Roberta Beary: nothing left to say

Roberta Beary is one of the finest modern haiku poets I know. She was the winner of the 1st Annual Bashō Challenge here at Lilliput, which is probably the most modest of her many honors. With her 2009 chapbook, nothing left to say, pictured above, she joins an esteemed lineup in the King's Road Press low frills "Hexagram Series." Each of the volumes in the series is 16 pages long; nothing left to say contains 35 of Beary's haiku.

The hexagram from the I Ching on the cover is #63, "Completion." As annotated here, it is described thus:

The transition from confusion to order is completed, and everything is in its proper place. After a long and difficult period, it is finally time to rest and remain quiet.

The poems, themselves, are of a characteristic high quality. The opening haiku, from which the title derives, is a fine example modern English language haiku:

nothing left to say
an empty nest
fills with snow

This poem breaks in an one of traditional ways for modern English language haiku; the first line posits "the conclusion," with a 2 line image that follows that either describes or evokes the thought. Flip the poem around, though, for another traditional approach; with the 2 line image first and the 1st line as the conclusion the poem doesn't work nearly as well. Even with the present tense, making the 1st line the last gives it a finished feel that diminishes the power and nature of the experience. What is happening is ongoing, it is now; the reversal would undermine the continuous moment.

Next, an 8 word little poem, with considerable emotional power:

breakup—
my daughter's voice cracks
across two continents

With one word ("breakup"), the poet has encapsulated the whole situation. With its description in the 2nd and 3rd lines , the breakup is shown to have a power which geographically spans a tremendous distance, a distance which no doubt is exacerbated over the phone. Further, the use of the verb "cracks" lends the poem a tone of an almost seismic nature. The effect conjured is figuratively earth shattering, at once telling a narrative and presenting it with perfect metaphoric resonance, incredibly, without the metaphor.

in and out
of the lovers' quarrel
fireflies

I love this little poem and it probably is purely a matter of personal taste; this is what I think of as a "big picture" haiku. Placing the lovers in the midst of nature, the artist may simply put down her brush and walk away. She's done her job to perfection. There may be other movement implicit in the poem: the weaving in and out of the lovers' words, the possible physical movement of the lovers themselves as they speak. In this case, however, the unstated is just that, for a reason; the most important movement here is that of the fireflies, the how and why of them moving. All else is unimportant.

Why is the fireflies' movement so important? Is there something in it to be learned of the how and why of our movement? Does that movement mirror the lovers themselves?

Obviously, I think all of these evoked questions give the poem its intended resonance. Whether you agree that all that is important here are the fireflies really is a matter of opinion. But this little poem, which appears in 1st Annual Bashō Haiku Challenge Chapbook, is one of the highlights of a fine collection of haiku by Roberta Beary.


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Erie poet Lonnie Sherman is one of a kind. In the early years of Lilliput, I published two chapbooks of his work, a couple of broadsides and numerous shorter poems. It was my great privilege to publish that work. Lonnie is one of the genuine post-Beat voices; not one false note about him. He works in longer forms, so he is not a natural for Lilliput. His work, however, is a natural for my heart. This week's featured broadside poem is from issue #114, which saw the light of day back in November 2000. It is one of 3 poems in that issue. Lonnie's work is done in all caps so I thought, rather than reproduce it here, I'd scan in the pages so you might get a feel for the look, a mental tactility, if you will.

As a bonus, the page also contains a drawing by a world renowned artist, making for what I hoped was a fine complementary presentation. If anyone can guess who the artist is, I'll give them a free 6 issue subscription to Lilliput (or a 6 issue extension to a current subscription) or copies of Lonnie's two chapbooks and 3 broadsides.

