Tuesday, June 30, 2020

HAY(NA)KU IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 by REBECCA MABANGLO MAYOR

Meritage Press' Minitage Editions is pleased to present a new poetry collection. The author Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor wrote these poems in April (National Poetry Month) 2020 in the form of the hay(na)ku (including variations):


Hay(na)ku in the Time of COVID-19
By Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor

Here are some photos of the miniature book sized 1-7/8" x 2.25"





The following presents all of the poems in the book--we thank Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor for sharing them with us:

Last Words

What
words can
capture spring rains,
gently swaying branches,
when the
heart
yearns
for routines
that can never
be redeemed or
futures already
abandoned?
Forthcoming in Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19,
Jennifer Haupt, ed. (Central Avenue Publishing, Sept. 2020)


Allergies

Sloppy wet drops
jostle pollen
from
trees
and into
my itchy eyes. 



Grocery Run

Without
a list,
it is difficult
to remember every
item needed.
There’s
no
telling, though,
when another trip
could safely yield
the missing
goods.



Exhalation

Sunlit
blossoms nod
their heads to
the beat of
Spring’s bluesy
jazz.



Distancing

Time
folds in
on itself muffling
perception like a 
homemade fabric
mask.



Sidewalk Dance

Purple
phlox in
full bloom rock
to rhythms set
by spring
breezes
while
daring squirrels
steal food left
for nesting crows
who caw
distress.



Pandemic Remark

Ordinary
people will
die. Ordinary people 
survive. Ordinary people 
won’t know
why.




Rhodys

Peach-pink
blooms delight
my eyes but
itch my nose
in futile
protest.



Garden Venus

The squirrel perched
on her
concrete
head
but she
didn’t mind his
paws. In fact,
she seemed
amused
by
his energetic
and frenetic antics.



Glad Return

I’d
forgotten about
bumblebee butts, charming
as they are,
until I
heard
buzzing
near my
rhody and saw
the drunken pompom
busily gathering
pollen.



Harmony

Cooperation
begins with
knowing our survival
is assured when
resources are
shared,
freely
when we 
look at each 
other without fear, 
prejudice or
animosity.



Chores

Clearing
winter from
the window corners,
like dusty cobwebs,
brings Spring
inside.



Celebrations

Sun-splashed 
leaves. Lawn 
mowers buzzing while 
children master their 
bicycle skills 
nearby. 
Gardeners 
tote tools, 
push wheelbarrows full 
of clippings, seed 
starts, and 
optimism. 
His 
coffee cools 
beside mine as 
my computer hums, 
chimes near 
his.



Simple Hope

Planting
dahlias in
Spring sunshine while
Roxii sniffs primroses
between her
paws.



Saturday Nap

Sleeping
during daylight
hours requires dark
curtains, a soft
pillow and
exhaustion.

Strangely
social distancing
provides the necessary
psychic weariness and
physical idleness
needed.



Fence Line

Crows
patrol like
faithful soldiers maintaining
order while squirrels
scamper past
chaotically.



Writer's Block 

Bees
search unopened
buds for sweetness
like I search
for vibrant
words.



Torn

In
the waiting,
I wonder whether
freedom will come
all at
once
or
piecemeal like
quilted tapestries stitched
with ragged memories
of life
before.



Change
Decrepit
thoughts give
way to discoveries
like spring-soaked
loam to
sprouts.



Fruitless

Is
it really
procrastination to scroll,
scroll, scroll over
and over
if
you
can’t get
past the deep
self-doubt you feel
surrounding you
inside?



Exhaustion

Slate
grey sky,
flat and featureless,
covers my sights
of sunnier
futures.
Dense
and unmoving,
I struggle to
feel a breeze
that brings
relief.



Philosophers’ Conundrum

Of all the 
futures that 
never 
were, 
I wonder, 
which past moments 
have already become 
this present 
instant? 
Or 
are they 
always already here?



Hopefulness

Words
spill like
spring rain drenching
the parched earth
of my
manuscript.
Characters
speak, move,
learn, worry, decide,
depending on my
strange narrative
flow.



