The Proxy Eros

by Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta

Genres: Poetry

75 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta hails from Manila and holds an MFA from the New School University in NYC. Her first book of poetry, The Proxy Eros, was published in 2008 by Anvil Publishing Inc., the foremost publishing house in the Philippines. Her work has been published in The New York Quarterly and will appear in the forthcoming issue of Defunct, an online literary magazine. She has also received Palanca and Philippines Free Press awards, the top literary honors in the Philippines.

Reviews

[june · Rating 5 out of 5]

THINGS DONT FLY BUT FALL APART IM THINKING OF THE PRT OF THE STORY WHERE APOLLO MOVES TO TOUCH THE NYMPH CROSSING CRISIS CANTERS THROUGH THE WOODS AND PLOTS THE ESCAPE ROUT BUT IM GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF BELIEVE INSTEAD HOW OUR COMMON FURIES LESS US TOGETHER AND HELD US NEAR DONT TOUCH ME YOU SAID MEANING DO THE WAY A DIFFICULT CHILD WARDING OFF HELP MEANS TO BE HELD I KNOW YOU LIKE I KNOW MY OWN ENDURANCE BUCKLED UNDER ALONE WE TOUCH AND BETWEEN US ARE MORE EMPTY SPACES THAN SPACES THAT TOUCH HOW CAN ONE GRAVITY HELP BUT FIND ONE ANOTHER SEE HOW ATOMS CRUNCH THEIR WISTFUL NUMBERS AND BIND AS THEY CLUSTER TOGETHER LIKE STARS NIGHTLY THE PLEIADES AND BERENICES HAIR HOLD FAST THEIR STARS AND KEEP THEM HEAR IN ALL THIS TURNING ONLY WE FLY APART AS WE ASCEND IN THE EPIC AIR WHERE NOTHING HURTS ABYMORE OR HUMS

nothings really the matter. brace me somewhere.

[Chanson Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the two volumes of poetry (the other one is Louis Gluck's The Wild Iris) that I keep rereading. All at once lush, lyric and dream-like, sensual and ethereal, beautiful and sad, the poems in this book will always have something more in its lines and spaces for the reader to come back to.

[justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revisited a version of this, "Proxy Redux", coincidentally one year after reading it for the first time. Toothachingly stunning.

[Zymon · Rating 4 out of 5]

There isn’t an entry of Eros Redux on this platform, so this is the book I’ll be logging instead. Named as one of the best poetry collections of Philippine literature, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta revists her debut to provide minimal revisions to and offer new meanings of her old poems. I must say that the first section will serve better as a chapbook along with Ache Bone. The second and third sections are strikingly distinct in style compared to the first, which is comprised of incomplete sentences as lines that are not obviously connected. That’s the reason I couldn’t give this book a perfect rating: the writing style is so unique it made the poems a little distracting to digest. I’m fascinated with Katigbak-Lacuesta’s dramatizations, nevertheless. If one were to see the marks I made to note the most noteworthy lines in this collection, they would be overwhelmed. If Eros here is a proxy, what shall I expect from the real one?

[d · Rating 5 out of 5]

You swale from the low, darling You do.

I've never had the urge to say "10/10, no notes" in life and for a book review except for now. 10/10, no notes (well actually a couple). For maximum potency, read this on a broken heart. The intensity of love and heartbreak that Katigbak-Lacuesta harnesses is awe-inspiring, destabilizing, and vulnerability-inducing. Like the tenderness of bleeding from a flesh wound. A lot of cold New York, leaving, being left behind, the need and repulsion to be known and plumbed to the depths of oneself. There's lovely Greek imagery (Peneus, Bernini's Apollo and Daphne) as well as drawing from eastern poets (Izumi Shikibu and Li Po) and the author wields them to magical effect. Love her poetic style. I do notice her need to conclude each poem neatly (not quite moralizing yet), which is mostly effective due to the strength of her lyricism and message but sometimes it's a little glib. I wonder if it was better to have let it just terminate or run wild. That's a really minor criticism though. Overall, a very excellent and beautiful collection.

[jess]

Because a city becomes a world when one loves
One of its inhabitants,/ writes one Lawrence Durell.
Because there's nothing I love more than my hunger
That I carry with me like a world/ all desire/ Buried in my bones like shrapnel.

——

[2]

favs:
the telling
the inevitable place
jean cocteau sketches orpheus and eurydice
pop music
all things want to fly
intermediate geography
gas
the proxy eros
the insomnia of izumi shibuki
ode to blanche dubois
far fire

[Meeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

*read Eros Redux

I just love how Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta ended her poems in this collection. It’s like dropping bombs in an unexpected manner and I was too lost in her words that I don’t mind being shattered to pieces and I might even thank her for it. That’s how good this is.

[Kim Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

more often than not, poetry provides me with that incandescent feeling of bubbles, floating, and evaporating in a flash. wonder bequeaths those who stare at its images..that desire that lasts beyond the page.

this poetry collection is woefully sublime.

[retired to the salton sea · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am deranged and insane over it

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

I SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANGER AND LOVE AND YOU ARE WHAT'S LEFT

[Jara Ket · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb collection from my favourite contemporary poet. At once modern and classical in its sweep.

[رائد الجشي · Rating 5 out of 5]

rare gems
that you need to read twice
because they can express a multitude of ideas in a powerful poetic ways

[Kristina Gemzon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for now only because poetry is tragically wasted on me. I don't reread books, but The Proxy Eros deserves the effort.