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 For one of us, it was a statement originally made to him some 30 years ago by a professor in the college where he had enrolled.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...

(Cinco Puntos Press, 2008, www.cincopuntos.com) “It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” —Oscar Wilde “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”—Harvey Goldner, “Another Ancient Mariner” I never met Harvey Goldner, and now it’s too late. Harvey, who passed from this Plane in July of 2007, was a poet and personality loved by many—mostly in Seattle, where his death has left a void in the poetry scene, underground and otherwise. But elsewhere as well. I was first introduced to his work in late 2007, when I received a review copy of Letterhead, Volume 1, a collection of poems put out by Highest Hurdle Press. Within its pages was a tribute to Harvey in the form of a series of letter-poems exchanged between he and the Buffalo, NY–based poet Robert Pomerhn. In reading those letters, I was struck by Harvey’s brutal honesty as he tried (and succeeded) to help shape and mature the art of a hard-working and tale...