think Christian is an underrated artist. As I wrote about him in my book MY ROMANCE (see link at right; what -- you think I'm promoting my books too much? get real: literary authors should at least be compassionate -- yes, compassionate! -- enough to support their publishers, okay?):

I believe Vincent's themes relate closely to the booming stock market of the last two decades -- a development reverberating not only within the business world but in culture. During that period, the accumulation of wealth also served to widen significantly the chasm between the poor and rich. For many, spiritual poverty seemed to rise with material wealth. Against this backdrop, Vincent's paintings also may be seen to be an extension of the dialogue depicted by the social realist painters between WWI and WWII.

Before WWII, such forces as the Depression, Fascism and the threat of a world war inspired such artists as Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield to paint despondency. Vincent is as adept as these artists in using light to evoke haunting moods. [...]

Whereas much of the twenties and thirties' art portrayed cityscapes to effect the (cheerless) mood of the times -- such as Hopper's "Nighthawks (1942)" -- Vincent focuses directly on the personal world of powerful men to depict psychological bleakness. On this level, Vincent's painting "Cockfight" shares much with Reginald Marsh's "The Bowery (1930)" with both evoking a sense of psychologically ravaged men. However, the men in "Cockfight" seem worse off because the kind of impoverishment that blinds them to the brutality of (paying) the two men fighting within their midst is from an internal cause -- not the external source of, say, a depressed world economy.

Consequently, the men in Vincent's "Interconnected," "Shelter" or "One Foot Out" are shown to be as much at risk to the vicissitudes of life as the young women portrayed in Raphael Soyer's "Office Girls (1936)." Vincent presents a world where men try to bolster their security with accumulated wealth, and fail. Just as Burchfield painted a rural American from which pioneer strength had vanished, Vincent paints a world where money's limitations are starkly revealed for the purpose of guaranteeing happiness.

Despite hearkening back to early 20th century realism, Vincent['s] vocabulary reflects our times adeptly. For instance, the conflation of witness with participant in our media culture, as most overtly reflected in the participatory audiences for such television shows as "Jerry Springer," is one of the characteristics used by Vincent in the perspectives of his paintings. Unlike for a Hopper painting where the viewer remains an observer, Vincent places the viewer right smack in the middle of his scenes -- one (even a female viewer) is mingling with the crowd in "Cockfight" drinking a martini; one is yelling "Hurry!" to the line in "Eradication"; or one is in the room, perhaps sitting in an armchair, in "One Foot Out." The viewer is enmeshed in the intimacy of -- rather than looking at -- Vincent's scenes.

In addition, Vincent is drawing attention to one of the most significant (and yet now ignored) periods of American painting to note that we -- the country and the art world -- are at a critical juncture. In the decade prior to WWII, the United States didn't have a vision of its future so much as simply was trying to survive the Depression. Events led the country to WWII from which it emerged the victor, and subsequently led to the explosion of American culture including abstract expressionism and pop art. Vincent is reminding us that parallels can be drawn between the social and economic upheavals of the thirties with the situation we find ourselves in today following the recent crash of the stock markets.

If art is to reflect the mood of a culture, Vincent has tapped into something about the current psychology of the country. But instead of lapsing into nihilism, nostalgia, romanticism or kitsch, Vincent evinces a classicist eye and approach. In doing so, he maintains faith in his art -- the art of painting -- and, ultimately, the future of humanity.

*****

By the way, another of Christian's paintings ("Cockfight," 1999) inspired me to write a poem ("Vulcan's Aftermath") that you can see at MoriaPoetry (http://www.moriapoetry.com/tabios.html); thanks to editor William Allegrezza for publishing that poem.

Oh, but since This is WinePoetics, I should share one last story about Christian Vincent. So, one summer, I and a group of friends were entering a fabulous restaurant in wine country, called "Travigne," for lunch. We see Christian and Peri standing by the bar waiting for their table. Since Tom and I had met Christian before in New York during one of his openings at Forum Gallery, we go over to say "Hello." And as we approached with hands outstretched, you can see Peri's face fall and then politely compose itself into pleasant impassivity; I could read her thoughts, "More fans." But we, in fact, didn't notice her at first and addressed Christian, who then introduced us to the lovely actress whom we did admire. But what was equally hilarious was how pleased Christian was to see us. Now, I'd like to think it's because he's enchanted by me; but I'm pretty sure it was because, for once, fans approached them as a couple -- but it was for him and not his wife! Don't we all know how Christian feels? It'd be like a poet being approached on the street to be told by a total stranger: "Oh, hey! I know you! I love your poems! In fact, I keep a copy of your book in my knapsack with me!" (But is that laughter I hear? Why laughter? Once, I walked around for years with a teeny chap-pamphlet by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge in my bag until the paper literally disintegrated! I used to play this game of asking myself to define a "poet" because, basically, I consider this inarticulable. But among my favorite definitions was, "A poet is someone who never leaves home without someone else's poetry book in his/her knapsack/bag/briefcase/teddy-bear-bag." Leap: yes, I have a teddy bear bag -- your point is?")

Naturally, art fairs can be fun, too, for catching up with folks. But at Allan Stone's booth, a man mistook me as a gallery staffer (probably as I was chatting about pot roast recipes with Allan and Allison Stone) and asked the price of the deKooning. Having just seen the price list, I knew to say, "$2 million." He walked away, paused, turned to say, "Would you take a million?"...but I guess he was joking as he continued on to walk away before I could say, "Yes" and leave him and the gallery to sort out the mess later.

*****

Speaking of art, I just remembered poet Rena Rosenwasser (Simulacra, Kelsey St. Press) because she has a superb art collection. She tells me that last week she drank "an 85 Lynch Bages that was superlative -- laced with loamy earth and musty mushrooms -- and also a fabulous 72 Chateau D'Yquem...." Sweetie -- where was I?

******

Thanks to Nada Gordon for sweetly acknowledging my blog on her blog. Dear Nada -- I hope this post was sufficiently "lush" for you: I made sure to wear dangly earrings this evening as I typed it out. As you've clearly understood from my words, I also am a devotee of the "ornament."

SOBERED

Poet Bino A. Realuyo writes (forwarding useful information from The Nation's website) -- to cheer up my mood somewhat with that bold-faced paragraph below (keeping my pens crossed here). Let's remember that politicians understand that protesters are voters, too:

As approximately 100,000 US troops made their way to the Gulf last Saturday, their numbers were dwarfed by the ranks of protesters who took to the streets in cities around the world to condemn a possible US invasion of Iraq.

The US saw its largest protests since the Vietnam War era, as hundreds of thousands of people turned out nationwide to register their voices against war and the Bush Administration.

Despite temperatures which hovered in the mid-20s throughout the day, an energetic protest drew appromixately 200,000 people to Washington, DC's National Mall for an event which DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey said was, "one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times." And, as Liza Featherstone reported, though many protesters looked like mainstream America, the day had an invigoratingly confrontational mood.

Read her eyewitness special Nation report:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030203&s=featherstone

We may already be seeing signs of the peace movement's impact with the Bush Administration's new talk of possibly allowing Hussein into exile, if it "can avoid war." As John Nichols argues in a survey of Saturday's antiwar activism, the president and his aides must be getting increasingly concerned about the rising level of antiwar sentiment.

Crowds Press Antiwar Message Nationwide by John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=309

And check out the following very incomplete list of antiwar resources:

Nation Articles and Links
http://www.thenation.com/directory/view.mhtml?t=040307

Nation Activist Ideas
http://www.thenation.com/actnow/

Black Voices for Peace
http://www.bvfp.org/

United for Peace's Event Listings
http://www.unitedforpeace./org

Frequently and Infrequently Asked Questions About Iraq
http://www.nationbooks.org/chapter.mhtml?t=hiro

MoveOn.Org's Petition to Allow Inspections to Proceed
http://www.moveon.org/nowar/

Iraq Speakers Bureau
http://www.iraqspeakers.org/

Britain's Stop the War Coalition
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Elizabeth Roberts' Letter from Iraq
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030203&s=roberts

Stephen Zunes' Case Against the War
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020930&s=zunes

==========

Thanks Bino. I shall toast you with the _____. Aw, hell....let's just stay sober with this one.

CONFLICT AND CONFLICTED

War-resonance darkens my beloved cobalt sky -- shivering angels appear, masquerading as clouds. Conflicted today. A blog is "me, me, me." But it seemed ridiculous to continue. So I thought of foregoing a post today (which also is significant when, as you all know, I've been fairly prolific. I've posted as much as five times during a single day, and fairly long posts relative to blog-type postings). But this blog is also about (my) Poetry....and I didn't feel like being silenced by those who would practice war.

Then someone e-mailed, asking me to contribute to an anti-war anthology. So I wrote a new anti-war poem, and here it is; you might see the poetry-in-progress aspect by noting how I obviously cannibalized from the immediately preceding post of January 19, 2003:

Why I Want To Be A Baconaut

Sometimes when I put something full of flavor in my mouth, I close my eyes and feel like I'm flying--drifting into eternity, above and beyond all the craziness of the world below, and I dream that all there is in the world is love, harmony and bacon.
--Dan Philips, "Future Baconaut"

A painter lays down his brush
to speak the unspeakable –-
"The artist painting white flowers
against snow while others march
is as political as those who laid
down brushes to wield placards."

Today, I am a poet
writing bad verse because
a headline blares
"Politics and Science Mix Badly."
I read its significance
as the inexplicable
inability to understand
BOMBS AND BULLETS KILL, KILL, KILL...

I begin to search for "comfort
food." I find a "Family-size" package
of bacon. I fry and eat them all,
welcoming the heat
burning my inarticulate tongue.

With the most avid mouth
I eat and eat –- cramming the strips
quicker and quicker
into my ravaged, ravaging mouth.

I eat them all.
I eat them all.
I eat them all...

*****

My poems author themselves, so it didn't surprise me that the poem incorporated details which I didn't anticipate. The painter referenced in the first stanza is Manuel Ocampo; I believe he came to mind as I recalled (assuming my memory is correct) that he once said something about how an artist who decides to keep painting by the side of the road where a rally is proceeding can be as "political" as those participating in the march. And the headline references an article that's not even about the war but presents Roger Pielke Jr.'s coverage of the controversy over The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. According to the article published by the International Herald Tribune, Lomborg's book argues that the health of the environment is not as dire as described by some environmental groups -- a pronouncement that has been condemned for being misleading and advancing the cause of those seeking profits at the expense of the environment. The Tribune article then mentions "scientific dishonesty" in how scientific assessments may be prejudiced by one's politics. Looking now at my Baconaut poem, I suppose I (unconsciously) made this article's headline into a metaphor over how many politicians don't seem to get the obvious scientific fact that bombs and bullets kill people.

Nonetheless, as a poem, I think "Why I Want To Be A Baconaut" is only okay. (Hmm. The poem, with its didacticism -- not my strong suit -- might have suffered because I resist narrative, which means, another of today's lessons for me is to work on breaking down that resistance?) Anyway, it's only an okay poem (or so I feel). But it does the job. It's like the Cartledge & Brown 2000 Chardonnay: it does the job (pleasant enough with its citrus and butter combination, but without leading to a transcendent tasting experience). Through today's poem, I met the requirement for engaging in an anti-war project. And, sometimes, doing the job more than suffices. Poetry is BIG enough, too, to allow for faltering attempts, especially when there are bigger things at stake.

BIG Poetry.

(But what about transcendence? Or, dear Muse: is your ultimate lesson du jour that I am using transcendence to escape?)

WHY I WANT TO BE A "BACONAUT"
(AKA HOW TO LOSE A GOOD MOOD)

So I switched from weekly to monthly archiving because I wouldn't want any of you to miss a single word -- nay, a single letter -- of what's been written here since January 4. This is WinePoetics! Ach: I am in such a good mood, which only brightens further as Espoo, Finland sends me an e-mail.

Today, xStream (http://xstream.xpressed.org/issue7.html) announces that its latest issue is online; here's a post from editor and publisher Jukka-Pekka Kervinen:

xStream Issue #7 is online, now in three parts:

1. Regular: Works from 6 poets -- Amy King, Eileen Tabios, Jnana Hodson, Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton and Wendy Collin Sorin

2. Autoissue: Poems generated by computer from Issue #7 texts, the whole autoissue is generated in "real-time", every refresh.

3. Collaborative Issue: with Denise Duhamel, also real-time.

I've checked out the "Auto Issue" -- very interesting to see poems continually in flux. It's a conceptually-smart take by Jukka on the notion that the same poem can come to mean different things with different readers and/or at different times of reading by the same reader. Congratulations Jukka! Were you able to drink wine, I'd offer a bottle of the wine I'd most recently acquired for the cellar: the 2000 Majella Mallea, a shiraz from Australia.

I got that bottle from "The Grateful Palate," a specialty food and wine distributor. Check out their website at www.gratefulpalate.com, particularly if you're a bacon fan. In fact, the site currently opens up onto owner Dan Philip's explanation of his plans to send bacon into outer space, as follows:

Sometimes when I put something full of flavor in my mouth, I close my eyes and feel like I'm flying--drifting into eternity, above and beyond all the craziness of the world below, and I dream that all there is in the world is love, harmony and bacon. In an effort to forward world peace, I plan to be the first person to send bacon into space. I’m in negotiations with the Russian government to purchase a seat on their next space shuttle where I’ll place a box with our Thirteen Bacon Combo. I keep calling the Bush White House seeking a better offer, but I can’t get a call back. Maybe they only eat beef in Texas? Wouldn’t it be a national embarrassment if the Russians were the first to send bacon into space? I’m one of those crazy people who believe things like good food and wine have the power to heal. That cooking and winemaking are two of the most sacred acts humans do. That Flavor is just another way of saying Freedom. That Flavor is Love.

DAN PHILIPS
Future Baconaut

[Backtrack Leap: As I was saying about xStream:] I had forgotten that one of my five poems in XStream is wine-related! So here it is:

RESTIVE
--after "On God (En Garde)" by Archie Rand

The farmers are monitoring the sky. Rain dilutes sweetness in the grapes. Knuckles knot into themselves, mimic the knees of hundred-year-old grapevines. The cabernet hang like purple testicles. I am always fingering a bunch. Sometimes I pinch off a globe, split its skin before my lips and suck at its membrane. The farmers measure brix mathematically. I want my body to determine truth like Cezanne painted rocks instead of images. When I see the winged shadow glide over the fruit-laden fields of wine country in September, I know better than to question how my body doubles over. How my mouth gasps. I feel blood flowing out of a creature, somewhere, felled on its path. Its last vision will be a vulture's open beak. Sweetness, let the harvest begin under the most livid sun. "Sweetness"--perhaps I mean You, dear "God." Lord, I am praying for life and living--I am making poems.

*****

In this same issue is Denise Duhamel's poetic report on 9-1-1 entitled "the love which took its symmetry for granted." I'd read her poem shortly after she first wrote it because some of my e-mails were part of what she'd collaged into her poem (other sources being e-mails from Jeffrey McDaniel, Susan Wheeler, Sherry Busbee, Mark Winkler, Amy Lemmon, Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence, Susan Yuzna, Julia Ohern, Bill Cohen, Laetitia Duhamel, Sharon Olinka, Florida International University, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Poets House, and American Airlines. Her referenced article quotes from Gary Kamiya, Mary Ann Weaver, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, and Bob Wing).

Denise's poem reminds me of my own collaged poetic report on 9-1-1 which you can see at http://www.philpost.com/0901pages/tabio0901.html. My poem carries the subtitle "Notes to a Poem I will Not Write" partly because, at the time, I was questioning the idea of making a poem from the tragedy (I used to work for three-and-a-half years at the 103rd floor of One World Trade Center). In any event, as with Denise's poem, 9-1-1 certainly seems to lend itself to de facto collaborations with others -- which makes sense if tragedy also makes us reach out to others.

For me, 9-1-1 poems also resonate given the ongoing deployment of U.S. military forces. The last time I checked, Osama Bin Laden wasn't believed to be hiding out in Iraq. But if U.S. policymakers believe that the next phase of the current war will be a more open conflict with multiple countries that harbor Al Quaeda elements, it's an old story in military strategy to first secure one's lines of communications. This means, military strategists would consider it prudent to secure the most important resource for the American economy: oil. Thus, the implications of the current deployment scares my eyes: we are about to engage not just in an open conflict, but a prolonged open conflict -- "conflict" here not just battle but subsequent occupation.

That's my assessment du jour. I hope I am wrong. I hope I am blind.

I am no longer in a good mood.

I want to follow Dan Philip: "Sometimes when I put something full of flavor in my mouth, I close my eyes and feel like I'm flying--drifting into eternity, above and beyond all the craziness of the world below, and I dream that all there is in the world is love, harmony and bacon."

THE DAZZLING ARTHUR SZE....
IN THIS BLINDING DAZE OF WAR

I tell myself to be open to all experience,
to take what is ugly and find something nourishing in it;
as penicillin may be found in green moldy bread,
or as, in the morning, a child of the earth
floating in a porcelain jar full of rainwater
is something astonishing.

But after the SWAT team has moved in and taken over
the flotsam and jetsam of a prison,
and the inmates are lined up and handcuffed to a chain-link fence,
I figure their chances, without people caring,
are "an ice cube's chance in hell."
--from "Written The Day I Was to Begin A Residency at the State Penitentiary" by Arthur Sze

Is not a "SWAT team" moving through the current deployment of the U.S. Military towards the Middle East? Weather considerations offer the logic that if the U.S. must engage in war, it must be soon...

*****

A few poets were significant to me during my early development as a poet. Among them is Arthur Sze, whose works are among the most astonishing manifestations of Beauty that I have ever read and experienced. For instance, this poem (whose title Cheech and Chong mangled as "Fussy Pussy"):

Pouilly Fusse

1.
Foxes and pheasants adorn
the store window. A woman sells
dried anise, dried purple

mallow, and caviar inside.
But we don't live on purple mallow,
or Pouilly-Fusse. I think

of the Africans I met
going to pick grapes at
$1.40 an hour.

2.
A man trying to sell roses
throws water, and, instead of sprinkling,
drenches the roses. And

an old woman carrying leeks
wears shoes at least three sizes too large,
and walks almost crippled.

But, then, they make a world of
leeks and roses.

*****

It would take more pages than the total of WinePoetics to date -- really! -- for me to even come close to capturing the impact Arthur has had on my work. Indeed, my first book, Black Lightning: Poetry in Progress (see link at right) was titled after one of Arthur's poems because I'd thought that I was a "blind girl" until I understood the nature of lucidity as partly taught by Arthur's poems (which is not to say that my vision doesn't falter, but I at least have now been blessed by glimpses of radiance -- and their memories do make it easier to persevere when darkness also sets):

Black Lightning

A blind girl
stares at me,
then types out ten lines
in braille.

The air has a scent
of sandalwood and
arsenic; a night-blooming cereus
blooms on a dark path.

I look at the
short and long flow
of the lines:
and guess at garlic,
the sun, a silver desert rain,
and palms.

Or is it simply
about hands, a river of light,
the ear of a snail,
or rags?

And, stunned, I feel
the nerves of my hand flashing
in the dark, feel
the world as black
lightning.

*****

Black Lightning was published by the New York-based Asian American Writers Workshop (AAWW), which also sponsored a biannual literary journal that I edited when I still resided in New York, the Asian Pacific American Journal. When I resigned as editor because of my move to the West Coast, I wrote a farewell note in my last issue as editor of the APA Journal. In that Editor's Note, I mentioned my plans to move to Napa Valley, thus causing me to reference another of Arthur's poems:

THE CORNUCOPIA

Grapes grow up a difficult and
sloped terrain. A soft line of poplars
shimmer in the disappearing light.
At midnight, the poor move
into the train stations of Italy,
spread out blankets for the children,
and pretend to the police they have tickets
and are waiting for a train.

The statue of Bacchus is a contrast
with his right hand holding a shallow but
wine-brimming cup. His left hand
reaches easily into the cornucopia
where grapes ripen and burst open.
It is a vivid dream: to wake
from the statue's grace and life force
to the suffering in the streets.

But the truth is the cornucopia
is open to all who are alive,
who look and feel the world in
its pristine beauty -- as a dragonfly
hovering in the sunlight over clear
water; and who feel the world
as a luminous world -- as green plankton
drifting at night in the sea.

As you can see, I keep falling back onto Arthur's poems because I like melding them into the days of my own life. I love Arthur's poems because -- and it should be obvious -- their dazzlement is simply wondrous. I usually feel Arthur's poems in the same way I experience the d'Yquem which has been called aptly, "nectar of the gods."

*****

In Napa Valley last month, I inaugurated my day job as a farmer by picking 300 pounds of olives from an old, huge olive tree on my yard! (Okay, that'll translate to perhaps 50 bottles of olive oil but....it's a start!) Thus, do I also share this poem by Arthur:

Lament

Let me pick
olives in the moonlight.
Let me ride
a pale green horse.
Let me taste the autumn fires.
Or else,
let me die in a war.

*****

So, Dear People, how have we come to this space of diminishing the dazzlement of our world? Why must we always compromise and lapse into war? And of course there is frustration in simply writing these words. These are simply ... words.

In today's context, I read "Lament" as also suggesting that perhaps if more people picked olives in the moonlight, rode on a pale green horse, and/or tasted the autumn fires -- which is to say, read and enacted Poetry -- there wouldn't be so much dying through wars.

Today: anti-war protests in San Francisco. A local policeman is quoted in the news as saying this is the largest anti-war rally he's ever monitored in 20 years. "What do we want?" "PEACE!" "When do we want it?" "NOW!"

Sesshu Foster, another poet I met through Black Lightning, e-mailed to ask that I circulate the following notice. I will because, yes, the "false dichotomies between politics and aesthetics can only be put to rest when history is made present and resistance enacted."

POETRY IS NEWS!

The world situation is on the insane brink of more war, with civil liberties under siege, is getting worse by the hour. In addition to everything we do as citizens, we now call for action within the sphere of all public cultural activities as it becomes increasingly embarrassing and painful to attend events that don't even "reference" the current reality. The false dichotomies between politics and aesthetics can only be put to rest when history is made present and resistance enacted.

POETRY IS NEWS, a forming cultural coalition announces its inaugural event:

Operation Counter-Intelligence: A Cultural Wake-Up Call
will present panels, performances and reports from the front.

Participants include poets, writers and critics Ammiel Alcalay, Samiya Bashir, Moustafa Bayoumi, Gabrielle David, Alan Gilbert, David Henderson, Fanny Howe, Elias Khoury, Michael Palmer, Anne Waldman and Eliot Weinberger; musician Marc Ribot, special guest, cartoonist and journalist Ted Rall, and others to be announced.

Topics we will address include:

Where Is Poetry? Responding to Crisis
Acting in Public: Expanding Cultural Space
Bringing Back the World
Being Censored, Censoring Ourselves

Reports from the front include:

Rebecca Murray, an International Solidarity Movement activist, on her experiences riding ambulances in Jenin

Sara Reisman, on demonstrations she has organized in front of the INS building

Kristin Prevallet and Rachel Levitsky on Debunker Mentality, public poetry actions taken after 9/11

Rachel McKeen on Brooklyn high school kids' reactions to military recruitment.

The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church
Saturday, February 1st, from 2 to 9 p.m.
131 East 10th st. Admission is free.

For more information, call 212-674-0910 or check www.poetryproject.com

For press contacts and interviews:
Ammiel Alcalay (aaka@earthlink.net)
Anne Waldman (anne.waldman@mindspring.com)

======

Arthur Sze's poems are featured from THE REDSHIFTING WEB: POEMS 1970-1998 (Copper Canyon Press, 1998). No need to sue me for publishing them in WinePoetics as I'm sure Arthur won't mind. For all your encouragement as a friend, as well as the encouragement in your poems, Salamat, Arthur -- I toast you with this evening's wine in my glass: the 1997 Kistler (Vine Hill Vineyard) Chardonnay.

SEX IN THE INTERNET WITH MICHELLE.
COUGH. THAT IS,
MICHELLE AND SEX IN THE INTERNET

[This is my first post with an epigraph, as follows:]

"Poetry is a brow job."
-- JoeyAyala

Michelle Bautista wrote in response to my posts. First, she responded to my January 16, 2003 post when I partly speculated about the difference between a chat room and a blog by saying:

Like, I really have no life so that I gotta hit a chat room? I mean, with a blog, at least you know who you're really having sex with, right?

So, dear Michelle said (and, by the way, is that earnestness I sense? if so, how moving -- so much more affecting than irony. O, chilly irony: away with thee!):

"I don't know if blogs, which originally came from 'web logs'
we(blogs) started out as notices of what has recently been updated to the site. Designers would say, 'on this date, these photos are new' or something like that. But then, they started talking about why they haven't updated stuff and talking about their lives, then posting journals, so now we've gone from 29 blogs in 1999 to over 200,000 in 2002."

But 200,000 may well be a low estimate. Blogspot.com, the sponsor of this blog, claims to have over a million registered blog users. Also, Michelle cited PBS which post post higher numbers:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/mediamatters/

a specific site on the current show regarding blogs:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/mediamatters/303/blogs.html

Anyway, Michelle went on to say, "But I don't know if I would consider that, in blogs, you know who you're having sex with -- mailing lists maybe. I would associate blogs more to exhibitionism and voyeurism. Look, don't touch. and if you want to touch we meet up later in an email some time."

Dear, dear Michelle. I was too subtle, I suppose. Dear Ones, when I posited earlier that one knows who one is having sex with in a blog, I was talking about -- very bluntly -- the self-incited and self-inflicted hand job. Pun intended, indeed. Indeed. Cough.

Well, there goes the PG market for my audience....

But Michelle also flummoxed me. She also responded to my answer to Bino A. Realuyo's question of whether bloggers "speak a totally different language." I had stated:

Well, I wouldn't know. I know nothing about blogs, notwithstanding WinePoetics. Don't you see how I can't even reset the Archives correctly on this site?

And I believe I mentioned even earlier that it took me six months to figure out the "On/off" switch (or is that button) to a computer. Which is all to say, I am a techie-dufus. (I can call myself that, but no one else can, okay?)

In turn, Michelle elucidated by noting:

"there's usually a sense of ownership to [the word] 'peeps,' it's not so much people, generically. it's usually MY peoples, my relations, HIS peeps, HER peeps, THEIR peeps, etc. So, it's actually more like an acknowledgment to folks in your 'crew,' your 'homies,' your friends/family, those closest to you who've got your back. example, i want to give a shout out to my peeps out there for supporting me throughout my life. // if you ever catch MTV music awards, you'll see what I mean."

Okay. Why am I flummoxed? Because Michelle's reply just highlights how I will never be able to keep up with technology. Never. For years now, I've always felt behind when it comes to technological advances. Two years ago, Tom gave me a PALM Pilot as a Xmas present. After screaming "Ick! What is that?!" I tossed it back at him. So now it's his PALM Pilot. (Except, I don't think the poor dear has figured it out either yet.)

Then, this past Xmas, I received a digital camera. It's a lovely piece of table sculpture: shiny, silver and glowey.

And now, Michelle's reply just revealed that I am also behind as regards the technological advances in language. "Peeps" -- so how long exactly has this word been around before I came onto it through WinePoetics?

And Michelle, do you really think I catch the MTV awards? Well, I might if I can figure out the control gizmo on the TV in my writing studio. Another table-top sculpture.

But, not to worry, as Michelle often does, she ended up ... uplifting me. She also wrote:

"I read winepoetics daily. it takes me a few passes throughout the day to get through the blog post for the day. Certainly like a fine wine, your blog should be sipped rather than guzzled. long luxurious sips that gurgle as you inhale. then put aside a few moments to linger in its flavors."

Oooooh. How I love being adored. But that's not all. She added:

"I must say the vast majority of blogs are just boring: I woke up, I scratched my ass, took a shower, I went to work, blah blah blah. They should really be called "blahgs."

[Hmmm. Should I tell Michelle about those poets' blogs? Among those I've read, except for one, they're certainly more interesting than the latest way to scratch one's ass. But then, que horror, that might facilitate a .... a .... poetry-scene! Inside joke, obviously....but you Suny Poetics Listers know what I mean.]

Thank you Michelle. Just for all that adoration, I'm going to feature a poem by you. Dear Peeps, a bit of background first on Michelle. In addition to being a poet, cultural activist, Kali martial artist, and sometime movie actor for roles requiring warriors ("...in a galaxy far far away"...), she helps maintain U.C. Berkeley's computer system. Here is a poem by this self-described "Macintosh geek":


UNSPEAKABLE

With email, suddenly words become images. Things we never used to pronounce become pronounceable. The following is inspired and semi-spontaneously created from another poem that only used symbols and is meant to be read allowed. According to a printed email outside a co-workers door, the readers of Infocus voted that "<" and ">" be pronounced "waka," but I don't know if it's "walk-a" or "whack-a."

First the Vocabulary

< waka (walk-a)
> waka (whack-a)
~ tilde
' tick
- dash
_ underscore
+ plus
& ampersand
# hash
@ at
/ slash
* splat
. dot
? question
: colon
! bang
^ caret
| stick
= equal
:-) happy
:-( sad
;-) wink
www triple-dub or dubbayu-dubbayu-dubbayu


< rabbit with a ^
+ C it -
but don't ? Y
Because it's not as silly as
a ' on a |
or as :-( as
ice cream that goes *

> ball with a |
it's a sport
~ go on strike
...---... = help
even if U R away from a keyboard

In a ;-) I can think
of letters that go !/*
in the dark.
Or makes castles out of &s

|>
&&
&&
^^^&&^^^
&&&&&&&&
^^^&& && &&^^^
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
&&&&&____&&&&&
&&&&&| |&&&&&
&&&&&| |&&&&&
&&&&&| |&&&&&
--------------

I guess it's time to
really # it out to
$s and sense
of keyboard strokes and
carpal tunnel
but that _s the real matter
in this net world
where I am always
queen@mydomain.com
and U always find me @


Waka poem, Michelle! For another computer-induced (in the manner of alcohol-induced) poem by Michelle, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/bspeaks_sept02.htm to read her poem entitled "RE: thank you for the sky."

========

Ooops. I was about to post and then remembered: This is WinePoetics! I haven't yet inserted a wine connection. She furrows her brow. So she e-mails Michelle: "Tell me about yourself; what do you think of my w(h)ines?"

Patiently (very patiently), Michelle replies:

I was never actually an alcohol drinker despite the numerous notorious maganda house parties I attended. I used to actually get kind of tipsy off of a glass of wine. My sister was the wine fan, having had an Northern Italian boyfriend whose dad had a wine cellar in their basement. My dad drinks wine in the big gallon box kegs. But we've slowly introduced him to other wines.

