PINOY POETICS!

Meritage Press is pleased to announce a
Summer Pre-Release Special on Pinoy Poetics:

Pinoy Poetics' retail price is $28 per book. But until August 31, 2004, you may order Pinoy Poetics at a 25% discount, plus free shipping/handling within the U.S. (a $3 savings) for a total savings of $10.00. If you wish to avail yourself of this Summer Special, please send a check for the reduced price of $21 per book, made out to Meritage Press, to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
2101 Sacramento Street, #303
San Francisco, CA 94109

In addition, members of the Flips Listserve can take a buck off that price and pay simply $20 per book.

And here is the reason to check out this historical project!

PinoyPoetics: A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics
Editor Nick Carbo
No. of Pages: 416
Normally Retails for: $28.00
ISBN: 0970917937
Publisher: Meritage Press (St. Helena and San Francisco)

Meritage Press is pleased to announce the release of Pinoy Poetics , edited by Nick Carbo. This collection of poetics essays (with sample poems) is the line drawn in the sand by poets of Filipino heritage who have been historically ignored and made invisible by the United States of America and its literary, cultural, and academic institutions. Philippine poets represented in this volume range from distinguished professors of English from the University of the Philippines, Manila Book Critics Circle National Book Award winners, and journalists that were detained and tortured during the Marcos dictatorship. The Filipino American poets range from a former San Francisco City sanitation worker, an activist high school teacher, to poets who have won fellowships in poetry from the N. E. A.

The poetics contained in this important book -- and as revealed by over 40 poets -- show once and for all what is unique to Filipino poetics. Among the important issues raised in these essays are responses to American imperialism, the postcolonial and diasporic Filipino experience, questions about historical narrative, and the uses and abuses of language imposed by colonizers. Public and academic libraries, as well as personal collections with interests in Poetry, Creative Writing, Asian American Studies, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, Identity Poetics, Filipino American Literature, and Philippine Literature will find this book indispensable.

Guggenheim Awardee and scholar Vicente L. Rafael (University of Washington) notes about this historic project:

“ Pinoy Poetics is an ambitious project for it is no less than an archeology of the invisible. As editor Nick Carbo points out, the task of excavating the shards of Filipino poetry in English in the vast graveyard of U.S. memory is never ending. Along with Eileen R. Tabios, he has compiled an antitode to this imperial amnesia in the form of essays by Filipino and Filipino American poets reflecting on the techniques and trajectories of their work. These essays respond to the question of Pinoy invisibility by bringing forth the history and energy of their presence, but one which, to paraphrase another poet, locates the 'imperfect' as 'our paradise,' where 'delight...lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.' The soundings of Pinoy Poetics are the ghostly keenings that have haunted American poetry, and Philippine, too. Perhaps one day they will begin to take on more flesh and blood. This collection certainly offers that hope."

As of Fall 2004, Pinoy Poetics will be available through selected bookstores across the United States, Amazon.com, as well as its distributor Small Press Distribution ( www.spdbooks.org ). More information about Pinoy Poetics is available at the Publisher's web site at:
http://www.meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm