BAWD(Y)-LAIRE IN CALIFORNIA!!!!

ERNESTO PRIEGO WRITES IN:

Eileen Tabios inebriates. Hers is a poetics of wine: not because one of its main subjects is wine, but because her poetry is, indeed, like wine; it has its effects. This, of course, means her poetry is not easy to discuss; the reader will need to develop basic sensory evaluation techniques that could be easily overlooked or ignored when approaching her poetry. Her poetry seduces at first glance, but the novice poetry enthusiast will realize there is so much more one needs to know in order to properly enjoy her poetics. Reading Tabios implies a process of emotional and sensorial re-education: one must re-learn how to feel. Her poems should be read with care; beyond their distinct appearance, aroma and flavor, there lies a certain quality that needs to be allowed to rest, breath, for a while. This means the experience of reading her cannot be mere enjoyment of the present moment, cannot be done in a hurry, like one slams down an unsavory shot of strong liquor. On the contrary, Tabios's poetry demands aging, the patience of the mature reader who will come back again and again, with days, weeks, months, years in between to the same poems, just to find them enriched, more complex, with more body and worth. Like a female Baudelaire in California, Eileen Tabios has compiled The Chatelaine's Companion to Wine, a book which is both sparkling and fortified: an exercise of literary virtue.