DIMITRA KESSENIDES writes FEATURE ARTICLE
[First published in BARNARD COLLEGE ALUMNAE MAGAZINE, August 2006]
THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOL. I
Eileen Tabios has been exploring language since she worked on both the barnard bulletin and the Columbia Spectator as an undergraduate at the College. "My first career interest was journalism," she says. After graduation, Tabios went to work as a copy person at the New York Times, then came a career as a Wall Street banker. In the midst of that, at age 32, Tabios tackled The Great American Novel. After she finished the book -- it was never published, but did its job in turning Tabios to writing full time -- poetry became her next way of exploring language. It was then that she found her true love. "I realized that it's the form I've been looking for my whole life, it's language in its most pure form." (Her love runs so deep that she titled her first collection of poems I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved*).
Over the years, Tabios has written and published 10 collections of poetry, and edited or co-edited five anthologies of poetry and fiction. Compared to her previous works, her newest collection, The Secret Lives of Punctuations, Vol. 1, is, as she describes it, "a very minimalist project" both in size and scope. "Punctuations are often overlooked, ignored, and never seen within language," Tabios says [the poem ": CONTEXT AND STRAWBERRIES" is a reprint from the book). Asked for her favorite form of punctuation, Tabios responds, "The exclamation point -- I'm saying this of the tope of my head -- the exclamation point symbolizes passion."
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[* CORREX: Tabios' first collection was BEYOND LIFE SENTENCES, Anvil, Manila, 1998)
THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOL. I
Eileen Tabios has been exploring language since she worked on both the barnard bulletin and the Columbia Spectator as an undergraduate at the College. "My first career interest was journalism," she says. After graduation, Tabios went to work as a copy person at the New York Times, then came a career as a Wall Street banker. In the midst of that, at age 32, Tabios tackled The Great American Novel. After she finished the book -- it was never published, but did its job in turning Tabios to writing full time -- poetry became her next way of exploring language. It was then that she found her true love. "I realized that it's the form I've been looking for my whole life, it's language in its most pure form." (Her love runs so deep that she titled her first collection of poems I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved*).
Over the years, Tabios has written and published 10 collections of poetry, and edited or co-edited five anthologies of poetry and fiction. Compared to her previous works, her newest collection, The Secret Lives of Punctuations, Vol. 1, is, as she describes it, "a very minimalist project" both in size and scope. "Punctuations are often overlooked, ignored, and never seen within language," Tabios says [the poem ": CONTEXT AND STRAWBERRIES" is a reprint from the book). Asked for her favorite form of punctuation, Tabios responds, "The exclamation point -- I'm saying this of the tope of my head -- the exclamation point symbolizes passion."
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[* CORREX: Tabios' first collection was BEYOND LIFE SENTENCES, Anvil, Manila, 1998)
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