Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

“Inspirational Innovation”: A Review of Eileen R. Tabios’ The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku (East Rockaway: Marsh Hawk Press, 2019, ISBN: 978-0-9969911-6-2) The great white whale for all true Creatives is the alchemical creation of something New. Wholly new. Something Never Before Done. But, in reality, how many emotional crews and spiritual lower legs have we sacrificed in the pursuit of such seeming folly? I was recently engaged in a discussion with creative colleagues when the idea that “there is nothing new” left to create came up. For one of us, it was a statement originally made to him some 30 years ago by a professor in the college where he had enrolled. So—is it true? Outside of deconstructionism and post-postmodernism, aside from homage and pastiche (all four of which are prevalent in my own work), is there anything truly new? This retrospective collection says yes. Embracing variations on the haiku and tercet forms while honoring Philippine culture and elements...

(Chicago: Moria Books, http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html , 2015), ISBN: 9780991212132 This month marks 10 years since I wrote my first book review. In that time, I have had the opportunity to review multiple books by the same author (in several cases, different books from a continuous series, but not always). Of the 110 reviews that I have done, there are half a dozen reviews of books that Eileen Tabios has either written or edited. This has been an easy decision to make, because no two are the same. Tabios is not only a talented wordsmith, and visual artist of language—she truly is an innovator. She invented a style of poetry called the Hay(na)ku, which numerous authors have adopted. She writes poems that pull in visual and literary art, music and dance, and that employ an impressive array of styles. She can go from dense prose poems that fill page after page with compact images and historical/literary references to very brief forms. Some months ago, I reviewed Tabios’s ...

 (Finland: Gradient Books, 2014; Barcode: 5-800102-117065) Two years ago I reviewed a precursor to this book, by Eileen R. Tabios and j/j hastain, titled the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA (New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2012; ISBN: 978-0-9846353-2-0). The book impressed upon the reader the function to carry forth the work begun in its pages, which I endeavored to do in the review.             147 Million Orphans takes as its basis, not the word problems of the previous title, but a list of words that Tabios’ son was required to learn in the course of a school year. Ever innovative and groundbreaking, Tabios, and her impressive list of guest poets (William Allegrezza, Tom Beckett, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Patrick James Dunagan, Thomas Fink, jj hastain, Aileen Ibardaloza, Ava Koohbor, Michael Leong, Sheila Murphy and Jean Vengua), used the words to create hay(na)ku [from the back cover: “a hay(n...

(New York: theenk Books, 2013, ISBN: 978-0-9647342-8-9) Going to the mailbox and finding the latest book by Eileen Tabios is always a treat for me. Of all the poets and writers of poetry I have been blessed enough to know over the past two decades, none provokes thought and inspiration more than she. Eileen is a pioneer, inventing new forms such as the hay(na)ku, and always adding in some essays or other notes into her collections. In the end, I always feel like I have gotten just that little bit more from her and her work than “just” poems. In The Awakening , we get a little bit of lots of things, so if you’ve yet to read Eileen’s work, this is an excellent place to start. In less than 60 pages, she gives us a long poem on the sexual (mis)adventures of some of history’s best-known painters, as framed through the medical work of the poet and MD William Carlos Williams. We then move on to an offering of emails sent and received on September 11, 2001, that ...

(Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2011, ISBN: 978-1-84861-143-6) Eileen Tabios is an innovator in the best sense of the word. If her impressive list of publications, multi-media projects, and awards were not proof enough, one need only consider her development and promotion of the Hay(na)ku form, which has spawned three anthologies and several works from individual writers. If even that is not enough, one would be hard pressed to discount her place at the forefront of the post-postmodern language and literature movement after reading (and engaging with) Silk Egg. Having read many and reviewed several of Tabios’ works, I have been most impressed and enthused by the requirements made on the reader (or reviewer) to partner in the product being created. This, to me, is what keeps the very short “novels” (and their even shorter chapters) from being just another experiment in what is alternately called, among other names, “Nano-fiction,” “microfiction,” and “flash fiction…” This growing movement of ...

Eileen Tabios is a poetic force to be reckoned with. Since 1996 she has written or edited some 30 poetry, short story, and prose collections. Her own press, Meritage, is continually producing groundbreaking, vital poetry that not only explores new realms of poetic expression, such as the hay(na)ku, which she invented, but brings a multicultural, Diasporic voice to the forefront of modern poetics. Her latest collection, Nota Bene Eiswein, continues to mine new areas of inspiration, as she “excavates” the writings of the poet Christian Hawkey and the novelist Sara Bird. The title, translated as “Note Well Ice Wine,” is explained in the Notes to Poems on page 109, as well as the source material and methods Tabios worked from to create the two halves of this collection, titled “Ice: Behind the Eyelet Veil” and “Wine—The Singer and Others—Flamenco Hay(na)ku.” In “Ice,” Tabios works in a number of forms, using Hawkey’s poetry as a launching point while mixing in additional source material as...