Friday, July 15, 2005

The Feel-Good Post

I was straightening out my bookshelves—you know, aligning everything, re-sorting, wondering, 'why'd I buy that?' and whatnot— late, late, late last night. For whatever reason, I plucked Edward Said's Culture & Imperialism down from up high and brought it with me to bed. The receipt was still inside, and I felt a little ridiculous when I saw that I'd bought it in 1997 (at the Border's on State St. in Santa Barbara, if you must know) and hadn't truly read it yet.

When I hit the part in the introduction, the part where he points out that "The power...to block other narratives from forming and emerging" is one of the ways that imperialists do their, um, evil imperialist things, I started to think about all the current busting out we're doing, people! Shall I count some of the ways? In no particular order:

1) Bino A. Realuyo just won the 2005 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry.
2) Barbara Jane, Evelina Galang, and Tony Robles all have books coming out.
3) Marianne Villanueva's Mayor of the Roses from Miami U. Press.
4) Kundiman-ites doing their Kundiman thing, even as I type.
5) Sarah Gambito's Matadora from Alice James Books.
6) Luisa Igloria's Richard Lemon Poetry Fellowship.
7) Eileen Tabios' whomping 200+ downloads of "Songs of the Colon," a digital chapbook from Ahadada Books.
8) The Forbidden Book by Abe Ignacio, Enrique de la Cruz, Jorge Emmanuel, and Helen Toribio from T'boli Publishing.

I know I'm missing a dozen other things, big and "small" (add them in the comments, if you like!!), but you get my point.

Is this a corny post? I'm just feeling so kum ba ya, so ding-ding, so Polly Positive (evil twin of Nellie Negative) today. And it doesn't happen all that often, so indulge me.

*love ya like McFadden & Whitehead love Philly*

8 comments:

ver said...

And one more thing: can I get some props for all those dang links? I'm going cross-eyed, here. Stepping away from the screen for a bit now...

bjanepr said...

thanks for the props, ms. ver! and yes, we are doin some serious sh*t here :-)

ver said...

I forgot Leny's book! Apologies! Oh, I am a bad, bad blogger. Ahem:

9) Leny Strobel's new A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan, also from T'boli.

OBermeo said...

hell no it ain't corny.

i'll add my own two cents--
ima be published in an upcoming anthology
I Just Hope It's Lethal: Poems of Sadness, Madness, and Joy

not a full book (i know) but one day i hope to be down with y'all in the library of congress and sheet

love ya like loverboy loves red leather pants

ps- mad props for your HTML.linking skills

ver said...

Yeah, it's kinda corny.

BUT...yay o.b.!! Great book cover, BTW. And I'm guessing you are...madness?

*love ya like Mariah loves her insane self*

Anonymous said...

V--

Thanks for the very generous links --

Just a few more plugs--

Zack Linmark's book, PRIME TIME APPARITIONS, is just out from Hanging Loose Press!

And I think Eugene Gloria's SECOND book of poetry is going to be published by Penguin...

And Luisa Igloria's new book TRILL & MORDANT (I think that's the correct title--?) is forthcoming this fall, from the same publisher as Nick's ANDALUSIAN DAWN...

Anonymous said...

Oh, and BEFORE I FORGET:

Joel Tan sold out his first run of MONSTER, his poetry collection!

And Merlinda Bobis' BANANA HEART SUMMER was just published in Australia!

--Marianne

ver said...

Thanks for the all the additions, M!

Speaking of which...how could I have forgotten Eileen Tabios' "brick": I Take Thee English for My Beloved from Marsh Hawk Press?