Thursday, December 26, 2013

Holiday Greeting & New Year's Haiku Challenge

Hungarian Postage Stamp


even the cormorants
on holiday today...
festival
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue



It's time for a holiday break, so there will be no Wednesday Haiku or weekend post this week. 

But for those of us who spend some quiet time at year's end and, perhaps, long for a little something to occupy the mind, here you go: a New Years haiku challenge.

Send your best unpublished New Year themed haiku between now and 11:59 pm December 31st. If your poem is selected, you will receive a free 6 issue subscription (or 6 issue extension to your current subscription) to Lilliput Review and the posting of the 'winning' haiku on Issa's Untidy Hut on January 1st.

Send to: lilliput review AT gmail DOT com

Cheers to all, and happy, peaceful holidays and a wonderful new year.


On New Year's Day
each thought a loneliness
as winter dusk descends  

Bashō


Photo by Titus Tscharntke





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 183 songs

Sunday, December 22, 2013

John Martone: Bheid - Small Press Sunday



At once a book of ideas and a book of practicalities, bheid, by John Martone, illustrates how one of the finest writers in the short form continues to push boundaries.

There is a narrative of sorts about building: building a boat, a house, a tree, a body, a dream. These are poems of correspondences, parallels between 'the real' and the contemplative. 

If you could build an abstraction with a two by four, John Martone would be your man. Not that this is what John Martone is about - he decidedly is not.

But he could be if he wanted to.

In some ways, I feel frankly out of my depth here and so simply will let the work wash over me (again and again and again) and take in what I might. bheid, the word, John notes as proto-Indo-European, meaning to split open (as a tree), and being a root word for the English boat.

There is much to do among titles and the bodies of the poems, some standing away, some at one with the work. The poems are challenging in their very openness, and herein is the boundary pushing. 

This is 50 plus pages of brief poetry well-worth connecting to. Here are 4 pieces I keep returning to:



one sheet 
paper

one sheet
plywood

taking 
yr time




even
a tree's
dead 

cells
conduct
water 





bubble-level 
    we're all adrift





not
from here

how 
nothing 
is



You can purchase Bheid for $7 at this site. If you'd like to sample it first, you can read it in its entirety here, because John is so incredibly generous.

Speaking of generosity and sharing, you can get another kind of glimpse at John and what moves him via this incredible youtube video, which he shared via email recently, about a woman living on her own in the Siberian wild. It is entitled Surviving in the Wilderness, and here it is in its entirety, 36 minutes in all. 



It says all there is to say about human beings living on the planet, giving a greater context for what it is we do everyday. Don't miss it.

And thanks, John.  For everything.

(For those wishing to know more about the lives of Agafia and her incredible family, there is a full length out-of-print book (and out of reach in the rare books market, price-wise) readily available through our national library interloan system.

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

Photo by Lisa Olonynko



nothing at all
but a calm heart
and cool air
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 183 songs

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Joanna Weston & Eric Burke: Wednesday Haiku, #146

Photo by Jim Conrad



a snail fossilized
in rock -
buttercups

Joanna M. Weston
 
 



 Termite nervous system



struggling
in the toilet paper roll
a termite

Eric Burke


Photo by Beggs


 
nightingale--
even his shit
gets wrapped in paper
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




Photo by Pensive Glance


 
 
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 183 songs

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Gayle Elen Harvey: In Memory of a Small Press Poet



As a publisher in the business for some 25 odd years, I get lots of bounced mail. With the advent of the digital age, I've been able to locate quite a few poets who have moved on with a variety of online resources, managing to get contributor copies and subscriber issues connected up with their owners, something that had been previously nigh impossible.

So, when the above bit of mail bounced back, I put it aside for further investigation with a number of others. Before I got a chance, however, I received bad news from long time correspondent and poet, David Chorlton.

Gayle Elen Harvey had died in a traffic accident nearly a year ago.

As David noted, "We can't assume that news travels," even this technology-laden time.

David had heard of Gayle's death from another poet/long-time correspondent, Alan Catlin, awhile back. When he saw Gayle's poem in #190, enclosed in the envelope above, he got in touch with me to pass on the sad news. 

Over the years, a number of small press poets I've known have passed on and I'm often shocked at how little is out there about some poets (you will find a list in the sidebar towards the bottom of this page). So, I'm gathering here, in this spot, the six poems I published by Gayle over the years, including the latest, just out in #190 of Lilliput Review

As you might imagine, Lillie has evolved, as have I, over the years, and now has a more minimalistic, Eastern bent than it did in the early days. Gayle's poems reflect that change of style - on my part, not hers. The poem published in #20, Because, way back in March 1990, stands fairly well, arm in arm, in tone, style, & subject, with Still Hungry, published in the Autumn of 2013.

The poem from #49, Where once they lined up, was from an all-women issue of Lilliput, and can be seen as heightening an ongoing thread this work of what might be described as a chronicle of the constant struggle in relationships.  

Because, from #20, was selected as one of the best poems of the first 49 issues and so appeared in #50, which was a best of issue of those early years.

When I began public reading again a few years back, I read a selection of Lillie poems, reflecting my lack of confidence at that time in my own work. Because was one of the poems I read. It is still one of my favorite poems published in the magazine.

Though I found a poem or two here and there by Gayle and a mention in contributor notes searching the net, there seemed to be little of substance. One gem I finally did locate, however, courtesy of google books, is the introduction by Gayle herself to her collection Greatest Hits, 1976-2001, the Greatest Hits series being one originally put out by Pudding House Press and since taken over by Kattywompus Press. This gives something of a sense of the poet herself and is at once straightforward and poignant.