Click to enlarge

And a final note from Master Issa:

if my father were here--
dawn colors
over green fields

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Delicateness of Mr. Snake

Cover by Bobo


A couple of links of interest, plus a call for poems this week. I tried to get permission to reprint a review of the Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook over at Hellium but wasn't able to, so I've provided a link. The winning haiku by Roberta Beary was reprinted with some squirrelly alignment (and on odd, floating e), so here it is correctly aligned:

on the church steps
a mourning dove

with mother's eyes

Roberta Beary

A very nice review by Greg, in which he supplies a generous selection of work from the chapbook, which is a available for the paltry sum of $3, postage paid. Like the poet dreaming of a butterfly dreaming of a poet, I've already begun thinking about The 2nd Annual Bashô Haiku Challenge; I've tentatively scheduled the month of September to be the period of open submissions, but keep an eye peeled here for updates as the time approaches.

The new edition of Roadrunner published and there is a wonderful set of haiga by Shodo for the work of Santoka as translated by Scott Watson. Some really beautiful work, all around.

I received notice that there has been a change of editor over at Pudding Magazine and they anxiously wish to test the wherewithal of said Andy Roberts, hence the nigh breathless call for poems that follows (please also note: this is a paying gig guys, so get on it):



***********************************************

Pudding House Announcement

HOT NEWS
from the desk of
Jennifer Bosveld, president of
Pudding House Publications. . .

Poets, feel free to eavesdrop on this letter to the Pudding
HouseTeam, and take it personally as I value you as well.
This isprobably the most gigantic announcement out of
Pudding Househeadquarters in its history of 30 years,
and we've had some mighty big moments. If you love
something, set it free. And I love Pudding Magazine.
/jen

Andy Roberts accepts permanent appointment as new
Editor and Chief of Pudding Magazine: The Journal of
Applied Poetry


A FINE LITERARY ARTS old school PRINT JOURNAL

same focus and priorities--
Get Ready for a surge
in Pudding's
flight across and into
the attention of
America's poets

YOU ARE in the THE FIRST ROUND OF
NATIONWIDE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Andy Roberts about to capture the limelight--
taking over the post held by Jennifer Bosveld for 30 years.

Andy Roberts
has been on the radar at Pudding House for the past year
especially--and since first being published in our journal.
He has a wide publication history including but not limited
to: Ambergris, Rhino, Sulphur River, Albatross, Atlanta
Review, Atom Mind, Bellowing Art, Black Bear Review,
Blue Collar Review, Bogg, The Cathartic, Chiron Review,
Cider Press Review, Coal City, Cokefish, Crazyquilt,
Fulcrum, Gargoyle, Hanging Loose, Hiram Poetry Review,
Home Planet News, Miller's Pond, Modern Haiku and
many other haiku publications, Nerve Cowboy, Plainsongs,
Poetry Motel, Rag Mag, Roanoke Review, San Fernando
Poetry Journal, Slipstream, Third Lung, Voices
International, Windless Orchard, and many many more.
He has published mainly poetry but fiction as well. Andy
Roberts came along just in time to be included in The
Pudding House Gang this year--our full-length "sampler"
on our editorial taste and those working for you, the
American Poet. Now he's a venue manager and emcee for
Pudding House, literary representative, and all-around
executive assistant learning the ropes by wrapping his
mind and energies around the broad array of products
and events for Pudding House Publications, the largest
literary small press in America. Andy lives on Clime
Road in Columbus Ohio. Get to know him. He doesn't
have a website yet, but he will, I'm sure.

Let's blast Andy with work! What do ya say?

WHAT THE AUTHOR RECEIVES:
copy of the issue you are in. Featured poet gets 4 copies
and $10.

Send only your best poems by U.S. Mail (he wants the
thrill of getting real mail in his mailbox at the street,
you know? You must include email address, all contact
information, and the good old SASE. Jen says Andy will
probably be tougher than she was so don't send your also
-rans. Andy Roberts, Pudding Magazine Editor, 3070
Clime Road, Columbus Ohio 43223
Or send through email attachment:
andyrobertspuddingmagazine@gmail.com. phone only if
you have something crucial to talk about with Andy and
email and mail cannot work for you:
614-607-6937 cell: 614-306-8814

***********************************************

This week's selection of poems from the archive comes from issue #27, November 1991. Chameleons, coyotes, snakes, fawns, crows, and toads had their way. Here's a taste:





My animal face grimaces
----and flees again into darkness
because I've come too close
------to remembering

David Richard

Coyote

stands outside,
twists his face
in the window,
sticks his tongue out,
makes all of the boys and girls
in the classroom laugh.

