Manhattan: An Archaeology
EILEEN R. TABIOS
Poetry
“Eileen Tabios’ prolific architectonics creates a megalopolis of myriad images, towering as iconic artifacts, graphic as ecstasy.”
—Alfred A. Yuson
ISBN: 9781365875090
Release Date: April 16, 2017
Paper | 6x9 | 118 pages
List Price: $40 (full color)
Praise
“In archeology, we sift through distances to locate ourselves in these elapsed fragments. Here in Eileen R. Tabios’ new book, Manhattan is our test pit, and Clyfford Still stabilizes the walls adding to
the grace of the make-believe city.
Tabios employs many selves and their debris as her diagnostic artifacts. She lays these items on the table of the first poem, and continues to examine them as subsequent pieces sumptuously unfold, each relic luminous under view, chatoyant. Manhattan becomes the reliquary to hold the past under Tabios’ ecstatic mastery, also the side of the pool to push off from into other worlds, also the ruined stage set of a past self.
to transcend your context
—yet again—
Tabios’ book is an exquisite form of personal forensics and resurrection.”
—Anne Gorrick, author of THE OLFACTIONS: Poems on Perfume
“Eileen Tabios’ prolific architectonics creates a megalopolis of myriad images, towering as iconic artifacts, graphic as ecstasy. From ziggurats to echoes of flamenco, urban demographics to undulations of body language, the poet strips and strews words from a vocabulary of fabrics. Gestural volubility is unleashed to camouflage the adoration of mischief. Hers is the infinite spin of a world-whirling dervish.”
—Alfred A. Yuson, author of The Music Child & The Mahjong Queen
About the Author
Eileen R. Tabios loves books and has released over 70 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in 11 countries and cyberspace. Publications include the long-form novels The Balikbayan Artist and DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times; the form-based Selected Poems, The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets (1996-2019), THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL: Selected Visual Poetry (2001-2019), 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 collection of 7-chapter novels, SILK EGG; an experimental autobiography AGAINST MISANTHROPY; as well as two books translated into French and three bilingual and one trilingual editions involving English, Spanish, Thai, and Romanian. 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 11 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 and Asia.
