Saturday, December 31, 2011

Feeling About Average






    New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
    I feel about average.
Issa
translated by Robert Hass










Right at my feet -
when did you get here,
snail?
Issa






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Happy New Year, all.

Don
 



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

 
 
 
 

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Carolyne Rohrig & Dan Wyke: Wednesday Haiku, #50

  Photo by jeltovski





folding the river
inside the map
another wrong turn
Carolyne Rohrig






Photo by Carolyne Rohrig





heron by the lake
stillness
looking at stillness
Dan Wyke





Hasu ni shirasagi by Baison






noisy reed thrush--
the big river flows
in silence
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Quartet for Christmas: Beautiful, Familiar, Unusual, Classic







Why this song you might ask, with total legitimacy?  Well, there are many reasons, probably both starting and ending with the fact that this old hippie fart believes this to be the finest song to come out of a unique era of music.  And because I gave myself the album on which it appears for Christmas in my very early, impressionable teen years, hence the association.


River by Joni Mitchell on Grooveshark



"River," by Joni Mitchell, has to be one of the most unusual songs to somehow, slowly, slowly, wend its way into the classic Christmas canon.  Again, a song that goes straight to heart.






Finally, no explanations necessary here. It's a toss up - who would you rather have come down the chimney, Santa or Eartha? Eartha or Santa? Something in a name, something in a rhyme. Truly, there is only one Santa and, as far as I know, one Eartha.

Eartha. Just think about that name.

Eartha.

Beautiful. 

Best of holidays to all.  I'm very fond of the winter solstice - a dangerous time, true, for all species, hence all those lights from the upright brigade.  Bank up the fire, brothers and sisters.  Someone's told me that, from here on out, it will get lighter every day.

Now that's my definition of hope.






bedtime sake--
whether the new year comes
or not
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs


Saturday, December 24, 2011

Sketching a New Speedometer: Leithauser on Sondheim on Craft



Last weekend's New York Times Book Review had a piece done by the poet/novelist Brad Leithauser on the second volume of Stephen Sondheim's collected lyrics, Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011).  Anyone who has followed this blog knows popular music is a penchant of mine - the long running feature, Issa's Sunday Service, currently on hiatus, attests to that. 

The relation between lyric and poem is less relation than symbiosis so, though not particularly interested in Sondheim's lyrics more than casual fan, which I certainly am, I gave the review a go and stumbled on a little bit of wonder.  Here is Leithuaser, after discussing Sondheim's decided preference for exact rhyme as opposed to off or half rhyme, setting up a pointed quote, followed by some fine commentary, and the other shoe:

Here he (Sondheim) is discussing a rhyme from "Follies":

"I had a similar moment when I paired 'soul-stirring' and 'bolstering.'  The rhyme is not perfect of course - the equal accents on 'soul' and 'stir' don't quite match the heavy accent on 'bol' and the lighter one on 'ster,' but I tried to mask that by leaping the melody up on each '-ing' to distract the ear."
In fact, I can't imagine how serious craftsmen in any field wouldn't find both books (of Sondheim's collected lyrics) inspiring.  The quilt maker fussing over which shade of red to employ as a highlight; the cook experimenting on how most appetizingly to glaze a plate of scallops; the automobile designer sketching a streamlined new speedometer - all such people should experience a sense of kinship when reading Sondheim debating whether, when seeking a rhyme, he might fairly use "wood" rather than "woods":
"What justification was there to use 'wood' here (and in the 'Finale') and 'woods' everywhere else?  I finally hit on an explanation: 'wood' sounded statelier and therefore suited a lyric sung by someone outside the action."

A wonderful bit of insight for poet, songwriter, and those attentive to detail in any circumstance.  Leithauser is to be praised; to focus on this 'small' bit of detail in a 450 plus page book encapsulates the importance of the whole book, exactly what is needed in the short art form known as the book review. 







 
Photograph by Jack Delano








the farting contest
begins at once...
winter quilt
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Roberta Beary & Vassilis Zambaras: Wednesday Haiku, #49

Utagawa Hiroshige





moon viewing
mother's small hand lifts
in farewell

                   Roberta Beary 





 W. J. Neatby






Nightingales near
the river.

No superfluous noise.

                Vassilis Zambaras






Eishōsai Chōki






When I see the ocean,
Whenever I see it,
Oh, my mother!
Issa
translated by R. H. Blyth






Ōshukubai







cherry blossoms scatter--
a nightingale sings
I cry
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Sunday, December 18, 2011

A Sunday Interlude


Lesser Ury: London in the Fog (London im Nebel 1926)




In a Sentimental Mood by John Coltrane on Grooveshark



  The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,                            
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

  And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;                              
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

T. S. Eliot
 from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"







white versus yellow--
the butterflies
wrestle too
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue






Photo by Chester B. Long






best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Pat Nelson: Two Haiku - Wednesday Haiku, #48

 Edward Hopper: Night on the El Train, 1918






dusk :: his story the length of a cigarette








 Photo by Snapperjack






the fog lover walks toward the river sound . . .
              2 haiku by Pat Nelson






Antique Japanese cigarette case







cloud and fog--
into my sleeves
they go

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Theodore Enslin, I.M.: Baker, Giannini & Philips

Photo courtesy of Ed Baker

This post contains some poems and photographs in tribute to Theodore Enslin, by fellow poets and friends  Ed Baker, David Giannini, and John Phillips, as well as a poem by the poet himself.  In addition, there is also a link to a brief obituary (and an excerpt from same) and a recording of Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 18, No. 2, which Theodore Enslin requested be played in lieu of a memorial service or other type of observance.