Charlie Mehrhoff

Masturbating

crow on a rooftop
canoeist without a canoe
choking on dusk
and jukebox sentimentality
sawdust on the floor
coyote seemingly disappearing
in its own shadow

M. Kettner

Untitled Wednesday Poem

Can snake misbehave
in Jungle? Can cougar
error by mountain cedar?
My sad old knees ache in bed
in dream before dawn, but
know their job is to bring
my body to its resting place,
like full bloomed rose
in August, like cherry tree
its trunk absorbing moon's heat.

Pat Andrus

And, the traditional last word goes to the master:

what delicateness!
a snake too sheds
his worldly robe

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Basho Haiku Chapbook Update and One From the Archive

Cover by Harland Ristau

I've begun simultaneously working on the forthcoming Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook and the new issues of Lilliput Review. As with all the other things I try to do in tandem, they've become mixed together and so as a result work on both has slowed considerably (and, of course, there are also the small matters of this daily blog and all those snail mail poems - about 1,000 batches per year - to deal with). I originally hoped to get the new issues out by February first and had projected a January publication for the BHC Chapbook, but realistically I'm looking at a March 1st date for both. One and a half issues and the entire chapbook are in the preliminary layout stages - poems done, no artwork or covers - so slow and steady progress dictates the March 1st date. If I can get the chaps out sooner I will, but the issues won't begin to go out until the 1st.

Of note this morning, The Writer's Almanac has posted a fine poem by Elizabeth Alexander, who will be presenting a new poem today at the inaugural.

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves.
(though Sterling Brown said
"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'")
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overheard on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love
and I'm sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice
and are we not of interest to each other?

Elizabeth Alexander

Tuesday being the new Lilliput archive day and this being Tuesday, it's that time. This week's highlights come from issue #56, April 2004.





Stars Fading Over A Red Trace

light pierces
lacework of trees
igniting
the flame of day

his presence, always closest
in this defenseless hour

Vogn

Theatre Piece

You have only to put a pinhole
in the backdrop to create a star.
Of course, you won't see it
that way, but someone out front,
someone in the seventh row
on the aisle or high in the balcony
where the music and lines
seldom reach, will see it
for what it is, a star,
something to dream on.

Louis McKee

Word

Iris spins
wide to light,
pushes against
the pull to
cautious pinhole focus,
seeks out the word
blurring to flesh inside
the snow blind cave
in the skull.

Mary Schooler Rooney

The Way It Is

You languish in Gaia's apron pocket
chewing on the strings.

Winds are blowing through your oven
flattening your bread.

You herd with sheep in city streets,
followed by barking dogs.

Language is your Nemesis
Indian gift of the Gods.

Jane McCray

Poetry Begins

with the road gang on Route 6
repairing the pole smashed
on a Saturday night drag race
and a stray dog pissing
on the perimeters.

Ruth Daigon

Harley Time

Writing a poem
is like driving a motorcycle,
baby pigs in the side car,
while you try to keep
their little helmets on straight.

George Monagan

Finally, Ed Markowski sent this along in homage to this historic day. Enjoy.







best,
Don

Hieronymus Bosch, the Logo, and the Haiga of Max Verhart

Over the years, I've received lots of questions about the Lilliput Review "logo" or the Hieronymous Bosch birdman as I think of him. Most recently, Gary Hotham sent along an email inquiry that was precipitated by his friend and fellow poet, Max Verhart. Max had been struck by the fact that both Gary's book Missed Appointment and his own only the white (which Max tells me is still available - send inquires to "max at verhart dot org") both contained the image. The image is in a photo haiga, from only the white. Here are some details from Max's email:

As it happens, I am living in the Netherlands in Den Bosch, the town that gave Jheronimus Bosch his family name. He lived and worked here. Last year I found some statuettes after some images from his paintings were being shown on pedestals in the small river that runs through (or even mostly under) the town. I made pictures of them that I later combined for use in the haiga.

