March's featured poet is Angela Narciso Torres who recently placed 2nd in the 2003 James Hearst Poetry Prize competition. Angela received her Masters from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her poetry appears in North American Review and Asian Pacific American Journal , is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review , and has been anthologized in Going Home to A Landscape: Writings by Filipinas (CALYX Books, 2003). She has studied with Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux and Nan Cohen. She lives in Santa Clara, CA. She may be reached at angela.n.torres@comcast.net. Angela is presented with two poems, the first of which had an earlier version published in the North American Review (Nov./Dec. 2003 issue):

THINGS TO TELL MY SON ABOUT THE MOON

She seemed so close, those October nights
on the bentwood rocker, her bright disc
rising at the wheel-shaped window

like the first face that greeted
your pale crescent of scalp before
its triumphant push into light. Then,

I came to know the near-perfect roundness
of your head, silver-downed, nestled
against my breast-taut with milk. Skin

to skin we watched the night pour out
from a ladle, tilted to spill the slow
spooling hours. In the silken silence

of a moth's cocoon, I listened
for the sound of your swallows,
followed the motions of a starfish hand,

patting, pulling loose a strand of my hair.
Somewhere I learned which cry meant
you had enough, or wanted more.

From spring to harvest moon I watched
new shadows move across your face,
explored new regions in borrowed light.

IRONING WOMAN

Afternoons, I'd lie on her woven mat
of lemongrass and burnt leaves,
listening to tales of spurned love
on her bright-yellow transistor radio.
From her I learned what the old wives knew-

never to iron after washing. Propelling
the gleaming prow across the rippled aquamarine
of my father's shirt, she'd tell how ironing
gnarled her wrists, once smooth as bamboo.

How the steamy handle, after the cool wash,
twisted the veins, brought on "the shakes."
When I saw the serpentine green rivers
on her arms, I knew this was true. Slowly,

she'd raise both hands to show
how they trembled, like fan-shaped ferns
before a storm. Turning to her work, her eyes
reclaimed the look of one staring at the sea,
tracing a gull's shadow on the surging blue.

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Congratulations to Eileen Tabios whose most recent poetry collection, Reproductions of The Empty Flagpole was ranked 12th among Poetry Bestsellers for Winter 2004 at Small Press Distribution . The following new reviews for Reproductions -- which just went into its SECOND PRINTING after only 15 months from its release date! -- may help explain why Eileen's book continues to generate attention:

Noah Eli Gordon for the St. Marks Poetry Project Newsletter :
"Eileen R. Tabios's Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole (Marsh Hawk Press, 2002, $12.95) is able to narrate the political implications of place and identity without giving up the desirous, inquisitive or uncertain nature of human interactions. From Greece to Nepal, New York to the Mindanao Sea, the multiple paragraphs of these poems consistently demonstrate a devotion to the life of the pronouns which people them."

Nick Carbo for 2ndavenuepoetry.com:
"Eileen Tabios' first book of poetry to be published in the United States and this volume of art-inspired prose poems should bring to an American audience what the Philippine and Southeast Asian publishing world has already known for several years: Eileen Tabios is a world class poet with serious talent. She has had three previous books of poetry published in the Philippines since 1989. They are Beyond Life Sentences (1989) which won the Manila Book Critics' Circle National Book Award, Ecstatic Mutations (2000), and My Romance (2001).

" Reproductions begins with the poem "Eclipse" which asserts the poet's intimate connection to the world of art, "To escape chaos, the Greeks created art with abstractions. It is a familiar approach, having long used geometry to deny myself caresses." Many of the poems in the book are inspired by works of art like "The Kritios Boy," "Jade," "Adultery," "The Color of a Scratch in Metal," "The Wire Sculpture," "The Fairy Child's Prayer," "The Destiny of Rain," "My Saison Between Baudelair and Morrison," "Muse Poem," "Franz Kline Kindly Says About Three Gesture-Laden Brushstrokes," "Insomnia's Lullaby," and the whole last section of the book entitled "Triptych for Anne TruitT." Tabios's approach to these poems is pure ekphrasis. In ancient Greece, philosophers defined ekphrasis as a vivid description intended to bring the subject before the mind's eye of the listener.

"The author of this book is ultimately successful in this artistic enterprise of bringing the subject before the mind's eye of the readers and these readers will not only be enlightened but informed."

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GOING HOME TO A LANDSCAPE; LETTER FROM MARIANNE VILLANUEVA

Just wanted to let those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area know that GOING HOME TO A LANDSCAPE , the Filipino women's anthology edited by Virginia Cerenio and myself, continues its schedule of San Francisco Bay Area readings. Authors will be reading at the following venues in March:

MARCH 11 (Thursday), 2 PM: Daly City Public Library, Serramonte Branch, 40 Wembley Drive-- reading sponsored by the Daly City Library Book Group

MARCH 24 (Wednesday) 7 PM: Wiegand Gallery, Notre Dame de Namur University, 1500 Ralston Avenue, Belmont, CA-- reading sponsored by Isang Lahi, the Notre Dame de Namur University Filipino Student Association

Among the authors reading will be:

Arlene Biala
Holly Calica
Jean Vengua Gier
Angela Narciso Torres
Henrietta Chico Nofre
Veronica Montes

Further News about our Contributors:

Shirley Ancheta, whose beautiful poem, GOING HOME TO A LANDSCAPE , lent its title to the anthology, is being honored for a Calabash Award by Santa Cruz County. The award is granted by the Santa Cruz County Cultural Council to ethnic artists who've made a significant contribution to their communities. Awards ceremony is March 14 at Cabrillo College, where Shirley teaches. Shirley will be performing her poem "From Bamboo" with taiko drums.

