Witness in the Convex Mirror
Eileen R. Tabios
(Author)
Description
Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. When John Ashbery died in September, 2017, all the obituaries noted that he had been a member of the New York School of poets, that his roots were in western New York and that, despite living for a decade in Paris, his career had unfolded over many decades in the City. Ashbery was, indeed, something of a local poet, constantly using references from the places he had lived. Lost in the very local memorials, however, was the fact that Ashbery's work also influenced writers in the Pacific, including writers of color. Eileen Tabios has taken up Ashbery's influence and engaged in a project of the browning of John Ashbery, as she told Tinfish's editor once. Using one or two lines at a time from Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, (1976), Tabios inhabits Ashbery's mode, while moving our focus of attention many thousands of miles west of New York City. Tabios, who grew up in the Philippines, studied and worked in New York City, and has lived in California for many years, appropriates Ashbery to her own ends. These include cultural appropriation, genocide, militarism, sexual and racial violence, art history, and many other interests she shared--or did not share--with the older white male poet. WITNESS IN THE CONVEX MIRROR is a tense act of homage, one that draws Ashbery away from the region that is most comfortable with him, and into a place where the discomfort is palpable, but extremely generative.Product Details
Price
$18.00
Publisher
Tinfish Press
Publish Date
May 01, 2019
Pages
152
Dimensions
6.0 X 8.0 X 0.4 inches | 0.5 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780998743899
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Eileen R. Tabios loves books and has released over 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in nine countries and cyberspace. Publications include form-based Selected Poems, The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets 1996-2019, INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected Catalog Poems & New 1996-2015, and THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems & New 1998-2010; the first book-length haybun collection, 147 MILLION ORPHANS (MMXI-MML); a collected novels, SILK EGG; an experimental autobiography AGAINST MISANTHROPY; as well as two bilingual and one trilingual editions, the English/Romanian I FORGOT ARS POETICA / AM UITAT ARTA POETICA, the English/Spanish ONE, TWO, THREE: Hay(na)ku / UNO DOS TRES: Hay(na)ku, and the English/Romanian/Spanish YOUR FATHER IS BALD. Her award-winning body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku poetic form as well as a first poetry book, BEYOND LIFE SENTENCES (1998), which received the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry (Manila Critics Circle). Her poems have been translated into nine languages as well as computer-generated hybrid languages, paintings, video, drawings, visual poetry, mixed media collages, Kali martial arts, music, modern dance, sculpture and a sweat shirt. Additionally, she has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as exhibited visual art and visual poetry in the United States, Asia and Serbia.
