Because I Love You, I Become War

Author: Eileen R. Tabios

Publisher: Marsh Hawk Press (2023)

Because I Love You, I Become War is Eileen R. Tabios’ book-length love poem to a world in turmoil. She dedicates it to “those who are fighting against the planet’s current great ailments: environmental damage and economic/political oligarchism.” Poems address war, environmental havoc, women and their concerns throughout history, poetics, political science, immigration and diaspora, oligarchism, dictatorships, the limits of language, among others. The prose, culled from the past two decades, presents essays, speeches, reviews, and letters that address the author’s poetic concerns as well as a daily writing prompt, expanding the form of the novel, Methodism, homages to literary figures, and the author’s “First Book.” Its treasures include an adobo poem as never before conceptualized, as well as a letter of recommendation for a visual artist for the year 2021 when the Philippines refused to designate a National Artist for Visual Arts. The book ends with a postscript of poems on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a whole, the book (re)presents a polymathic perspective on how love faces injustice, as contextualized by the Filipino indigenous trait of “kapwa” which posits that everything is interconnected.