My sister often prefers the pungent peppery Cabs. I'm a lighter Pinot Noir, chardonnay, or Riesling. At a house warming at one of my previous abodes I served Chateau Ste Michelle Chardonay 1999. picked it off the shelf because I had to try a namesake, it was after all calling my name! : p

When I go to stores, I have no idea how to choose wines. I barely remember which ones I've tried before. I go in blindly. But that's really the adventure of it. Winery names really don't influence my choices. Sometimes it's price, other times I liked the picture on the bottle. Or maybe at the winery, I just liked the guy serving the wine.

And what do I think of you? You've always shown me that life should be enjoyed and if at all possible shared. What's the point of drinking wine if you can't fill other people's glasses? Oh, and whether or not the label on the outside is famous or not, the experience of wine is still what's in the bottle.

========

Sigh. (A happy sigh. A veritable sigh of contentment.) "You've always shown me that life should be enjoyed and if at all possible shared. What's the point of drinking wine if you can't fill other people's glasses?" A fabulous conclusion for this post. In fact, Michelle provides many "happy endings" to many of the tumultous escapades that frequently crop up in my life (and this is while I try to be a hermit!). There is a reason, after all, why Michelle is directing my play, "But Seriously, When I Was Jasper Johns' Filipino Lover..." to be presented during SMALL PRESS TRAFFIC'S POETS' THEATER JAMBOREE 2003 (http://www.sptraffic.org) on February 7 -- I had made up a title, got a local Bay Area poet to volunteer a strip scene, then had to figure out how to meld the title and said scene together. As I do often in this blog, I made up something ridiculous. Tossed it at Michelle. She tossed it back with tweaks and now it looks like I know what I'm doing! (Though Brent Cunningham did wonder if my stripping scene will alienate poets from the Jerry Falwell school of poetics -- I think he got over it.)

So. Exactly, Michelle! The experience of wine is through what's in the bottle, not the label. Which is why, by the way (since I still need to keep linking wine to poetry to wine to poetry...and leaping), to the extent poetry contests exist, all poems should be judged without the authors' identities ("labels") being known. Which is what happens with Meritage Press' annual holiday poetry contest and this year, all five winners were "emerging" poets whose submissions topped those by more "established" poets (see "Babaylan Speaks" at www.MeritagePress.com for more details).

Hmmm. I still need a wine recommendation for this post....ah, yes, I might as well toss out Friday's dinner wine at a nearby neighborhood hangout. It was good enough so that I don't mind bold-ing this Montepulciano red -- notwithstanding that it was served in a jug and its year is unknown. Raw, but the dinner company was great.

So, last but not least, this is for all you reading me: an MTV (metaphorical) award to which I just know you will respond with a -- and let's say it all together now!

"i want to give a shout out to my peeps out there for supporting me throughout my life!"

THE WAY OF POETRY

"Poetry as a way of life!"

That's usually how I sign my books at readings; you know -- like when you go to a reading attended by 100 people and you sell 3 books? Pause. I can see poets shuffling their feet. My readings can get over 100 people? Well, yes, dears. Some of them do. (How? I don't know. Maybe it's because I don't do so many readings. I mean, I don't wish to be a total recluse like Laurie Scheck whose poems I enjoy -- I hear she doesn't do readings; is that true?) Oh, all right! I fess up. Over 100 people has only happened thrice (but can I pretend I am as big as I am in my own mind?) Sigh. And I also have given a reading where there were 3 people in the audience, including Tom who was just DYING to leave and a smelly drunk who strolled into the wrong door but decided to stay. Unfortunately for that night, there was that ONE person who attended out of the blue from just seeing my reading's notice in that week's TIME OUT magazine. So, for that ONE person, I had to stay. But can you imagine? It's like that "Partridge Family" (remember them) scene where some wealthy recluse buys out all the seats of the theater so he can be the only one watching the family perform; then he tells David Cassidy's character afterwards, "Those love songs could have been performed with more feeling." But, for that ONE person, I did give my all (all those feelings!) to that near-empty room....and, I tell you -- oh, I already told you -- Tom was DYING to leave.

I didn't mean to discuss (the) Partridges this morning. But the above paragraph does remind me to affirm to you peeps: when I write these posts, I do try as much as I can to blaze them out a la Rinzai! Athena! Maganda cracking that bamboo! That is to say, I try to write them out "first draft, last draft" in order to maintain a certain energy in the missive (the same approach I'd described earlier for writing many of my poems).

So. What I actually was intending to write as soon as I opened with the first word "Poetry" -- pause. sip coffee -- was about how Poetry really is my life....as evidenced by my disappearing archives problem on this blog that I am unable to solve (I'm on "Weekly" archiving but the blog seems to stop listing my archives after the January 5-11 line). But that's just like Poetry, you see. Not the words but what lies (pun intended) between the words.....When words evaporate, what's left is poetry. That's how you know you wrote a Poem.

Hmm. A Poem with a capital "P." An early mentor (gruff bear of a man and since I'm calling him a "gruff bear" I won't mention his name here) chastised me for occasionally lapsing into Words whose first letter I CAPITALIZE. He gruffly said, "Don't capitalize those words without defining them." But Dear Gruff Bear -- is it possible to define Poetry? I mean, you all see how I am blathering seemingly unendlessly here on this blog in, really, another attempt to define Poetry and .... do you all see, too, how I continually fail?

Another sip at coffee. The grounds were a carefully mixed ... mixture of Folger's French Roast and Don Francisco's Cinnamon Hazelnut. Surprised? Yes, I use canned coffee instead of buying beans freshly-roasted. I guess that means I'm not really discriminating, notwithstanding what little imprimatur may be associated with my evident expertise in wine. (Of course my expertise is evident; THIS is WinePoetics!) But, for me, to be a Poet is not to be discriminating -- not to privilege. So. I then placed the scientifically-calibrated coffee mixture into a one-cup coffee filter (the filter paper being Safeway versus Melitta brand as the former is 20 cents cheaper per package of 100 filters) thingie over my mug. Then I carefully poured hot water (I made that myself) into the thingie until my mug overflowed with coffee.

So. As you all know, this blog is also about the LEAP -- specifically the RADICAL LEAP. So I keep leaping from one subject to another. But, I dunno: I'm not convinced I did it gracefully enough in that prior post last night. I still have a slightly yucky taste within the "interior of my mouth" from that bit about Senator Lechon. O, must politicians leave a bad taste?!

So, pardon me as I rinse my mouth, cough, I mean, clear my palate. And what better way than to chew on the bread of two recent e-mails:

From London, Barry Schwabsky e-mailed that he thought I might enjoy reading an article by Malcolm Gluck entitled "Super plonk" in the January 11, 2003 issue of The Guardian. Lemme share the first two paragraphs:

When reading novels or poetry, the right wine is delicious. The cold rush of minerals from a German riesling or the heady swarm of berries from a Chilean merlot are inspirational lubrication for Proust's serpentine sentencing; and a welcome diversion when trying to negotiate JM Prynne. Wine books, however, are largely so tedious that water is the most fitting companion. I was, then, armed with liquid from my cold tap when I recently perused a batch of them. I won't give you the whole list (reviews on superplonk.com), but instead restrict myself to the two that most tried my patience.

Let me open by congratulating Susy Atkins for her Girls' Guide To Wine (£4.99, Mitchell Beazley). This is a tremendous, ground-breaking book. Nothing like it has been written before. It is the worst, most irrelevant, most witless, least informative, dumbest book on wine ever to be published. The title says it all, I suppose. This is, then, the worst wine book of the year, but, paradoxically, the best book of the year also tried my patience -- and to an even greater extent, because I longed to open wine with it. I also found it seriously interfering with other pressing calls on my reading time. I cannot recommend it too highly, in spite of the author being a young, would-be-old fart who believes that corks are superior to screwcaps. The book is The New France, by Andrew Jefford, (£30, Mitchell Beazley, photographs by Jason Lowe). It is, I suppose, typical of Mitchell Beazley that they should serve this great Francophile author and poignant photographer so feebly by having a cover that does not show new France at all but the very opposite. But once past this, a must-read, must-buy book appears, superbly well organised and worded, great for producer listings, excellent for getting under the skin of grape varieties and growers of the same, and just for getting closer to a wine-and-word lover on scintillating form.

Laugh. But Gads: I hope Malcolm Gluck doesn't stumble across WinePoetics. This blog is not about ... rigor. Look at how he describes The New France which he loves: "superbly well organised and worded." I am superbly...blather-some.

Hmmm. I am also wondering now if I should share Malcolm's recommendations for which wines he would have drunk with the two books. Nah. This is about me, me, me! Blink. Well, but Poetry transcends the poet's life. So, okay, I'll share some of his recommendations -- specifically the ones with wine tasting notes that made me giggle (giggle here being a compliment for Malcolm's literary finesse):

Virginie Viognier Vin de Pays d'Oc 2001: The viognier, elegantly, seriously, is composed of textured dry peach and cobnut.
Virginie Merlot Vin de Pays d'Oc 2001: The merlot has wonderful, cheroot-edged fruit of elongated richness and ripeness, with tannins that stun the palate with their pace and polish.

What is a cobnut anyway? Malcolm also reminds me of just how much I've always adored that word "cheroot"! Hmmmm. "Tannins that stun the palate with their pace and polish." How elegant (though, no doubt, still a bit too inside-y if you're not into wine. That's one of the dilemmas (dilemma, not problem) of language. That lurking inherent nature of being jargon. Then Malcolm says

The snazziest white at Morrisons is Montes Alpha Chardonnay 1999 from Chile. This magnificent specimen recalls some exotic Montrachet, but its thick, vegetally charged fruit is more exciting. [...] Zagara Catarratto /Chardonnay 2000 from Italy. This really motors down the throat in vibrant style, showing a colourful clash of richness, dryness, freshness and fullness.

I am intrigued by Malcolm's comment on the Chilean since "vegetal" is not usually (I think) a compliment when applied to wine -- yet, this issue is also useful for reminding of the significance of context as regards definitions...and meanings. But I do appreciate his description of the Italian because of that verb: "motors down the throat...." Verbs are so enlivening! Nice verbs -- you deserve pats on the shoulders. Pat.

========

Anyway. Thank you, Barry, for sharing Malcolm! I should send you a bottle from that lovely store, Justerini & Brooks, in that distant city where you care to think of me (I am humbled. Well, not really but....). Then the other bread-y e-mail....

From San Francisco, Kirsten Janene-Nelson, Executive Director of Mercury House, e-mailed that she collects amusing dangling modifiers, e.g. this one from one of their (pre-edited) publications: "Hovering in the fuchsias, I see hummingbirds."

I asked for any wine-related tidbits from her collection. She replied: "This one was passed on to me by Zippie Collins, our former production coordinator and my first copyediting mentor: From an article about The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

"After a blissful night of drinking, dancing, and making love in a country inn, their truck crashes on a slick road."

Thank you, Kirsten and Barry! You've both left me with a delicious aftermath. Uh....and I don't mean to imply, of course that you're both mere bread. Or that I'd want to chew on your, uh, flesh. (Gads: "I must, I must stop living through so many metaphors!")

But speaking of Barry Schwabsky (who wrote a wonderful essay in Vitamin P: New Perspectives In Painting, Phaidon, 2002), I just remembered one other wine story I once shared with him and which I have yet to share with you all. I now rectify this lapse by discussing Richard Nixon.

Did you know that you can judge how an oenophile feels about their friends or acquaintances based on which wines said oenophile chooses to serve? Many oenophiles choose to save their "best bottles" for those whom they feel would appreciate their qualities. Incidentally, a small leap [brief feet dance under computer table]: this actually reminds me of a conversation I once had with Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. She is considered by some to be a poet who writes fairly inaccessible poems (I don't agree with this assessment, by the way). Anyway, when I first met Mei-mei and we happened to discuss poetry readings, she told me that she refuses to let the context of a public reading affect her choice of which poems to read. This was in terms of, if I recall correctly, my wondering about whether poets choose more (narratively) accessible poems within their bodies of works to read in public forums. Mei-mei's answer was very permission-giving to someone like me who might write clearly only in my own mind (just last month I heard from a poet who is a very good friend of mine; notwithstanding that he adores me, he said about my poems, "I don't get it." Still he bought my book before I could give it to him so....). In my earlier days as a poet, bearing Mei-mei's statement in mind, I refused to hesitate about reading my more "opaque" poems (I know, I know: opacity is subjective but that's another story, okay?). And, what do you know, people responded well.

Well, as in Wine, as in Poetry! Unlike many oenophiles, I don't believe in preserving best bottles for those whose tastes I consider sufficiently discriminating. I think that if you challenge people to reveal the best in their nature or to open themselves up to new experiences, they generally will rise to the challenge. I have met people in the past who claimed not to be fans of wines, but accepted a glass from me out of politeness. Well, many of them since have gone on to keep drinking wine. Obviously, had I served plonk, their wine experience with me never would have expanded their assumptions.

Richard Nixon, however, adjusted the wines he served for the company. One of the many stories that floats around about him (well, at least within my wine circle) is how he loved Margaux. And that he would host these state dinners and serve a different (read: lower-level quality of) wine to the guests. He, however, drank Margaux which would be camouflaged (say, with the waiter's napkin duly surrounding the bottle) so that no one would know he was drinking something different. This may be apocryphal but, if true: Ah, civility -- wherefore art thou? I don't care how many guests there are: I think a host should drink the same thing s/he pours for the guests.

Sip coffee.

Now, this is my morning post, which means that (unlike with my evening posts) no glass of wine sits nearby which I could recommend to you. So I shall let this post's requisite recommendation be a wine for which Barry once wondered whether I could provide tasting notes: the Apollonio Divoto Copertino, Rosso Riserva 1997. I usually only bold-face wines in this blog if I recommend them (such recommendation requiring that I had personally taste-tested them); that's why I am not boldfacing Malcolm Gluck's recommendations above as I haven't experienced them yet to know whether to recommend them. But, in this case, I am bold-ing the Apollonio Divoto Copertino, Rosso Riserva 1997 though I've never tasted it. Why? Because I trust Barry Schwabsky's taste.

Poetry is a leap. It's a matter of Faith. So, sometimes, one must trust.

Which leads me to my last leap this morning: speaking of trust, I should mention a lovely chapbook that my Meritage Press released just two months ago: er, um that features poems by Garrett Caples and drawings by Hu Xin. er, um comes to mind now because its publication didn't occur in the typical manner reflective of the publishing process -- whereby a manuscript is submitted or solicited, reviewed, and then accepted or not by the publisher.

For er, um, I assessed (so to speak) Garrett -- through his poems and prose that I'd read. I made a judgment about him by relying on his writings (didn't Ted Berrigan once say a Poet's "best self" is/are his poems? Would that be an "is" or an "are"? I also am grammatically-challenged....but should one be grammatically-constrained if one is to write poems?). Anyway, based on his works, I felt that Garrett would be able to offer something that fits Meritage Press' vision which is, as described in my, cough, vision statement:

Meritage Press seeks to expand fresh ways of featuring literary and other art forms. Meritage expects to publish a wide range of artists – poets, writers, visual artists, dancers, and performance artists. By acknowledging the multiplicity of aesthetic concerns, Meritage’s interests necessarily encompass a variety of disciplines – politics, culture, identity, science, humor, religion, history, technology, philosophy and wine. // Reflecting how poets make instead of inherit language, the press is named after "meritage," a word created to describe the Bordeaux-style of wine-making that uses California-grown grapes. Meritage style combines the grapes of cabernet, cabernet franc and merlot to create a wine characterized by robustness in flavor, bouquet, color and body – symbolizing the passion underlying the vision of Meritage’s artists.

Consequently, I told Garrett: Do something interesting. Different. And booootiful, of course. A few months later, he offered er, um -- complete with the first-available graphic work from Beijing-based painter Hu Xin. And darling peeps, it is interesting, different, and bootiful. ( er, um is available through Small Press Distribution; for more information, see also http://www.meritagepress.com/er_um.htm)

The first time I met Garrett, it was at a Barbara Guest reading. He caught my eye just because he was wearing a red sweatsuit that made him look like an oversized helper for Santa Claus. How adorable, I thought. Now, one might think that someone who clearly doesn't give a shit about how he looks (at least that night) wouldn't give a hoot (don't like that S__ word; it's not feeling bootiful this morning) about many things. But one should never judge a book by its cover -- in the same way one should never judge a poem by its author. When I visited Garrett and shared a bottle, he served the wine from glasses of thick, cut crystal (ah, yes, Sweetie -- I noticed and appreciated, though didn't comment at the time, the welcome heft of glass .....hefting on my hand). As I said in my poem "Beginning Lucidity" (Reproductions), "Character underwrites us all." Synchronistically, he wore the same red sweatsuit that evening as we -- with lovely archaeologist Ana -- shared wine and whines. Dr. Garrett: you are always trustworthy for fine, discriminating, and civilized presentations.

GIVING BEAUTY (AS) THE LAST WORD

She hears AOL announce, "You've Got Mail!" As she turns, her eyes latch onto a small piece of paper pinned on the bulletin board behind her computer. The paper features

GANDHI'S "SEVEN DEADLY SINS"
Wealth Without Work
Pleasure Without Conscience
Science Without Humanity
Knowledge Without Character
Politics Without Principle
Commerce Without Morality
Worship Without Sacrifice

Her eyes then drop to her computer to check her e-mail. Someone from the Philippines e-mailed the following "joke":

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM.You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION. You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION. You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION. You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION. You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

A CHINESE-FILIPINO CORPORATION. You have 1000 cows and produce milk but you report to the BIR you only have 2 cows. You smuggle in several container loads of Australian milk and you mix your Filipino cow's milk with the same kind of packaging and sell everything as imported milk. You make a fortune and sell your pesos on the black market and invest the money in China and hire your relatives there at very low wages to do the same milking trick.

A FILIPINO CORPORATION. You kidnap the Chinese Filipino and instantly you are in the milk business and do not report to the BIR your income. You let your CEO run for senator and he wins. You then move into drugs, money laundering and gambling rackets. You then invest in fast-food franchises like Jollibee to legitimize the cash flow. You make big donations to El Shaddai and the Iglesia ni Cristo, and before you know it your CEO becomes President of the Philippines.

=============

Filipinos are known (if they're known) for their sense of humor. And humor often eases the blow of cards dealt them by crooked players of a game that should not be a game. But it's getting harder and harder to keep lapsing back onto humor as more things fail. A real life Philippine senator inspired the punchline of the above joke. You know who you are. Filipinos know who you are. I'm sitting here an ocean away from you and I know who you are. You are a blood-stained warlord dealing in drugs and money laundering. Mr. Pig, your last name begins with an "L." Fate is going to lechon* you. Mr. Lechon, may you consistently drop your bottles of Johnny Lumalakad on a hard concrete floor, the whiskey staining your socks as it seeps through into your shoes and making your trapped toes sting.

[*lechon = roasted pig]

Politicians. Filipino politicians. The people become loose bags of bones and too many of you shutter your pampered, fatly-lidded eyes. You make poets like Nick Carbo write:

When he finds his wife in bed with another man--

The conservative politician feels an ache in his stomach,
remembers the longanisa and the tapa he had for breakfast.
He doesn't know whether to get the doctor or Cardinal Sin
on the phone. He calls one of his bodyguards, tells him
to shoot the man and then, his wife. He takes his .38 magnum
from his brief case, shoots his bodyguard in the back.

The liberal politician pours himself a glass of Courvoisier,
remembers a passage from an Anais Nin story.
He is suddenly the one they call the Basque. He removes
his Dior tie, his Armani shirt, his Calvin Klein boxer shorts.
He puts on a black beret, whispers, tres jolie, tres jolie,
que bonito, muy grande my petite amore. He joins them
in bed, begins his caresses on the man's calves,
kisses his way up the man's thighs.
--from THE FILIPINO POLITICIAN (El Grupo McDonalds, Tia Chucha Press)

=============

So. Next e-mail.

Ah. So I'd been going back and forth with a poet as regards some of his poems. Today he mentions one poem that was written partly from collaging lines from another poet. Since the poem will be published, he said he wanted first to confirm it's okay with the poet from whose work he collaged. And that reminded me to write Bino A. Realuyo to thank him because he introduced the word "peeps" to me (shorthand for "people"). And, as you know, if you've been reading me, I've been using that word frequently on this blog. I loved that word as soon as Bino introduced it -- it's so insouciant! Like an "insouciant sancerre"! (a phrase in my poem "Blind Date," Reproductions).

But, in response to my insouciant note, Bino replied less insouciantly, "peeps is a ghettoized word. used in chats a lot. even my young niece uses it. like 'shout out' or 'props'."

Omigod. I shuddered. Que horror. Can I please correct a possible mis-impression out there then? Peeps -- I mean -- People: I do not do "chats." Yes, hard to believe but...I don't. As Bino puts it, "how interesting the way language [usage] evolves." My horrified shudder, as implied by my words, may be unfair to chat rooms (particularly since I don't have experience with them) but the whole concept, somehow, makes me ... shudder. Like, I really have no life so that I gotta hit a chat room? I mean, with a blog, at least you know who you're really having sex with, right? [I could cite various philosophers here but ... yawn.]

But speaking of cyber-impressions, Clayton Couch writes about my January 14, 2003 post:

So, I'm "civil" and "polite"? Hah! My wife, friends & family will love that comment! Given how they've all experienced several of my profanity-laced rants, surly moods, and sullen silences, they'll find my capacity for civility to [be] quite amazing. In any case, I'm glad to know that I'm not a lout in the e-world....

Well, now. And isn't that all too convenient a segue to an intriguing recent back-channel conversation birthed by WinePoetics! Due to my cyber-presence via words, an adorable poet who's now adoring me (but, by the way, Sweetie: aren't you young enough to be my son?) admits he searched the Internet for my photos. His response: "(blushes), beautiful." I blushed. And how I love to make poets blush! But then he e-mailed to affirm quite stolidly, "you should know that my responses, to you, are largely [due] to your writing...."

Ah. Isn't that sweet? (I believe it, too -- I do, people, I do. This is about Poetry, after all.) And how fortuitous that I believe him since, Dear Peeps, you should see how the wine since has thickened my neck and belly. (Do you see how I suffer for Poetry!) Combined with my orangutan-like toes, I am not, Dear Ones, likely to compete in the Miss Universe Contest anytime soon (yes, Filipinos love beauty contests; why shouldn't we? We keep winning them. We are a bootiful peeps! Bino's cousin, a former Miss Philippines, became First Runner-Up at that year's Miss Universe after she stumbled -- o high heels!). But notwithstanding how the sight of me stumbling down a runway in my tattered, holey and soot-stained gown would be incongruous for such an occasion, I don't actually mind the fact that I would be left flailing about (since to be a poetry practicioner is also to flail?) in a ... tattered, holey and soot-stained gown. As graciously-aging women have said about their wrinkles, and as Jennifer Lopez (go, girl!) has said about her booty, these are "earned" things that one should treasure!

Tattered, holey and soot-stained gown. Well, yes, I guess I just let out that particular cat. You see, when I spend time isolated in my writing studio, I usually am encased in tattered, holey and soot-stained silk. It's not atypical on certain white witches -- specifically those tinkering with the uncontrollable alchemy within a Poet's Cauldron, which is to say the poet often gets burned. But it's an appropriate risk. As I once wrote:

FLARE FOR JEAN

“Poetry should burn.”
--Jean Gier

While the critic notes
The imprudent use of wax
The poet's bleeding fingers
Etch against stone:
"Icarus lived, and the sky went pink"

The last line is stolen from Thomas Fink's poem "2000" in his poetry book GOSSIP (http://www.marshhawkpress.org/). So, Tom, please consider this official notification: I've stolen from you, too -- but in that grand tradition, of course, of poets stealing. (Synchronistically: from another e-mail to another poet, I recently wrote, "i am a bootiful little thief. hic.")

So what else from the current mail to WinePoetics? Oh, Bino asks, "blog--is that a word? i think bloggers speak a totally different language, no?"

Well, I wouldn't know. I know nothing about blogs, notwithstanding WinePoetics. Don't you see how I can't even reset the Archives correctly on this site? And, Dears, Blogger rarely replies to questions from freeloaders like me. (Freeloading: definition #666. an occupational hazard for a poet.)

In any event, I wouldn't be able to judge the nuances of blogger language; I'm just trying to keep up with English. Besides, as whats-his-face has said, "Poets always speak a different language." [Recall, people, that I am memory-challenged so feel free to remind me of the attribution.]

But I digress. (Juxtapose! Juxtapose!)

I was talking about cyber-presence. Like -- and this is the truth -- I had no idea I had such a rapscallion inside me, as evinced by the author of this blog, until I began writing WinePoetics. Wait: that was an inadvertent digression, too -- though undoubtedly offering its own significance but let's explore that some other time. So. On cyber-presences: like sullen, profane Clayton Couch nonetheless not coming off as a lout within cyberspace. Well, if we write our realities, I guess that means that I'm really a rapscal and Clayton really is civil, notwithstanding that -- in physical vs virtual reality -- I could be the lady in a tidy black dress, hair pinned up, and standing stiffly like I got a stick up my ass at some party and Clayton might be, what, the human barking dog with his profanities, t-shirt riding up and over his beer belly, at same party. (Sorry Clayton, but in terms of signifiers, I often equate profanity-spouters with beer bellies....not that I have anything against beer.....and I actually like a good belly on a man.....)

But maybe we're all just being "post-human" when we write and read blogs. I have just started reading How We Became Post Human: Virtual Bodies In Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics by N. Katherine Hailes (University of Chicago Press, 1999). In her Prologue, which is all I've managed to read so far, she writes, "Here, at the inaugural moment of the computer age, the erasure of embodiment is performed so that "intelligence' becomes a property of the formal manipulation of symbols rather than enaction in the human life-world." P. 1 of the Prologue. (Okay, so perhaps I'd read the entirety of a book -- or at least Chapter I -- before proceeding to comment on it in public -- but am I getting paid to do this? Do you hear the flutter of bills? The clink of coins? Exactly.)

Meanwhile, Clayton, dear: I know you'll forgive me if I take liberties with describing you since ... we're in cyberspace and in cyberspace: I am the rapscal and you are "civil" and "polite"! So hold off on that profanity! Well! she sighs, all pleased with herself. I just wrote my way out of the corner of calling a poet a woof-articulator! Sometimes, words are so neat, aren't they!? Well, of course words are. And if you don't get this joy from words, what are you doing with your Poetry? Poets: it's been advised often enough to us -- Own that language! Poets: I say to you as well -- Own that Joy!

And speaking of Joy (who, incidentally, has legs as fabulous as, oh, say the 1992 Batard Montrachet Domaine Leflaive), this post's wine recommendations shall be the bottles sent to Roberto Conterno, Aldo Conterno and Luciano Sandrone for their munificent hospitality in Italy. Which is to say, one might begin the day with the ugliness of depravity and yet end up welcoming the evening with the beauty of (liquid) poetry. Which is further to say, I refuse to allow corrupt politicians to crush the blooms of my fragile poems -- that, too, is a task I have had to master as a poet.

And how unfortunate, indeed, that as a Filipino poet, I have had to master this task....masterfully. (Dear fragile poems: I am thy sponsor; I am thy shield...)

From a birthland now flickering only in my fragile Memory, a saying from my childhood that I direct to the fine gentlemen of Barolo: Dios Ti Agngina -- God will be the one to return the favor. Excerpts from post-vacation letters to these wine poets:

We do not know how to properly thank you for making our visit to your family's winery so special. However, I hope you will accept these few bottles of wine. The first wine is a 1999 Turley Hayne Zinfandel. You may know that Zinfandel is the only native vinifera grape in the United States. Its origin is in dispute: some people believe the grape came from Hungary and others believe it came from Italy. Turley happens to be the best winery for Zinfandel in America. The winemaker's name is Ehren Jordan. Hayne is the name of the specific vineyard. Hayne is considered the top wine of Turley and is the best Zinfandel made in America. The wine itself is very concentrated and like many New World wines super ripe. The natural alcohol is very high. // The second wine is the 1997 Abreu Madrona Ranch Cabernet. This wine recently received 100 points from Robert Parker. David Abreu is considered the best vineyard manager in Napa Valley and he is also a great winemaker. This is his own wine. Mr. Abreu makes only 400 cases of wine a year and then only in years he believes the wine meets his standard for quality. I find Mr. Abreau's wines to be incredibly delicious and unique.

Thus, do we conclude with Beauty as grace. O grace of Beauty.

QUE HORROR! I COULD HAVE BEEN A (COMMERCIAL) CONTENDER!

Que horror! People -- you scare me! Peeps -- don't you have lives! You don't even know me despite the intimacy we've shared recently in this space! (Hmmm...gee; that statement could mean other things....anyway....). So, people -- what is this outcry, this hullabalooo (hullabaloooo? shades of Ricky Ricardo)! What is this whining for me to keep on wining and whining?

Okay, I tell you what. I'll keep an open mind. Puwets keep minds closed; poets should keep theirs open. It's January 16. Depending on how things unfold between now and the 30th day (February 4), I'll consider continuing WinePoetics. But only if you write to let me know I'm not typing out my witticisms into a void....you must let me know if you're out there and actually witnessing my blather (not a pretty sight, at times, but always....a sight....and, by the way, more palatable over a glass of wine!)

By the way, with all my blather, I can't recall if I'd already mentioned that I believe one of the Poet's roles can be connecting the dots of synchronicity to fuse together the fragments of this beleaguered (o shivering!) world. (That whole practice of lucidity thing -- I tell ya, sometimes don't you just get tired of hearing me repeat myself? Oh, but I do it so charmingly? Well, so let me continue...) So, I confess that another reason why I won't make the decision yet to just shut down WinePoetics (which is not to say I won't, so, unlike your latest De-Facto-One-Night-Stand don't say I wasn't "honest") is because, shortly before beginning this post I had to e-mail another poet about the deep furrow on his brow and I notice I wrote the words:

This project works, too, to see us correcting whatever preconceptions we might have had about anything -- and I think that's healthy .... and great for our work?

So, I'm open, I'm open -- okay, Dear Ones? Sigh: I so shiver when I see poets cry...especially in their cups. Poets: be happy! Listen to my next manuscript's title: CRUCIAL BLISS!!

Anyway, she thinks as she contemplates the bottle of 1999 Monte Antico Toscano by her computer (it's not even 9 a.m., peeps, which is why I ain't delicately sipping yet) -- an excellent house wine as it can last 3 days from its opening. Perfect to have floating about the house for an easy and easy-going pull-out from the wine cellar without thinking about such things like: is it too pricey to drink with a dinner of romaine salad and single brownie? Like I said, I'm not a cook. This bottle is about $8.99 per bottle, if I recall correctly. If you can get it, get it.