Helplessness

Stark
white linoleum
bounced the pings
and buzzes from
dozens of
monitors
along
the emergency
wing where he
stood waiting, waiting
waiting for
word
about
not one
but two loved
ones struck down
in one
afternoon.



Materia Magica

Waves
strike the
lip of my
bottle, filling it
with water
pushed
by
high tide,
gathered as a
blessing in this
time of
uncertainty.



Error 404: Cataloger’s Lament

Data
may be
just a series
of ones and
zeroes, but
if
those
bits don’t
line up into
bytes then the
data is
useless.



Palimpsest

Life
isn’t scripted
like a movie
but lived moment
by moment
despite
uncertainties
that diminish,
transform, shift, and
illuminate the tangible
qualities of
existence.



Lost

Somehow,
in the 
bustle of Sunday,
between chores and
shopping for
cereal,
I
forgot to
jot down these
words or lost
them while
cleaning.



Fortified

Sardines and rice,
my mother’s
comfort
food,
once eaten
in secret, shame,
at home, where
offended noses
would
not
lift haughtily
because the smell
was beneath them.
Salted tomatoes
complete
my
delight here
where love surrounds.



Editing

One
word, where
six once were,
declares itself victorious
in its
brevity.



Meggie O'Niell

Ghosts
given Kindness
find their homes.



Henry Stack 

Crow feathers protect
blind men's
dreams.



Six

Six-
feet distant
is not enough
to keep your
cold neglect
away.


Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor’s non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction have appeared in print and online in several journals and anthologies including Katipunan Literary Magazine, Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young AdultsKuwento: Small Things, and Beyond Lumpia, Pansit, and Seven Manangs Wild: An Anthology. Her poetry chapbook Pause Mid-Flight was released in 2010. She is also the co-editor of True Stories: The Narrative Project Vol. I and II, and her poetry and essays were collected in Dancing Between Bamboo Poles in 2019. 



Tuesday, June 2, 2020

5 PAGES, ONE BOOK by ULYSSES DUTERTE

5 PAGES, ONE BOOK
By Ulysses Duterte, Jr.
(July 2020)
Size: 1.75" x 1.75"

(Pic-Collage by Ulysses Duterte, Jr.)

Meritage Press' Minitage Editions is delighted to release 5 PAGES, ONE BOOK, a miniature art book by Ulysses Duterte, Jr., a Philippine-born, interdisciplinary visual artist based in San Francisco Bay Area, California. You can see more information about his art at his WEBSITE. Ulysses' book features five pages, each featuring a single, different color and then inscribed with a thin line.

Ulysses describes his line-based art as follows:
"Most of my landscapes and seascapes are reminders of my long drives in Nevada, New Jersey and California. Driving alone on those empty highways gave me time to meditate on my relationship with God. Primarily, those vertical lines always remind me of the need to be God-oriented (pointing North) when it comes to my values. Putting these symbols make me a part of His landscape. I choose to paint straight lines. For me, straight lines represent absolute truth."
When asked to share images of other artworks that utilize his line, Ulysses presented two works:


"Achromatic" (mixed-media on paper), 2019


"Same Difference #2" (acrylic and watercolor on paper) 2019

5 PAGES, ONE BOOK presents five pages with the background colors on each page of red, yellow, black, brown, and white. Ulysses chose the colors based on "colors representing the human race" partly as determined by a University of Florida study on "ethnicity codes" which present the following five categories:

1) American Indian or Alaska Native 2) Asian 3) Black or African American 4) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 5) White


Ulysses acknowledges the reductiveness of the five categories and notes, "The truth is not in the 5 colors but in the 'one book'. I can make it 100 colors and then I will still say they belong to 'one book'. That one book is the absolute truth. The problems comes out when we focus on just one page of a book--that's where strife begins."

Minitage Editions is grateful to Ulysses Duterte Jr. for his donation of his book to the Miniature Book Library!