And here is his haiga:






And here's a little closer look at what he is talking about:






It has been so long since I started using the Bosch art as a logo, almost 20 years, that I mistakenly thought it came from the work he is most famous for, The Garden of Earthly Delights. However it actually comes from his The Temptation of St. Anthony (it can be seen at the bottom of the left hand panel of the triptych). The net, being the amazing, er, thing that it is, yielded up this interesting artistic take. And, well, here.

In fact, the little guy seems to be all over the place.

I was initially intrigued by the fact that, whatever it is, it seems to be carrying a letter of some sort. What could be more perfect as a logo for a small press magazine starting out in the late 80's? I believe I ran across a nice high-quality reproduction of it in a Dover clip art book. A number of years back, a good friend of mine sent a nice blowup of the original which, though it crops the top, gives an idea of the kind of glorious detail with which Bosch rendered his work. The sheer scale of his work obscures its minute complexity:




And, you know, ya just have to love those old school ice skates ...


best,
Don

Basho: The Complete Haiku

The unofficial two month Basho push came to end this week when I finished Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated with intro, bio and notes by Jane Reichhold. All this began some time back when I was contacted by Tomoe Sumi of Kodansha America in response to postings I'd been doing about various editions of Basho I'd been reading (in preparation for a future Modest Proposal Chapbook). At the time, she offered me a reading copy of Basho: The Complete Haiku. Because I already had it, I declined but Tomoe suggested she could send a copy along in any case and I could give it away to a reader.

And the Basho Haiku Challenge was born. The to-be-published anthology from challenge submissions would never have happened without her generosity and I want to thank her again.

I'm happy to say that Basho: The Complete Haiku is everything one would anticipate and more. For the dedicated reader and fan of Basho, it's all here: 1011 haiku, the complete output of a relatively taciturn haiku master (in comparison, Issa wrote over 20,000 haiku), all with accompanying notes, from a few words to paragraph length explications. The presentation method is chronological, as it should be, and divided up into 7 phases (as opposed to the standard 5 phases: see Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho) and each section is preceded by biographical info important to the given period. I found this method extremely helpful. To have presented the entire biography in the forward matter would have removed an immediacy that deepens understanding and necessitated much flipping back and forth. The appendices and back matter are a real bonus, including sections on haiku techniques, a chronology of Basho's life, a glossary of literary terms and a selected, succinct bibliography. For biographical detail, Reichhold seems to lean heavily on Makoto Ueda's seminal biography (which I'm reading now - ok, so the push isn't entirely over) but that's to be expected.

Down to the crux, however: the poems themselves. These translations veer away from the often disasterous academic all-inclusive approach. The translations are unique, lyrical, and eminently readable without dumbing down for the English reader. In general, there is a stripped down, less is more approach, somewhat reminiscent of the translation work of Lucien Styrk and Robert Hass. One thing this collection solidified for me, the non-academic reader as opposed to Japanese literary scholar, is how much I don't know and never really will about the original intent of what I feel to be a majority of these poems (and by extension, any translations from any of the haiku masters, including beloved Issa). The notes of both this Reichhold edition and of the Landis Barnhill edition I reviewed previously are what really brought this important point home and made me think long and hard about myself as reader.

The conclusion I've drawn from all this "thunking" is simply that the poems that connect, the ones that get through to a novice like myself, are those that have a universal appeal that transcends translation, technique, and cultural idiosyncrasies. I'm talking the spirit of haiku here and perhaps the universal impetus to write haiku in the first place. A speaking to the human condition, who we are, and what we do (oh, Gauguin, bless you for your question mark). But wait, aren't haiku supposed to be objective not subjective, speaking to nature and leaving out the personal? Well, yes, this transcendent spirit I'm speaking of includes that and more. This concentration on nature is the where of the who and what we do: our place in the world, who we are being defined by what we are.