Anyway, she -- I -- was thinking....about some of the demands of Poetry (O, ye multi-tentacled Creature!). Like, for instance, the nonfiction memoir related to Napa Valley that a BIG commercial house actually once expressed interest in my writing it (the syntax of that sentence is tortuous but I can't be bothered to smoothen it, okay?). I even wasted, ahem, spent a two-week residency at UCross Foundation in Wyoming trying to do sufficient sample chapters (but, oooh: fabulous skeet shooting!). But I couldn't do it. The memoir's style of writing was just too "flat" relative to the poems I was interested in exploring -- the kind of poems that came to ensconse themselves happily within Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. But since the Napa Valley memoir would have made money, suffice it to say that Reproductions was birthed with what bankers call an "opportunity cost" (funds ascribed to a lost opportunity).

Peter Mayles on Provence. Frances Mayes on Tuscany. These are bestsellers. That could have been me on Napa Valley. I actually had a MAJOR COMMERCIAL PUBLISHER ask me to do several sample chapters. You can imagine what a rarity it is for a writer to have a publisher knocking on his/her door. And a CASH-PAYING publisher at that -- advance and all -- unlike with the majority of publishers (me included) flitting about the poetry world.

But I did manage a "Chapter One." Guess what? You guessed it. Here it is below! And she goes searching through her hard drive for the file to cutnpaste into her post. She finds it. She reads it first....and, also, sees a note she had inserted into the file -- a note reminding her now of why she had to let go of the cash-paying project (what do you know? the memory worked this time!):

The kind of writing required by this building-a-house-from-scratch-in-wine-country-memoir hurts any attempts to write gloriously transcendent (if I do say so myself) poems.

And as I consider that (rather self-aggrandizing) note now, I also remember how I left journalism years ago because I thought its style of writing was "flattening" my creative writing efforts. Still, here it is, the Chapter One To Nowhere: a path away from Poetry which I refused to take. This is the kind of money-making I foregoed for my boootiful, booootiful, poems (don't whine poems; I'll cutnpaste this article below and then return to you, O demanding poems demanding my hair-whitening attention...):

Chapter I: BEGINNING "JOURNEY'S END"

Here, the days
are possessed by moods
--from "Homage"

"Honey, what's your view on cows?"

That's funny--that sounded like Tom's voice, I thought before turning to look towards the voice. My view on cows? I had left Tom a few minutes earlier to undergo what I assumed would be some male bonding ritual with Mr. C___ who had just sold us his property on a mountain overlooking St. Helena, our architect Bob, as well as Jim and Gary who were helping a neighbor develop a new vineyard down the road. Mr. C____, still beefy in his 80s and commanding in his denim overalls, was glaring at Tom. Bob was looking intently at the ground. And Jim and Gary fidgeted uneasily, both wearing pink, perspiring faces which threatened to resemble boiled tomatoes.

"Cows, honey?" I brilliantly replied as I peered over our car. Fifty feet away, the men seemed frozen in a tableaux of tension which was inexplicable to me as the day was sunlit, the sky hovered as a seamless blue plate, birdsong flitted amidst the branches of the olive tree shading me, honeysuckle perfumed the warm air, small wildflowers dotted the side of the road with pastel glimmers, and surrounding us were views of vineyards stretching out towards the horizon. As I believed I was Tom's only "honey" (at least in the immediate vicinity), I said, "I could have sworn you asked for my view on cows."

"I'll put a bell on Bessie so you can hear her coming," Mr. C___ yelled out angrily, but that offered me no elucidation.

Tom dropped his solicitation of my opinion and swiftly said something to Mr. C___. The others said other things to Mr. C___. All nodded quite seriously. Whatever was said served their purpose to end the conversation as Mr. C___ gave a grumpy wave before stalking up the road of the property he had just sold us but which he undoubtedly will always consider his home. The others walked toward me, their faces now revealing their mood. Tom was rolling his eyes--something that would come to be familiar in the days ahead--while the others muttered under their breath.

"Mr. C___ just has his own view of things," Jim told me as if I had been part of their conversation. "He can say whatever he wants--he's an old man. Let me tell you: when I get to be his age, people better treat me with as much deference as I gave him today."

"What can you do? He's an old man," I nodded agreeably. Another round of observations on how opinions come to be intransigent with age, after which we shook hands all around with gestures made hearty by our shared agreement over the vicissitudes of life and the merit of compassion. Then Bob and the neighbor's vineyard developers returned to their cars.

Smiling, I waved them off as I queried Tom, "Cows, honey?"

Tom started to beat his forehead against the edge of the roof to our cranberry red, turbo Nissan 300Z. Quickly I stopped him, "Back off. That's a 13-year-old car in mint condition that Dad babysat until he gave it to us to celebrate our move to California."

"Get in and I'll explain," Tom sighed.

"Oh no, you don't," I replied. "First, take a few deep breaths. Now look around you."

He did. Our front gate faced the pleasing geometry of a neighbor's fields of grapevines stretching toward Highway 29. On the other side of the highway, more vines etched their way in parallel rows toward the mountains rimming the valley. For a moment, the sun seemed to shine brighter and birds sing stronger while I watched the smile return to his lips and cheer lighten his beautiful emerald eyes. This is, after all, ultimately a story about a journey that culminated with a new home on a mountain overlooking the vineyards of St. Helena, California. The sign by the gate, put up by Mr. C___ nearly five decades ago when he moved here following the end of World War II, proclaimed, "JOURNEY'S END." For Tom and me, it was another type of expedition that ended here where Mr. C___ and his wife had found peace. But we ended at a point which I also knew was just the beginning of a new journey.

"It's about the metal bathtubs rusting all over the property," Tom explained as we drove back toward San Francisco. Though we had just purchased the property, we had agreed to let Mr. C___ and his wife live there for several weeks to facilitate their move and while we completed the lengthy transition of switching residencies from New York. "He was supposed to clear the property of all debris but there's still a lot of junk about, including the bathtubs."

"And?" I prodded, my mind only half on our conversation as I admired the low brick fences and rose bushes lining the borders of Cline Vineyards. The roses were in full bloom and had unfolded in riotous colors. Cline also has a bulletin board by their front gate that featured wine-related epigrammatic sayings; this week's saying was: "To Err is Human, To Zin* is Divine."

[*for you philistines: zin = zinfandel]

"Well, he's got these four cows and, naturally, I told him that we would prefer it if he took them off our property."

"And?"

"No problem, he said, he was just moving the cows to his other land which adjoined ours."

"And?"

"Well, I was telling the guys about our plans to install a new gate. And Mr. C___ says, 'What do you need gates for? This is the West!"

"Surely you didn't need to debate gates with Mr. C___? After all, we can do whatever we wish after he leaves," I said in my best voice-of-reason tone.

Tom rolled his eyes. "Oh, now you're the voice of reason?" he scoffed, and I wondered again whether it is a good thing that he can read me like an open book.

Tom continued, "I thought it best to switch the subject away from gates. So I asked him about the bathtubs--when he was planning to take them away. You have noticed how they're quite obvious from the road toward the house?"

"Eyesores, they are," I said encouragingly.

"In response, Mr. C___ said--actually he roared--at me, 'Do you want my cows to die of thirst!!!!'"

"What?"

"You heard me. Apparently, the tubs collect spring water and that's where the cows drink."

"I see," I said. And I saw. Tom--utterly ruthless at the negotiating table when he transacts dollar deals for his corporate and Wall Street clients--didn't have the heart to say the obvious to Mr. C___: that Mr. C___ should make alternative water arrangements for his cows which would not involve the use of our land.

"No doubt that's when you turned to me and asked for my, um, 'views on cows'?" I said, failing to stifle a giggle.

Tom threw me a glare which I effortlessly deflected. "I was stalling for time. What would you have said," he growled.

"I absolutely would have ducked as low as you did," I cheerfully conceded. "After all, Mrs. C___ just gave us a jar of stewed tomatoes--tomatoes which she lovingly grew in their garden. And the last time we visited them, Mr. C___ gave me an old wooden carving from the Philippines where he had done duty as a merchant marine because you told him I'm Filipino."

We drove on in silence for a while, but I could tell that Tom was still bothered by the bathtubs rusting by the road within our property. He had been complaining about them for weeks before our visit that day. Thinking to distract him from the topic wrinkling his brow, I ventured, "I've never paid attention to cow turds before. Did you notice how the cow turds on the property are shaped like spirals? Isn't that interesting?"

"No."

"And did you notice how the old turds become silver with age? They take on this cast, this sheen, that you can see on beach driftwood--quite pretty."

"You're researching a poem, aren't you," he said. I peeked at his face; his brow was still wrinkled. I decided not to voice the homily then meandering in my brain about how one never "owns" land but simply visits or resides on it temporarily. I didn't wish to raise another subject which might cause him to brood further on the freedom of Mr. C___'s cows to roam our property whose borders were undefined by fences. Undoubtedly reflecting his legal training, Tom already had raised the possibility that we could be liable for damage caused by the cows to visitors.

"What damage?" I had asked.

"How would I know? Maybe the cows might unexpectedly appear on the road and cause an accident. That's a long road, you know, about a quarter of a mile from our gate to the house. I just don't want his cows roaming about. This isn't India."

Lawyers! I thought to jokingly harrumph, but kindly and diplomatically (or so I thought) didn't. Instead, I was tempted to discuss the serene eyes of the cow we once saw in Bombay seated peacefully amidst the traffic. As a sacred animal there, that cow clearly had gotten used to sitting wherever he chose with no one bothering him. I wondered if Mr. C___'s cows would look at me with the same quality of gaze bestowed by that cow in India--alert and interested as if the animal was open to any conversation I might wish to begin with him/her. I wondered if the Indian cow's gaze was the result of knowing no fear in his environment or whether that type of stare was generally the case with cows. I've not really thought much about cows before -- the cow in Bombay and Mr. C___'s cows being the first and second occasions for me to consider them and their nature. I turned to Tom to share my thoughts, but, again, noticed the furrow on his brow. Ah well, I thought, and decided to change the subject.

"What about Jim and Gary?" I said. "What were they doing there?"

"Oh, they had been driving across our front entrance to get to the back of the neighbor's property as they developed a new vineyard. Apparently, they were transporting some heavy machinery and their trucks damaged the cattle grate. So they wanted to alert us that they are aware of their fault and planned to replace the grate."

"How nice and forthcoming of them," I noted.

"Yes. But I was trying to suggest that they move the grate to the entrance of Mr. C___'s other land as he is supposed to take his cows away off our land. By splitting his property with our purchase, there's no need for us now to have a common entrance, particularly one with a cattle grate. We don't have cows, and I was going to fence off our property."

Uh oh, I thought.

"But what was the point of my suggestion given that," and here Tom tried on his new imitation of a gruff Mr. C___, "'This is the West! What do we need fences for?"

As our glances locked, I could feel my lips curve. Trying to stifle another giggle, I announced, "Well, I'm having a very nice day. How's yours turning out?"

Silence. A few minutes later, however, Tom's lips started to twitch. Finally, the humor of the situation surfaced and, to my delight, he threw back his head and started to laugh. At last, I thought. Happily, I joined him and we shook and hooted in our seats for a while. The wind flowed through our opened windows and lifted our hair. In that moment, we both remembered we were in paradise which we long had defined by being in the middle of Napa Valley's gorgeous countryside. From our car (thanks Dad!), I smiled at the stray pieces of clouds stuck on a mountain like cotton against a man's unshaven chin, the yellow mustard flowers blooming in the fields, the gnarled stumps of ancient vines that reminded me of old people's knuckles, the cut-out sheep dotting the slope of the di Rosa Preserve arts and nature preserve.

Meanwhile, Tom rhapsodized in what would become our mantra for the next several months, "I can't believe I'm here!"

Later, the cows became moot as Mr. C___ decided to take away the animals from our and his adjoining properties. However, there is still a brand new cattle grate on the entrance we use, installed a bit higher than it should be, it seems, so that it unfailingly offers us a bumpy welcome to our new residence whenever we drive over it. But it only means that if I've dozed off during the commute from San Francisco to St. Helena, I am always woken and, thus, wide awake as I enter the home for which Tom and I had searched for three years (thanks Margaret Arroyo Real Estate!). It is a sight that never fails to please.

========

P.S.[not part of that chapter] A sight that never fails to please, and offers poems to my greedy fingers, like this:

FOUND POEM From the St. Helena Police Log, #1

Sunday, Dec. 19
0543: An officer contacts an employee of a local business who had not come in to work. Fellow employees were concerned when he didn’t show up. The man did not realize he was supposed to be at work.

1349: A man in the Police Department lobby asks to have an officer speak with his 5-year-old daughter regarding her stealing a popsicle. The officer counsels the girl.

1427: A woman reports that the ATM at a local bank “ate” her card. An officer tells her to contact the bank in the morning or call the bank’s 800 number.

2043: A resident reports a continuous problem with a barking dog. An officer confirms that the dog is barking and a letter is sent.

WHINE POETICS: "THE END" APPROACHES...

Tom is in South Dakota and phoned to say he quite enjoyed last night the Taylor reserve port (deep and concentrated with a long finish; likely to be less than $20 at your local wine store). Check -- got that post's required wine recommendation out of the way. Now, to whining:

In one poet's e-mail I just received, I see the words: "I haven't discarded it yet, but having been articulated, it is losing some of its allure."

In one of my e-mails to another poet, I see the words: "I sometimes think that, for a poet, language is compromise."

To date, and including this post, I have written 40,186 words since my first post on January 4, 2003. So perhaps this WinePoetics is really WhinePoetics.

Still, why have I written (and continue to write) so much for your listening pleasure (come on, come on: admit it -- it's a pleasure!)? Why? Because it was a way to prove something private to myself about the nature of Poetry: every single post I've written to date fails to ________________. (No, Dear Ones: you're all adorable but the blankety is none of your bidness.)

And for you being tortured by this blog (yeah, right: and why are you reading me?), it may interest you all to know that I plan to quit on February 4, 2003. Because part of the experiment for me is also to see how many different ideas I can use "wine"-ing/whining to generate within 30 days. Why 30 days? Because if the ideas reflect, as intended, Life (which includes past, present and projected future), that's a lot to distill into 30 days. Which is to say, this is just another form of a Poem by manifesting the distillation that often occurs in poetry: alchemical compression of an entire life's experience into verse.

So, okay, I just concocted that prior paragraph's theory. But didn't it sound good? And, what, did you think this blog was anything but fictional?

But seriously, the wine references are real. Yes, everything else I might say is suspect, but the wine references are real. Because this is WinePoetics and authenticity is important to Poetry. It's another reason why I have no shame (well, seemingly no shame, right?) in mentioning all the fine wines I've experienced. Because this is WinePoetics and surely you also want to know what kind of wine expertise is backing up this blog's claims?

Ta-ta-ta-daaah!!! This is WINEPOETICS!

Whine. Dear Ones, you all know you're going to miss me as of February 5, 2003.

Jukka, Jukka -- don't cry into your water. Dear Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (The Best Named Poet Living Today!) I promise to do more collaborations with you in the future. Dear Nick Carbo -- stop that sniffling! You know that Ang Tunay Na Lalaki does not cry, man! Dear Sarah Gambito (such a fresh-faced poet you are!) -- this will become like yet another failed romance with whats-his-face: mere fodder for future poems, young un! Dear Bino Realuyo -- eh: what do you care, actually. But. Ah. And you Dear Man Behind A Mask -- when I finally unmask you, wouldn't you rather I do it with my enchanting, jasmine-drenched finger -- rather than the text of ... uh, "enchanting, jasmine-drenched finger"? (And how absolutely lovely that my words made you fall in adoration with me!!)

So read me while you all can. As of February 5, 2003, I must go off to follow President Jimmy Carter's footsteps in order to continue being a poet .... No, no -- not his verse: building an actual house with real wood, stone, concrete and blood dripping from my ripped hangnails! (Though of course President Carter's verse is quite lovely; "Repeat after me again: never diss a poet!") A house where others may find comfort and enjoy their teddy bears....

I mean, seductive though blogging is (yawn), to be a Poet, after all, is not to ... write.

So read me while you can, Dear Ones. I am like Poetry in yet another fashion: soon my words shall evaporate as Poetry is not words. Poetry is what lurks and lingers before and after words....


[Of course, there could always be WinePoetics II but, geez: that would be scarey. This ain't Star Trek, this ain't fiction, this ain't sci fi, this ain't disco......sigh: sometimes, I do so amuse myself! Anyway, to quote from another poet who wrote me while he was brooding over some dilemma, excuuuse me Mr. Pedant, not-dilemma-but-problem: "you see what I have to put up with?"]

OAKY ADJECTIVES

Because I believe the poet should try to write in as many literary forms as possible, I occasionally write art reviews. But my manner of writing art reviews has been to use poems to help me write about the art object. Not that I try to "match" poems to art and vice versa. Quite often, I just pick some poems in books or journals I happen to be reading and apply it to the assigned art topic. It's a way of writing that eliminates or questions the seeming randomness in Life -- which is to say, like Poetry, it's an act of Faith.

My approach reflects my empathy for the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness or the indigenous Filipino concepts of loob, kapwa and pakikiramdam (the capacity for compassion, empathy, and sympathy) that I discussed in previous posts. In art writing, an example of my approach may be seen at http://www.oovrag.com/~oov/essays/essay2002b-7.shtml which features my review of an exhibit by San Francisco-based artist Stephanie Syjuco. I wrote the article while I was traveling in New York; thus, when choosing poems with which to correlate to her sculptures and installations, I had to use what was available during my trip. These were poems in Barry Schwabsky's collection FATE/SEEN IN THE DARK (Burning Deck, 1985), Porno Diva Numero Uno by Stephen Berg (Hard Press, 2000) and SELECTED POEMS AND PROSE OF PAUL CELAN, translated by John Felstiner (Norton, 2001). I happened to have Barry's chap with me as we were exploring a potential poetry project and he mentioned the other two books so I bought them in a bookstore near the hotel. Now, if you read the article on Stephanie, you can judge for yourself how (un)successfully I integrated randomly chosen poems into discussing her art works.

Anyway, I have no training when it comes to writing art reviews. Being a poet, that doesn't stop me -- I even published a book last year entitled MY ROMANCE (click on the link to the right). My publisher's description states:

MY ROMANCE is a unique collection of writings that conflate poetry and the visual arts. Author Eileen Tabios presents essays on contemporary artists representing a variety of aesthetics, ranging over abstraction, minimalism, figuration, monochromatism, conceptual art and sculpture. Each essay is followed by a poem written by Ms. Tabios as a result of having considered and written on the essay's subject artist(s). The book features 18 artists including established names like Richard Tuttle and promising emerging artists like Marc Trujillo. While each essay and poem may be read on a standalone basis, the juxtaposition of essay and poem allows the reader to discern part of the process through which Ms. Tabios wrote the poem.

Another significant dimension to MY ROMANCE is how Ms. Tabios uses her meditations on art to venture forth into other disciplines and topics. As examples, she uses her essay on Ulrike Palmbach to address urban culture, her essay on Santiago Bose to address political corruption, her essay on Christian Vincent to address Wall Street culture, her essay on Max Gimblett to address Buddhism, her essay on Susan Bee to address the flux of language, and her essay on Tom Friedman to address human mortality. She explains her approach as: "I write on art because it is a way to engage with capitalism, politics, culture, history, issues of identity and the environment. To write on art is like the writing of a poem: a way of engaging with the world."

Hmmm. To write on wine is also a way of engaging with the world! Anyway, when I first started out writing on art, I asked "Daddy John," a poet and art critic, for advice. This man who's authored umpteenth volumes of art tomes said, among other things, "Writing on art is exactly like writing a poem. It's about nouns and verbs." Well, so of course we both use adjectives (show me a rule and I'll show you a poet itching to break it!). But I do think the awareness of lapsing to adjectives only when necessary has been helpful in our poems and art essays. For instance, my sensitivity to this issue has caused me to use adjectives in contexts that may be considered unexpected (though perhaps that's not so different from how I use other non-adjective words). And the unexpectedness (if it works, since "unexpected" is subjective) goes to the point of my desire to encourage the reader(s) of some of my poems to engage more directly, more proactively, more consciously with the Word. For instance, perhaps a reader wouldn't gloss as much over reading the lines

Then the huge expanse of unimpeded
ocean leached through hazy light
(from "Clinical Elation" by Dennis O'Driscoll)

versus the more "unexpected"

"Launched vinyl wind of varnished clues
toe silver portent goggle. Closure"
(from "After a Reading, Ponds are Mutilated" by Tan Lin)

Not that this comparison should be interpreted as a diss on Dennis O'Driscoll (Repeat after me: Never Diss Poets!). But what I'm talking about is maximizing lucidity. Seeing things for what they are stripped from whatever contexts are applied to them -- including words. When one sees unexpected diction, I think perhaps it can cause the reader to pause and reconsider the nature of the words -- to not take for granted the significance of a word based on its dictionary definition and/or its cultural context. And this is useful because _____________ [you fill in the blank; do I have to do everything?!}

In any event, the use of adjectives -- how it should be used, if at all -- evokes for me a trip I made last October to Italy's Barolo wine country. I was lucky enough to meet the lovely and brilliant winemakers Aldo Conterno, Roberto Conterno and Luciano Sandrone. While touring their wineries and tasting from their very generous offerings, the Conternos observed how their processes do not expose the local nebbiolo grape to oak because they believe oak would interfere with the "pure expression" of the nebbiolo grape's unique flavor. Sandrone does use oak, but in significantly larger barrels than the barriques (the smaller the barrel, the more exposure given to the grape juice).

Therefore, in the case of "old guard" winemakers in Barolo wishing to preserve the the nebbiolo's nature, oak could be considered an inapplicable or unnecessary adjective.

This issue is also a matter of globalization due to the controversy over the commoditification of the wine palate. In various areas of the world (from France to California), some winemakers are now maximizing the grape juice's exposure to oak (e.g. through storing the grape juice in smaller oak barrels or incorporating oak chips within the juice) because they feel that that would make the wine more popular with a larger group of consumers worldwide (you peeps love your oak, don't you!).

Well, this phenomenon is unfortunate when you have a lovely grape like the nebbiolo -- quite delicious on its own. I actually was reminded of this issue again while, on my last day in Italy during that trip, I stopped off in Turin. There, I toured an exhibition of contemporary Italian artists: "ExIt," curated by Frances Bonami, which featured the works of about 60 "up-and-coming Italian artists." Art Forum said about this exhibit:

"ExIt" is a sort of contemporary Noah's Ark: full of different typologies and species, ready to weigh anchor for what one hopes will be interesting adventures. Though it was difficult for any one artist to stand out from such ample and varied company, mention should be made, at least, of the intriguing installation by Sergia Avveduti, the gigantic prints by Paola Pivi, the spatial installation by Jorge Peris, the enigmatic and extremely personal canvases by Pierpaolo Campanini, the large sound-and-light structure by Patrick Tuttofuoco, the video installation by Paolo Chiasera, and the series of photographs by Diego Perrone, suspended in a dimension that is part desperation, part nonsense, part abstraction, and part peasant culture. And then, appropriate for an ark that accommodates different breeds, there is an extensive series of videos and films that vary widely in approach and quality (including shorts by Stefania Galegati and Alex Cecchetti). In conclusion, this exhibition brings established figures, people with potential, and many question marks into a panorama we might call-in art, as elsewhere-"the Italian anomaly."

I enjoyed the exhibit. But, to my mind's eye: what "Italian anomaly"? I wouldn't have been surprised to see the show in Manhattan's Chelsea district or Los Angeles. Here, I didn't see the "nebbiolo" grape….

Fortunately, enough winemakers know better than to hide their local assets. A toast to them! Here are some of the yummy wines I researched (it was too research!) from that trip -- all personally sampled during the season of divine white Alba truffles: O, truffles, thou truffles who inspired Toscanini, spurred Louis Armstrong to compose the ballad of the truffle, and incited Marilyn Monroe to write to legendary truffle promoter Giacomo Morra (who signed a 5-year truffle supply agreement with the head of the White House's catering staff during the Truman administration): "Darling Mr. Morra, I received your splendid tuber magnatum and I truly have to say that I have never eaten anything tastier or more exciting." [Blink. Okay, I won't go there....where was I? Oh yes: whining over wines!]

AT POSITANO AND SORRENTO:

Friday Dinner Wines @ San Pietro Hotel
1997 Percarlo (Chianti)
1997 Allegrini Amarone

Lunch @ Caruso
1997 Summus Castelo Banfi Monfortino La Galesia

Dinner @ Don Alfonso, Agata
ca del Bosco Brut champagne
1990 Briccodella Bigotto Giacomo Bologna
1990 Altare Arborina Barolo
1985 Aldo Conterno Gran Bussia Barolo
1985 Luciano Sandrone Cannubi Bochis
1999 Privilegro Dei Feuchio di San Gregorio

Lunch @ Grottino Restaurant, Capris
1999 Querciabella Chianti Classico DOCG Riserva

Dinner @ Caruso
1997 Giacomo Bologna Barbera d'Asti Braida Ai Suma
1985 Brunello di Montalcino Altesino
1998 Solaia
1997 Scavino Bric Del Fiasc
1996 Gaja Sori San Lorenzo
1995 Del Forno Romano Amarone
1980 Taurasi Riserva (Maistro Bernardino)
(--in nifty "Raguslia" wine glasses)

LATOUR Dinner @San Pietro
1992 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier Montrachet
1990, 1982, 1970, 1996, 1961, 1959, 1949 Latours
1967 d'Yquem

AT PIEDMONTE:

Lunch @ Trattoria Della Pace, Boves
1997 Tignanello
1990 Prunotto Barolo Bussia

Dinner at Hotel Lovera Palace
1997 Barbera Sitorey Gaja
1996 Barbaresco Asili Riserva Giacosa
1996 Gaja Sori San Lorenzo

Tastings at Gaja Winery
1999 Gaja Gaia and Rey Chardonnay
1998 Barbaresco
2000 Darmagi Tuscano

Lunch at Il Vitello Tres Stella
2001 Dolcetto Cremes Gaja

Dinner at Al Roddodendro
1997 Gaja Gaia and Rey Chardonnay
1997 Solaia

Tastings at Luciano Sandrone
2001 Dolcetto D'Alba
2000 Barbera D'Alba
2000 Langhe Rosso
2000 Valmaggiore
1998 Le Vigne Barolo
1998 Cannubi Boschis Barolo

Tastings at Aldo Conterno
1998 Quattenero
1998 Cicala
NV Barolo Chianti

Tastings at Giacomo Conterno
1997 Monfortino
1999 Monfortino
1995 Monfortino

Dinner at Da Guido
Barbera d'Alba
1978 Giacosa Santa Stefano Riserva

Dinner at Balboa
2000 Gaja Rossj Bass
1997 Conterno Cascia Francia

Yup, you got it. Tossed into that mix, since this wouldn't have been a sufficiently decadent trip otherwise (that's tongue-in-cheek), was a dinner focused on a Latour wine-tasting. The following are tasting notes from that dinner that began with the 1992 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier Montrachet and ended with the 1967 d'Yquem:

Montrachet: Nose of citrus, toasted nuts, slight orange zest and oak. Medium to full body. Long leggs. Full glycerine. Rich vanilla, lemon, long lingering finish of vanilla wafers. Rating: 97

Latours:
1990: Nose of dark red plums, leather, full-bodied, gobs of fruit, will last 50 years. Nice glycerin. Deep, red, plummy, jammy fruit. Grilled lamb. Long finish. Rating: 97+

1982: Deeper nose of black plums, asian spices, dominatrix leather, saddle leather. Huge, full bodied, sexy complex black fruit with sur maitre, green tobacco, cedar. Long intense finish. Rating: 98

1970: Deep red fruit nose. With cigar box, medium to full body, cassis, cedar, leather, long finish. Very smooth. Rating: 94

1966: Nose of eucalyptus. Deep ruby color. Full bodied with high glycerin. Garnet. Cassis, cigar box. Long finish. The prissy aunt version of Latour. Rating: 94

1961: Cloudy. Somewhat past its prime. Nose of cassis, tom gai ka (Thai soup), or lemon grass, chicken and garlic. Cigar box. Full bodied. Old leather. Smoked meats, cedar, black fruits, long finish. Rating: 93

1959: Deep ruby color, nose of ripe red fruits, grilled Provencal herbs, tobacco, cedar. Full bodied, rich ripe red plum. Gobs of fruit. Young. Sweet tannin, vibrant, cedar, leather, cigar. Long, lingering finish. Rating: 1998

1949: Dark ruby color, mixed red and black fruits, cedar, cigar box. Full bodied, young, intense, ripe fruits, cedar, cigar, earth. Long finish. Rating: 100

1967 d'Yquem: Pineapple, coconut, starfruit, banana oil. Full bodied. Intense tropical fruits. Long rich finish. Rating: 95

WHY I DRINK; WHY I CONJURE

I wasn't expecting to pop open a bottle of the 1999 Monte Antico Toscano. But Barbara Jane Reyes sent me some poems from her recent trip to the Philippines and, Dears, I had to get a drink. I mention in www.Sidereality.com's recent issue that my poems' sensibility is often about a combination of loss and desire, reflecting partly my history as a Filipino. Well, Barbara's poetic reports from the Philippines help explain:

This is an Economic Transaction
Boracay, December 2002

1) forget that his smile reveals both dimples and fangs. 2) from the moment your eyes meet his across a smoke-filled bar, he is already weighing the cash and credit cards he knows are stuffed in your wallet. 3) from the moment your body moves into this space he has named your american passport. 4) from the moment you order your first drink from him (and he smiles quizzically at you), from the moment you ask him with a titter what is that white shell hewn and polished into a question mark, dangling from a leather strap around his neck, he has identified your accent, thus corroborating his earlier suspicion. 5) from the moment his shift ends, he is sitting at your table (he has taken the initiative to do so, though you never once said he couldn’t), allowing you to buy all seven rounds of drinks, as you stave off all his invitations for a moonlit beach stroll alone. 6) forget that his smile reveals both dimples and fangs, and try not to make sense of what the words “married” and “not married” mean, coming out of his mouth simultaneously. forget that in his proximity, you can taste his faintest whisper. 7) from the moment he rolls up his sleeve to reveal an eagle and a dragon wrapped in eternal combat around his left bicep, from the moment he lets you to touch it, as if your lingering fingertips could discern color from his bloodflow, only one thought is crystal in your whiskey haze mind (what was it your mother warned you, and why can’t you remember this now?) 8) from the moment his lips touch your face and your neck, as he slips his tongue into your open mouth and you slip a 400 peso tip for a 2000 peso bar bill into his open hand (he did mix your drinks after all), remember to tell him good night, perhaps thank you before you walk away and not look back.


this is an economic transaction (2)

old white man hairy hands grope little pilipino boy thighs puppy dog licking master’s toes i feel like i need to throw up every time this boy looks imploringly in our direction he looks like my 20 year old cousin an undergrad at uc santa cruz and the old man looks like folks i see in commute except he’s got this boy’s tender body wrapped around his waist’s large circumference and i don’t wanna know what they’ve been doing in boracay hotel rooms for the last three days

kalibo airport’s impending departure embrace little pilipino boy tiptoes and weeps skeletal arms linger about old white man’s thick neck brown hands grasping at first world aloha shirt little boy’s face disappears in a cradle of hairy hands sob drowned out by the singsong insincerity of be good i know it’s hard then a repelling gesture and again this need to throw up as little boy reluctantly hops on a tricycle and becomes the horizon old man chuckles hands over fat stacks of pesos to his marlboro appareled tour guide enters the air conditioned terminal turns his i could buy you eyes towards my boy cousin an undergrad at uc santa cruz who nudges me to say now thas some sick shit yo


quiet in metro manila
for joey

the science of crickets and cicadas chirping is precise;
you tell me it’s our alphabet that determines
how far we have departed from nature.
i see now why i find it necessary
to dabble in abstraction while dreaming
of watered earth smell to breathe.
always remind me that poems seep from my pores;
a different psychic space and foretelling that we carry.
may we never lose the gift of conjuration.

