September 8, 2018 at 2:57 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Events, poetry, Readings, The Philippines
NO SLEEP
by Catalina Cariaga
Moonlight fills our bedroom
through slats of open blinds.
The brightness of ninety-nine horizontal candles
reveals your expectant smile.
Don’t touch my breasts
while I’m reading,
You knew I was a writer
when you married me.
Copies on sale, today only, at the Redwood City Public Library, 1044 Middlefield, Redwood City.
Stay tuned.
August 17, 2018 at 4:18 pm (Recommended)
Tags: Eunoia Review, Fridays, Literary Magazines, poetry, summer
August 5, 2018 at 6:05 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino poetry, Filipino Writers, Links, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Just published, literary awards, poetry, praise
Cascade
What I want is immediacy, the nub
of the moment processed without doubt
into my side, the tremor that comes
sometimes before sight, before taste
or touch. Whatever might be lost, don’t
take that away from me: stars pouring
out of the firmament, not ever holding
back the flood over my small ladle.
— included in the collection The Buddha Wonders If She Is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Montreal: Phoenicia Publishing, 2018)
Luisa A. Igloria is a poet, a creative writing professor (Old Dominion University), a 2014 winner of the May Swenson Prize and, most recently, the 2018 winner of the Center for Book Arts’ Letterpress Chapbook Competition.
August 4, 2018 at 10:13 am (Artists and Writers, Surprises, television)
Tags: poetry, Saturday, The New Yorker
Giraffe
(By coincidence, self happened to be watching 60 Minutes last Sunday and it showed the scene the author describes in the poem, the ‘culling’ of a perfectly healthy giraffe by a Copenhagen zoo)
His eyes were liquid, kind.
His lashes each as long as a hummingbird’s tongue
His fetlocks puffed from galloping, his tail curled upward
From the joy of feeling fleet across the tinted grasslands
And the gold savannah there.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
July 25, 2018 at 4:44 pm (Artists and Writers, Explorers)
Tags: C. P. Cavafy, Literary Magazines, poetry, The Odyssey, translation
An excerpt from Second Odyssey (translated from the Greek by George Economou)
Telemachos’s affection, Penelope’s
fidelity, his father’s longevity,
his band of old friends, his people’s
loyal devotion, the blissful repose of home
poured like rays of joy into the seafarer’s heart.And just like rays, dissolved.
A thirst
awoke inside him for the sea.
This translation of C. P. Cavafy was published in the Fall 2015 issue of The Iowa Review.
Stay tuned.
July 13, 2018 at 4:24 pm (Artists and Writers, Personal Bookshelf)
Tags: C. P. Cavafy, Fridays, nostalgia, poetry
from “Gray” (1917)
Those gray eyes will have lost their charm — if he’s still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.
Memory: keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever you can bring back of that love,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.
July 10, 2018 at 3:46 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: poetry, The New Yorker
From the end of her poem Giraffe, in the 26 March 2018 New Yorker:
When the Nordic dark settled in, so early,
The children, blanketed in white, began to fuss at sleep, and cry.
It would not snow that night.
What is it in me Makes me tell you of these sights.
Lucie Brock-Broido was the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Stay, Illusion.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
July 8, 2018 at 4:08 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Insomnia, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers)
Tags: AWP, poetry
At the last AWP Book Fair, self saw a familiar face at the Word Works table: Karen Alenier of Brooklyn. Self hung around and ended up buying a few books, one of which was Bad Names for Women, by Hilary Tham.
Tham is no longer with us, but her book is, and it is wonderful.
Mrs. Wei in Peking
All my life I’ve wanted to see
this Ten Thousand Li Great Wall,
Now I am sixty-five, too old for change
and Communism, the Malaysian Visa Office
permits I visit the land of my ancestors,
Oh, my arthritic knees! This wall was built
for mountain goats! The Emperor’s soldiers —
perched on the edge of the world, wanting
to sow rice and children, making do
with mulled wine against snow and ghost voices
wailing in the stones. Poor dead soldiers —
their breaths chill the stone, the summer wind,
I feel it. The Wall is haunted.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
July 8, 2018 at 1:42 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, discoveries, Events, Philippine literature, poetry, praise, Readings, Saturday
Met her at the reading put together by Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions (San Pedro, CA) in March.
Been reading her collection, Primates From an Archipelago: Poems (Rabbit Fool Press), off and on ever since. The back has blurbs from Melissa Roxas and Jennifer Tseng (both of whom self has never read; adding to the “To Read” pile!)
The book is divided into four sections: Scattered Islands, Reclamation, Scattered Cities, and Smog.
From the poem Months, for Napoleon Lustre:
I.
Essex said it perfect:
It is easier to be furious than yearning.
You belong to tribes of warriors and outlaws.
Many who are now dying or just waiting like you.
As I sit here by your bed looking at your sleeping body,
I wonder how long your fury can sustain you.
Published 2017 by Rabbit Fool Press: http://www.rabbitfoolpress.com
Enthralling, powerful collection.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
June 30, 2018 at 3:40 pm (Books, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Surprises)
Tags: Just published, Miami University Press, poetry, Saturday, summer
excerpt from Tanka Notebook, in the collection Climbing into the Orchestra (2017)
On the sidewalk a giant onion perfectly peeled
tucked in a plastic baggie and still fresh
three days after I notice it.
Keith Tuma teaches at Miami University (Ohio), where he edits the Miami University Press. Recent books include On Leave: A Book of Anecdotes (Salt, 2011).
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