Born in Ilocos Sur, Philippines, Tabios moved to the United States at the age of ten. She holds a B.A. in political science from Barnard College (1982) and an M.B.A. in economics and international business from New York University Stern School of Business. Her last corporate career was involved with international project finance. She began to write poetry in 1995.
Poetry career
Tabios has released over 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in nine countries and cyberspace. Her books include a form-based “Selected Poems” series which focus on the prose poem, the catalog or list poem, visual poetry and tercets: The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets 1996-2019, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL: Selected Visual Poetry (2001-2019), INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected Catalog Poems & New 1996-2015, and THE THORN ROSARY: Selected Prose Poems & New 1998-2010. She issues “Selecteds” based on poetry form in order to show how she expanded a form's landscape.
She's also released the first book-length haybun collection, 147 MILLION ORPHANS (MMXI-MML); a collected novels, SILK EGG; an experimental autobiography AGAINST MISANTHROPY; as well as two bilingual and one trilingual editions. Her award-winning body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku poetic form whose 15th anniversary was celebrated at the San Francisco and Saint Helena Public Libraries in 2018, as well as a first poetry book, BEYOND LIFE SENTENCES (1998), which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry. Translated into nine languages, Tabios also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays, as well as exhibited visual art in the United States, Asia and Serbia. Her writing and editing works have received recognition through awards, grants and residencies.
Tabios also founded the literary and arts press, Meritage Press; the poetry review journals Galatea Resurrects and The Halo-Halo Review; and the art gallery North Fork Arts Projects.