Last time I visited the Philippines, I visited one of the island resorts in Palawan. On that island's closeted community, I had to suffer through suffering a British tourist enjoy his stay while whiling away the days with a "little pilipino boy." I have always regretted keeping my BIG MOUTH closed during those days. Such a complicated issue to address, about which I have yet to become effectively articulate. For now, though, Barbara's third poem (dedicated to a friend I miss dearly: you poet and puwet!) also might explain one of the many reasons why, as a poet, I must conjure like a witch: You Corrupt Politicians! Stop Selling Your Children!

And another reason: War flames sooting up my beloved cobalt sky....poor sky....

BARBARA JANE PULMANO REYES ROCKS!
(AKA JOSE "JOEY" AYALA FEEDS ME A POEM)

This past summer, Oakland-based poet Barbara J. Pulmano Reyes visited me in Napa Valley. I poured her some zin and we took our glasses with us as we strolled around the mountain where I live a hermit-like existence when "peeps" aren't knocking on my gate, wanting access to my w(H)ines. In response to that visit, Barbara wrote this prose poem:

Your Absence in Saint Helena

I am ascending this mountain at sunset, hearing rhythms of footfalls upon gravel paths and smoothed pebbles, dodging fallen pine cones, crunching dried grass, imagining the wholesomeness of wheat fields. Behind a hill of coniferous trees emerges the glassy surface of a once-hidden lake; different perspectives on the same valley of vineyards and haze from faraway forest fires. Long ago, lost lovers exchanged letters here, deposited with care in this decrepit tin box affixed to this gnarled oak with a single rusty nail. Above, swallows dive and soar through the stillest air, a sun-colored solitary hummingbird remains suspended, motionless except for wings effortlessly beating a million times per second. I am swirling the rain soaked earth and rose petals of a zinfandel in an immense wine goblet, instinctively reaching beside me, half expecting to find your belly and waistline warm against the flat of my palm, the bones of your slender wrist, a dragon tattoo’s sharp edge in the hollow of your left elbow. Tonight I understand how the sun can be infernal and blissful, how the fragrance of this valley can be dangerously deceptive.

=========

Isn't that booootiful?! she -- I mean, I -- croon. Which explains, naturally, why I was pleased to edit Barbara's first poetry book Gravities of Center, forthcoming this spring from Marie Romero's Arkipelago Books Publishing (http://www.arkipelagobooks.com). Arkipelago describes the book as follows:

"Contained in this collection are poems and prose pieces which exhibit Barbara's oftentimes eclectic style/sensibilities and willingness to experiment with form and language. With serious and playful poems very much rooted in San Francisco Bay Area urban and suburban cultures, settings, and vernaculars, a geographically faraway Philippines is never absent from this Pilipina American writer's consciousness. Consistent throughout Gravities of Center are themes of longing, desire, diaspora, postcoloniality, feminism, and coming of age.”

Born in Makati and raised in Fremont, California, Barbara received her undergraduate education at U.C. Berkeley and is currently working on her MFA at San Francisco State University. Her poems and essays have appeared in Filipinas, Liwanag, Interlope, Shampoo Poetry, Can We Have Our Ball Back, Maganda, Babaylan (Aunt Lute, 2000), Eros Pinoy: An Anthology of Contemporary Erotica in Philippine Art and Poetry (Anvil, 2001), Turnings: Writings on Women's Transformations (Women's Studies at ODU, 2000), and are forthcoming in Tinfish and Filipino Writers in the Diaspora (Anvil).

As part of my role as editor, I wrote a brief Preface (well, "brief" for me) for Barbara's book. The word-count constrained text follows:

Hope: A Poetics And The Energy of Desire

I was suggesting recently to another poet: "Poetry is energy. Poetry is the continued movement of making connections to unify together the shards of this fragmented universe." Perhaps I'll change my mind tomorrow, but right now I agree with that(my) self and, indeed, see "proof" through Barbara Jane Reyes's first poetry book, Gravities of Center. From "a language of rupture," Barbara created poems that do not always spoonfeed meaning to their readers. By doing so, she is as generous, if not more generous, than narrative poets who are less elliptical. It is through the ruptures in text that Barbara creates spaces for the reader to participate in the significance-making of the Poem; the psychological caesuras allowed by fragmented or collaged text create a site for interaction. She adapts poetic form to reflect her acknowledgment of the reader's presence, which is to say, Barbara is writing poems in order to engage in community-making.

In turn, however, the reader cannot remain passive in reading. Between the lines, words, letters -- within the gaps of text-less space throughout this book -- the reader must give back by proactively considering what these poems mean, if they are to mean anything. There is a reason, after all, why Barbara at one point wrote a poem about '101 words that don't quite describe me."* For one, she is conscious of the limitations of language. But she is also describing you. She is asking, "Dear Reader, what do these poems say about you?"

But unlike other contemporary poets (Filipino or not) who self-consciously address the flux of identity, Barbara doesn't erase her "I" from her poems. Her presence is palpable, even as she urges you to help define what these poems shall become. This position is critical for a self-described "Pilipina" or "Pinay." Her presence needs to be palpable -- tangible and not intangible, quite viscerally physical -- because she considers her poems to be part of a Pilipino/a literary tradition that "give an otherwise silenced people a voice and a presence upon the American landscape."

Barbara explains, "i was taught 'pilipina' (vs 'filipina') is the tagalog word for who i am. hence, a self-naming as a native tagalog speaker, however subtracted by ability. in that way, it is a political choice because i was taught that 'filipino/a' was the english word and that there is no 'f' in tagalog. to further politicize: the use of 'pinay' has its roots in the formation of stateside/california pil am communities. 'pinoy' originated w/ the manong generation to differentiate btwn themselves and the 'pensionados,' whose loyalties were still to the philippines. so i use the term 'pinay' ironically, in many ways, since socio-economically and educationally, i am more 'pensionado' than pinoy. but in terms of where i consider 'home' it's here."

By "here," Barbara means Bay Area, CA which contains a sizeable Filipino/a and/or Pilipino/a population. This is significant because, ultimately, Barbara considers "place" to be meaningful to her poetics. ("Place" encompasses more than her geographical residence as she remains open enough to write poems about other spaces, e.g. Mexico, the Philippines of course, but even Napa Valley. The openness to new experiences is a critical part of being a poet; Barbara is a Pinay who will not limit her poems to political influence.)

Consequently, to experience Barbara's poems is to learn about the specifics of a Pilipina's experience. And it is also to experience the "universality" of desire and loss -- that is, despite the consistency of losses, the stubbornness of never-ending desire. You need not be "Pilipino/a" (or even "Filipino/a") to connect with Barbara's poems. But by engaging us all in the poetry of Desire, you need to be as present as Barbara is in her poems. So enter these poems, and stay a while. Think. (Research those F/Pilipino/a references, just as you are asked to research French, Greek and other European references in poems that more likely comprise the literary canon.) Think again. Feel. Feel more. Want! Pleasure awaits, and it is of your own making. Hope.

==============

[** To see Barbara's poem "101 words that don't quite describe me" go to http://www.meritagepress.com/bspeaks_dec.htm]


I told Barbara I'd mention her book in WinePoetics if she shared her thoughts on wine. (Subtle, aren't I as I attempt to maintain this link between wine and poetry?) Gamely, jet-lagged Barbara -- who had just returned from a vacation in the Philippines -- replied, "in the phil, not much good wine to be had, but lambanog (joey gave me a bottle of farm-made, ie moonshine/bootleg style stuff, complete with nearly liquified sugarcane sediments), tanduay (rhum), and gin(ebra) and pomelo juice."

Tickle. I was tickled! Not just due to the reference to the glorious lambanog moonshine, but because Barbara reminded me of Jose "Joey" Ayala. Barbara had introduced me to this brilliant artist in 2001 when he directed the Pusod Center in Berkeley. I made the pitch for Pusod to exhibit my "Six Directions" project. Jose agreed, and from there our friendship commenced.

But at the time that I met Jose, I didn't know that he was "Joey Ayala," a genius musician and poet (actually, I had never heard of him before. mea culpa pinoys: lower those coconuts!). Check out his website (http://www.joeyayala.com.ph/) where a description states:

A New York-based Muslim-Filipino ethnomusicologist once said that if Joey Ayala didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.

The landscape of Philippine pop culture would indeed be very different without this unusual entertainer -- a composer-lyricist-performer, a multi-instrumentalist and arranger, a story-teller and stand-up comic, a poet-philosopher and occasional magazine columnist.

Ever since he released a makeshift-studio album in 1982 his underground following has grown from cult to mainstream proportions. [...] Known primarily for his contemporary use of indigenous instruments, his concerts actually contain a broad range of elements: electric guitar and brass gongs, bass guitar and two-stringed hegalong, drum kit and 8-piece kulintang, roots-inflected rock & roll, reggae, plaintive kundiman and trance chant, all strung together with a sometimes-comic, sometimes-philosophical, always-ecological flair for continuity.

He has over the years been able to touch base with audiences in Japan, India, Canada and the USA. Although most of his songs are in Pilipino, Ayala is quite at home with non-Filipino audiences, interspersing pieces with clear introductions to song content and instrumentation -- in English. The diversity of his talents and cultural contributions have been recognized by an equally diverse field of institutions and entities -- Ayala has received awards from the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry, the Philippine Jaycees, the National Commission for the Philippine Language, the Concerned Women of the Philippines, the (literary) Palanca Memorial Awards Foundation, the Gerry Roxas (leadership) Foundation, the Ateneo University (of Manila and Davao City, both), and DZNU -- a leading rock radio station, among others.


Yadda. Except I thought he was just directing this cultural center in Berkeley. When, after our first meeting, I told a few Filipino friends about (meeting) Jose, I could hear them pause, shift silently, perhaps briefly pity my ignorance, and then say, "You mean THE Joey Ayala?" I brilliantly replied. "Huh?" Then they elucidated me. Consequently, I've always joked that the second meaningful thing I have ever told Jose "Joey" Ayala (the first being "Hello") is, "I'm sorry. I don't know who you are."

But Jose has always taken my ignorance in cheerful stride (the first time I apologized for not knowing who he is, he replied, "That's refreshing, actually"). Subsequently, Jose kindly started teaching me more about Filipino culture, including a widely-known Filipino legend. Well, widely-known to many Filipinos other than moi who, as of age ten, was raised "Americanized" in the U.S. This legend was about how pineapples were created. Once, there was a little wide-eyed girl who loved to get out of her household chores (gee: why does that little girl sound familiar?) One day, she heard her parents coming home and hid in a large rice jar so that she wouldn't have to help out with preparing that evening's meal. She ended up staying in the jar all night. The following morning, when her parents opened the rice jar, they found a pineapple amidst the rice -- with the metaphorical wide eyes that you see on pineapple skin. Okay, I'm memory-challenged so I'm not sure that that's how the Alamat Ng Pina (Legend of the Pineapple) goes, but that's what I remember.

Partly as a result of hearing about this legend (thanks Jose!), I would come to write the following poem (first published in U.C. Berkeley's beautiful literary journal, Maganda):

ALAMAT NG DINUDUGONG ILOG
(The Legend of the Bleeding River)

Long before the sky hid
Behind a cataract

Long before a cruel clench
Incarcerated me in
A cell formed by my own mind

I was "all eyes"

Looking at a world I believed
To be populated
By the hearts of mothers
Who always welcome back
Prodigal sons and daughters
With rice and pineapples

My vision was non-discriminating

I could not imagine a reason
To censor my sight
From anything sharing the space
Of a sky so blue --
ang bughaw!*--
So blue, my Love,
That I could interrupt my days
With the sheer ecstasy of a dance
Amidst rice fields
For no reason other than
That rice fields are fertile

*****

Long before I forgot
The meaning of the word "Alamat"

I was a mischievous girl
Forever hiding in and out of jars
To avoid washing dishes
And, worst, huge pots
Until one jar trapped me for a night
(birthing another legend:
Alamat Ng Pinya)

So that I learned
In time for the 21st century
Never to forego my chores

Like the washing of your clothes
For another chance,
My Love, to inhale
Your scent once more

(Your shirt collars evoke
Nothing less than
Myrrh and frankincense)

Today, you say,
The sky has grayed
"into a dying vision"
Is it as pale
As the clouds I have seen
Floating across the obsidian
Pupils of your eyes?

Let me paint the sky
"cobalt"
For you, my Love,
With another legend
Of rebirth

How, once, a sarong
Came undone
To the tune of birdsong

How a sarong came undone
To caress my hair
As it fell past my knees

How a sarong's fall
brought down the eagle
with curious eyes

How a sarong came to caress
My breasts and thighs
Before it was borne away by a river's current

How a sarong
The color of Kama Sutra fell
To make a river blush

How a sarong
The color of alchemy
Set a river aflame

Ikaw, aking pag-ibig, ay naruon...
You, my Love, were there...



[*ang bug haw! = so blue!]

BLINK: AND THEN

Just now I got a love poem from a poet I've never met....simply because, he sez, I write myself "beautiful" on WinePoetics.

Too bad I can't print it, she thinks as she notices her toes peeping beneath her computer and, once more, her toes remind her of orangutans.

Requisite wine recommendation: a wine I'd rate 100 points and so would choose to offer in a glass before an-Other's lips. 1949 Latour. Dark ruby color. Dark red and black fruits, roasted meats, vanilla, cedar and spice in nose. Full bodied with deep sweet tannins. So well integrated. Deep plum, cassis fruit flavors, with spice, vanilla, tobacco and cedar notes. Long, smooth finish.

As you fall
asleep
in my skin

I shall stoke up the fire
deepening the furrow on your brow
by offering the gesture women

have made for centuries
to those they wish to please:
the pouring of your wine

into a goblet
as heavy as the armor
I released upon feeling

your hunger to fall
into my skin.
My hand on a decanter

spills “libations” (becomes “Biblical,” no less!)
to prepare for your sleep
in my skin (but only after other…actions).

I recognize your longing
for my hand
‘s approach for your pleasure

after you memorized that same gesture
I saw immortalized
as oil on canvas across a table

set in damask, crystal, silver,
porcelain, a candle's flame
a low bowl spilling forth vermilion blooms….
--from "Enheduanna in the 21st Century" [see link at right]

HOMAGE TO SALLY FIELD: YOU LIKE ME! YOU LIKE ME!
YOU PEOPLE ARE READING ME! (AKA: DOWN WITH WAR!)

Well, Darlings. Surely you all have -- unlike me -- lives? Instead, you write to WinePoetics? But come into my wine cellar, please. Sit yourself at my new table there (floor sale model from Grange; thanks Valerie!). Watch those boxes, please. I'm still saving my pennies so I can install racking. Until then, recycled cardboard boxes from Safeway and 59 Degrees Wine Storage holds my precious wines (aka that blood flowing through my greedy, restless veins....)

Let me pour you some 1994 Vega Sicilia Valbuena. Why this particular wine? Because you're poets, dears. And I particularly love serving "kinky" wines to poets. Kinky? Definition: Dark ruby color. Intense nose of jammy black fruits, spice, leather, oak, green leaf tobacco. Rich, full bodied, flavors of superripe plums, cherries, saddle leather (as opposed to purse leather, indeed), spice, oak, vanilla. Long, lingering finish.

Comfortable? Okay, so first: Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, here's some water in your wine glass. I am sorry you don't drink wine. But I invited you here since you have a nice name and you did concede, "Your BLOG is great, funny, like the stories a lot." Whenever I feel like asking someone, "So, tell me about yourself; what do you think of me?" I shall be sure to turn to you.

Next. Dear Clayton Couch, let me pour you some of my blood. Because you said, "I enjoy your WinePoetics blog, by the way, and have been reading it the past couple of evenings...under the influence of a glass, of course. Sometimes I get the feeling that experimental or 'innovative' poetry could use a bit more wine in the words, but since I personally have trouble getting marks to appear on-screen after a glass or two, perhaps this is simply not a feasible option for some poets!"

Perhaps not. But do check my January 8, 2003 post on "Reverse Derangement" when I realized that I am naturally drunk and it's wine that turns me sober! There's got to be some significance to this, but I'm not sure I want to know. Hmmmm....this reminds me of how, in New York, I once decided to try analysis. Why? Simply because I'd never done it and I saw so many poets doing it. So, ya know, I didn't want to miss out on something....anything.....Anyway, I quit after three or four sessions. First, because I was bored listening to myself -- CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! And, second, because I thought to discuss an impending problem right then and there and the good doctor first wanted to go back to my childhood. Well, that was a long time ago....and at $250 an hour I just couldn't see myself trawling back over my lengthy history (I have enough bills that provide annuities for others). But this is not to dismiss, naturally, the need -- the healing -- that I'm sure is fulfilled for others through this process. But, seriously, I think that, ultimately, I didn't want to *know* exactly how my Muse makes its demands, and then forces me to accede. Oh yes, sweethearts. "Forces" me. If I had my druthers, I might be a plumber; but I am compelled to be a poet. And if I weren't so compelled, I'd be under your kitchen sink making your plumbing problem worse. But, at times, you know -- come on: you all know: you're poets! -- Poetry also is .... difficult...

Sigh. Mutual sigh around the table....

Okay. Next.

Ah. You there. You man with the mask on. And why are you masked? Because you don't want to reveal your identity? Because your question is: "Okay, I can't resist, my curiosity is too much, even though it's embarrassing for me to ask. But ... what bottles would you open up over dinner with me?"

Well. Lessee. Pause as she sips ... thoughtfully. OH! Then her eyes light up! [Forgive me as I switch from first to third person; I do that a lot.] Well, one of them would have to be the prior post's wine recommendation: the 59 d'Yquem. See my January 8, 2003 post "Belatedly, Dear Richie and Cheryl") with its wine tasting notes. Because, recently, when I was working on my novel-in-pathetic-progress, I tried to conflate those tasting notes into a love scene. So, if you want, Dear Man In A Mask, insert yourself within its loving space! The wine tasting notes are in italics, like so:

And she flings herself at him, teeny teddy bears flying off her shoulders as she pops to surround him (his head suddenly flattened against her breasts) with an

incredibly intense bouquet of pineapple, orange, starfruit, caramel con leche, vanilla and spice.

The air in his room (where, unbeknownst to him, she sometimes visits when he's not there by poking her head through the sky on his computer screen to look around, curious and curious, at where he spends his time picking through his words) suddenly turns a dark orange, almost brown color.

His arms helplessly reach up, unable to fight their desire to hold her even closer against him even. Which is how he comes to feel her full bodied. And after he licks his way up her neck towards her lips, he kisses her (of course) and tastes a focused liquer-like ambrosia of tropical fruits, spice, vanilla, toasted oak.

Seamlessly integrated acid and fruit.

Long intense finish.

===============

Pause. Cough. The other poets simply ... look at her. Sarah Gambito and Nick Carbo clutch hands under the table; they look frightened. Don Luis Cabalquinto clears his throat and, in a lame attempt to change the subject, notes: "The New England Journal of Medicine reports that people who drink at least three days a week have about one-third fewer heart attacks than non-drinkers; among those who drank just once or twice a week, the risk of heart attack fell only 16 percent. Moderate drinking may be beneficial, according to Dr. Kenneth Mukamal of Harvard Medical School who led the study, because it helps keep the blood thinned."

But Luis fails to change the topic away from the frighteningly-atrocious writing Eileen has just shared. Indeed, Jukka -- since he's too sober not to be honest -- puts forth in his Espoo English: "You know. That was really bad."

Cough. Meanwhile, Clayton diplomatically remains silent since he's "civil" and "polite." As for the man behind the mask.....?

==========

Sniff. Okay. So I happen to think that wine-tasting notes have a role to play in bodice-ripping novels, okay? But, fine, let me end with a post that didn't come to me due to WinePoetics. It's from writer Brent Cunningham who -- along with Kevin Killian (such a lovely man! he's been so welcoming to me when I moved to the Bay Area), Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson and Taylor Brady curated a series of ten-minute plays for Small Press Traffic's upcoming Poets' Theatre. Here's the information that involves my first ever play production (Kevin and Brent promised the event is also a "homage to amateurism," hence my willingness to participate -- ALTHOUGH THERE WILL BE A NAKED POET SCENE IN MY PLAY so who else can promise that?!):

SMALL PRESS TRAFFIC'S POETS' THEATER JAMBOREE 2003

Please join us for four wondrous & bizarre evenings of poets' theater! Reservations are recommended. Please call 415-551-9278 (after January 15) to make yours. As the Jamboree is a benefit for SPT, admission is $10 per night for everyone.

Friday, January 24, & again Saturday, January 25, 2003 at 7:30 PM
Cecilia Dougherty, "Kevin and Cedar" (2002, world premiere). In this revealing portrait of San Francisco bohemia, Kevin Killian and Cedar Sigo play themselves as Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, trapped in a estructive affair in an untidy SOMA apartment, surrounded by debris and the flickering madness of their own poems. Video, 8 minutes, 10 seconds.

Karla Milosevich and Kevin Killian, "Love Can Build a Bridge." It's another sleepy dusty delta day in Marfa, Texas, the site of the famous mystery lights and the home of Donald Judd's art farm in West Texas. The great American minimalist has died, and his survivors gather together to hear his will read in the town's one bar, Roy's Cotton Club. This exciting tale of conceptual art, country music, long-ago feuds and present-day shamanism gathers together an eccentric cast of artists, poets, filmmakers and painters.

Friday, January 31, 2003 at 7:30 PM
An evening of short plays #1

Yvor Winters Puppet Play, directed by Andrew Joron
"Celeste & Sirius" by Kathleen Fraser
"Some Prologues" by Stacy Doris
"Fancy Another Day Gone" (1936) & "Domestic and Unavoidable" (1935) by Lorine
Niedecker, directed by Taylor Brady
"The Seventh Game of the World Series" by David Hadbawnik
(INTERMISSION)
"The Woman in the Green Coat" by Fiona Templeton
"Beckon" by Jocelyn Saidenberg & Wendy Kramer
"All the Thing You Are" by Taylor Brady
"PPL IN A DEPOT" by Gary Sullivan
"Manual for a Block" by Wayne Smith

Friday, February 7, 2003 at 7:30 PM
An evening of short plays #2

Yvor Winters Puppet Play, directed by Andrew Joron
"She Tells Her Daughter" (1923) by Djuna Barnes, directed by Elizabeth
Treadwell (produced with the kind permission of Sun & Moon Press)
"But Seriously, When I was Jasper Johns' Filipino Lover..." by Eileen Tabios
"95 Old Men" by Mary Burger
"La Gnossienne" by Elizabeth Treadwell
(INTERMISSION)
"New Wave Bad Hair Day" by Brian Bauman
"Glow Farm, Glow!" by Lauren Gudath
"Hail Guantanamo!" by David Buuck
"Its night, the ash" by Stefani Barber
"Theater of No Feelings" by Brent Cunningham

Naturally, I bold-faced the reference to my play because this is my Blog. But, for the record, I have never been lovers with Jasper Johns (though he should be so lucky....!). Anyway, I was reminded of the above affair (pun intended) -- and reminded to promote it (why not?) because I was discussing a potential intermission "happening" with Brent involving a flyer that incorporates a statement I had written this summer (thanks to Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon for asking!) for St. Marks Poetry Project's Newsletter Forum on "Integrating Life Into Poetry." I wanted to revisit those thoughts because ... I am quite appalled (and scared) over wartimes! I wouldn't want you all to think, after all, that I am merely a lush. I am a political lush...and lushly political. Here's a statement I had hoped to bury in my files but am forced to recycle:

FORUM ESSAY
For the past two years, I've worked on a visual poetry project entitled "Six Directions" (see link at right corner). The poet Arthur Sze introduced me to the Native American perspective of directions being north, south, east, west, up and down. I considered such multi-dimensionality a metaphor for integrating the (external) world into the (internal) world of the poet's imagination, a concept manifested in "Six Directions" through multidisciplinary collaborations and the use of found objects/texts in sculptures/poems. Thus, for this Forum, I anticipated writing about how "Six Directions" explored my "poetics of everything, everything, everything" because everything can inform poetry.

But I recently heard from a Filipino friend. He says that his poems exploring colonialism recently were criticized by some non-Filipino poets and artists with such comments as "We've all been colonized at one point" and "Those who hang onto their culture are the worst kinds of right-wing extremists."

My friend's poetry reflects his consciousness of how English spread in the Philippines after its 1898 invasion by the U.S. Can history have so little relationship to poetics? I think not, and my friend's experience suggests that a way to show how I integrate life and poetics is to raise this matter now in this forum. Little is known about Philippine history; as Filipino poet Alfrredo Navarro Salanga once said, "They don't think much about us in America."

Shortly after bombing Afghanistan, the U.S. returned to the Philippines as part of its war against terrorism. Most Americans are unaware that the U.S. military presence reflects a governmental failure that extends a long-time inability by the country's politicians to adequately address development needs. In other words, the U.S. presence betrays efforts to get past what Filipinos call "colonial mentality," which legacy includes relying on outsiders to solve domestic problems. Moreover, this issue resonates in a context where political/economic power is concentrated within an elite formed from families who previously supported the country's colonizers.

But even if the U.S. military presence in the Philippines doesn't show colonialism to be a timely matter, I am surprised that artists cannot believe that colonialism is psychological as well as consists of specific events bounded by time. And I am surprised that artists can diminish the significance of culture.

"Six Directions" reflects my attempt to be open to all of the world's possibilities, which inherently acknowledges that exploring one's culture does not require rejecting other cultures (the matter is not an either/or proposition as implied by the person who called my friend a right-wing extremist). My approach, rooted in what Buddhists call interconnectedness, is reflected in Emmanuel Lacaba's "Salvaged Poems" for stating:

We are tribeless and all tribes are ours.
We are homeless and all homes are ours.
We are nameless and all names are ours.

Lacaba wrote his poem while rebelling from the Philippine dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. That his poem transcends that context to become, for me, an ars poetica statement does not obviate the fact that I sourced his poem's "universality" -- the poem's transcendence of the poet's autobiography -- by first paying attention to my culture.

BECAUSE TANNIN MAKES ME PUCKER MY LIPS

From Wine Zone, information on tannin is available on:
http://www.virginwines.com/zone/zn_vault_article.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=883101&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=815675&aff=virgin

An excerpt from Wine Zone's "Dave Broom get[ting] his tongue round those stringy stalkiy pips 'n' things":

Tannins used to be an easy subject to talk about. Tannin was the drying sensation you got in your cheeks and gums when they took on a young red wine. Tannins used to be dry or astringent; but these days they have transformed themselves from dry to sweet, from hard to supple -- I've even had winemakers talk to me about 'lacy tannins'. Is she a bondage star?

What's going on? First, a definition of tannins: they are a group of chemicals extracted from the skins, pips and stalks of the grape, and from the wood of a barrel. Ever tasted a cup of tea that has been brewed for a long time? (If you're in Yorkshire or Northern Ireland you'll know where I'm coming from.) See how it dries the mouth? The same thing happens when you taste a young red: it's the tannins at work, forming a skin of leather on your cheeks...tanning them, in fact. You can also see tannins when you spit a mouthful of red wine into a spittoon -- they're the stringy bits.

Tannins act as a structural element in a wine, providing a framework, stopping the wine turning into a flabby customer. Comparing a wine with well-balanced tannins to one without is like comparing a night in a four-poster bed with one in a sleeping bag.

Tannins help to fix the colour in a red wine and help prevent a wine from oxidising in barrel. They also act as a preservative, enabling a wine (particularly a red) to age, but don't think that a wine with loads of tannin will automatically age well. Those tannins will still be there long after the fruit has withered. In other words, tannin is no use without fruit and acidity, so we're back to balance again. This is why manipulating the extraction of tannins is a hugely important part of red winemaking.

Where do they come from? Tannins come from skins, pips and stalks, so the more that these are in contact with the fermenting juice, the higher your tannins. Because white wines aren't normally fermented in their skins they are low in tannin. That said, most quality producers destem the grapes and try to ensure that the pips aren't crushed, as both can give bitter tannins. One reason for people treading grapes in open fermenters was to ensure that the grapes were softly squeezed and those bitter tannins weren't extracted.

Different grapes will also have different levels of tannin. The general rule is the thicker the skin, the higher the tannins, so Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah have more significant tannins than Pinot Noir. Also, the smaller the grape, the higher the tannin, as there's more skin encasing the juice.

As a ferment kicks off, the temperature rises and the tannins in the grape skins come out to play, dissolving into the liquid. But because the skins float, forming a cap, you don't get an efficient interplay between skin and juice. There are a number of ways to correct this -- you can punch down the cap (pigeage) with poles, feet or in some cases the whole body; the cap can be submerged under the fermenting juice by boards; or (most commonly) the wine can be taken from the bottom of the tank and sprayed over the cap (pumping over, or remontage). You can even use fermenters that work like great concrete mixers, by turning the cap all the time.

Are wines getting less tannic? You'd think that leaving the wine on the skins for a long period (maceration) would boost the tannins, but some influential winemakers argue that the tannins actually begin to soften. It's down to the winemaker to select his or her technique, and everyone is convinced they've found the right method.

If the average length of time a wine spends ageing in your kitchen is 48 hours, then high levels of tannin are hardly going to be uppermost in the winemaker's mind. That said, because wines are being made from riper fruit and are handled more gently in the winery, the tannins are less obvious, though they're still there. These are the 'sweet' tannins that today's winemakers are going on about. Complex little buggers, aren't they?

==========

Yadda. Huzzah, Dave Broom! I do believe you are the proverbial scholar and gentleman!