Ah, but enough of my personal revelation. On to the poems or, to paraphrase the incandescently beautiful Joe Strummer, how about some music now, eh?

Of the 1000 plus haiku, I marked 45 or so that grabbed me, held me down, and said, ok, what (or, more precisely, how) do you think now? Previously, I'd selected 35 for further review from the 700 plus Barnhill Landis edition, so the proportion is consistent, realizing that he was being selective (i.e. picking the best). The Reichhold edition confirms for me that the later work was the finest, Basho getting better and better with time. Here are a few of those 45. When possible, I've tried to select haiku not highlighted in previous postings from other editions in order to give a fuller portrait of the poet.



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


autumn night
dashed into bits
in conversation

pine and cedar
to admire the wind
smell the sound

pine wind
needles falling on the water's
cool sound

already bent
the bamboo waits for snow
what a sight

glistening dew
not spilling from bush clover
still it sways

a morning glory
this also is not
my friend

a traveler's heart
it also should look like
chinquapin flowers

leave aside
literary talents
tree peony

year after year
the cherry tree nourished by
fallen blossoms

path of the sun
the hollyhock leans into
early summer rain

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A couple of other things of note this week, via the always informative, encyclopedic Ron Silliman blog: first, Bill Knott's take on a lesser known Wordsworth sonnet (a distinctly un-haiku like experience, actually very different for Wordsworth, who sometimes has a very Eastern flavor and remains my favorite of Romantic poets) and, second, the fact that a huge chunk of the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry is available via google books (don't tell anybody, pass it on). If you wish your wherewithal tested or your game raised to another level (without the pain of academia), I highly recommend Bill Knott's not poetry blog. Bill also offers almost all of his poetry for free pdf download, an amazingly generous and prescient idea.

Cover by Peter Magliocco

Today's Lilliput issue from the back archives is #69 from June, 1995. The further back we go in time, the, er, odder the experience for me. Perhaps more on this later. For now, enjoy.



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After rum and cola

While walking inconspicuously
through this shabby cliché,
I am brushed back
by a long
black
metaphor
that splashed mud
onto my haptic shoes
and chases me back to Technicolor.

Thomas Brand

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

Now, at break of day,
A cliché coldly peers out
From behind mountains.

Travis Gray

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




Midnight Footnote to Lovemaking

The snail's path across
our bedroom windowpane wakes
us with its shrieking.

Michael Newell

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

Sleep

Sleep happens outside
this window where
white groping fingers
of a dream grasp
and are as still as
frozen beaks of birds
pinned to earth,
tugging at words
beneath the worms

Alan Catlin

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




in the mortar
of the city's
walls,
flute & whips
sing their song

Norman Schiffman

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

Crucifixion Revision

Father, forgive them
even though they know exactly
what they damn well do.

David Denny

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




¶no matter how many prayer flags
-they go out and hang upon the face of it
-it still be the beast.

Scarecrow

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

¶a friend hands me a book
-more shit to carry when we go into exile.

Scarecrow

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

Finally, contributor copies of the new issues, #'s 165 and 166, went out the beginning of this week. Subscriber copies will begin to go out in two weeks and will take about 6 weeks all in all to get to everyone. There is a new Modest Proposal Chapbook to talk about also, so, no fear, I have yet to run out of things to blab about.



till next time,
Don

Basho Haiku Challenge Winner

Cover art by Wayne Hogan

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Roberta Beary is the winner of the 1st annual Basho Haiku Challenge for her poem:



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

on the church steps
a mourning dove
with mother's eyes

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


I'd like to thank Roberta and everyone for their enthusiastic participation in the challenge. The level and quality of work in the nearly 200 poems I received was so outstanding that I will be publishing a chapbook of the best 24 poems received sometime after the 1st of the year. 19 poets will be featured. As mentioned in my last post on the challenge, all poets included will receive two copies of the chapbook plus a six issue subscription to Lilliput Review (or a six issue extension of their current subscription). Roberta will receive Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated and edited by Jane Reichhold, contributor copies of the anthology, and a 15 issue subscription to Lillie. I will be informing the other 18 poets included sometime over the next week via email.

