Review of The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys: Her Biography through Your Poetics, Begun by Eileen R. Tabios, Completed by Others, BlazeVOX, 2008
Chatelaine (chain)—A set of short chains on a belt worn by women and men for carrying keys, thimble and/or sewing kit, etc. (from Wikipedia) “Kapwa”—a Filipino cultural concept of interconnectedness whereby other people are not “others” but part of what one is. (from the opening page; emphasis in original) How does one get to truly know the artist? Especially when the one doing the searching is the artist her- or himself? Dostoyevsky and Freud put forth the notion that it is impossible for an autobiography to reveal the Truth because of our penchant for self-delusion and both positive and negative exaggeration. Aldous Huxley seemed to agree, saying: “there is never a one-to-one correspondence between an author’s work and his character.” If poetry, like all writing, is a form of autobiography, then the path to the Truth is lined with thorns and nails and broken glass, at the end of which are myriad locks. The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys is a collection of reviews of many of Eileen Tabios’ b...