Editor's Note: The following book review excerpt was
originally published in THE HALO-HALO REVIEW, curated by poet, author
and editor Eileen Tabios.
Halo Halo Review provides engagements with Filipino-Pilipinx literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose.
Eileen R. Tabios’ 2017 chapbook To Be An Empire is to Burn! presents different templates for empires, all sharing a common theme of power: who wields it and how.
Ever the prolific and prudent poet, Ms. Tabios declares in 11 poems over 20 pages what others might attempt to do in 150. In attainable and straightforward language, the poet summons contemporary muses, including activists amplifying the struggle, architects of change. Brevity notwithstanding, her verses deliver a needful jolt to deeper political awakening, resistance and action.
Commenting on the resurgence of fascism and unbridled greed in the U.S. and the Philippines, the poet simultaneously depicts people-powered resistance movements. “#NoDAPL” asserts that the empire thrives on extraction of resources: who has power to take and make a profit.
Filipinos in the diaspora who are keeping up with violence and brutality exacted by the Duterte administration need no orientation about extrajudicial killings of indigenous leaders and activists defending their right to survive. The lamentation: “Our survival is your survival” is an ominous divination.
Halo Halo Review provides engagements with Filipino-Pilipinx literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose.
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| Eileen Tabios |
Ever the prolific and prudent poet, Ms. Tabios declares in 11 poems over 20 pages what others might attempt to do in 150. In attainable and straightforward language, the poet summons contemporary muses, including activists amplifying the struggle, architects of change. Brevity notwithstanding, her verses deliver a needful jolt to deeper political awakening, resistance and action.
Commenting on the resurgence of fascism and unbridled greed in the U.S. and the Philippines, the poet simultaneously depicts people-powered resistance movements. “#NoDAPL” asserts that the empire thrives on extraction of resources: who has power to take and make a profit.
Filipinos in the diaspora who are keeping up with violence and brutality exacted by the Duterte administration need no orientation about extrajudicial killings of indigenous leaders and activists defending their right to survive. The lamentation: “Our survival is your survival” is an ominous divination.