PRE-PUBLISHING SPECIAL as a FUNDRAISER FOR YOLANDA’S SURVIVORS

VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA: A Storm of Filipino Poets

Editor: Eileen R. Tabios

ISBN: 978-0-9826493-6-7

Retail Price: $20 for print book

Publisher: Meritage Press (San Francisco & St. Helena, CA)

For more information: MeritagePress@aol.com

Meritage Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming release of a fundraising anthology for the survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda.  We expect that VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA will be available for orders in the March/April timeframe.  Meanwhile, Meritage Press would like to sponsor a Pre-Publication Special that will offer the book at a lower price than after the book’s release.

For this Pre-Publication Special good through March 31, 2014, send $19 per book via a check made out to “Meritage Press” to

Eileen Tabios

P.O. Box 361

St. Helena, CA 94574

You can order as many books as you wish.  Unfortunately, this Special is only available to addresses within the United States as Meritage Press will pick up shipping/handling costs (usually a $4-$6 value), as well as California tax for California recipients.

The books will be mailed to recipients once the book is released.  All profits will be donated for Yolanda relief.

While the book had a fundraising versus purely literary impetus, the contributions of 133 poets also created a book that’s useful for highlighting the talents of contemporary Filipino poets from around the world.  Here are some “Advance Words” from poet-scholar-critic-editor Susan M. Schultz:

VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA: A Storm of Filipino Poets:  

This is a book about a destructive typhoon named Yolanda, or Haiyan, which caused massive damage to the Philippines in November, 2013. This is a sprawling book of poems about family, loss, art, economy, greed, love, grief, theft, militarism, colonialism, typhoon tourism, deforestation, stray dogs, survivors, rubble, donations, propaganda, looting, journalists, dead children, helicopters, rain, disembowelment, black bags, conquerors, catastrophe, “the republic of the drowned” (Luisa A. Igloria). This is a book in English, Filipino, Cebuano, Waray, Hiligaynon, Bisaya. This is a book by poets who teach, poets who study, a poet who drives a tricycle for a living, poets who work for NGOs, poets who are school children. This is a book by 133 Filipino poets who live in the Philippines, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, South Africa, elsewhere.  What is diaspora but the aftermath of storm? All profits from this book will be donated to relief organizations. “Aid is art,” writes Simeon Dumdum, Jr. Now art will aid survivors of the storm.                                                

—Susan M. Schultz, poet and editor of Tinfish

For more information: MeritagePress@aol.com