Plus, I felt like having a long -- loooooong -- lead into my poem entitled, aptly, "Tannin." One could equate that long lead time to a prolonged swirling of wine in the glass in order to heighten the scent of the wine that one will want to inhale and savor. (Well: one could!) One also (or "One" named "Eileen") could equate that long lead time to the same need for a long "inhale" or processing much material within the poet's psyche before -- exhale! -- a verse comes out!

Here's my tannic poem that will appear in the forthcoming annual Sand & Coral's Special issue on Poetry (Silliman University). It was written as one exhale as well as along "first draft, last draft" mode (which is why it's in my manuscript CRUCIAL BLISS). Also, the referenced horse below is "Molly," a neighbor's horse that grazes in a corral that you would have to pass by if you ever visited me in wine country (but, Sshhh: let's make Bino think the poem is all inspired by him and his 2002 wine-tasting calendar which also, I believe, taught him the word "tannin." The way this poet thinks, I think he likes the word "tannin" because it includes "in" just like his name does. Poets -- such strange twists in their minds....):


TANNIN
--for Bino A. Realuyo

Scabs immigrate from fingers that peeled them off scars: imitating shriveled rose petals, scabs caress the bottom of emptied cabernet bottles.

After turning useless things into metaphors and still finding them useless, I lapse into a post-midnight visitation.

Abject in my transparency.

Unlatch buttons on my scarlet (& stained) silk blouse.

"Prevarication" becomes a Martian word.

Damp eyes are mine.

Until, I recall a kind neighbor who built a corral for an old, bowlegged horse.

Equine eyes as kind as yours.


==========

As for this post's wine recommendation, I'll pick a wine even though it might be afforded only by "Enron executives and corrupt dictators." Because this wine exists, which is to say, once, a winemaker made it and created Art. It exists and, as a poet, I desire "nothing human [to be] alien to me." 1959 d’Yquem. And I also pick it because its color is like Molly: dark orange, almost brown.

I LOVE (MIS-)UNDERSTANDING
JUKKA-PEKKA KERVINEN

It's about five minutes before this day changes its identity into a different date. The problem with poetics is that....they're simply not as transcendent as the Poem. So, notwithstanding my earlier thought that I'm done for the day, I wanted to do one more post so that I can end the day with a poem(s) rather than the words tiptoeing around what a poem presumably is. Thankfully, one of Finland's sons came to the rescue.

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is a poet and composer who is interested in computer processing and manipulation of text and language. He has been published in Poethia, Moria, SHAMPOO and Aught. He also works as a composer, with his music having been performed in Finland and U.S. He is also the publisher of the fabulous e-publications xPressed (http://www.xpressed.org/) and xStream (http://xstream.xpressed.org/). There's more information about him at http://64.156.188.97/yh/geous.htm, which presents his musical interests as: "Works with other media included dance, video and multimedia performances. Computer-assisted compositions for different instruments. Current compositions are conventional scores for small ensembles and solo instruments as well graphical scores and prose notated pieces. He is mainly interested of quiet, small, mostly static structures, and notation systems. Many works uses different compositional systems, from total organization to aleatoric processes and controlled improvisation. New compositions are automatically generated using computer programs made by composer."

I am saying all this because he recently honored me by offering eight "translations" of my poem "Transcendence" that was featured in my Jan. 11, 2003 post. Jukka has created about 300 computer-based programs that help him "generate" poems; in this case, he described his "translation" process partly as through "simple search methods for changing/mutating/switching words whatever I have in my mind." Okay -- your guess is as good as (if not better than) mine. Frankly, I don't understand much of what Jukka does; in fact, he's even a "practically absolutist with any alcohol" (I guess that means he's not drinking -- I do love that Espoo English!). But I like involving him in whatever I do because Jukka makes me look smarter than I am. I know he's savvy technologically whereas it took me six months to figure out the "on" button on the computer. Still, if I read Jukka's translations on their own, I do get a lyrical buzz (as like, ahem, from fine wine). Which means I actually also love his poems (notwithstanding a process that may be over my short head). And, Love more than suffices! So, here are Jukka's translations -- poems that evoke for me my experience in drinking the 1989 Corton Charlemagne Bonneau du Matray: Yellow color. Nose of roasted nuts, vanilla, citrus, slightly steely. Thick, rich texture. Flavors of lemons, toasty oak and vanilla. Long finish. Nose of bumblebee tuna fish -- the fancy albacore in oil. (Yeah, right. Go ekphrasis yourself: who's gonna say my translation of Jukka's poems into wine is WRONG?!)

Then, his titles are numbers. Deep, eh?

No. 1
it begins but in the tepid middle-- a farmer returns to
twine the tell field bearing branches spots with shoots of
octet zinfandel cask pinot pagan noir or chips each bud
evokes a tiny know clenched arced a secret befitting its
emend existence of sobs unpin but desex with a deft delis
flick flirt of the wrist the fast filet slush a ah bud bobs
from the groan grid cane the shoot flush into brink air
argue to be car between his lips the towny rhyme continues
with the farmer facer beta over a plant to carve a v notch
into the rootstock the bud beige leaves its kiss to be beady
firer far sneck into i the cut held in place plows by ruby
tape so shams it beefs but in the mists no grope occurs in a
value and the takes chop rootstock first was tern carefully
in a ate numb sets from nature's table seven years from
grant plug with their chosen grape vast o chips pangs pick
the rewards of oats hazed begin bake bud natch cruel whims
seven seed yeast yard give or take here there is ink no
shortcut to talc time whose rhythm is best left unbid ugly
in this core clouds linger not for rain but as in a painting
to twin emphasize there they cocky the lapis labor spins of
the sky-- just as a also thin slack line liner deem the
twirl serenity of a hungry firm fee in a cheap landscape in
this count where the turf sky never named loses its lucky
even in strop wine beige as a angle brick of a gripe giro
chosen for its inlet ably to wilt ditto each exec goofy rat
rinse sods at the thanksgiving table all age candles lit
lust shall slave prowl pood actor adder despite dew dater
each morning dean the hut of bib defy the tamer inker icing
crock of grapes


No. 2
it bell but bust in iris the mints a farmer files ream to
the field bearing brass spare with shrub of zippy cant pinot
noir or odd chardonnay each ears bud even a tiny knuckle
clonk arty armer a secret befitting its emu exact ease of
oaks sower unite but brush deny with waist a deft flick of
the wrist the fails slices a bud from flaws the grafting
cane curs the shoot flop into bread bogus air to be came
between his lips the tears rhythm rooky coy with the facer
fled beast over a plant to carve a ailed v veer notch into
the roam the bud leapt logos its kiss to be fitted snoop
into the cut held in place pushy by bunt rump tape so it bet
but in the mines no grew occur in a vacuum vow and the chart
rob first was term teen carefully in a nutty seen from natal
nose tad seven slob years from grafting plane prom with
their churn grape gaze variety-- verge o chaos path-- the
reel of harsh heels begin barring naive cruel whims wop
seven years give or take here there is no shortcut to tinea
time whose rhino relay is best left unforced in ingle this
cops cloud lids lefty not for rain raves but as in a pant to
emphasize thank couch cheer the lapis lazuli sparkle of the
sky-- just as a thin slack sawer line dewed the serenity
slung of opts a hungry fisherman in a chink landscape leaky
in this country where the sky never loses its luster even in
stump wine being as a branch beams of a grit chase for its
ability to wiser went diet each goody raised reefs sod at
the this table toad all caver lit shall pros potential acer
despite dew each ease morning deity dumps the huh of birds--
debug the inkle crack of grapes


No. 3
it begun eye grind gun bongo but in the milks a fauna cages
sauna reset wine reset inset to the field bearing brick
spite with shawl of zinfandel cast oops civil pinot noir or
chaff each bud evokes a tiny knot kit cleft arose ate a seat
sole teat befitting its hooey input emu tea wind ex of sons
until but den nobly dang with a an deft flick of the wrist
the fatty slices a venom art bud from the grafting cane
curbs the shoot flying into wop icier broom rips loom air to
be catty ruder batty beige his lips. the rhythm cork jogs
cusp with the fact beak over a plant to eagle turks carve a
v notch into the rootstock. the treat twas bud leash its
inly kiss to be fitted snugly into the cut held in place by
blend rubber tape. so it its beat but in the middle-- no
grid war lions lurid occurs in a roos adorn vacuum and the
cheek roe first was team carefully in a nuns semen from icon
flaw nails tap seven years from grafting plank with wow
their tunas chews preys couch grape vane grabs vast o chosen
path-- the rewards of halve skag hokey begin balky miss
silky nail cruel whens seven years give or take here there
is cold it no shuck to time whose rhyme is best dicks burg
left unbid hells rabid in this coded cling licks not loon
noter for rain but bevel as in a painting bead pagan to
emphasize that ranch trend contrast the hope tangy lapis
lakes sparkle of the sky-- just as bough acrid a thin slack
line depicts the serenity sires sing of a hungry fins in a
chick fugue prick landscape. in this country where the sky
slice never loses its item lurer even in stalk wine beamy
where beak as a brawl of sexy only a grabs rides geek chart
for its abuse bunt yummy use czar alarm to tow winos panic
value disease. each goblet raised someday at the them table
all cane coded lit shall praise posy act demo dew each moan
decal the hurl of bides dews flaky dirt the info crushing of
grapes.


No. 4
it pious inch begins brats but in the milky pecky voila
silky a fats repay rubes to the field bearing branches boo
spotted with shoots of zip cages syrup gages pinot wept
prude noir or chewy caves each bud evil a aim alone tiny
knelt debit power felt cliff grape whiff arm a serf tug
swirl befitting its embryonic molts easer existence of olive
socks untie snoop unity but demon with a duo aims deft flick
of the wrist the farmer slum a glued alike bud from the
grasp drugs rasp cane the shoot flying flog into brass air
cited along to be cad poker fires bent bags went his lips
the rhythm continues essay crawl with the fat bending over
pupas own a plant plume to carve a v notch into the room the
typos bud amen bawdy leech its kiss to rye tinny be fitted
snugly into the cut hope clips held in place by ruts ream
tape so it being but in itch the minis moss penis no growth
gifts occur in a vary own pelt diary and the chosen
rootstock first sower fowl was team carefully in a downy
aside nude seats from nature's table vet worth fable seven
crepe sided years boss yawn from grime germs dime plies den
dies with their cheek kiss peek think camps grape variety--
polio voila o cheer tuck typos sneer pal the resin of hangs
shuts watch rungs begin toque beg bats nary cruel serfs
cabin whims seven years yelp give girl or take here there is
no natal shortcut to time whose triad woof rhyme unity thyme
is gorge inker best left spawn lefty undue hyena moors due
in this corn clamp viola choke lit telly split lance not for
agony flung rain but as in a painting pick pose to emphasize
through cored the lapis larva sparkle of the elms torn sky--
just jeep as a thin slack line leafs delay the serenity of a
hunt mourn axle taunt finer fuzzy in bunny issue a chore
cobra lardy in this moths tack country where the sky never
loses its lush even in storms wine beg ruse fixed muted as
adopt a branch aging began of a grapevine glows chill puns
tanks till for its ability to withstand dines bowan nazi
bones each goblet raw thaws randy soot gooey essay foot at
comes and the thanksgiving table tiers all calms come lit
shall huge ship praise posed ache desk dew each fungi egged
moons spear sons despite the huh of pipet only bile despite
the inane cribs dads nibs of grapes


No. 5
it belch but belt in the gunky trips middle-- a asker fall
very mall read to the mulch took field bell bunt tell
branches bake space with shave of zilch shade samba mulch
cabernet pinot noir truer nose or chafe each bud evens a
tiny knuckle clams arose a ajar seeps stay beam haunt sod
steam bards its emit existence of something under pelts
ender but desired with a deft flick of the wrist the fives
tapes farmer fauna slap rusts balky clap a bud from the grow
cane the shoot flow rebel prose aglow into broil be ads
spoil air to tolls togs be can inept clash bench slash punch
his lips the rhythm cools candy with the fauna beak over a
rung agog plant to carve a amber v notch into the ropy wept
dopy the bud lean adds ocean its kiss to be brink filth
snout tilts polls clout into the arose tomb cut held shoes
hung in place by yard bib rubber icon rivet tape so it beard
but in the middle-- no group occurs in a vary and the chart
rootstock first was wedgy tense reams dense cap in a nursery
sent huge dank tent from audit freer narc taps bud heaps
seven years from grafting plaza with lurch worry their frank
today char grape vats o chaff path-- the refry of harvest
begin baker nature's cruel whims seven years give or caged
out take taco here there is no shark comfy lark to time
tucks whose rhythm is best left unfit buddy pose fit in this
teats coder clone liver not for rain sin ran but as in ideas
a pant to tiny emphasize thump color the lapis burps let
lass spurn of tests oaths the sky-- just as a thin slack
skied line deeds bomb pupil heeds the serenity of a hulks
corn folks fisherman in a gawky again char label torch trump
rebel in is this cover where the noise tense sky never loses
its lush even in storms wine beta as a briny move begat winy
of a goof ales grapevine gnats chosen dew chums for float
its aback sod slyly yack to withstand dials dips rayon goals
each gout poles quill trout razed soft at the thins table
all candles lit shall print potential punky act germs amuse
defer stew myth offer dew goner dawn each soon ewes moth
deny slab dated the hubby of birds-- check beets debug the
in crushing of grimy cloth grapes


No. 6
it begins but in the hares to middle-- a farmer returns to
the field bets branches sprig sire with shams of zingy
cabernet pinot noir or of chardonnay each bud even tufts
evil a tiny knead moose kneel cleft arch a secret bees its
embryonic existence of sods unzip but desired with a deft
flick of the wrist the farmer laser flute slices jerks spun
a bud from the groom cane the shoot flush into braky air to
tibia be caught beefy his lips the rhythm continues with the
farmer beans over a plant to troop carve a staff ankle v
notch into paste itsy the rootstock the bud letch its kiss
to be wake bunch fitly snowy into the cut coral held in
place by rubber tape so it begins but in the midst no naval
growth ocean in a vacuum and the tacks chewy rooks first was
tended drier twine cage in a nursery self from nature's
tantrums seven years from gray plants with their chosen
grape vary vest o chosen pair optic pood the rerun booby
rajah of harsh begin sods bump bandy nature's cruel whims
seven poem shone years give or terce ocean take than here
there skin trash is no shady to theft time whose rhythm is
best way buffs left unify in this country clouds liked not
hotel ninth for rain swish rowdy but brave as in a paint to
emend thorn color the lapis lamer spic of the sky-- just as
a thin tense slack vizor sham line delta the serenity of a
husky fin in a cheap cam landscape in this could where the
tad sky never loses its luster even in loses into storms
wine begins as a brace of a float alone grapevine chosen for
its ability to wick diary each goblet gray raised soups at
quid agony the thyme table wage tasty all candles lit shall
praise frees poppa potential achieved delis dew each moan
plank melts despite the hum of crap oval birds-- despite the
inevitable crook of grapes


No. 7
it bevel but in irked inch the middle-- a faze fumes returns
to the field bearing branches swab bagel spool with shuts
decal nuts of zips cable pinot noir or chardonnay each puma
erupt bud evokes a tiny knife grub life clung arena a secret
snort beta its emu exile of solid unjam but desex blow dairy
with a deft flick of the wrist meals won the farmer sleep a
bud from the groom go cane the shoot flying usher femme into
bras air to be caught curds between limit braze his lips the
rhino comes crew with wool the fawny bet over a plant to
carve a v notch into the robs the bud lease its sigh infer
kiss to be fifty snip into the cut held rolls hooch in inly
place by yell botch rubber rake tape so it beats but in ill
the crap towie middle-- no growth octet knobs olden in a
vacuum and the chaff roar first was teams caper these comfy
in a nudge seven suite haven from tying fake nature's
tantrums seven sue years from grow homer aline crow plume
with their corks tawny charm grape variety-- o chosen path--
the renew of harvest begin barring nature's cruel whims
seven years give or dough oafs take text here there is no
ship to time whose rhythm is best left unity in bones iffy
this cork clubs pique paves grubs limo not for rain but as
in inset a painting to tells emits three oust agree could
the lapis lax dune lazy sparkle of the sky-- kite seek just
as a thin slack silly line depicts idle dye the sent scoot
slier of a hunch first tires worst in a chord landscape in
this corks where the sky never loses its lure even in storms
wine beam bet as jock among a braid of a gripe chums for its
above to withstand dildo each gouge chart guff ratio someday
at the thunk table frog twirl all caned lit shall prom pot
achieved despite dew each modem dean the hue of bicep debut
the inevitable crux of yolks occur grapes


No. 8
it begins but in ivy inlet the wife tang mixes dewy reefs
fixes a farmer redo kits credo to the tolls field beer brat
spotted with shoots of zip can pinot noir or chardonnay each
bud evokes a tiny knave clamp made chest argue erase than
fugue a secret befit its embed paces exact exams mana emu of
sofas uncut but devil hulk downs with a deft flick of the
wrist the farmer sloth a bud from the lair thou growl cults
gnash cane the shoot flying into focus ingle braky air to
rings twist be eat base cars beta his lips the rhyme cobra
with the type fan beet over a plant to carve a v visas notch
into the rootstock the bud lean its kiss to be downs belts
fixer snake into the cut held in place by bangs ruler spite
taler tape so it beats shaft bulge but barn in the minis no
gripe tech ripe crock gassy octet omit in a vans knees dash
plans and the chuff roper din gaper first was tended
carefully in coral its a nuts secure from nature's tantrums
seven years from grafting plow with their theft chaps grape
vault go veil o oasis cheek run sawed seek patio chink lick
ratio the rests grand said masts of harvest begin baked navy
cruel whims seven years give or rhino owl take here there
rants tease is no shop purer ranch chop to time groin tread
whose rhino goods sent ruled is ivory best left unite in
ruddy icier this babe tacks country clouds likes not for
feet rain flag rove but as in a pats to ember theft sees
tongs cleft coal the lapis lasso spier of the sky-- just as
a thin slack line dewy odes chewy the sexes unite tonne
foxes of a hungry fisherman in tarot irons a chest ever west
lathe in this country where the along tubs sky never loses
its lusty polyp testy lops even in stall wine amend watch
bell desex apple hell as a branch of a grove toes clove
chops for its abide to wirer disco each eve goblet raid skid
said someday wiped snipe at the them table all that abort
candles lit shall preys pales asker keys potential pawns
acre despite dew each moral debug the hush of birds-- dense
the infix snick props affix crypt curs of grapes

COLD WATER FLAT IS MAGANDA RINZAI (PART III)

[CRUCIAL BLISS Essay, con’t.]

The relationship between breath and poetic line has been addressed by many poets and theorists, with ideas ranging over the thought that line breaks should mirror pauses to American poet Charles Olson's theory of "projective verse" whereby the poem is energetically thrown forward from the poet. Though I empathize with Olson's burst-of-energy approach, I am equally interested in the internal alchemy that occurs within the poet prior to the surfacing of the poem. (Olson does address the importance of an "interior listening process," as Jean Gier puts it, but also seems to "valorize the projective, exteriorizing act.") [For more on Olson and other wonderful discourses on poetry as well as poems, see Jean's site at http://www.geocities.com/gier99/nightjar2.html]

I see that intake as related to the alchemical and transformative process of creation, followed by the projected out-breath. Perhaps this is why, in writing the Merriam-Webster poems, I have not opted for the free-stanza form despite noticing how my breath no longer mirrors the long lines I integrated into my earlier prose poems. I didn't wish to negate my history with the prose poem form by now eliminating it from my work. In addition, the line break -- that actual cutting off of a line -- is a much more blunt cut than the inclusion of a period within the still flowing long line.

Moreover, as a practitioner of yoga, I also recall poet Leza Lowitz's statement in her breath-taking (pun intended) collection Yoga Poems (Stone Bridge Press, 2000). After noting how the "magic of going inward also took me away from myself," Lowitz continued on to say, "Breath was the bridge to greater self-understanding, which led to a deeper concern for others." This relates to how I envision my transcending autobiography to not eliminating myself so much as incorporating other selves into the poem's "I." (I note this because any poetics discussion of transcending ego may evoke the contemporary poetic development of poets trying to move beyond the personal experience to focus on the materiality of language.) While I wish my poems' "I" not to be synonymous with myself, I don't consider my approach an obviation of my "I." In order to facilitate my version of poetic alchemy, as related to proactive lucidity, I mean only to incorporate as much of the universe into the alchemical stew that, when it froths over, bubbles over with fully-embodied poems. I wish to move out of the Poem's way by making the universe be the Poem's protagonist -- but the universe does include the smaller individual me.

As a Filipino poet living in the United States, I am interested in transcending personality or ego, but not "personhood," a word I derived from pagkatao, the essence of being. Avoiding self-erasure is significant for addressing the political implications of my context through residence. In the United States, Filipinos have been called a "silent majority," where Filipinos often are ignored or invisible, whether due to racism or because of Filipino immigrant assimilationist tendencies. This may seem paradoxical with the idea of emptying the mind to move out of the Poem's way. But Poetry is full of paradoxes. And Poetry must contain a multiplicity of paradoxes because Poetry is about the totality of Life (hence my poems' varied references to ancient Greek, East Asian, European and American cultures as much as the Filipino culture). In navigating across the universe, poetic alchemy does not require the Poet to give up choice.

Nonetheless, ultimately no paradox may exist in straddling the tension between ego-emptiness and the erasure of personhood. Decolonization scholar Leny M. Strobel notes that the Buddhist notion of "no Self" (which I relate my notion of emptying the mind to move out of the Poem's way) is still a "Self" that replaces ego. Strobel adds, "The decolonized Filipino self may be akin to the emergence of this Buddhist no-self/Self because the Filipino values of kapwa and loob already integrate this non-dualist, inclusive view of the self in relation to the universe."


======

I am as done tonight as is the bottle of the 1997 Kistler Chardonnay "Kistler Vineyard.” A long caramel finish...

COLD WATER FLAT IS MAGANDA RINZAI (PART II)

My most recently-completed poetry collection, CRUCIAL BLISS, is being considered by a publisher as we, um, I ...speak. It’s apparently passed their editorial standards, but now the editor needs to convince the Board to invest funds in poetry-publishing (something they’d cut back on in recent years because, surprise: poetry publishing has not been as profitable as desired). But I am working on completing an introductory essay that is part of that collection because to be a Poet, Dear Ones, is to have Faith!

Anyway, here's an excerpt from my Preface to CRUCIAL BLISS, which begins with an epigraph by Max Gimblett, another artist who’s done numerous collaborations with John Yau (see www.Maxgimblett.com for Max's gorgeous works). This essay is still in draft form so feel free to e-mail me corrections or comments:

MAGANDA: Thoughts on Poetic Form

One stroke bone
The stroke of unknowing
The brush of all things
--from "One Bone Stroke" by Max Gimblett

According to a Filipino creation myth, the first man Malakas (Strength) and woman Maganda (Beauty) emerged fully formed from a split bamboo. The poems in my CRUCIAL BLISS series reflect a desire to write (beautiful) poems in the manner of Maganda. That is, I wanted the poem to simmer and not come out through my pen (or computer keyboard) until it was fully-actualized enough to surface with its first draft also (potentially) its "last" draft. This contrasts with my early years of writing poems when, at times, I might spend months (occasionally lapsing into years) working over a single poem.

As a poetic process, I sometimes likened Maganda to Athena in Greek and Roman mythology because both were born fully formed. The goddess of wisdom, the arts and war, Athena sprang from her father's forehead, Zeus. She was born, not simply grown but already armed in helmet and armor and carrying a spear (thunderbolt). Athena also was worshipped as the goddess of fertility, which I found metaphorically apt for how a poem may engender different experiences for its readers (as well as its author). I retain the reference to Athena for a certain group of poems in this collection because I had her manner of birth in mind when I wrote those poems. But as my thoughts evolved, I have chosen to think of this aspect of my poetics as more of Maganda's rather than Athena's. For, I don't necessarily write poems to share wisdom, create art, wage war or make babies (though that latter would be a particularly nifty result!). But I consistently hope that my poems are beautiful.

Poems may be written in a variety of ways and I don't privilege any one approach over others. (I envision, for instance, that the approach underlying CRUCIAL BLISS may not be appropriate for very long poems; the longest poem I have mustered using this method was a 175-tercet poem* which entailed a 38-hour sitting process before the computer keyboard, barely interrupted by sleep, food and thirst.) However, I have found certain advantages to letting the poem stew internally before it comes out of its own volition as fully-embodied. This method helps me to maintain the energy of that initial impetus that would birth a poem. For me, editing a poem often dilutes that vigor (though the effect of editing can be different for other poets).

Writing by following that singular burst of energy also helped me make poems that do not rely only on my intentions. I believe the Poem transcends the author's life as well as limits of the poet's imagination. Emptying my mind so as to get out of the Poem's way is a state of mind that, for me, facilitates being freed to be creative in hopefully innovative ways. I usually begin the Poem with physically feeling a simmer within my belly, without yet knowing what caused that simmer. The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty puts it another way: "Before expression, there is nothing but a vague fever, and only the work itself, completed and understood, will prove that there was something rather than nothing to be found there."

To write fully-actualized first drafts also facilitates my attempts to live with proactive awareness. Poetry is alchemy and I believe my job as a poet is to be open and lucid as I go about living my life in order to maximize the raw material available for subsequent poetic distillation; I consider this important as I feel my better poems contain several layers of references, though not all may become evident to the reader(s). A koan from the "Mumon-kan" ("The Gateless Gate") states: "you must climb a mountain of swords with bare feet." These words, according to Buddhist teacher Toni Packer, relates to, "So can one walk with great care, aware of dangers, not panicky, but stepping carefully? Relating with care, listening with care, really with care, to oneself and the person right next to you?"

If and when I accomplish greater awareness, my experiences become more heart- and mind-felt. For me, deeper engagement ingrains experiences more passionately and helps them pop up in unanticipated ways during the writing of poems, frequently enervating the poems as well as making them more interesting. Relatedly, these Athena- or Maganda-like poems are similar in my mind to Rinzai brushstrokes. Rinzai represents dynamic, powerful Zen through which the practitioner experiences enlightenment and realizes this experience in their own lives. I am honored to have met Buddhist artist Max Gimblett whose calligraphic brushstrokes reflects his rigorous, Rinzai-based practice. That his sumi ink spills out in perfect pitch during a swift, unrehearsed brushstroke against the canvas results from his own observance, spanning decades, of proactive awareness that allows for distillation in his art into faultless form.

I believe I always will be a neophyte as regards Poetry. But my attempts to walk with bare feet on a mountain of swords included signing up in 2000 for Webster-Merriam.com's "Word of the Day" service. Through this program, subscribers receive daily e-mails of a word with its definition. While the program may be intended to offer a means for expanding vocabulary, I also decided that I would write a poem entitled with those words. Not knowing the words ahead of time facilitated my writing poems on topics that I might not otherwise address, eliminating ego-based decisions on what next to write in a poem. Relatedly, because I think that I don't write poems to say something but to determine what it is I wish to say, these Webster-Merriam-inspired poems often alerted me to things that were of concern but to which I had not yet become fully or consciously attentive. Certainly, I believe enlightenment can be a goal in Poetry, as much as it is in Buddhist and other practices.

Issue No. 7 of xStream (http://xstream.xpressed.org/) is due out later this month and will feature five poems from my Webster-Merriam series. But, speaking of enlightenment, an unexpected side-result is that, through this series, I came to extend my investigations of the prose poem, a form whose long lines I originally found compatible with my ability to hold my breath for long periods. As I've gotten older, I've noticed a diminishment in that ability and I find that I cannot read some of my older long lines without the interruption of another inhale. The Webster-Merriam poems allowed me to explore the effect of breath on poetic lines through my use of the period as like a line-break to note the pause required by inhalation, and not just to end a sentence. This has led to my still early investigations on how to break up the prose poem paragraph without obviating the paragraph. The poem "Obsequious" reflects an example of this form, new to me and which arose organically as I disciplined myself to write a Webster-Merriam-inspired poem on a daily basis:

OBSEQUIOUS

He possessed a power. over her. because she could be anyone. with him. even creatures whose existence she could not predict. until she found herself clothed. by their skin. Once, she tried to embody a concept. that she would loathe. like "obsequiousness," a concept. that forces her to consider. her forlorn toes. forlorn because her toes comprehend. their ugliness. To be obsequious. she began by accepting. a blindfold. fashioned through a silk, floral scarf. her grandmother has never given her. Oh cloudless sky--a plate where I spread my thighs for the hunger in his eyes. Oh, royal blue sky. What is signified when the attempt for obsequiousness becomes a boulder rolling away from the entrance to a cave? He awaited her. He showed her. how to create shadows. to live on the wall as physically. as his hand curving around her breast. for the first time. It was the last time. he was gentle. which could not prevent her. from soaring. whenever she bowed before him. subsequently.


========


I would have wanted a single post to feature the excerpts from my essay but the BLOGGER turned mean again with the message: too “BigBody”! Geez: it’s enough to drive me to drink. Okay, this is “Part II.” Here's the footnote related to the asterisk above:
*The referenced 175-tercet poem is the last poem in my e-chapbook "Enheduanna in the 21st Century" published by X(Press)ed at http://www.xpressed.org/.

Now, a swig, I mean, sip of that 1997 Kistler Chardonnay "Kistler Vineyard" (toasting Thomas Fink, as promised) and next comes “Part III.”

COLD WATER FLAT IS MAGANDA RINZAI (PART I)

A current topic on SUNY Buffalo's Poetics Listserve is ekphrasis -- art inspired by another art form. This is an issue obviously close to my heart, pen, glass (always!) and occasionally brain -- as evidenced by nothing other than WinePoetics.

A Mr. Tom Bell asked, "is 'ekphrasis' limited to a poet's [reactions] to art or an artist's reactions to poetry? I'm more interested in what the fruits (either poetic or artistic) might be? For example, if poet A writes poem A in response to painting B, is there a C somewhere on the horizon? This would then be a collaboration?"

To which I replied, "John Yau has collaborated with many artists -- and I've been most impressed when his collaborations create a third artist (not the poet, not the artist, but a new authorial entity), what you call 'C' perhaps. And that third person has also been created instantaneously at times. He has collaborated most frequently and longest with Archie Rand; in 2001 my press (http://www.meritagepress.com/100morejokes.htm) published their etchings-based collaboration 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead (available at SPD). This also is one of their "instantaneous" collaborations ('first scratch, best scratch')."

Then I suggested that folks interested in this topic check out http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/02/05/archieRand.html for an article by Archie Rand that discusses the process. Here are some relevant excerpts from that article by Suzanne Trimel and published by Columbia University:

[...] Collaboration is exhilarating, says Rand. "You lose your ego. You lose your individuality. There's a kind of release and at the same time, an intense freedom to create."

[...] The etchings from "100 More Jokes…" are humorous vignettes and were created by poet and painter simultaneously and without revision. Rand and Yau worked side by side, as the flow of images and words emerged.