“let me tell you a
"story
"about that chair you’re sitting in
"I call it The Low Down Chair

 “it was many years ago now.
 “She was a Catholic girl.
 “Very pretty.”

 & then he took a snap of me w my
 little Kodak Instan-matic.

“In THAT LOW DOWN CHAIR
 “SHE
“& It was many years ago

 “& lots of poems-into-books came
“afterwards.”

 “and the cane?”

“It’s one that I made.
“I make them. Sell them.

“That’s how I got to be so rich.
“Selling canes. Selling poems.”

a short time later
we walked his property to that Old Pine

“There’s a story in that Old Pine
“You sure take a lot of pictures.

 "I’m hungry. You hungry?

“I know a place in town. Great Haddock Chowder
“Ever eat a Bloomin' Onion?  Big as a basketball.”

At the diner he flirted w the cute waitress
who
knew his ways & means

made Love with spoon in chowder
Ed Baker




Here are three poems by David Giannini:




THREE POEMS to TED (THROUGH the YEARS)

             
1           1.  AUDUBON SANCTUARY, WELLFLEET

Beyond sanctuary     the sea
“so quick to feel surprise and shame”
of waves     at crest     that suspense
suspension where     the soul feels

the soul feels its mirrors      mirrors
of salt     of our bodies     of our blood
of instants     of the moon     of the tides
spreading us     to grains     and with

 “The earth under our feet we are
 not asked to begin nowhere”—
we stand     on belief     and sand
then step     this way     to the marsh.







2. MAYBE SONG
                                                                                
Maybe if you tell it the wind will stop maybe
the long wind if you tell will stop banging its
bells. Maybe the wind will stop if you slip
into the wind silence that wants in maybe
bell longing will come. Maybe your silence
lives inside the will of the wind maybe in
long bells hiding from ruthless interims
of eye. Maybe if you spy them the bells will
stop maybe the long bells if you spy them
will stop if you will.  Maybe if you slip into 
the silence the wind that wants in will spy
a forest being maybe many still trees. Maybe
if you feel it being tall pine air maybe the
being will be silent ruthless interims of ear.


                                                                                   
                                                                                                                      
3.

To age
             and move uneasily
to become
                     more          
                                  adventuresome
in mind (assuming
                                    the necessary
foolishness,
                       the course
                                            and curse of it)
despite macular de-
                                   generation and
the falling
                     to ground, then
                                                    abed, 
and the final jit-
                               tery track of
being
              what you always were,
Ted.


David Giannini



A poem and a photograph of Theodore Enslin by John Phillips:




Photo courtesy of John Phillips



 

LETTER
for Ted Enslin

The daffodils are
just
       coming into
 bloom
            Still
a number of
                    croci
& a kind of blue
scilla
          I found
          years ago
in an
         abandoned garden
      a swallow just
              fluttered in


23.4.05

John Phillips




Here is an excerpt from an obituary in the Daily Bulldog, in Farmington, Maine:


Anyone who knew Ted will be familiar with his desire to have the last word -- so here it is:
"In lieu of a memorial service or other observances, I would prefer that concerned friends in thinking of me might listen to or perform, the Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 118 #2, whenever it might occur to them as appropriate. To me, that one short piece sums up what I might have hoped to achieve in a life in art."


The Way Desideratum

Goodbye, but not
goodbye again.
I do not leave you--
land behind me
in the land ahead.
I step the curve,
and curve enough
returns.
Theodore Enslin








Intermezzo in A Op118 No. 2 by Brahms on Grooveshark 
 
 
 

Photo courtesy of Ed Baker



---------------------------------





from the thin curve
of the sickle moon...
one leaf falls
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue








best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Friday, December 9, 2011

Small Press Review Nov/Dec Pick: Past All Traps

Click to enlarge


I'm happy to report that the Small Press Review has selected Past All Traps as one of its "November/December Picks."  It is the 4th item listed in the left hand column.





Mistake after mistake
after mistake, adding up
to just the right thing.
                                                                                  dw





-------------------------------




foolish frog
don't talk nonsense!
evening cool
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue






best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Jeremie McKnight & Michael Newell: Wednesday Haiku, #47

Photo by Emlyn Addison





Be gentle with words
soft breezes alone can move
golden stalks of wheat
Jeremie McKnight






Photo by Sioda





Each step,
slow or swift, lasts
a lifetime.
Michael L. Newell











even the wheat
in a morning mood...
blue mist

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




best,
Don



Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs