One, Two, Three: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems
Uno, dos, tres: Selección de Hay(na)kus
By Eileen R. Tabios with Spanish Translations by Rebeka Lembo
LOC Control No.: 2018943545
Release Date: June 2018
Pages: 96
Price: $16.00
BOOK DESCRIPTION
One, Two, Three / Uno, dos, tres is a bilingual English/Spanish edition of a selection of Eileen R. Tabios’ hay(na)ku poems. The hay(na)ku is a 21st century diasporic poetry form invented in 2003 by Ms. Tabios. One, Two, Three is her only available Selected Hay(na)ku volume after her first Selected Hay(na)ku collection, Your Father Is Bald, went out of print.
Since its debut, the hay(na)ku has been taken up by poets around the world, generating five anthologies and numerous single-author collections as well as appearances in literary journals. In 2018, the hay(na)ku’s 15-year-anniversary will be celebrated with exhibitions and reading at the San Francisco Public Library and Saint Helena Public Library as well as with a new anthology, HAY(NA)KU 15, which presents 128 poets and translators from 13 countries as well as eight languages.
Also featured is “Blue Bravura,” a hay(na)ku by Vince Gotera. Mr. Gotera had coined the name “hay(na)ku” for this poetic form.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & TRANSLATOR
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. Her 2018 poetry collections include HIRAETH: Tercets From the Last Archipelago; MURDER DEATH RESURRECTION: A Poetry Generator; TANKA: Volume 1; and the bilingual edition (English/Spanish) of One, Two, Three: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems. Translated into eight languages, she also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary journals. Her writing and editing works have received recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is available at http:// eileenrtabios.com
Rebeka Lembo has an undergraduate degree in English Literature and a Masters in Comparative Literature from UNAM. She kept the multilingual blog Ecce Mulier from 2004 to 2012. Her translations have been published in The Boy Bedlam Review, Poemeleon, Revista Fractal, The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes, etc. Her poetry has been published in Otoliths and The Second Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage Press and xPress(ed)). She currently lives in San Jose, California.
Selected Responses to the Hay(na)ku
Watching the birth & evolution of a new form is fascinating. And, unlike flarf, which is a process, hay(na)ku is a form. But what kind of form is it? Poem or stanza? Again, I think the answer lies in looking at the quatrain, which is more stanza than finished work. That, ultimately, is what I think this first generation of hay(na)ku writers have created–not a poem, but a stanza, simple, supple, elegant, capable of considerable variations. That’s quite an accomplishment.
—Ron Silliman
…a way of revealing…a “thinking” form–emotional as well as intellectual thinking. By allowing a lot of space on the page it keeps things tight and loose. Hay(na)ku creates or pushes certain syntactical structures, potentially disruptive through its arbitrariness. Forms aren’t games, or just games–they are ways of paying attention.
—Jill Jones
…an elegantly minimalist form (a bit like the tip of an Oulipian “snowball”)
—Michael Leong
The diasporic nature of the hay(na)ku attracted me from the very beginning because it allowed me to express myself in English without being a native speaker…I feel the hay(na)ku is a form that grants a common space for poetic practice in different languages; a way of writing in English without completely obliterating one’s “mother tongue.” Instead of the conquest and influx that has defined English in relation to other “less powerful” languages, the hay(na)ku is open and flexible, an invitation to share different ways of thought and writing.
—Ernesto Priego
PALOMA PRESS 