In addition, did you notice I said 1st annual?

I've decided that this was so successful, that the 2nd Basho Haiku Challenge will be taking place the same time, next year.

Finally for the poets who participated but did not have their work included, I will be thanking them with free copies of the two current issues of Lillie (or a two issue extension etc.).

My most sincere thanks to one and all for making what could have been a formidable task a real pleasure.


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


There was an interesting article in the New York Times this week on how an Amercian poet has never won the Nobel Prize. It's worth a look-see.

Curtis Dunlap, over at Blogging Along Tobacco Road, has sent along a notice that the Australian Haiku Society has created a webpage for tributes to William J. Higginson. If you have been moved by his work and legacy, you may want to contribute. The deadline is October 27th.

Last night, I gave a talk at the local library school on things librarianish (ok, collection development, if you're curious). I decided things needed to be put in the proper perspective and so opened up with a poem by Gerald Stern:

Stepping Out of Poetry

What would you give for one of the old yellow streetcars
rocking toward you again through the thick snow?

What would give for the feeling of joy as you climbed
up the three iron steps and took your place by the cold window?

Oh, what would you give to pick up your stack of books
and walk down the icy path in front of the library?

What would you give for your dream
to be as clear and simple as it was then
in the dark afternoons, at the old scarred tables?

It just so happens that Stern grew up in Pittsburgh and chances are that he is speaking of the Main Library where I work and many of the students come. Though the fact resonates it isn't necessary to remain relevant. I suggested to them this wasn't so much of a geographic shout-out to the Burg, nor a poem about nostalgia per se, but a poem about what happens to dreams. And that I wanted them to not think about their dreams but those of the people who have come and continue to come to the library through all these many years.

I can report, despite many a renovation and reinvention (& for the sake of a little resonance), that those old scarred tables remain, as do those occasionally recaptured dreams.

On the way out in the elevator, a student from the class asked me if I was the publisher of Lilliput Review. When I said yes, she told me a delightful story of the poet Peggy Garrison coming to the bookstore where she worked in Manhattan and telling her proudly of her publication in the mag.

As we rode down in that tiny moving room, the small world of the small press expanded very briefly for a moment.

Featured this week from the Lillie archive is issue #72, from August 1995. Enjoy.


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



Multiple Choice: Erotica

As condom
is to skin

so poetry
is to:

a) the act
b) the art
c) the ought

Ken Waldman

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

A Study

One thousand views of Backbone Mountain.
One hundred black-hair brushes.
Seven stylistic changes.
One or two regrets.
Two hundred details.
Ten thousand things forgotten.

Leslie Carroll

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



Tableau

In a Renaissance painting
whose title I've forgotten
completely as a stronger man
would have forgotten you,
Lucifer holds a seat
in the heavenly councils back benches,

the way you might think of me
when I call,
untangling the telephone cord
from my horns.

J. D. Smith

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

Apple Blossom

My first bar in Dixie--
all the usual beers but
Brueghel would've loved it
painting freightyard
royalty displaced
by urban renewal, bean soup,
like ambrosia, 50¢ a bowl

Walt Franklin

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



academics:

every word they write
another earring melted down
into the golden calf
of American poetry.

scarecrow

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

¶ i will not drown
--rather i will raise the level of the ocean

scarecrow

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


best till next time,
Don

Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook, John Lennon, and the Beginning of the World (As We Know It)

Cover by Peter Magliocco

In next Thursday's post, I'll announce the winner of the Basho Haiku Challenge. The response was so encouraging that my intent is to issue a mini-chapbook of a selection of about 20 of the poems (plus the winner) of the nearly 200 poems submitted. Since this was not part of the original Challenge, I will be upping the prize ante. The winner will receive a brand new copy of Basho: the Complete Haiku, translated and annotated by Jane Reichhold, plus two copies of the anthology collection and a 15 issue subscription to Lilliput Review. Other poets featured in the anthology collection will also receive 2 copies of the mini-chapbook and a 6 issue subscription (or a 6 issue extension of their current subscription).

