ATTENTION ALL POETS: You are cordially invited to Eileen Tabios' marriage to Poetry. RSVP by July 26, 2002 by sending a one-page poem to PinoyPoetics@aol.com.

Culminating a four-year poetic alchemic process, Eileen Tabios will exhibit a performance wedding ceremony in August 2002 exhibition at Pusod Center, a program of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation (BWF), in Berkeley, CA. The "happening" is part of a September 2002 exhibit of sculptures, drawings and installations. Both events comprise "Poems Form/From The Six Directions" which show Ms. Tabios casting poems as physical bodies and/or multidimensional spaces. Her series is titled after the Native American concept of six directions: north, south, east, west, up and down.

Reflecting Six Directions' concept of making the Poet's persona seamless with the world, the exhibition will include Ms. Tabios's collaborations with quilt-maker Alice Brody, painters Thomas Fink and Patricia Wood, photographer Cal Strobel, and poets Paolo Javier and Barbara Reyes. To further reflect her project's desire to draw in the world into the space of her poems, the exhibit will feature two guest artists: New Yorker/New Zealander artist Max Gimblett, whose use of alchemical materials and archetypal references empathizes with Ms. Tabios's poetic approach; and V.C. Igarta, the foremost artist from the Filipino "Manong" generation who emigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century.

A key work in this series will be "Poem Tree," featuring Ms. Tabios's original wedding dress. "Poem Tree" evokes the Filipino wedding tradition of guests pinning money on the bride and groom's clothes during the wedding celebration to offer financial aid for the new couple's life together. "Poem Tree" will be pinned with print-outs of poems to symbolize Ms. Tabios' wedding to Poetry. To integrate the (external) world into the (internal) world of Ms. Tabios' poetry, all the poems pinned to the dress are written and will be sent by other poets from around the world.

Poets are invited to share in Ms. Tabios' installation of "Poem Tree" by e-mailing her poems (no longer than one page) to <PinoyPoetics@aol.com>. The poems will be printed out and its hard copies will be among those pinned onto "Poem Tree." No poems will be rejected as inclusion is integral to the concept of Six Directions. Poets should include names and geographic residence in addition to e-mail addresses.

During the exhibition's opening, a special appearance will be made by the wedding dress of BWF founder Malou Babilionia. Poets wearing Ms. Babilonia's and Ms. Tabios' wedding dresses will dance with members of the crowd. Attendees will be invited to pin poems onto the dresses. During this "happening," the crowd also will be invited to pin real money onto the gowns. All monies raised during the event will be donated to BWF's efforts to help reduce environmental pollution and facilitate a better understanding of economic, cultural and ecological conditions around the world. Ms. Tabios considers the fundraising attempt appropriate for indicating how Poetry can make a difference -- that Poetry can feed the world.

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PUSOD, a program of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation
Pusod Center
1808 Fifth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710

EILEEN TABIOS has written, edited or co-edited nine books of poetry and fiction since 1996 when she left a banking career for poetry. Most of Ms. Tabios' poems and fiction are inspired by the visual arts, and she occasionally writes on the works of other artists. Her poetry CD produced by Jeepney Dash Productions, THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE, includes a discussion on the inspiration of abstract expressionism for her poetry. Her awards include the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles National Literary Award, a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant, a Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize and Poet Magazine's Iva Mary Williams Poetry Award. Her forthcoming books include PINOYPOETICS, the first international anthology of poetics by Filipino English-language poets; SCREAMING MONKEYS, an anthology of prose, poetry, and visual art about cultural portrayals of Asian America; and MY ROMANCE, a collection of essays correlating the visual arts ! to poetry. She is also the founder and editor of Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary literary and arts press based in St. Helena, CA where she is researching the poetry of wine. In October 2002, Marsh Hawk Press (New York) will release her collection of prose poems entitled REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE.

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