Angela Narciso Torres won second place in the James Hearst Poetry Prize 2003 sponsored by the North American Review, judged by Denise Duhamel. She has upcoming poetry in the summer 2004 issue of the Crab Orchard Review , the issue on Immigration, Migration and Exile.

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MUSEUM OF ABSENCES BY LUIS H. FRANCIA

Meritage Press is pleased to announce that it has agreed to co-publish, with the University of the Philippines Press, Luis H. Francia's poetry collection, MUSEUM OF ABSENCES .

Await details on this wonderful project -- but you can see a preview through a selection at Luis's e-chapbook under the Babaylan Series imprint of the Meritage Press website. Congratulations to Luis!

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BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS
Short Stories By Eileen R. Tabios
Media Contact: Gloria Rodriguez, giraffebooks@asia.com

"A rich, sensual collection of stories -- a breathtaking, pulsating ride through art, sex, love, and longing."
--Noel Alumit, LETTERS TO MONTGOMERY CLIFT

Giraffe Books is pleased to announce the publication of BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS , the first short story collection by poet, writer, editor and conceptual artist Eileen R. Tabios. To consider this book mere erotica would be too simplistic an assessment of Ms. Tabios's latest effort. Ms. Tabios breaks boundaries in form and content -- a consistently restless and exploratory approach to literature for which she's well acclaimed in poetry -- as reflected in poet-scholar Jean Vengua's "Introduction," of which an excerpt states:

"We have here a counter-narrative that runs against the grain of the romantic notion of the artist, the genius in his garret, or in her expensive loft studio, working on some "pure" or original vision or concept. The New York City art world in these stories is itself stripped and exposed. You, the reader, are a voyeur into its intricate social and material network, not unlike that in the mansion from the Story of O by Dominique Aury (using the pseudonym Pauline Reage). The galleries of New York City provide the context. They are the mansion, the community, and city. But none of them, no matter how tasteful or avant garde, transcend the marketplace."

Specifically, Ms. Vengua notes how Ms. Tabios turns art world tales into exemplifying what could be "a doomed eroticism based on a society that profits from artists and art, diaspora, and elitist hierarchies maintained within the New York gallery world. These ekphrasic, erotic explorations of submission or domination, and all the labyrinthine machinations of power that lie between subject and object, reflect the global arena of politics and power, the densely layered realities of post-colonial hegemony."

BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS reflects the multi-layered approach for which Ms. Tabios is known for applying to her material, providing a multiplicity of ways with which the reader may engage in these works -- whether as stories of love, lust, politics, power, art, poetry, or subverting social, sexual and political conventions, to cite among the possible contexts.

Ms. Tabios' fiction has received advance word from another poet and fictionist Luis Cabalquinto, who says:

"In reading the stories of Eileen Tabios, seductive in their imagery and language, we are drawn into a world peopled by artists, art lovers and art tasters who, variously, are either yielding to or struggling against the irresistible lures of passion. We are compelled to share the characters' ecstasy or torment, recognizing the universality of their human engagements. Our recognition comes quickly, given the finesse and integrity of Ms. Tabios' writing."
-- Luis Cabalquinto, BRIDGEABLE SHORES

BEHIND THE BLUE CANVAS is now available in the Philippines from Giraffe Books (Quezon City). For information, e-mail giraffebooks@asia.com. The book is also available internationally through Amazon.com as well as in the U.S. through Linda Nietes' Philippine Expressions Bookshop, 2114 Trudie Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275-2006. Tel (310) 514- 9139 FAX (310) 514-9139. email: lindanietes@earthlink.net

AUTHOR INFORMATION:
EILEEN TABIOS majored in political science at Barnard College and received an M.B.A. in economics and international business from New York University's Graduate School of Business. She has released a poetry CD and written, edited or co-edited twelve books of poetry, fiction and essays since 1996 when she traded in a finance career for poetry. She also has released two e-poetry collections through xPress(ed) of Finland. In 2005, she will release a new collection and her 13th book, I TAKE THEE ENGLISH FOR MY BELOVED (Marsh Hawk Press, New York). Her awards include the Philippines' Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles National Literary Award, a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant and a PEN Open Book Award. Much of her creative writing are inspired by the visual arts. She is also a conceptual artist whose multidisciplinary project, "Poems Form/From The Six Directions," has been exhibited at various Bay Area (California) locations. She is the author of the infamous poetics blog, "The Chatelaine's Poetics" at http://chatelaine-poet.blogspot.com .