How I Became a Writer -- Eileen R. Tabios - Filipino FilAm Series #6

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Eileen R. Tabios's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER -- A POET, THEN NOVELIST. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials. 

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Eileen R. Tabios has released books of poetry, fiction, essays, art, and experimental prose from publishers in 11 countries and cyberspace. Recent releases include the novel The Balikbayan Artist; an art monograph Drawing Six Directions; a poetry collection Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography, The Inventor; and a flash fiction collection (in collaboration with harry k stammer), Getting To One. Other recent books include a first novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times which was subsequently translated by Danton Remoto into Filipino as KalapatingLeon and two French books, PRISES (Double Take) (trans. Fanny Garin) and La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery.  

Her body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21^st century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the “Flooid” poetry form that’s rooted in a good deed; the monobon poetry form based on the monostich; and a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry. She’s also edited or conceptualized 16 anthologies that involved hundreds of writers worldwide. Translated into 13 languages, her literary output has received recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.

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HOW I BECAME A WRITER --- A POET, THEN NOVELIST

The Poet

From my mother, I know the story of my first book. I was about two or three years old. It bore no title. It was created by my toddler-self folding a piece of paper to emulate a book’s pages. The first page bore a green Crayola scrawl at the bottom of the page. The second page bore a yellow Crayola circle at the top right corner of the page. The third page bore a brown Crayola scrawl at the bottom of the page. The “text” of its three pages might be interpreted as follows:

The grass is green.

The sun is out shining.

The sun burnt the grass.