In viewing the final work, Rand says, it is difficult even for him "to recall which came first -- his words or my pictures."

[...] Rand believes a true collaboration occurs "when two people sit down, look each other in the eye and say, 'Let's make a third thing.' " The creative product, he says, is neither drawing, nor painting, nor poetry but a third form.

Rand considers this "third thing" -- he has yet to find other words to describe it -- magical. "Both of us were quite amazed that we made something that has nothing to do with the words and nothing to do with the picture but has to do with something more enormous," he says of his work with Yau. "It is basically almost religious. You put a strain on the affection between the collaborators and the picture ends up being about faith because it has tested that relationship."

If you go to the Columbia University site, you will see a reproduction of one of the images in 100 More Jokes, an etching that Meritage Press helped sponsor in a 37-numbered and signed limited edition. That etching (whose reproduction is also available at http://www.meritagepress.com/coldwaterflat.htm) is, believe it or not, WINE-related! In fact, it's now hanging in or by the entrance to the wine cellars of several oenophile friends! I remember discussing that particular etching with John Yau; he had said (in so many words), "Part of what's great about collaborating with Archie is that the outcome often surprises me. I had forgotten, until I revisited the etchings project, that I'd even helped create this particular image."

The image features a lady with a deep decolletage leaning over a dining table; over it, John had written "COLD WATER FLAT. What you say in an American restaurant when the waiter brings the wrong bottle." What a hoot!

Perhaps one reason why John had forgotten temporarily that he created the COLD WATER FLAT etching is due to their process: he and Archie would sit at a table and pass the material back and forth. He might start with words that Archie responds to, or vice versa, and as the evening unfolds (and they have pulled all-nighters doing these collaborations), it seems they both arrive at a space where they're "on" and responding at perfect pitch during that first gesture, whether through John's words or Archie's images. I liken it to prolonged ongoing net play during tennis.

And this is actually the facet that I might most appreciate about John and Archie's process. Most of the poems in my most recently-complete poetry manuscript, entitled CRUCIAL BLISS, were written in this manner where I wished to write "first draft, last draft."

[PAUSE]
I tried to continue this post with an excerpt from my Preface to CRUCIAL BLISS that expands on writing poems a la “first draft, last draft.” But the BLOGGER turned mean and instructed me that that post would be unmanageable as a “BigBody.” So I’ll call this post “Part I” and end here. During this wine-break prior to continuing onto “Part II,” I shall toast poet, editor and composer Jukka-Pekka Kervinen of Espoo, Finland simply because I like his name. A toast with the weekend's “left-over” but still sublime wine: 1997 Kistler Chardonnay "Kistler Vineyard."

A POETICS OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS
(OR, ON RADICAL JUXTAPOSITIONS)

"It is part of a cultural activism I practice because, as the Danish poet Paul la Cour once said, "Being a poet is not writing a poem but finding a new way to live." // Relatedly, the interactive aspect of "Poem Tree" also reflects my poetics as one of interconnectedness..."
--from "Six Directions: Poetry As A Way of Life"


I began paying attention to poet Joshua Corey's blog after reading his post where, among other things, he says that (in addition to "critical thought [and] interesting language") he is committed to "a vague intuition that one must engage fully with one's environment .... in order to live right." [Bold emphasis is boldly and emphatically mine.] (Check out http://joshcorey.blogspot.com/ by this poet whose first book, Selah, will be published this fall by Barrow Street).

In a subsequent conversation with Joshua, I mentioned WinePoetics, to which he replied, "How fabulous. Makes me miss my brief years in California, where good drinkable wine cost less than $10 a bottle (and I had the $10, too)."

Joshua's comment resonates as the market for over-priced wines has been collapsing in recent months, resulting in the current glut of wine on the market. From my home in Napa Valley, I look over large fields of grapevines that weren't harvested this past season, even though they already had been sold to Mr. X. Though he'd already paid for the grapes, Mr. X apparently didn't think it worthwhile to invest the additional funds to harvest the grapes and turn them into wine (and so told my farmer-neighbor that the grapes need not be harvested). Presumably, Mr. X might have made his economic forecasts by assuming he could sell his wine at $N per bottle in order to make a certain profit; but with the collapse in wine prices he now realizes he may not achieve that $N per bottle price.

Stories like this abound throughout wine country, a problem that's exacerbated by how, in recent years, certain winemakers had aggressively pushed their prices. Some winemakers viewed the $100-a-bottle threshold as not just maximizing their profits but possessing an imprimatur -- of course, this is an old story known as upscale marketing. But now, the wines that were never worth such a premium price are seeing their prices drop.

And this reminds me of how, in Poetry....[pause. okay, how exactly does this relate to poetry. wait. gimme a minute....gimme another minute]

And this reminds me of ... an annual poetry contest that I'd been sponsoring through Meritage Press (MP). The poems were submitted to MP, and then forwarded without the authors' identities to the judges. One desired effect was to eliminate any imprimatur (or the reverse of imprimatur: what is that word?) that might be associated with any participating poet. For the second year in a row, the winners of MP's poetry contest are young emerging poets whose entries topped the poems of more "established" poets (winners will be announced next month at Meritage Press' website). The judge this year was fabulous and fabulous poet Oliver de la Paz. (And, Joshua, if you want to read about a different way of poetically addressing angels, do check out Oliver's book, Names Above Houses, Crab Orchard Review Poetry Prize, Southern Illinois University Press, 2001 -- for instance: "Again the wrens are in the garden, their white throats ghosting around the boy fallen from a birch in the yard. The mother, hands still damp, kneels and holds her boy's broken wrist. She feels his unsteady pulse and shields her one-winged son. All around, the mouths chit syllables: an aphasic's name, an angel's stammer... )

Just as the poems in the MP contest were judged on their own merits, wines now are being judged partly on whether their qualities really support aggressive pricing policies. [She steps back: she thinks: well, that was a lame linkage....]

=========

Ach! I'm still sluggish this Monday morning from this weekend's wines. I didn't make that above leap -- that linkage -- as gracefully as I wished. And I so desire such leaps because, you see, I believe in the Buddhist notion of interconnectedness -- which scholar Leny M. Strobel also connects to the Filipino indigenous concept of loob. Leny notes, "According to Filipino philosopher/theologian Fr. Bert Alejo, [loob] has the same meaning as the Greek word Aletheia (truth revealed), Chinese Tao (the Way), or the Japanese Zen (the Unnameable). Loob has the power to shape our reality, to unite, link and connect us to our Kapwa (our fellow human being). Our loob is in a dialectical relationship with the loob of our others/kapwa through pakikiramdam (the capacity for compassion, empathy, and sympathy). The deeper our experience of our loob the more we know and feel our interconnectedness with each other, with the world, and with Nature and its Creator."

So, part of my desired nature for WinePoetics is to practice one of the roles I feel I should do as a poet: to connect together seemingly random elements. In turn, that provides good training for poems in which I birth what Forrest Gander calls "radical juxtapositions."

But I feel a bit flat this morning, which also means I shouldn't bother attempting to write a new poem as it's not likely to be infused with the energy I wish to exist in my poems. By the way, I am sluggish because, in addition to the party wines mentioned in the prior post, I enjoyed these absolutely luscious wines this weekend: the 1998 Torbreck Descendants (93% Shiraz and 7% Viognier, a classic Cote Rotie combination) and the 1994 Alion (third label of Vega Sicilia).

In addition, yesterday, I took lumpia expert Michelle Bautista to a wine tasting at Dutch Henry. We tasted the following:

2001 Los Carneros Chardonnay (fruity and pleasant. sweet citrus. not overly tart so nice balance between acid and fruit.)

2000 Napa Valley Merlot (medium body. nice fruit)

1999 Napa Valley Zinfandel (spicy. blueberries. forward wine.)

2000 Napa Valley Argos Meritage (named after Argos, a dog from Greek mythology, as befits this dog-loving winery. well-balanced wine)

2000 NV Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (o, beloved eucalyptus and mint)

And I mention this tasting, too, because what's nifty about Dutch Henry is that they have generally tried to keep their prices reasonable. Except for the chardonnay whose $35 price is pushing it, the red wines are still reasonable, ranging from $27 to $42 a bottle. Sure, they're not $10 a bottle, but they merit the premium.

*********

And now, I am practicing my beloved "radical juxtaposition" between wines that, in some cases, one poet tells me "only Enron executives and evil dictators can afford" and the multiple topics -- and, for some quarters, more "politically correct" issues -- that have cropped up to date in WinePoetics. Perhaps that's the point, dear Reader.

Here's a recent poem from my new attempts to write very short poems. As you might glean from my posts, I have a tendency to blather and so I've been practicing short poems:

Epilogue Poem (#11)

I, too, refuse
to live constrained
by deprivation narratives

That poem was actually written when I wanted to use the phrase "deprivation narratives" -- a phrase that struck me when I read an old New Yorker article about (speaking of not necessarily being politically correct) Condoleeza Rice.

There is, actually, a subtext to the notion of my writing non-deprivation narratives. Suffering, as in immigrant suffering, is an archetypal topic, like food, in Asian American narratives. Not to diss the reality of such sufferings, but, sometimes, one also wants to write about other things. Judge me by my poems, not by my sufferings especially since, to quote Luis H. Francia whose e-chapbook you might want to check out -- and savor -- at http://www.meritagepress.com/babaylanpubs.htm):

"You have no idea how I have suffered."

Granted, I am quoting Luis out of context since Luis (I think) was talking about romantic relationships (though don't hold my memory-challenged....memory to this as this conversation occured years ago). But still, what is interesting to me as I continue with this blog experiment is how, no matter how much it seems I reveal, so much more remains hidden about myself (well, after all, "I" am none of your business -- you don't really think I am revealing something deep and momentous about myself here just because we're engaged in a blog?). It's like how Meena Alexander once described a poem: the verse is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what actually happened in the process of making that poem.

[Arbitrary juxtaposition now coming up:] The words of poet and critic Thomas Fink shall end this post. Tom's most recent book, by the way, is GOSSIP (Marsh Hawk Press, 2001, see http://www.marshhawkpress.org/fink.html). I love GOSSIP, about which I have gossiped to others in the past:

This book offers the type of well-rounded experience that wonderful poetry can offer. The poems are purr-fectly pitched as they -- alluding to the title theme of GOSSIP -- capture the private back-and-forths going through a person's mind in the midst of a conversation, in addition to the public narratives being articulated. While the poems develop along a strong energy path, they also throw off many wonderful lines that deserve to become epigrams. Thus, the poet masters the balance between offering a meaningful narrative that, yet, does not get in the way of the poem's abstract energy. That is, Thomas Fink has written pure music without discounting narrative. Adept, cerebral, passionate, wry, wise , lucid, resonantly imagistic -- it is a marvel to read, behold and experience. My favorite line arguably is: "Icarus lived, and the sky turned pink."

Anyway, Tom notes after perusing WinePoetics for the first time:

I'm struck by how often Emily Dickinson uses tropes about alcohol and intoxication: "Inebriate of air am I/ And debauchee of dew." She was probably a teetotaler and is conveying transcendence of the quotidian.
Regarding the taunt, "A fart in your general direction" [see 1/9/03 post], it should read, "I fart in your general direction," because the original speaker--in the Monty Python "Holy Grail" movie, I think--was supposed to be French. When a Frenchman is speaking English, the word "I" might sound like "ah."
Congratulations on your intoxicating new venture,

Thanks Tom. You never make me suffer, for which I shall toast you tonight over a dinner of left-overs from this weekend!

LUMPIA, NOT LUMPS, WITH GURA MICHELLE

Ker plah' (a Klingon greeting)!

This weekend, the poet (and Kali martial artist) Michelle Bautista visited and cooked me lumpia (Filipino egg rolls: yum!). The lumpia would have gone perfectly with an Alsatian Gewurtztraminer -- particularly from Zind-Humbrecht. That's not what we drank. But there was no feeling of compromise as we cheerfully inhaled, swirled, sipped and pursed our lips through the wines I list below (a few times, I even twirled over some particularly swoon-y sips). In the aftermath of my groundbreaking lumpia-with-wine experience, I am feeling too lazy to post personal wine tasting notes (Yes: Poetry is so BIG it even encompasses laziness!). So, if available, I'll just share the text on the back labels (with a couple of parenthetical comments as to how such back cover information relates to poetics):

1997 Peter Michael "Le Caprice" Chardonnay

1997 Kistler Chardonnay "Kistler Vineyard": "This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered and may therefore develop a natural sediment during its evolution. To prevent the formation of this sediment by filtration or other means would interfere with the natural aging process of the wine and diminish the ultimate quality." (To me, this notion relates to the complicated tension that sometimes arises in editing poems -- i.e., how over-editing a poem to make it "finer" may result instead in diminishing the energy, hence power, of the poem. Personally, I opt for just a bit more raw-ness in certain poems so as to enhance their vibrancy. May your poems never be pallid!)

1999 Forman Chardonnay

1997 Behrens & Hitchcock "Randy's Cuvee" Merlot

1998 Forman Napa Valley Merlot. A signed bottle! I do like watching winemakers sign their bottles; in some cases, I see the same movingly-awkward combination of shyness and pride flit across their faces as I've seen on first-time authors as they sign their books. Really moving.

1999 Reverie Cabernet Franc: "Our steep terraced vineyard on Diamond Mountain is one of those rare places where Cabernet Franc, one of the Noble Wine Grapes, achieves it full potential to make outstanding wines. For this wonderful wine we have blended two lots of Cabernet Franc with small amounts of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot, all grown on our family owned vineyard. The handmade wine was aged in our winery in new small oaks barrels. We believe you will enjoy its wonderful bouquet and long, lingering aftertaste." Plus, Reverie has a lovely spiritual spot of a circular space formed by tall (much taller than Ferlinghetti) redwoods rising towards the sky. Worth a visit for the wine, the redwoods and the amicable conversations with owner Norman Kiekin.

1998 Parson's Flat Padthaway Shiraz Cabernet. I will say that the thought "violets" came to mind when I first tasted this lovely wine, but I may have been too incapacitated (um, I mean, intoxicated) to be accurate -- lapsing instead to my preference to be loving (as a poet, I often privilege Love). The back cover sez: "This wine has a lifted boysenberry nose with lovely vanilla overtones of oak. It's full of chocolate and mint rich blackcurrant fruit, and has a full-bodied palate with long lingering fruit flavors." (This wine was liquid poetry -- if it was verse, I'd have easily memorized it as its impact resonates.)

1998 Beaux Freres Pinot Noir: "The Beaux Freres pinot noir, because it is naturally made, living wine, will deposit a sediment." (See poetics comment above as regards the 1997 Kistler chard. Poetry is so BIG, you see, that it also can encompass "sediment.")

2000 Dutch Henry Wines Reserve Zinfandel. Made by my neighbors, the Chafens. Les, Maggie, Scott and Sofia Chafens comprise a lovely family who offered an open-hearted when I moved to the Bay Area. And their winery is adorably festooned with loveable dogs. Don't hold me to this but I vaguely remember Scott Chafen, the winemaker, majoring in philosophy in college. Poetry, too, is like wine: its practitioners come from diverse backgrounds (cough. I'm stretching here to make a point just because I wanted to....mention Scott, who has had poems published in the St. Helena Register, a newspaper whose sometime poetry section I really miss....)

Okay. So obviously I had a crowd of people come over to party this weekend as it would have been way too decadent (is it possible for me to be too decadent? must think about this) for all these wines to have been drunk by just me and Michelle. And at one point during the evening, the crowd started clamoring for me to read a poem. (Gee: when the crowd -- many of whom (I think) do not usually pay attention to poetry -- started clamoring for a poetry reading, the wine really must have flowed.) Well, being the memory-challenged type, I don't memorize most of my poems. So I offered the only poem I could remember:

STAR TREK HAIKU

Your belly rising
interrupts
my view of Jean Luc Picard

The crowd hooted its appreciation, but I'm not sure if I advanced the cause of Poetry there. By the way, Michelle reminded me that Jean Luc Picard's brother owned a winery in France. She pointed me to http://smcsta2.tripod.com/captain_jean-luc_picard.htm and, specifically, its "second major paragraph. I do recall an episode after his brother passed away that he busts out a bottle of the family wine. Star Fleet captains are known to always keep a stash of some good alcohol somewhere." Said second paragraph states:

"Owing to a single-minded drive since childhood for a Starfleet career, Picard has 'never been a family man' and was long uncomfortable with the Galaxy-class starship's civilian family contingent; the orphaned son of Lt. Marla Aster again raised this concern, although his unease with children has dissipated since being stranded with three youths during a shipboard quantum filament crisis. His initial reaction to family is also reflected in the friction with his father and, later, his older brother over leaving the family business, a winery. However, when asked about having children of his own Picard once replied that "wishing for a thing does not make it so." The issue of lineage and his lack of offspring caused a sustained yet brief period of depression upon the sudden accidental deaths in 2371 of Robert and his nephew Rene, his only other family members. His outlook was also affected by the chance to experience a traditional family through an encounter in the Nexus in 2371, as recounted later, and after having relived 40 years of a Kataanan native's life three years earlier; in the latter case the decades of experience compressed into 30 minutes from a Kataanan archival probe was overwhelming." [Bold-faced emphasis mine.]

Michelle also said that if you go to "Star Trek Experience" at Las Vegas Hilton, they sell a bottle of "Klingon blood wine." But it's California merlot! Specifically, from the Weibel Vineyards in Woodbridge, CA (although please do not consider this a personal recommendation from me on Weibel merlot as I've never tasted it. My wine recommendations should be, like Poetry, "authentic" but I have yet to experience Weibel). How does Michelle know? She actually has a bottle in her closet, cough, her cellar! (Remember the Star Trek episode when Nog, Quark's nephew, stole General Martok's special reserve Klingon blood wine? Special Reserve Klingon Blood Wine -- what a hoot!)

Michelle also noted, "Oh, and the Trill wine is a California White Zin. Don't have a bottle of one of those, though I've seen it. I mean, really, the serious drinkers on Star Trek are the Klingons. Jadxia Dax who was a symbiote from Trill actually often preferred Klingon blood wine." Okay.

Gura Michelle Bautista -- a woman after my own heart, even when I'm sober. And now: picture my fingers in the Vulcan IDIC sign as I lovingly wish: may your lumps only be within your lumpia. Translation: May you live long and prosper!

WHAT HAD BEEN FERMENTING IN MY JOURNAL

You know how you keep trying to remember something, and failing miserably, until the effort becomes an aggravating itch? So, since that last post I've been trying to remember that wine that Philip Lamantia so appreciated. Finally, I had the brillliant (if belated) idea of checking my journal from those days to see if I'd mentioned it. And, well, here are the relevant passages (with parenthetical hindsight comments inserted) that, huh, also ... end up going on to touch on other matters -- exactly like how I write this blog!:

=======journal excerpt:

Philip invited me to be his dinner guest while he did a reading at Niebaum Coppola. I met him first at his apartment where, oh he was so sweet, he served me hors d'ouevres. And this is just so sweet because, you know [hmmm, why do I say "you know" to myself when I'm writing in a diary? must think on this] he lives by himself in this apartment just stuffed to the gills with books! Columns of books from the floors in all rooms, like ancient battered stones still standing despite history's inexorable march ["inexorable march'? If that's not a cliche, it should be]. And in the room that he uses as his writing studio, he had set up a plate of garlic-stuffed olives and cheese with toothpick antennas! And he served wine: "Portuguese reserve wine" though I can't recall the name or year. And, the thing is, it was so sweet for him to have taken the trouble to prepare a plate of appetizers...I mean, he is just so ... civilized! And he kept nodding at me to eat (he wasn't eating much as he was nervously preparing for the poetry reading -- and that Philip Lamantia was nervous was both charming and heartbreaking to witness!) and of course there was more than enough for the two of us but because he had taken so much trouble I just stuffed my face! And while I munched away on the goodies, he would say, "tapas"...

Then he swept me off to Niebaum Coppola where he was given dinner for two in exchange for a reading. Oh my: what an honor that he asked me to be his guest! And of course he was enchanting as he read his poems; it was very nice to see the audience recognize and appreciate him. Then Lawrence Ferlinghetti strolled by to say "Hi." And he introduces me (obscure unknown me) to Ferlinghetti as if Ferlinghetti should know who I am ("This is Eileen Tabios; should I tell you who she is?" --- I was aghast! Silently, Ferlinghetti looked down his nose at me before continuing on out the door).

Wow -- that Ferlinghetti is tall.

Anyway, as I watched tall Ferlinghetti move on, I whispered to Philip, "I don't think I've ever seen a man keep his watch in his jeans pocket." And Philip looked at me with twinkling eyes [Philip has such lovely twinkling eyes!] and said, "Only a poet would bother to notice such a thing"...which then led him to instruct me about how earlier in the 20th century it apparently was not uncommon for men to keep watches in their pockets and that there were watches made specifically for that purpose -- unlike wristwatches like the one that Ferlinghetti kept in his jeans pocket. And Philip specifically mentioned a Movado pocket watch that's the length of a finger; it's a small rectangle encased in leather that you pull apart to reveal the watch's face. I actually looked for it from a Movado dealer in St. Helena (gift for Philip, I naively thought) but, of course, they've become pricey "antique" collectibles...

=======end of journal excerpt

Well, at least I've identified Philip's wine down to "Portuguese reserve." But I'd forgotten all about that Niebaum Coppola reading (and please don't read anything I said as a "diss" on tall Ferlinghetti; I never diss other poets as it would hurt the positive energy upon which so much of my Poetry relies). Anyway, then I kept reading through that journal to see what else I'd forgotten (I am a memory-challenged kinda person). And I thought I'd excerpt the following passages below as they...ta-dah: are wine-related!

Like, with poet and novelist Lynn Crawford: I apparently once e-mailed her while hangin' out over the washing machine:

=======journal excerpt

Tonight, I'm drinking 1994 Clos Martinet Priorat. [From the back label]:

"From steep, hillside vineyards located some 2,500 feet above the coastal Catalonian city of Tarragona, comes this carefully hand-harvested wine, a blend of Syrah, and lesser amounts of the indigenous Grenache and Carignan varieties. The more recently introduced Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot varieties are also incorporated. Senor Perez, the owner, and an internationally respected viticulturist/enologist, has done more than any other individual to resuscinate the vineyards and improve the quality of the centuries old, powerful Priorato wines. This luxury cuvee was aged 16 months in new French oak barrels. It represents less than 40% of th 15-acre estate's tiny production but bears clear testimony as to why this tiny appellation is worthy of the savvy consumer's attention. While enjoyable now, particularly when decanted, it will clearly improve in botlle for the next 10 or more years."

So, that was from the back label which I share with you just before I toss the bottle into the recyling bin. A luscious wine to accompany my doing the laundry....

Hmmmmm, she [that's me talking about me in 3rd person] furrows her brow as she realizes only after emptying the bottle: "I never decanted the damn thing... ah well..."

=======end of journal excerpt

And Lynn had sent back a tickled, "thigh-slapping" response. And I share all this now, too, about Lynn as, while typing away at this post a la Kerouac, I was reminded about her most recent and fabulous book, Simply Separate People (Four Walls Eight Windows/Black Square Editions, 2002). This is a must-read book in part because of its wealth of finely described details. I don't have the book with me as I write this, but I've never forgotten a passage where Lynn described how a door had been turned into a slab attached to the ceiling from which hung pots and pans (she describes it better). But the descriptions in that book imply certain things about Lynn's talent for observation, and no doubt would make her a great oenophile (except that the last time she sent me wine-tasting notes, I think she said something about "yellow. straw color. supermarket variety" or something like that which made me chuckle....

And as I look through my journal, I actually am surprised at how often I engaged in wine-related conversations with other poets and writers. Often the references come up as asides during conversations about other topics, but they do come up. Huh. So, I guess Wine -- for me -- is like Poetry: ubiquitous, indeed. Or I'm just a drunk with aspirations to finer sensibilities. Like, there was even a brief wine reference in my journal to John Yau, who had been the one to introduce me by e-mail to Lynn (John had asked me to spread the word about Lynn's book when it was first released; subsequently, I asked John if I could ask Lynn about Oulipo but then when I ended up contacting Lynn we end up conversing less about Oulip and more about wine....go figger).

Anyway, about wine and John Yau, the journal sez:

"To celebrate the release of 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead, I gave Archie Rand two unique bottles of wine (but, see, I can't remember which wines they were because of my poor memory) and John Yau a book of wine-tasting notes by Robert Parker (because I thought the wine lingo also could be a source for his poems; hmmmm...but it's possible John's just using that book as a doorstop)."

And, yay, isn't that a fine way for me to mention my first book as publisher (please get it! it's available at Small Press Distribution in Berkeley, among other places): 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead -- an etchings-based collaboration between John Yau and Archie Rand. (See www.MeritagePress.com for more information). The more that I sell of this book, the more that I'll be able to drink wine....cough, I mean, the more that I'll be able to publish other poets....

Inhale/Exhale. Okay, here: here's another wine conversation that I'd noted in my journal -- this with poet (and art critic) Barry Schwabsky. Once, Barry asked:

A confession: I've never understood the language of wine tasting: "bright notes of cherry, fig, and Old Spice after shave flicker enticingly before welling up into a crashing crescendo of a finish"--does that mean "pretty tasty, though a bit overdone"? Or what?

And I see that I very very (velly velly) earnestly (so earnestly!) replied:

Oh, but Barry, the wine tasting jargon is really poetic (while, at its best, being literal)! Its vocabulary is actually my access to wine. I mean, yes, of course I appreciate _drinking_ the wine. But I crossed the line from appreciation to obsession when I started to learn the wine tasting language. I used to think the jargon horribly pretentious...and it does lend itself to that. But it's like poetry -- how poetry, too, can so easily lapse into, say, the sentimental or the florid. It requires discipline to finely articulate the wine-tasting experience....which, like Poetry, is impossible to articulate! Which, naturally, is why I got into it -- this impossibility of articulation!

It's a language that lends itself to being over the top but what it is about, when done well, is a specificity of metaphor and simile as well as a consciousness for diction that communicates successfully. For instance, when a wine is said to have notes of cherry and fig, the wine literally should evoke cherry and fig through taste or scent.

Accuracy is important for great wine description. Once, I was at a dinner and someone compared the wine to "roasted meats." And someone challenged that by saying, "I hear that a lot about some red wines, but I don't buy it" (and, yes, that is one of the phrases that I initially assumed was pretentious: how can wine be like roasted meats?). At this dinner, I noticed that someone had ordered roasted lamb for their main course. So I suggested (and the other diner didn't mind sharing) that the scoffer sip the wine again and then taste the roasted lamb. And it really is true that the wine evoked that tasting experience.

The worst wine-tasting comment I've ever heard was when someone compared the wine to "dew on a lawn in Sri Lanka." It was pretentious in that I think the context was that the fellow was trying to hint he's the kind of (wealthy/well-traveled/whatever he's trying to hint about himself to the crowd) guy who has visited Sri Lanka. But more importantly, there was no commonality of experience in the crowd (not everyone there had been to Sri Lanka) that would elicit comprehension of what the fellow is saying. Nor does dew on a lawn say anything about taste or scent. To me, it's more of a visual image...in which case, inacurate since we were drinking red wine not water. And isn't this issue relevant to Poetry -- how certain poets assume a commonality of references and/or definitions in how they write a poem?

Over time, there has come to be "jargon" specific to wine. Like "nose" for bouquet and your referenced "notes" and "finish." But they're not bad uses of the words. A note is a hint or part of the song. Because a note of roasted meats is, naturally, not the same as the actual roasted meat. "Finish" is, I think, a great term. It's literally how the wine finishes its experience with you. That is, after you've inhaled or swallowed the wine, there is an aftermath. Does its experience/memory linger? Like resonance. (In various essays on poetry, I've often said "the poem has a great finish" as another way of saying "the poem resonates"). The word "crescendo" actually makes sense. Because a complex wine can offer a multi-layered set of experience: its experience in the mouth builds up across several layers; it may be fruity at first, then the flavor may deepen into something less fruity but more buttery or earthy, and then there may end up being an unexpected new taste sensation lingering in the mouth before the experience dissipates, like violets (the flower).

Were these phrases just over-the-top language poetry (so to speak), they would be pretentious. But they have a truthful basis (a different twist on "authenticity" perhaps). The complexity I describe above is factually related to how the wine is made (time spent in a barrel, for instance) as well as the nature of the ground on which the vines are grown (because basically the vines inhale its terroir's characteristics. I love the Haut Brion for its (relative) austere-ness, which is to say it's fruit-laden but not as full-frontal fruity as California wines and Haut Brion's austerity relates partly to how it's grown amidst gravel-packed land. And Mouton is known for its "lead pencil' taste, which also reflects the earth in Mouton territory.

And the wing lingo (for me) is a wonderful source of metaphors. Like, hmmmm, say, "Barry is a paradox like the Haut Brion; he is _carefully reticent_ in responding to [my] ramblings so that his attention remains evident despite his paucity of words... much in the way Haut Brion's austere nature does not preclude the presence of fruit" (here, one of the fallen angels who hover over me, invisible to all except my eyes, roll her eyes while the others dissolve into helpless laughter. Another gasps out, "Gads: that was really bad! Can we please ensure this puwet gets more sleep?")...

=======

Poor Barry. I don't think he expected the "welter" (love that word "welter) -ish response I gave to his brief comment. In fact, I even went on to add:

So have I totally deconstructed "bright notes of cherry, fig, and Old Spice after shave flicker enticingly before welling up into a crashing crescendo of a finish"? Lessee. "Old Spice" is actually not bad if the author actually meant to reference spices in the wine. "Flicker enticingly" isn't bad either because a wine's nuance can flicker on the edge of articulation/identification of what that taste/scent evokes. But the "crashing crescendo of a finish"....hmm, I don't know about that. Crescendo of a finish works. But crashing crescendo...the best experiences resonate, which is to say lingers. If it crashes, doesn't that mean it abruptly ends? This is like a "short finish" or an experience lacking resonance, which seems to contradict the reference to crescendo. I sense that the concept of "exploding" is more accurate than "crashing"?

Actually, notwithstanding the guy who's traveled to Sri Lanka, I have been lucky in meeting not even a handful of truly pretentious people who are fine wine-lovers. Perhaps because of how slippery language is in describing something that can't be fully articulated (see: like Poetry), the oenophiles I've met rarely abuse the vocabulary. And, in general, I've found that someone who can appreciate fine wine (which often requires research in terms of vintages, hence the nature of harvest years, territory, weather, etc) is an interesting, intelligent being.