Finally, following Gayle's poems, which are presented in reverse chronological order, is a poem by David Chorlton in memory of Gayle. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still Hungry

   for memories, he continues to love her
   with deception
   and atonal flatteries.
   Devotee of serial urges, they’re his own
   dark parentheses.

   Fakir in worn corduroy, he surrounds
   himself
   with the kudzu and weeds of his sex
   as he scurries by, leaving
   messages trailing
   scars.                                    #190




Dreaming (for Paul)

   Memory's suckled
   with memory.  The mossy foreheads
   of stones are dripping
   with moonlight.
   Nothing is
   lost.  Reef after reef, all these sleep-shapes
   under our eye-lids
   as cranes ablaze
   in their arrogant fringes, pattern
   the blackness.                           #61





As if spring had not gone away

   and what you said would never be safe
   with anyone.  Always, starting over,
   unconnected to everything else
   as if the balance of things
   has been changed in the middle
   of what is happening.
   And you wake, finding nothing
   but her shadow
   on the last page.                       #57




Where once they lined up

   according to size, your words come
   muzzled, rushing straight out of
   colonial history, Master 

   and slave.                                         #49



Thinking it has nothing to do

   with the women you love signaling
   from a thousand windows,
   you are still running in the dim light, moved,
   as if by obedience, by one passion
   which is denial
   of everything.                           #39




 
Because

  you are tired because I thirst for
  salt, we turn to each other.   
  You are barefoot.  It is winter.
  This is going to be a difficult story.    

                                                  #50, #20   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  
Line Breaks
                          In memoriam Gayle Elen Harvey

Whoever lives by the line
knows how to take a switchback turn to reach
the meaning

promised in the phrases
that carry one thought into another, until
there is light in the language.
Each word

is ordinary before
the one that follows
transforms it.
Paper

could be snow
falling by the ream, or apples
become the scent of rain; always there is

an element of surprise
transforming what we think to the gold

the alchemist long dreamed of
but finding lead
would always be lead
gave up his kitchen to the poet

who knew better
how to stretch the words we use routinely

across the page
until they are luminous.


David Chorlton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo by Vmenkov



    Even  in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo's cry—
       I long for Kyoto.
Bashō
translated by Robert Hass




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 183 songs

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Tony Burfield & Rehn Kovacic: Wednesday Haiku, #145

Photo by Tyxop



winter rec center--
on the pool’s deck
one ant
Tony Burfield


 

Photo by Adaenn




Sunday morning rain—
       a tail protrudes
    from under the bed.
         Rehn Kovacic




Artwork by Miyazaki Yūzen



the dragonfly's tail, too
day by day
grows old
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 183 songs
 

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Empty Pages: Issa's Sunday Service, #183

Photo by Cohdra


Empty Pages by Traffic on Grooveshark
In case of wonky widget, click here


Traffic was one of the great rock bands with jazz inclinations of the late 60s and early 70s. A multi-talented assemblage of musicians, the band was composed of founding members Stevie Winwood, Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi, and the great Chris Wood. 

Today's choice is self-explanatory: the title says it all. A light, airy almost pop piece, with an eerie undercutting of something a bit unsettling. The artist here seems to be balancing life and work, perhaps not too successfully.

So it goes.

 
Empty Pages 

Found someone who can comfort me
But there are always exceptions
And she's good at appearing sane
But I just want you to know

She's the one makes me feel so good
When everything is against me
Picks me up when I'm feeling down
So I've got something to show

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Often lost and forgotten
The vagueness and the mud
I've been thinking I'm working too hard
But I've got something to show

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Often lost and forgotten
The vagueness and the mud
I've been thinking I'm working too hard
But I've got something to show, you know

Found someone who can comfort me
But there are always exceptions
And she's good at appearing sane
But I just want you to know


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a live performance by the band, from early 1972, featuring Stevie Winwood's oft overlooked, formidable guitar chops and some fine flute work by the equally multi-talented Chris Wood, particularly after the first go round. Around the third verse, Winwood is joined by Jim Capaldi for some fine vocal harmonizing. This traditional British folk song, John Barleycorn, dates from the 17th century and is given due respect by this versatile rock band: 
 
 
 
 
 
Malted Barley by Finley McWalters
 
 
 
ripened barley--
walking through the field
a little sake vendor
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 183 songs

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Ramesh Anand & Anitha Varma: Wednesday Haiku, #144

Photo by Emlyn




autumn dawn
mother serves white rice
on an almond leaf

Ramesh Anand




Artwork by Charles Mercereau


 


new moon...
shadows have
no shapes

Anitha Varma








a great thing
under the harvest moon...
rice blossoms!
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 182 songs

Sunday, December 1, 2013

W. S. Merwin: Late Autumn poem

Photo by Alice Popkorn



Crows on the North Slope

When the Gentle were dead these inherited their coats
Now they gather in late autumn and quarrel over the air
Demanding something for their shadows that are naked
And silent and learning
W. S. Merwin

The mystery is here - who, for instance, are the Gentle - and over 45 years later followers of Merwin know he tills the same soul, while Nature calls the tune. This time of year, as the sun has edged over the horizon I can see for the entire two miles, and beyond, that I walk home from work, the evening movement of, I'm told, up to 16,000 crows every evening across the greater Pittsburgh environs. 

If you've never been to Pittsburgh, it is startling to realize how perfectly integrated this mid-size American city is with the natural environment. It would take a lot shorter period of time than most American cities to revert back to its original condition if, for instance, the much lauded Pittsburgh zombie apocalypse ever came to be.

I ran across this poem in an early volume of Merwin's work, entitled Animae, which I found in one of great local used and rare booksellers, Caliban Books. A volume full of wonder. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


with our gods out of town
they raise a ruckus...
crows
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 182 songs