Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems) by Eileen R. Tabios

Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems)

by Eileen R. Tabios

Marsh Hawk Press

ISBN (hardcover): 978-0-9882356-6-3

Hardbound, 131 pages, NPG

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Sometimes I have to read a poem by Eileen R. Tabios two or three times to truly receive the impact of her words and beauty of the poetry. Sometimes the effort is not so great, but whatever time I put into a Tabios poem the reward is many times the effort. Perhaps the following poem will help explain is it the story of her life, lover, husband, past and future fused together in an amalgam of memories or the story of an affair, a disappointing one, perhaps or a memory never to be shed. These are my thoughts, you may have a different view that may also be correct or incorrect:

(Eclipse

Holes in maps look through to nowhere

–Laura Riding Jackson

… fled

to an alien land

whose history has become

like you—impossible to be grasped

…to feel the white-haired woman

I will become

(looking through a window and seeing glass)

I never entered a dark building

fraught upon the high heels you love

feeling the embrace of leers

a ripped hole in space

where you I felt you sculpting

a dispassionate embrace

How has she become

a shadow where there is no light

An interesting aspect of these poems is that each of them has a title which begins with a ( at the beginning, but not the end leaving the reader to (a) accept it as is, (b) wonder what is missing, (c) add their own words or (d) just wonder what should be there.

The poems themselves can be as enigmatic as the title or not.

(BLIND DATE

The vagaries of memory—

you’d considered a prior sighting

inconsequential

:”an insouciant Sancerre”

Now you feel his touch leap

across a room, the weight

of his fingertips tracing the edges

of your publicly sanguine lips

Dust motes dance in the beams

thrown by a sconce clamped

onto a peacock’s florid tail

flowing across silk wallpaper

Why are you stubborn? He asked

just as you said, I am not stubborn

Both of you were supposed to sense

the presence of a B-movie camera

then smile after this overlap

We were promised a sunset, he said

when you would have walked away

He nodded towards a waiting

window framed in violet velvet

I didn’t lost that badly in poker

you replied but moved towards his

request. Unblinking stare. He should

have spanned your writs with one hand

He watched you as you watched

a sun die by painting its rubicund

departure across your tender face

Ripeness—against this memory

you take your first sip of a golden wine

nicknamed by commerce as “God’s nectar”

It coldness then warmth

down your throat brings you

forward to the future

where he would take the folds

of a hovering drape and swaddle

it around you as if you were

an infant. Even violet can

be gentle, he would whisper

Unexpectedly, you would feel

his fingers tremble

behind velvet camouflage

To spark your heart finally

into breathing. When you

finally would lay your lips

against his, offering a door

he would know can be keyed

it would be the appropriate decision

so that civilization aborts

its potential

as an endangered species

What I have found in Tabios’ poetry are overtones and undertones of sensual/sexual images requiring active thought to accept the image, which is another way saying think while you read her poetry or you will be lost. Think at the end and you will feel wonderment at her talent.

In a biography of Tabios published in the Poetry Foundation it is noted that she came to the United States from the Philippines at the age of ten. My guess is that she probably spoke Tagalog, the native language until she came here and to read her poetry is reminiscent of Joseph Conrad who learned English around the age of twenty-nine and then wrote some of the great stories of the English language. I dare say there are few poets who can use the English language as well, as mysteriously, as excitingly as Tabios does in all her books and especially in this one.

In other reviews I have done of her poetry I have always had good things to say and this book is no exception. (Disclosure: I am credited with a back cover blurb on this book from a review of a previous book. Also note that I have published her in my online journal Muddy River Poetry Review at a featured poet.) Nonetheless, I still find her on our most unique and enlightening poets, both for the subject matter and the style.

I only give two examples of her creativeness in this volume because I believe you should the entire volume and judge for yourself as to the talent she is.

Here is an abbreviated version of what the Poetry Foundation has to say about her (note I have edited to make it fit my review):

Tabios was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States when she was 10. She earned a BA in political science from Barnard College and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Founder and editor of the online poetry review journal GALATEA RESURRECTS (A POETRY ENGAGEMENT).

Tabios invented a poetic form called the “hay(na)ku,” a tercet in syllabics and is often considered an experimental writer. She described her “abstract poetry” as follows: “In poetry, I try to create an emotion that transcends the dictionary sense of what words mean or what they typically evoke in the current cultural context. There are words that are beautiful outside their meaning, like azure or jasmine or cobalt.… For me, this is partly the place of abstract poetry, in addition to what’s happening in that space between, words, lines, sentences and paragraphs.”

Tabios has received many awards and commendations for her work, including the PEN Open Book Award, the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, the PEN Oakland–Josephine Miles National Literary Award, the Philippines’ Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, and a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant.

Finally, I should note book is separated into sections that include a Preface, My Greece and Returning the Borrowed Tongue. There is an Afterword as well as sections entitled About the Source Material, About the Cover, Humming a Crituque, Selected Notes To Poems, Acknowledgements and finally About The Author. In other words, you get your money’s worth.

In Tagalog the word maganda means good. Her poetry is certainly maganda.

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Zvi A. Sesling is author of King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street, 2010), Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011) and the soon to be published Fire Tongue (Cervena Barva). He is Editor of Muddy River Poetry Review and edited Bagel Bards Anthologies #7 and #8.