In fact, to look at someone's wine cellar can be like looking at someone's art collection; the true lover has as many obscure wines (non-recognizeable labels) as first growth Bordeauxes (just like the art lover versus mere art collector also features the works of artists who are not just those well-known in the professional art world...which, to digress, was my only caveat to the otherwise great exhibit I saw of the Anderson collection at SF Moma last year...anyway...)...

I like oenophiliac (does that word exist) jargon because it is like Poetry. Abstract yet specific. Disciplined passion. Passionate discipline.

And to listen to the top winemakers discuss their avocation is to see the same intensity evinced by other artists: the obsessiveness, the care, the devotion. The sheer intensity of their "attention" (your word) is inspirational. I was humbled to listen to them, and I take from them something I see artists in other disciplines share: this consciousness that something matters. Something matters.

Something matters. It has been called "Passion." It has been called the teardrop that helplessly etches a defenseless cheek. It has been called "Love."

+++++++++

To my earnest earnest reply above (hey -- was that an eyebrow raised in amusement), Barry replied:

"Remember the passage in the Quixote--Cervantes', not Menard's--where two guys who claim to be conoisseurs taste some wine; one observes that there seems to be a slight taste of rusted iron about it, but the other disagrees and notes instead a leathery taste. All those assembled laugh at the two of them and their pretensions, but later, when the barrel is drained, it is discovered that there has been an old key on a leather thong laying inside."

Later, Barry would add -- and this is when I would realize that he must have been teasing me a little about not knowing much about wine (I think he knows more than he lets one) about my fullsome replies:

"Of course. I even agree. // But! // I still can't make the leap from the poetry-for-poetry's-sake to what happens when I take a sip and think, mmm, that is nice, it's got a bottom to it (I like wine that has a bottom to it--like how Genet writes about the Rembrandt portrait and says, you can tell she has an ass on her...) or oh well, pretty thin...--and back again."

+++++++++

And, as I think about it, isn't it interesting, too, how Barry's comments sort of relate to the nature of ekphrasis, specifically (to me) the inherent illusion within the act of art-making based on another art form. And, yes, that's why I do WinePoetics. Because to pos(i)t poetry based on wine is....as (im)possible as writing poems as if one is painting. And I like being engaged in the Impossible (which is why I'm a poet, you see?). Centuries ago, some Greek whose name I (being memory-challenged) can't recall, once said, "As in Poetry, in Painting" (or was it, "As in Painting, In Poetry"). But is that really true?

Anyway, here's an old poem I'd forgotten about and which I stumbled across in my journal (I'd forgotten about this poem which means I must have left it in my journal because I somehow was dissatisfied with it....but, what the heck, a blog is also about permission to one's self to be raw and unfinished, right?):

TRANSCENDENCE
"It is what I never said,/ What I'll always sing-/
It's not found in days,/ It's what always begins."
--Jose Garcia Villa

"It begins," but in the middle--
a farmer returns to the field

bearing branches
spotted with shoots of zinfandel,

cabernet, pinot noir or chardonnay.
Each bud evokes a tiny knuckle

clenched around a secret
befitting its embryonic existence

of something unpredictable but desired.
With a deft flick of the wrist, the farmer

slices a bud from the grafting cane,
the shoot flying into breathless air

to be caught between his lips.
The rhythm continues

with the farmer bending
over a plant to carve a "V"

notch into the rootstock.
The bud leaves its kiss to be fitted

snugly into the cut, held in place by rubber tape.
So it begins, but in the middle--

no growth occurs in a vacuum
and the chosen rootstock

first was tended carefully
in a nursery secure

from nature's tantrums.
Seven years from grafting plants

with their chosen grape variety--
O chosen path--

the rewards of harvest begin
barring nature's cruel whims.

"Seven years?" "Give or take…"
Here, there is no shortcut to time

whose rhythm is best left unforced.
In this country, clouds linger

not for rain but, as in a painting,
to emphasize through contrast

the lapis lazuli sparkle of the sky--
just as a thin, slack line

depicts the serenity
of a hungry fisherman

in a Chinese landscape. In this country
where the sky never loses its luster

even in storms,
wine begins as a branch

of a grapevine chosen for its ability
to withstand disease. Each goblet raised

someday at the Thanksgiving table,
all candles lit,

shall praise potential achieved
despite dew each morning,

despite the hunger of birds--
despite the inevitable crushing of grapes.

CIVILITY

Sidereality: A Journal of Speculative and Experimental Poetry (www.sidereality.com) gives me generous space in its current issue. I wonder why. But thank you -- Salamat! And, by the way, I loved dealing with Clayton Couch, Sidereality's editor -- he is so polite and civilized! Here's an excerpt (below) from their interview with me because this excerpt mentions.... ta-dah: wine! I just wish I can remember the name of the wine that Philip Lamantia once served me -- he had bought a case that summer as he'd so loved it. Once, he served it with olives and cheese that he had carefully laid out for me on a plate atop one of the many stacks of books in his writing studio. "Tapas," he said with an absolutely enchanting smile. Charmed, I picked up a garlic-stuffed olive. I was so moved because I knew he prepared the plate of tapas just for me as he didn't touch a single tapa (is tapa singular for tapas?). Which, of course, meant that I had to eat more of the tapas than I needed to eat because I wanted to show my appreciation. Yum: I love being fed. And whilst I munched, I looked around, wide-eyed and enthralled, at his book-laden (make it book-stuffed) apartment. And paintings and drawings mischievously winking at me from the walls. Someday, when it's time to discuss these things (and may that day be decades away!), Philip's studio should be kept intact (unlike the disgraceful auction now being planned for the contents of Andre Breton's apartment). Anyway, Philip is one of the most civilized gentlemen I have ever had the honor to meet. I can't wait for the next time we clink glasses.

Excerpt From Interview:
Clayton Couch: Eileen, you are obviously an extremely well-read and wide-ranging poet, as evidenced by the formal diversity -- to name one aspect -- of your work. If you had to pick three, and only three, working contemporary poets to invite to a dinner, who would you select and why?

ET: Clayton! You're going to get me into trouble with that question. Do you know how many poets I'll offend by not naming them in response to your question?! But okay, I'm game....

My first choice would be Philip Lamantia. Not only is he a superb poet but I know him to be a fabulous conversationalist who would ease the digestive process. Most significantly, I am inspired by Philip because long after poets his age may have stopped writing poems, Philip continues to create poems. Note that I use the word "create" and not just "write" poems. By this, I mean that Philip's brilliant mind continues to actively search out new venues for intellectual exploration that feed his poems. He continues to research, to think, to pay attention. That living process, to me, is part of the creative process, of which writing is only one facet.

I also would choose Gary Sullivan partly because I've never met him (and how nice to meet over food!), though we've corresponded. Based on what I've read by him, I sense a marvelously-curious intellect and, most significantly, Compassion. Not only is that combination a marvelous thing, especially for a poet, but I also think that that combination would make me pour out excellent bottles of wine. And a great bottle of wine is...important (can even salvage burnt food or unexpected hiccups with one's dining companions).

I won't identify the third poet's name but s/he knows who s/he is. And as you read this article, obviously you know that you are my most "thou"....

Clayton, a good thing about abstractions is that people can interpret them in a multiplicity of ways. I suppose, with that third answer I don't wish to offend any poet after all...and I also want to end the answer by opening up the invitation, rather than closing off the engagement by accepting the constraint of your question that posits only three companions are possible....

And, speaking of art connections, the deliberate incompleteness of the answer might be related to how, in certain weavings a gap (a flaw) is purposely incorporated by the weaver. Or how, in certain pottery, a crack is part of the form. Because those "imperfections" -- those gaps -- allow spaces for someone else (the viewer or reader) to participate in that work. So when I answer vaguely about the third dining companion's identity, it allows me to encourage people out there (metaphorically and literally): hey, invite me to dinner!

CC: I recently had a chance to watch Dinner for Five (five actors/entertainers having dinner, wine, and conversation) on the Independent Film Channel, so that's where the question is coming from I suppose. Hope I didn't stir up too much trouble! Regarding deliberate incompleteness and multiplicity in art, do you feel that the internet and electronic media in general bring these qualities to the forefront?

ET: Don't worry; any such "trouble" can be addressed and resolved easily through dinner. I'm a lousy cook but the quality of wine I serve can make you forget what's on the plate (and then there's my chef, Monsieur Take-Out)! As regards your question, I think e-media technology might facilitate such factors. The developments can be seen through a quickening in juxtaposition (which may reflect a higher-paced world due to technological evolution) and even the phenomena where language is shorthand-ed through texting. But the artist also can choose his or her influence as regards what to allow in the Art. Let's remember that the Author has never been dead.

===end of excerpt===

Hmmmm. It just occurs to me I can't send this post until I include the name of at least one wine (as I'd promised each post would include wine recommendations). But it's 7:38 a.m. as I write this and even I can't open a bottle just to fulfill my WinePoetics duty. Well, let's see: scratch the memory....

Once upon a time in 2000, some nice and very civil friends threw me a surprise birthday party at Lupa Osteria Romana (a fabulous New York restaurant fabulously operated by the fabulously-civil Jason). Here's the cutnpasted menu (and, as I've stated before, any wine mentioned in this blog is a recommendation):

First Course
Assorted Antipasti and Affetati
1992 Verget Chassagne Montrachet La Romanee

Second Course
Ricotta Gnocchi with Fennel Sausage
Elicoidali with Spicy Cauliflower
1994 Vega Sicilia Valbuena

Third Course
Market Fish with Grapefruit and Aceto Tradizionale
Fritto di Arista, Orange, Zenzero & Laurel
1982 Monfortino

Fourth Course
Assorted Desserts
1994 Zind Humbrecht Gerwurtztraminer Heimbourg Pinot Gris Vendage Tardive

WHAT EXACTLY IS MEANT BY AN "INCREDIBLY LONG FINISH"?

I am cooing at sludge -- black tar! -- at the bottom of my wine glass. For three dinners in a row, I drank through the one bottle I had left of the 1994 St. Francis Reserve Zinfandel "Paganini Vineyards." At its third night, it is still flavorful and chewy. This BIG wine is the best ever to come out from this vineyard. An incredibly long finish! Yum!

And its thick (pun intended) sensibility reminds me of the e-mail I just received from Krip (with the macho K) Yuson. In response to my prior two posts about him, he said (and I assume any misspellings are due to whatever glass, tankard or can he was hoisting as he wrote me):

Hoo-hah! Quoting me copiously without my permssion, ey? Indeed, you have proven as sweetly as jerez that two (or more) can play the game.

Sometime when I find some short-time I might write on all the kinds of drinks I was reared up with (in?): San Miguel beer to Ginebra San Miguel (chased down with Tru-Orange!) in my early teens, along with Tanduay Rum then vodka, then Gilbey's Gin at proms, mixed in with lime juice in soup tureens, etc. Johnnie Walker White Label, Red Label, Black Label, Chivas Regal, Pinch, Swing, Ballantine's Chairman's Reserve, JW Green, JW Blue, the blended-whiskey works... Loved bourbon for a time: Jack Daniels... Even Southern Comfort, singing along with Janis Joplin. Lambanog, basi, tuba, tequila, pastis et al. Champagne, Blue Nun (yecch!), Asti Spumanti, Moet et Chandon, Petrus, even (not from Erap)! Then single malt whisky. Only certain Belgian beers (discovered over a year ago, along with mussels in Brussels) have provided a possible alternative to the body, flavor, character and high I admire in single malt whisky.

A Memoir of Spirits, it might be called. And I could include the pulchritudinous visions of certain women that come to fore with each drink, each hic, each hiccup up the great road to inebriation. Wouldn't you want to know with what particular drink I undress such-a-one as You in my mind?

Go ahead. Steal this. Let your conscience be MY guide. Slurp.
-- K.


"Slurp"? Sigh. But anyway:

"Petrus" huh? And not received from a corrupt politician? This poet (pronounced as the Tagalog word "puwet" which means, by the way, "ass") might be redeemed yet. This reminds me of when, years ago in Manhattan, we heard this story from one of the city's purveyors of fine wine. Some country (not the Philippines) was teetering on economic and political instability but its outgoing president had just placed an order for half a million dollars worth of wine, including magnums of the 1947 Petrus. Geez. How many expensive boutiques in Manhattan would go out of business if there weren't corrupt politicians out there? Remember Imelda going in and out of Fifth Avenue spending dollars on bed linens (notice I didn't say those things for the feet) et al? At least the wines I drink are....bought by friends who earned the monies they used to acquire them....(what? did you think I was going to say, acquired by money I earn? You do realize I work as a poet, right?)

Anyway, consider Krip's missive with this blurb he gave my book:

Much of Eileen Tabios' poetry hits us right in the gut. Or should we say groin, since it is at once scintillating, skittish and seductive. 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.

This is why Mom is irritated with Krip. Mom, a former English teacher and a classic "church lady," once asked: "Why does that guy write about your work consistently from a sexualized perspective?"

Well, I didn't know how to answer. So I distracted my mother by telling her instead of how Krip smuggled me into what was supposed to be a closed luncheon with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) the last time she visited San Francisco last October. As is the case with many poets who can't pay rent with poems, Krip has a day job (or many day jobs). In this case, he was part of the official Philippine press corp covering GMA's visit to the U.S. While meeting with him on the morning he thought was free from official responsibilities, he was alerted that, unexpectedly, GMA had decided to have lunch that day with the press corp. So he and I, being poets and thus prone to misbehavior, agreed I'd accompany him and pretend to be an associate of sorts.

Like the rest of the press, we arrived at the Japanese restaurant in downtown San Francisco ahead of the GMA's entourage. Apparently, the official press corp spends a lot of time waiting. If I recall correctly, we spent the time debating whether the U.S. military should have been allowed to return to the Philippines and bemoaning the laxness of the U.S. Congress in failing to recognize the Filipino war veterans who had served on behalf of the U.S. As we were pontificating to each other, the Secret Service arrived to check out the space. That's when I realized I had to be as inconspicuous as possible; not only did I want to stay as I was curious to see GMA (she's one of the few people shorter than I am) but I didn't want to get Krip in trouble. I hied off to an empty table in the corner of the room and sat as quietly as a mouse (but is that true? do mice sit quietly?).

Then one of the Secret Service folks walked over to me. Uh, oh, I thought. He leaned over and said, "Please move. This table is reserved for the Secret Service's lunch."

Oh. So yours truly, Miss Security Breach, moved. Finally, GMA and her entourage arrived. Everyone stood up and created a make-shift receiving line as she went through the the room shaking everyone's hands. I was the only one who didn't introduce myself (I didn't want to draw attention as, again, I didn't want to get Krip in trouble). GMA then went to the corner table by the window assigned to her group. The rest of the media settled back onto tables and everyone prepared to eat. I and Krip sat by each other at one of the otherwise empty tables as we wanted to continue to catch up on each other's news; we hadn't seen each other for years, after all.

But GMA stood up from her table. She suddenly started moving towards where the press were seated. Apparently, she thought it would be more efficient to sit with the reporters and, thus, talk with them during the meal itself. She approached the part of the room where the media members were seated. Then she looked at me and walked over. Because Krip and I were off by ourselves at an empty table, our table was the only one with room for her and the members of her entourage joining her! So there I was, the only person she had not met and who didn't belong there, now seated a few inches away. (And I don't speak Pilipino!)

I quickly scrambled for a notebook within my bag so that I could pretend to take notes. But the only notebook I had was a journal where I sometimes scribbled poems -- unfortunately, it offered a rather loud cover as its primary palette is orange. I didn't think it could pass for a press notebook, but it was the best I could do. Fortunately, other members of the media soon converged on the empty spots around our table and I could hide behind their attentiveness to GMA. After a few minutes, I relaxed to concentrate on the free lunch. The press were all given bento box lunches, but GMA was served platters of lobster and grilled salmon. (I thought: what an awful idea! If someone took a photo, it would show GMA being served better fare than those at her table. Let them eat...uh, bento! Luckily for GMA, apparently the official press corp members don't take photographs during meals as folks might be caught open-mouthed, chewing, et al.)

When Krip returned to Manila, he had his newspaper publish a photo taken of me holding a bowl of miso soup and seated inches away from GMA (I guess I was more concerned than he was about getting into trouble for smuggling me into GMA's luncheon). No alcohol was served during lunch but, for some reason, I looked drunk as I sat there next to the Philippines' President. I haven't forgiven Krip yet.

"Nice story," Mom replied. "But can you tell him your poems are political and not just erotica?"

Done.

But speaking of sex, Nick Carbo also just wrote and he gets this post's last word:

very nice that you put me in your blog w/ all those good tasting Pinoy poets. I like the freedom of following your thoughts in this medium (like the effect of good wine), comes close to the experience of reading Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes while riding a horse on a carnival carousel. keep this up and you'll be giving Trinh T. Minh-ha (Woman Native Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism) a run for her money.

Then Nick pungently concludes:

Imagine the metaphors you can get from savoring around your tongue a poem "with an incredibly long finish."

LET ME SEE IF I CAN MAINTAIN A STRAIGHT FACE AS I POS(I)T THE FOLLOWING...

My new book Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole contains 124 pages and 60 prose poems. The prose poems offer the total of 229 paragraphs. I believe poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Miracle Fruit, Tupelo Press, 2003) once cheerfully observed that my book is so dense that, if thrown across the room, it can hurt someone. Asian Week reviewer Neela Banerjee must concur since she wrote, "Unlike most poetry books that are light as feathers, their words and images floating off the page, this one is substantial in every way imaginable. Thick with imagery, subject matter, geography and precise and inspired syntax, Eileen Tabios' work reminds me of going for a swim in the ocean -- a complete envelopment."

[Yes, this is also a non-subtle promo of my book, but get over your delicadeza concerns: my nonprofit publisher can use the sales revenues, okay?!]

Nevertheless, in my "thick" book, there are only ten references to wine -- and most of them are seemingly incidental or oblique (as you will see from the examples below). Given my obvious passion for wine, does this make sense?

But, of course! (Did you expect another answer?) It makes sense because I make poems exactly like how wine is made! (Cough. Straight face slipping….excuse me a minute….adjust face. Okay, moving on…) After the harvesting and crushing of grapes, the grape juice requires months to years of staying in the barrel, and then the bottle, before it evolves into fine wine. White wine might stay in barrels from 7 to 9 months before they're bottled. Red wine might remain in barrels from 22-26 months, plus remain in the bottle for another year, before becoming drinkable. At one extreme, Monfortino recently released its 1995 vintage -- eight years later -- and it could stay in the bottle for another 15 years before becoming drinkable in ideal conditions. Vega Sicilia releases its wines only when its winemakers judge them drinkable, which in some cases has meant holding on to their vintages for as long as 25 years.

What I learned from these aspects of the wine-making process is that it can be better to let things just simmer within the psyche before putting the first word onto paper that begins the poem. Let my body be the barrel for the poem and let's uncork me only when the poem is ready to be, um, served....whether decanted or not....

Anyway, this relates, I believe, to why many poets say they don't really know what the poem is going to be until it's written. That is, notwithstanding any specific intention they bring to the paper (or computer keyboard), the poem may arise based on its own demands -- but demands which had required that the poet previously did his or her job in feeding the Muse. In my case, I feel I must educate myself as much as possible about the many facets of life in order to satisfy my Muse. Wine is but one element. I may be passionate about wine; but the poems may not share my passion. Poems, unpredictable creatures that they are, can transcend the poet's interests. Thus, from Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, consider these wine-related references:

I feel pain spread like wine staining silk--a gray wing, then grey sky. "Only God," I begin to whisper, before relenting to the tunes hummed by ladies with veiled eyes. The definition of holidays becomes the temporary diminishment of hostile noise. I do not wish to know what engenders fear from my father, even if it means I must simulate an aging beauty queen clutching photos of tilted crowns. I prefer to appreciate from a distance those points where land meets water: I prefer the position of an ignored chandelier.
--from "Corolla"

He refuses to understand why she would leave amidst their state of bliss. When she replies by praising the shell of a cathedral in Barcelona that men failed to complete despite the passing of an entire century, she knows her explanation cannot be clearer. She can feel the workmen's roughened hands, gritty with dust, as they cracked yet another slab of marble. She wishes to be all of the women awaiting their return each evening. They would cross thresholds desperate for tubs of steaming water. Afterwards, they would turn first to her before bread, cheese and wine. As shadows darkened, she would feel their rough hands tremble in their approximations of gentleness.
--from "Approximations"

Before a red light, she chose to recall her memories of Rome. She had walked for hours searching for a restaurant hidden behind high stone walls. When she found it, she stepped onto a small area with censored lamps, light coming only from the glare of pristine white tablecloths reflecting an orange moon. When she was seated, she was the only woman there. The scent of cigars permeated the air. The Chianti was harsh on the palate. But she savored each bite of her bleeding steak, and the men left her alone. For these pleasures, she effortlessly held her spine straight.
--from "Firebird"

She opens her silk robe before lying, face down, on the stone floor. The surface is rough against her breasts, cold against her brow. Her tears do not help. She wills herself in that position for the hours that her adoring public believes she wallows in a bubble bath (champagne and strawberries presumably within reach). Suffering never counts when it is shared.
--from "Nobility"

He is humming a song about obsidian-eyed children whose tribal names have been sacrificed to evolve a new race: carbon-breathers. He observes that the lead content in our people's blood is as high as those suspended within the citizens of ancient Rome. "Drinking wine in lead cups lowered their I.Q.'s." He strums a guitar as he concludes: feeding Christians to lions became inevitable.
--from "Asthma"

You had seen him before but thought the prior sighting inconsequential. Then he was walking through the door to your brother's party. You were serving drinks to repay the debt incurred to your mischievous brother when you bluffed during rounds of poker. You lowered your lashes as you offered a tray of silver-rimmed flutes bearing what your brother called "an insouciant sancerre."
[plus 2 more references in rest of poem]
--from "Blind Date"

You also disappointed me in Portugal. The bar boasted 500 different bottles of port. Consistency prevailed when what was offered differed from the advertisement. But you forced me to stay because you thought the "atmosphere like Eluard's street--a wound that will not close." I faced no choice but to indenture my gaze to your fascination with a fur-clad dancer. Her lips were painted crimson but I was bothered most by her hair which she wore up and threaded through with thin, black ribbons. My throat was elegantly white, its throbbing vein elegantly blue, but how to compete?
--from "Respect"

In his absence, she reached for a decanter and stained a crystal glass into amber. For a pensive moment, she held the crystal towards the generous light from a brass chandelier. She thought once more of her hidden desire: to freeze time around her, even if she must become a poor creature trapped in a honey-colored casket. For she has trained men to kneel and she is replete. Fit in dominata servitus. In servitude dominatus. But she coughed over her first swallow and recoiled at being surprised.
--from "Latin"


Contrast the above wine references (rather reticent as presences, don't you think?) with the following poem, which is the only time I tried to write a poem with a self-conscious goal to incorporate wine references.

Swallow Sprezzaturra

"This wine is replete
with nostalgia"--

candy canes, cherry,
vanilla--

"An interesting wine is always
about memory"--

cola, damp earth,
root beer--

"Wine distills life
into moments"--

silk
on tongue

"Like a jealous lover,
wine forces your focus"--

if one could drink
Miles on sax

"How it blossoms
into a peacock's tail"--

if one could inhale, then
swallow sprezzatura

Except for its last couplet, this poem collages together actual quotes from a conversation with friends as we tasted the elegant 1996 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir from the Riverblock Vineyard of Russian River Valley. I don't think this poem is as effective as those in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. And I think it's partly because this poem didn't (psychologically) ferment as long as most of the poems in my book. But, come to think of it, it did take seven years to write the book's 60 poems.

And the result? Well, apparently, reading my poems can cause some people to become inebriated. I recently received a letter from the brilliant classical Greek scholar Jerome Pollitt. Several years ago, I toured Greece with Mr. Pollitt, one of Yale's most impressive assets before he retired. From that tour, I created the first of three parts in my book subtitled "My Greece." This section is prefaced by an excerpt from Mr. Pollit's [insert-here-any-synonym-for-"brilliant"] book The Ancient View of Greek Art. I'll reproduce it here since I believe it also says something about the nature of language and which can concern many poets:

When a term like "symmetria" is used by a late antique rhetorician, one should probably not expect it to have the rigorous precision of meaning that it conveyed to a sculptor of the fifth century B.C. In general, it may be expected that the technical value of a particular term--that is, the value which is dependent upon the special knowledge and training of a particular group-will diminish as the size of the group using the term increases.

"My Greece" is comprised of seven poems, all partly inspired by sculptures that I visited while touring with Mr. Pollitt. Naturally, after the book was published, I sent him a copy. In response, after first professing to be "tongue-tied," he wrote:

...my reaction is very much like that of Forrest Gander's blurb. The "fabulous leaps" between the 'crisp, almost scientific" sentences are quite stunning, and the imagination is "utterly original." At first I thought that I should make a struggle to sort out the myriad personae of the poems, and my head was spinning, but I soon had the sense to give all that up and just go with the flow. The flow is quite wonderful (if a little dizzying).

Mr. Pollitt says many other things in his letter, but I highlight the above because I think my poems got him drunk! Well, "drunk" seems too uncouth to apply to this quite civilized gentleman. But, ya get the drift from my uncouth pen. And, after all, Mr. Pollitt -- what's retirement for but becoming "tongue-tied" before poetry? Fortunately, wines exist and, as much party evidence has proven, they can loosen many knotted tongues. When you visit me in wine country, I promise to serve you whatever you wish ... from Tom's cellar.

Here's one of "My Greece" poems. You tell me if it makes you dizzy:

PURITY

Once, the Greeks tolerated subjection to obviate chaos. But an attitude of detachment is like anxiety--a flower in a glass prison. So "the entire male population of Miletus was put to the sword and the women and children were sent into Asia as slaves." I look up from the page into the dying days of the 21st century. I am feeling the inhumanly fast beating of a woman's heart as she raises a rifle, then shoots a canvas with pellets of paint. I am feeling a deer quicken its leaps. The artist avoided the aftermath of wounds, but I see red.

After the fall of Miletus, the poet Phrynichos staged a drama about it. But the play's performance was forbidden by Athenians who fined him "for reminding them of afflictions which affected them intimately." I consider my search for unrelenting intimacy--a search I conduct despite my heart's cocoon of encaustic. I consider how a grid is supposed to eliminate gesture from paint. Although paint, finally, must return to its nature and flow like a menstruation-ooze with a viscous intensity unmitigated by geometry.

Though the Greeks would come to thwart the Persian invasion, I believe it noteworthy that such a victory belied intention. The Greeks--like all of us, through all of time--first attempted compromise. Now, encaustic fails and my heart looks me in the eye. I am compelled to answer the many variations of the same question: Why do I weep before a square canvas depicting a square? Or a circular canvas depicting a circle? Have the Greeks attained purity? Attained perfection? Have I earned the moments I made my mother cry?

A PHILISTINE AT THE GATE
(AKA: THAT SWEET JEREZ!)

Alfred "Krip" (yeah, yeah: with a macho K) Yuson is back. Earlier, he had suggested changing this blog's theme. He asked, "Why not 'spirit-inspired' rather than 'wine-inspired'?"

I dutifully replied, "Because, notwithstanding your macho whisky, every other spirit is inferior to wine."

Now, he's banging on the cybergate with:

Hah! That I dispute, forever.
Uisge beatha, the water of life!
So there.
Most wine is for pansies and Sex & The City types. Us Bravehearts who flash our bottoms at the enemy by turning our backs and (up)lifting our kilts, we go to highland heaven everytime we sip of the golden brew.

Hah! Hoo-hah!
-- Robert the Bruce

As my wine buddy Freddie would say (and often has said), "A fart into your general direction."

Let's leave K-Man at the gate, the the wind flapping his skirt over his you-know-what. Meanwhile, Dear Ones, do proceed this way to where the 1990 Dom Perignon awaits. And where we can share poems like "Las Ruinas del Corazon" by Eric Gamalinda (ZERO GRAVITY, Alice James Books, 1999). This excerpt is dedicated to Krip:

She wanted to possess him entirely, and since not even death
may oppose the queen, she found a way to merge death and life

by eating a piece of him, slowly, lovingly, until he was entirely
in her being. She cut a finger and chewed the fragrant skin,

then sliced thick portions of his once ruddy cheeks. Then she ate
an ear, the side of a thigh, the solid muscles of the chest,

then lunged for an eye, a kidney, part of the large intestine.
Then she diced his penis and his pebble-like testicles

and washed everything down with sweet jerez.

I'M NOT ANAL BUT THERE'S A LAWYER IN MY FAMILY!

My buddy Bino e-mailed to say:

what u need on this though is some "internet contract" so that peeps wont just copy ur copyrighted work. i mean a disclaimer, at the end of each archive maybe, saying that all this is meant for viewing and not reproduction. i dont know whether u want to get that anal, but u know how people are.

Ah, yes: the vicissitudes of cyberspace. It's tough to get exercised over this issue -- this is Poetry, after all, and despite billionaire Ruth Lilly's recent $100 to $150 million (depending on stock prices) bequest to Poetry Magazine, there's little money at stake here. Just the more priceless Poetry. But, sure, Readers Beware: You Are Not Allowed To Reprint From My Blog Without My Prior Permission.

Yadda.

Then, as I considered the issue, I was reminded of one of the Philippines' leading poets, Alfred "Krip" Yuson. Krip also writes a weekly newspaper column on Arts and Culture. And it occurs to me that whenever he seems to have trouble filling up space, he ends up quoting from some post I've made to the Flips Listserve (a listserve for Filipino writers or those interested in Filipino literature) WITHOUT first requesting my permission. In fact, he wrote his last novel (and Philippine Centennial Prize Recipient) Voyeurs & Savages (Anvil, 1998) partly by quoting copiously from me as well -- again without my permission! So I decided to e-mail Krip about not quoting from this BLOG, only to get distracted (as I usually get with Krip) on other matters.

Specifically, Krip says about WinePoetics:

It's whisky I venerate [from] my beloved Scotland. And it's single malt whisky that's my buddy -- the whole caboodle: Lagavullin, Laphroaig, Royal Lochnagar, Glenlivet Longmorn, Macallan, hundreds of others, etc., each with its own character. As for wine, if it's good, I can take some glasses, and enjoy the lid buzz. But I do not get the same enchanting, character-filled high I do from my preferred single malts. Chilean wine is good and relatively cheap here in Manila. I can take that. But whisky is whisky, as K is K, so macho, so Hemingway, albeit can be a gentle dearie genie, in and out of the single malt bottle.

A "gentle dearie genie"? "In and out of the single malt bottle"? Is it me, or is that some sort of sexualized metaphor? This is a "master poet" (as defined by being a Philippine Literary Palanca Hall of Famer)? Still, in his latest poetry collection Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woeman (University of the Philippines Press, 2002), Krip (yeah, yeah: with the macho K) wrote a series of decent aphorisms including this from "Aphorisms For Angela":

Some wine
to make you look
even more exquisite.

I guess that was poetic license if wine isn't his drink. Wait -- it MUST be poetic license! After all, he also wrote a poem for me entitled "Dominatrix (for Eileen)" and I don't go there....There is no there, there.....

Etcetera. So, where was I before I got distracted? Oh, yes: my words here are "meant for viewing and not reproduction," unless you obtain my permission. Which is easy enough to get, believe me, for simply a bottle of a wine favored by my lawyer like the 1970 Beaulieu Vineyards Private Reserve (O, ye Rutherford dust!) or ______________.*

But I really am not anal. Moreover, as a poet, I frequently collage in "found texts" into my poems. So, here's a caveat to this post against reproductions without permission: feel free to quote copiously if the reason is to integrate said excerpt into one of your own poems. The Poem should be disciplined but never be constrained! (Love these poetic paradoxes, don't you?!) And, after all, when a poet steals from another poet, it's really just a compliment.

*E-mail if you wish to fill in the blank.

TAPEY (RICE WINE)

I believe the point of being a poet is not to write verses to but to live life in a different way -- presumably a "better" way than the life one would live if one weren't a poet. For me, and for many poets I admire, this translates into an open-minded perspective to the multiplicity that comprises Life. My Muse has demanded that I be proactively interested in a wide variety of subjects; thus, Poetry has led me to research areas I might not have explored otherwise -- from physics to the martial arts, from postmodernism to gardening, from religion to philosophy, from cyberspace realities to (indeed) wine. Consequently, it also has made sense to me that a poet might be interested in writing in other forms than verse. Why would a poet limit his or her form when form also is subject matter?

Thus, as a poet, I also write short stories. Tonight, while drinking the lovely 1994 St. Francis Reserve Zinfandel "Paganini Vineyards" (dark, violet-tinged color, full-bodied and flavorful black fruits), I was reviewing my prior posts and paused at the thought of "tapey" or rice wine. It occured to me that, once, I wrote a short story on tapey -- my only published wine-related story to date. So, here it is below and thanks again to Bamboo Ridge (Hawai'i) for first publishing it; I am grateful to this journal for being among my earliest sources of support for my creative writings (the story was written when Joseph Estrada was still the president of the Philippines, but many of the socio-political problems referenced by the story still exist, unfortunately, today).

Looking now at this story, I am also amused at, not just how I named one of its characters after the poet Nick Carbo but also, how I named the fictionalized law firm in there after three types of grapes: "Carignan, Malbec and Verdot." Wine is like Poetry for its devotees: ubiquitous!

And HEEEEERE's the story!

++++++++++++++

TAPEY
(– after Plato’s “The Symposium”)

Perhaps Mama should not have become a swindler. But she was bored and tipsy. She also first got involved when she heard the bil-lit, birds, discussing coitus interuptus.

“Hah? What are you bil-lit twittering about now?” she yelled from the second-story of my grandmother’s house. To avoid my grandmother’s disapproval, Mama always drank her tapey, rice wine, on the porch which overlooked my cousin Donna’s sari-sari store. The “birds” were the housewives of Santo Tomas who gathered for gossip every evening on the benches in front of Donna’s store.

“Non-stop twittering! Just like the bil-lit who eat my star apples off the tree!” my mother disgustedly observed when she first arrived from Los Angeles to begin her summer vacation in the Philippines. She and Papa commenced this annual ritual when my father retired five years ago. But nothing much happens in Santo Tomas, described by Papa as “a town of dust, mosquitoes, tobacco farmers, water buffaloes, and more dust.”

Since Papa was born in the nearby town of Galimuyod which competes fiercely with Santo Tomas in regional beauty contests, I knew enough to take his description with a grain of asin, salt. Besides, in response to one of my questions, Mama once described Galimuyod in almost exactly the same terms: “so dusty everyone looks like a bandit with bandanas over their noses, replete with—que horror!—tobacco farmers spitting on the road, those overworked water buffaloes clogging up the skinny path that passes for Main Street, and—Jesus, Mary, Joseph!—those mosquitoes starving for my American milk-fed veins!”

In any event, Mama often found herself looking for ways to while away these four-month summer pilgrimages. As she frequently punctuated her recounting to me of her brief life as a swindler, “Darling, I’m not a tobacco farmer so I was bored—that’s simply how it began! Please believe me, your mother who raised you to be an honest Christian. I did it for the same reason I lapsed into that filthy habit of tippling—Jesus, Mary, Joseph!—Tata Ernie’s home-made tapey: I was bored!”

Tata Ernie, my grandmother’s next-door neighbor, was infamous for his tapey. He made it according to this recipe which Mama brought with her from her last vacation to Santo Tomas:

-- cook six cups of sweet rice;
-- layer rice on a flat platter or tray to cool off;
-- after the rice has cooled, sprinkle with a large fistful of bubod or yeast;
-- place the mixture in a bowl and cover with banana leaves or foil;
-- store the bowl in a cool area for about six days to allow the mixture to ferment; and
-- squeeze the rice through a sieve for its liquid, which is tapey (alternatively, one can forego the sieve as the fermented mixture of rice and alcoholic liquid may be slurped as is from a spoon)

The key to fine tapey rests in bubod, a mother yeast extracted specifically for making rice wine. Tata Ernie uses bubod from the neighboring town of Suyo, renowned for its sweet variety of tapey. I can attest to the concoction’s potency as I allowed myself several glasses to keep Mama company following her first attempt to make it here in Los Angeles where my parents are permanent residents. Mama had smuggled tapey into the United States successfully: it was easy for the custom agent was a Filipino immigrant who happily took two cakes of bubod as a bribe. Actually, Mama offered my glass first to Papa who paled, then replied in a rare display of succinct lucidity, “You’re senile if you think I’ll drink that!” Then Papa ran away to water the lawn even though the grass was still sodden from a recently-departed storm.

Anyway, my mother said as we tested Tata Ernie’s recipe that she was drinking what had become her habitual evening cocktail in Santo Tomas when she heard Innocencia’s voice rise out from the babble of gossiping bil-lit in front of Donna’s store.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph! The voice of an angel!” Mama once described Innocencia’s dulcet tones. The 21-year-old was newly-wed to another cousin, Eddie. Like the spouses of many who gathered at Donna’s store every evening, Eddie worked overseas—one of the millions of Filipino contract laborers who labored in Greece, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and the United States. Their earnings helped buoy up the Philippines’ economy which has yet to recover from the plunder caused by Ferdinand Marcos and his cohorts during the Martial Law dictatorship. Nor does the diasporic flow show any signs of easing as the Marcos cronies have returned to positions of power within President Joseph Estrada’s administration—returning with the usual disregard for anything beside lining their own pockets despite the continuing poverty of millions.

With the Philippines’ inability to fully employ its population continuing to send hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to other countries, demand boomed for long-distance telephone services. Like Donna, thousands of sari-sari store owners across the countryside installed a phone to accommodate the demand. In Santo Tomas, the spouses and relatives of overseas workers usually gathered between 6 and 10 o’clock every evening to make or receive their calls.

Undoubtedly, Innocencia’s angelic voice must have jarred with the phrase “coitus interruptus” so that, for once, Mama paid attention to the tsis-mis floating up towards where she was enjoying Tata Ernie’s tapey.

“Hah? What are you bil-lit twittering about now?”

In response, the birds collapsed into giggles and muffled Ssssshhhhhs. But it was too late. My mother leaned over the narra mahogany railing to peer at the flock whose mirth-ridden faces all looked up at her.

“Oh nothing, Auntie. Nothing . . .” Donna tried to reply but my mother swiftly silenced her.

“I know what I heard! And I know you bil-lit are not conducting Latin lessons down there! What’s with this coitus interruptus?” Mama thundered.

Before any of the birds could answer, a woman even older than—and hence able to silence—Mama spoke up from the shadows. She limped out onto the light and shook her cane at Mama.

“Betty, where do you think you are? In America? Will you stop yelling coitus interruptus to the night air!”

The flock erupted once more into twittering and giggles except for Donna who dashed out from the store scolding the birds.

“Will you all be quiet! Now, here, Nana Doring. Please take my hand and come sit down here where you’ll be most comfortable.”

At Donna’s glare, Innocencia swiftly stood up and offered her spot on the bench to Nana Doring, one of the oldest of the town elders.

“Aaaahhhh. These bones are so tired,” Nana Doring sighed as she slowly sat down. Then she looked over the silenced flock surrounding her.

“So. Tell me and Betty over there before she bursts out of either curiosity or tapey: what’s all this about coitus interruptus?”

As the flock started twittering again, Donna exclaimed in shock, “Nana Doring!”

“What?” the old lady fixed her good eye on my cousin. “I don’t know if I should be insulted that you’re shocked! Some things, my dear Donna, can never be forgotten!”

This only set off the flock once more on a new round of giggles until Mama yelled again from the balcony, “What about coitus interruptus!”

Nana Doring began to raise her cane threateningly towards Mama, but then paused and turned her cane to point it instead at Innocencia.

“So? Answer Betty before she falls and breaks her skinny neck.”

“Oh, Ma’am. Oh, Ma’am,” Innocencia mustered before her best friend Eva piped up.

“We were just trying to give Miss Newlywed here some advice, Nana Doring. We were suggesting that it’s not a proven method for preventing a baby,” Eva said.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph . . .” floated from the balcony but Eva, the least shy of the flock, continued her tale.

“Then Donna said that not only is it not a proven method but it’s quite unsatisfactory for the woman.”

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph . . .!” this time it was Donna’s turn to invoke Catholic royalty.

“So Donna said,” Eva insisted on continuing even as Donna began to advance on her.

“Donna said that Innocencia should make sure the man also always fingers it so she would not suffer from coitus interruptus!”

By the time Eva finished her explanation, Eva was down the road running away from Donna so that, once more, the words floated out onto the night air in Eva’s clearly articulated scream towards the laughing flock: coitus interruptus!

*****

Thus, did Mama’s rapprochement with the birds begin. That evening so amused her that she claimed she lost five pounds laughing with the rest of the bil-lit as they watched Donna chase Eva down the road and then onto the open fields, both women squishing through the turds of water buffaloes. From thereon, with much whispered warnings to the bil-lit not to tell my grandmother about her evening cocktails, Mama would take Tata Ernie’s tapey down to the area in front of Donna’s store and join in the gossip.

During one of these evening tsis-mis sessions, Mama met Innocencia’s aunt, Julia. Mama said she never listened to the phone conversations but it was difficult to ignore Julia’s turn on the phone that evening. From Julia’s side of the phone conversation:

“Now, son. Are you sure it has to be returned?”

Then, “Well, but I don’t have it anymore.”

Then, “I sold it. What would a humble woman like me do with such a thing?”

Then, after much hemming and hawwing, “50,000 pesos, my son.”

Then, several seconds of silence before Julia said, “Fine, call me here tomorrow.”

With a deep sigh, Julia gave the phone back to Donna and turned around to Mama’s gaze. There is a certain period during all of my mother’s interaction with alcohol when the eye she casts on the world is quite unlike her usual nature: during this period, her spirit becomes suffused with generosity so that she becomes concerned that everyone share in the same feeling of well-being she is experiencing. So Mama patted the area next to her and invited, “Come sit by me, Julia. I can see that something is bothering you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” Julia sighed as she sat down on the bench. “It is so difficult sometimes to be a good parent.”

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph—that, it is,” Mama agreed sympathetically. Then she promptly elicited the tale of Henry, Julia’s son who worked as a busboy in the Shangri-La, one of Manila’s top hotels. Apparently, about a year ago Henry had found a diamond wedding band and matching earrings in a hotel room. He turned the items over to his manager, a Mr. Carbo, who consigned it to the hotel’s Lost and Found. According to the hotel’s policies, Lost and Found items not claimed within a year of being reported reverts back to the person who found them.

After the year elapsed, Mr. Carbo had called Henry into his office and said, “Congratulations! The item you reported lost a year ago has remained unclaimed. So, as a reward for your honesty, here is the ring which you may now keep.”

Henry recalled that he also had reported earrings, but he apparently decided not to challenge Mr. Carbo and merely replied, “Thank you.” Subsequently, he gave the ring to his quite gratified mother.

“Oh, my Henry—he is such a loving son!” Julia interrupted her tale and, to Mama’s disgust, began to cry. Mama’s alcoholically-induced beneficence was beginning to wane.

“But Auntie, why are you crying?” several of the bil-lit asked. By then, the whole flock had gathered around to listen to Julia’s story.

“Because my boy, being such a loving son, gave me the ring. Jesus, Mary, Joseph—can you imagine? Most would have just sold that thing so he could have money to enjoy Manila which is so expensive! But my Henry is such a good, good boy! He’s always thinking of me!”

A chorus of Aaaahhhh’s arose. Mama belched, then asked, “So?”

“Well, that was my loving Henry on the phone. He said that the ring’s owner has returned after all and wants the ring back, particularly since it is his wife’s wedding band.”

Once more, a chorus of Aaaahhhh’s arose. Once more, Mama belched and asked, “So?”

“But Betty, it’s not just a beautiful ring but an expensive one. I can tell. It’s real gold because it’s stamped 18k in the inside of the band. And there are diamonds all around!”

This time, the flock was silent before Innocencia haltingly offered, “But Auntie Julia, the ring’s owner has been found. Surely you must return it?”

“Of course I should return it! But it’s not fair that Henry won’t get anything for his honesty! Do you know that most people would have just pocketed that ring—just like that Mr. Carbo probably pocketed the matching pair of earrings? Do you know that my son has been engaged to the same long-suffering Lina Asuncia for six years now but that he refuses to marry her until he has saved more money? Do you know how long it will take Henry to save money from that measly paying hotel job? Do you know that we cannot afford to send him
overseas to a better-paying job because we can’t afford the broker’s fees charged by those who would find him such a job?”

Julia paused dramatically, well aware that her audience primarily involved families who were able to afford or managed to scrape together such broker’s fees.

“So I told Henry that I’d already sold it for 50,000 pesos which I am keeping in a savings account for him,” she continued.

“Did you really do that?” Donna asked, undoubtedly voicing the thoughts of the others. There weren’t many residents in the region with 50,000 pesos to spend on a ring.

“Of course not! I just made it up on the spot while we were on the phone. I just didn’t want to give it back,” Julia wailed.

Mama interrupted the ensuing silence with another belch, then asked, “Now what?”

“Well, Henry said he’ll talk to his manager Mr. Carbo and call back tomorrow.”

The following evening, the flock was larger than usual around Donna’s store. Santo Tomas had spent the day discussing nothing but Julia’s travails. After all, as Mama often complained, not much else happens in the dusty town.

When it was Julia’s turn at the telephone, all the birds stopped twittering.

“Yes, Henry?”

“Yes, Henry?”

“Yes, Henry?”

“Yes, Henry?”

At the fourth “Yes, Henry” Eva groaned but everyone shusshhhed her. Julia continued:

“Yes, Henry?”

“Yes, Henry?”

Julia hung up the phone. She turned around to look at everyone who stared back expectantly. She drew out her silence until Nana Doring raised her cane and threatened, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph! This is not the time to be dramatic! What happened, you silly woman?”

“Mr. Carbo told Henry that the owner is willing to repay 50,000 pesos to my buyer,” Julia said hesitantly. “I’m supposed to bring the buyer to the phone tomorrow evening and Henry and Mr. Carbo himself will call again to discuss the matter.”

It took the flock nearly five minutes of scrunching their brows to determine what they thought was the significance of this latest development.
Then, almost unanimously, the flock stirred and started clapping their hands in glee.

“But this is great, Auntie Julia!” Eva said. “So you can give back the ring and you and Henry will still have 50,000 pesos! Maybe that will even persuade Henry to stop being so conservative and finally propose to his long-suffering fiancee!”

“You nitwit!” Nana Doring immediately replied. “And who among us would have had 50,000 pesos to buy the ring? Who will play the buyer?”

“That’s right!” Julia wailed. “Henry knows none of us can afford to buy the ring. And I don’t want my honest son to know I lied, or am trying to swindle anyone out of 50,000 pesos!”

Once more, a chorus of Aaaahhhs rose.

“That’s what you get for being such a sly creature.” Perhaps my mother only meant to mumble that under her breath but she misjudged and everyone heard her.

Sly Julia looked at Mama. A sly gleam suddenly appeared in her sly eyes.

“But, Betty, you could have afforded to buy my ring,” she said. “You’re a balikbayan, a visitor from wealthy America!”

Mama spurted out a mouthful of Tata Ernie’s tapey before continuing to splutter, “Hey now, just wait a minute here . . .”

“That’s right! That’s right! You’re the solution to this dilemma,” Nana Doring confirmed. “Betty—you shall have to pretend you were the buyer. Henry knows you could easily come up with the money!”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute here…”Mama tried again but Julia interrupted her.

“Of course I should return it!” she repeated. “But it’s not fair that Henry won’t get anything for his honesty! Do you know that most people would have just pocketed that ring—just like that Mr. Carbo probably pocketed the matching pair of earrings? Do you know that my son has been engaged to the same long-suffering Lina Asuncia for six years now but that he refuses to marry her until he has saved more money? Do you know how long it will take Henry to save money from that measly paying hotel job? Do you know that we cannot afford to send him overseas to a better-paying job because we can’t afford the broker’s fees charged by those who would find him such a job?”

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” Mama sighed. She looked around at the bil-lit gazing at her with their pleading faces. She looked at Nana Doring who began to chant, “Betty, I am asking you to do it for me, if not for Julia. Do it for me. Now, who helped to raise you when you were a little girl? Who smashed the head of that snake who nearly bit you when you were a teenager? Who hid you in my house when you snuck out with that loko-loko and your father was angry enough to take off his fat leather belt to give you a lashing?”

“Enough, enough! I’ll do it!” Mama cried out.

To cheers, Donna broke out a whole case of Coca-Colas as they toasted Mama’s decision to commit a crime. Mama stuck with Tata Ernie’s tapey.

*****

In Los Angeles where we sat in Mama’s kitchen sharing her first attempt to make tapey from Tata Ernie’s recipe, I belched before continuing our tsis-mis. “Great story, Mama. And the tapey’s not bad either!”

“It is a good story, isn’t it?” Mama replied smugly, raising her glass to me.

As we clicked our glasses, Mama bragged, “The easiest 60,000 pesos I ever made.”

I was about the guzzle down the rest of my second glass (I found tapey addictive) but paused to correct Mama, “Don’t you mean 50,000 pesos?”

Mama’s eyes twinkled as she downed her glass. I, on the other hand, lowered my glass to the table and repeated, “Don’t you mean 50,000 pesos?”

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph. Only 50,000 pesos? Of course I upped the ante to 60,000 pesos.”

I stared at Mama as she reached for the pitcher of tapey and poured herself another round.

I managed, “How?”

Mama started to cackle, then took pity on me. She explained:

“The following evening, I got on the phone with Mr. Carbo. I explained that I did buy Julia’s ring for 50,000 pesos. I also pointed out that the peso/dollar exchange rate had deteriorated significantly since I made my purchase—another sign of the country’s weak economy, you know. So I said I would be happy to re-sell the ring, but at 60,000 pesos so that I didn’t suffer any negative currency effect.”

After my initial surprise, I began to giggle and choked out, “Ohhhh, Mama! You are cold, cold, cold!”

“Funny—that’s what Mr. Carbo said to me,” Mama replied. “I don’t think I fooled him at all.”

“Then I observed to Mr. Carbo: what a shame it would be if the Hotel Shangri-La’s reputation suffered from being unable to accommodate this visitor who already had indicated his willingness to compensate me for 50,000 pesos,” Mama paused to sip at her tapey. “He spluttered as if I had him physically instead of metaphorically by the balls. But as I expected, after he stopped moaning, he said he would cough up the extra 10,000 pesos.”

“But what made you believe he would agree to do that, Mama?”

“Because, darling, I knew he kept the matching pair of earrings that he hadn’t returned to Henry who was too intimidated to follow up on it. Believe me, 10,000 pesos is nothing compared to what Mr. Carbo was able to get for those diamond earrings!”

I shook my head and raised my glass to finish the toast.

“To you, Mama,” I said and then raised the glass to my lips . . . where it paused before I laid it down again.

“Mama,” I said, fixing my eyes onto hers. “I take it that the extra 10,000 pesos was what you got paid for your own complicity in this swindle?”

My mother straightened her spine. She shot me a look from Antarctica.

“What do you think your mother is? Of course I gave the whole 60,000 pesos to Julia and Henry! It’s not fair that Henry won’t get anything for his honesty! Do you know that most people would have just pocketed that ring—just like that Mr. Carbo probably pocketed the matching pair of earrings? Do you know that Henry has been engaged to the same long-suffering Lina Asuncia for six years now but that he refused to marry her until he had saved more money? Do you know how long it will take Henry to save money from that measly paying hotel job? Do you know that his family cannot afford to send him overseas to a better-paying job because they can’t afford the broker’s fees charged by those who would find him such a job?”

I still hesitated to complete my toast. After all, I knew my mother well.

“Do you mean you did this out of the goodness of your heart, Mama?”

Mama snorted. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph! How well do you know your own mother? Since when do I do anything out of the goodness of my heart? I did it, darling, because it was something to do and I was just plain bored! Didn’t I tell you that there is absolutely nothing to do in Santo Tomas except count the dust motes?”

After a few moments, I sighed and said, “Okay.”

Mama looked at me as she took another sip of the tapey.

“Besides, I figured my writer-daughter could use this incident,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I figured you could fictionalize this tale,” Mama said, her voice rising in emphasis. Or from tapey. “I thought you could write a short story about this and get it published. Make me proud!”

I was surprised. This was the first time Mama acknowledged my writing efforts without grumbling that writing what she called my “fragile poems and fragile stories” will never pay me even a fifth of what I used to earn as a lawyer for Los Angeles’ largest law firm Carignan, Malbec and Verdot.

“Just be sure, though, to submit your story to places where there are sizeable pockets of Filipino Americans—like California or Hawai’i.

None of those fancy-schmancy journals in the East Coast. Submit to publications whose readers can find Filipino grocery stores where they might find the ingredients to make tapey. Oh, yes, of course you must include Tata Ernie’s recipe in your story.”

My mother belched as I continued to look at her.

I prolonged my stare until she raised her eyebrows and asked, “What? What?”

“Mama. Does this mean you don’t mind my leaving law?”

“Don’t be silly, darling. Has the tapey gone that swiftly to your head? Of course I mind your leaving a perfectly stable and well-paying profession!”

“Then what…?”

Mama didn’t bother to let me finish my question.

“I want you to write this story so that I can bring a copy over to the Philippines. I want to share it with everyone in Santo Tomas.”

“Why?”

“Because until your grandmother goes to heaven, darling child, I have to keep returning to that dusty town where absolutely nothing happens! But you can bet that if folks think their interactions with me will get publicized, I might actually start having interesting adventures there! Have you ever tried to count dust motes?”

I looked at Mama. Despite her public crustiness, she really is a good-hearted lady. She is always bemoaning the plight of the Filipinos who have suffered from crooked or uncaring politicians. She would never admit that she became a “swindler” and refused to accept payment from Julia because she felt sorry for Julia. Julia’s family was among the poorest families in Santo Tomas, hence their inability to raise funds for Henry to find work overseas. I also knew that her grumbling about my writing career had more to do with her concerns over my financial security rather than a disrespect for my “fragile poems and fragile short stories.”

I raised my glass in a silent toast to Mama before guzzling down its contents. I plopped the glass back down on Mama’s kitchen table, belched and announced, “Whatever you want, Mama! Let’s hope Bamboo Ridge’s readers will soon toast us with tapey!”

A POST TO PREVENT JOSE GARCIA VILLA FROM HAUNTING MY DREAMS TO COMPLAIN, "BITTER? WHO'S BITTER?"

I began the previous post by quoting from a recent e-mail from Nick Carbo:

very interesting, i was wondering if poems themselves could be sloshed in the mouth and bathed in the tongue and "experts" define its character and composition?

a bouquet of Tennyson in line four,
a nutty reminiscence of almond and Emily Dickinson in that stanza,
an enjambment of citrusy Li Po and bitter Jose Garcia Villa

You know: I wouldn't characterize Mr. Villa as "bitter." I would consider him more to be, cough, complex. (So away with thee, nightmare. Go away, now!)

In any event, here's a wine poem by the non-bitter, comma-replete, and even occasionally sweet Jose Garcia Villa (taken from The Anchored Angel, Kaya Press, 1999; I edited this book, by the way, so check it out at http://www.kaya.com/aa.html)

89

Death, corollary to Life
But only by Chronology.
Death, the supreme Theorem--
Life, the Corollary.

Whose antecedence--
Paradox divine--
Mathematicus Sublime
Created in inversed line.

A progression of wine
From fruit to poem.
Grape, the Corollary,
Wine, the Theorem.

See? I wouldn't call this poem "bitter." Instead, I would call it finely austere, very much like the 1990 Ch. Cos d'Estournel.

As for Nick's other comments: "almond and Emily Dickinson" -- how Freudian. And is Li Po "citrusy"? I wouldn't know since I don't know what were in those cups that he kept raising to the moon. But perhaps Nick knows as he's (metaphorically) older than I am.

Back to looking for tapey*.


[*rice wine. As a little girl, I remember seeing some in recycled jam jars with the rice kernels still at the bottom one-fourth section of the containers. As I recall (sorry Mom), they were pretty good!]

REVERSE DERANGEMENT

Fine and finely-humored poet Nick Carbo (Secret Asian Man and El Grupo McDonalds, both from Tia Chucha Press) recently wrote about WinePoetics:

very interesting, i was wondering if poems themselves could be sloshed in the mouth and bathed in the tongue and "experts" define its character and composition?

a bouquet of Tennyson in line four,
a nutty reminiscence of almond and Emily Dickinson in that stanza,
an enjambment of citrusy Li Po and bitter Jose Garcia Villa

I think that if Nick were a wine, he'd be a zinfandel! Anyway, shortly after hearing from Nick, Katie (who once attended a Wine Club dinner and famously compared the color of the wine in her glass to nailpolish, thus engendering the "Best Valley Girl Wine Tasting Note Award" from Freddie) wrote to suggest, "I think you should write about how wine affects the creative process."

So can poems be sloshed in the mouth? Why not? POETRY CAN DO ANYTHING, NYA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! [Uttered in evil-sounding cackle, of course.] Have you noticed how you say things in cyberspace you would never think of uttering otherwise? Like "NYA-HA-HA-HA-HA"? (What is that!?!)

Anyway. So, Poetry can do anything! For instance, a few years back while sipping wine, I wrote the poem "The Fifteenth Stone" (one of my 40 wine country poems). At the time, I may have been drinking the 1992 Batard Montrachet Domaine Leflaive. Straw color. Rich nose of lemon, butter, citrus, oak. Excellent crisp acid and long, balanced glycerin. Very rich flavors. Unbelievably long finish that just went on and on. Although: towards the end of the bottle, my notes on it seem to indicate some confusion as to whether I wanted to apply "apples and robustness" or "apples and robitussin" to the wine. Anyway, here's that poem that was subsequently published in Bamboo Ridge (Salamat to the lovely poet-editors in Hawai'i):


The Fifteenth Stone
--for Arthur Sze

Beyond an ancient screen door
flows a wave

of raspberry ice bougainvillea.
From a beige rattan basket

purple chariot roses
cascade

toward the Irish moss
alit between silver stepping

stones. Recall Ryoanji, a stone
garden in Kyoto

where the 15th stone
remains invisible

from all angles. Breathe in
the scents of a St. Helena garden

while awaiting a green light
at the corner of Presidio

and Clay. Once more, a city
is a hood over me. Yet,

in the manner of a stone
compelling imagination

I find my way Home--where
"Northern Lights" burn

orange to evoke flowers
not grass--where "George Burns"

is a jaunty rose colored
crimson and creme--

where "Sister Teresa"
is a hydrangea shrub

birthing blossoms as white
as a prayer--where "Tequila

Sunrise" are daisies glowing
like burnished gold

and silk slipping off a shoulder
to set boulders aflame.


The poem's title and dedication reflect how it was the poet Arthur Sze -- whose book The Redshifting Web (Copper Canyon, 1998) really should have won the Pulitzer -- who told me about the Ryoanji garden. That is, not all of its rocks can be perceived from any one perspective so that the viewer's imagination must always be involved in order for the mind's eye to "see" all of the stones (sort of how the book cover to my recent book Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole -- click on the link to see it -- features a partial rose so that it's the viewer's "mind's eye" that completes the image of a full bloom). Anyway, in thinking about Nick's and Katie's questions, I realize now that I seem to write in a simpler style when I'm drunk (simple in terms of narrative, not necessarily significance). "The Fifteenth Stone" (and my other wine country poems) are much more accessible (from a narrative standpoint) than the poems in Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole or my "Clifford Still" series (available as of 1/10/03 at www.Sidereality.com). (As regards the former, the Press Democrat reviewed my book and said, "[Reproductions] is not accessible in the way that the poems of, say, Billy Collins, the U.S. poet laureate, are accessible. It takes work -- reading, re-reading, reflection and even research -- to fathom a Tabios poem." What a hoot.)

Does this mean that I am "normally" drunk or deranged? (O Rimbaud! O Baudelaire!) And that inebriation, therefore, has the opposite-than-expected effect of making me sober?

If so, I think I'll drink to that. After all, perhaps my favorites among my own poems are those written when I'm not sober....which is to say, when I'm my normal self. Or, perhaps this is what I mean whenever I spout off (as I often do) that phrase, "To Poetry As A Way of Life!"

Whatever. And, anyway, why do I keep repeating this word "anyway" in this missive?

Anyway. Mabuhay! Cheers!

BELATEDLY, DEAR RICHIE AND CHERYL

My posts' wine tasting notes may not (yet or ever) reflect it, but I have good grounding in wine tasting, courtesy of many generous friends who are....generous....with their wine cellars. I wanted to post here some tasting notes from a "Wine Club Spectacular" hosted by Richie and Cheryl as, due to demands of my Poetry Muse at the time, I couldn't provide them with those notes in a timely manner. That is, their dinner took place on March 17, 2001. Here are the notes, offered rather belatedly (and quite apologetically) nearly two years later. But to recap the experience, it's worth first recalling their menu (cutnpasted below) for a mere dozen (?) people:

HORS D'OEUVRES
With 1985 Krug, Clos du Mesnil
Les Oeufs De Cailles Pochees Au Caviar Sevruga (Poached Quail Egg With Sevruga Caviar)
Le Saumon Cru Au Fenouil Et A l'Aneth (Wild Salmon Tartar, Fennel and Dill)
Les Rouleaux De Printemps Au Crabe Des Eauix Du Maine (Lump Maine Crab Spring Roll)
Le Magret De Canard Aux Epic