I expect the anthology collection will appear after the 1st of the year. If all goes well, I can see this possibly becoming an annual event. Stay tuned for further details.

Tonight is the first meeting of the new poetry group I will be co-moderating with my colleague and formidable poet, William the Silent. The discussion group, 3 Poems By ..., tonight will be looking at three Emily Dickinson poems:

• There's a certain Slant of light

• Because I could not stop for Death

• After great pain, a formal feeling comes

The more I immerse myself in these 3 little gems, the more I feel out to sea. They seem as infinite in depth and resonance as the deepest, darkest ocean. My amazement and awe is total and absolute. Simply put, she was a genius beyond par.

If anyone shows up tonight, it should be an interesting discussion. I'm not sure an hour could begin to cover it.

I've finished up David Landis Barnhill's Basho's Haiku, a selection of over 700 haiku translated into English. There are a number of comprehensive reviews out there: one at Hokku and another at Modern Haiku, both of which make interesting points and feature a number of haiku from the collection. In addition, a generous selection of the poems may be previewed at google books. I've also learned from google books that Landis Barnhill has translated Basho's prose, in a collection entitled Basho's Journey: the Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho. A nice selection of Basho's haibun may be viewed there.

Looking over my notes, I see that I marked 35 haiku in this collection for further review. The collection itself is very readable, the notes are somewhat cursory and overall there is a minimal amount awkwardness in the translations. As I've alluded to in previous posts, my inability to feel a more substantial connection to these poems seems to be the result of my own cultural and historical shortcomings. For me, many of the ideas behind the poems are either untranslatable or strictly period pieces, ephemeral in that sense. Here's a selection from the 35 that did grab me:




on the scales—
----Kyoto and Edo balanced
--------in this spring of a thousand years

the bell fades
----the blossoms' fragrance ringing:
-----------early evening

this mallet
----long ago was it a camellia?
--------a plum tree?

I've hit the bottom
----of my bag of discretion:
--------year's end

misty rain,
----a day with Mt. Fuji unseen:
--------so enchanting

an orchid's scent—
----its incense perfuming
--------a butterfly's wings

The above is a selection from Basho's early work. These are undeniably beautiful, imagistic pieces. Here are some from the later part of his life:

may the hokku that come
----be unlike our faces:
--------first cherry blossoms

on a journey through the word,
----tilling a small field,
---------back and forth

in the plum's fragrance
----the single term "the past"
---------holds such pathos

know my heart:
----with a blossom,
--------a begging bowl

so very precious:
----are they tinting my tears?
---------falling crimson leaves

loneliness—
----dangling from a nail,
--------a cricket




Of the poems I've chosen to highlight, the later poems seem to me to be more personal, more human. More Issa-like, if you will. I don't want to misrepresent: some of the early haiku are more personal, some of the later haiku, more workman-like. In general, however, it felt to me that this generous selection of work truly captures Basho's real journey, the journey to self. When I finished, I felt I knew more about the poet than any briefer collection featuring his famous work allowed me to. Of course, many of those briefer collections have excellent translations, surpassing many contained here. But oddly enough, the ones I was attracted to tended to be the ones not featured in any of the "greatest hits" type collections I've read previously. In fact, I don't believe that any of the above have been highlighted in previous posts, which really accents how special this substantial selection by David Landis Barnhill really is.

Though I've talked about highlighting some of the books from the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list, I can't resist dipping back into the Lilliput archive for another issue. Since the last posting, the season has turned to autumn. Temps have dropped, there is a chill in the air and the house, and a general dampness that signals the end of the finest summer I've spent in Pittsburgh in my 17 plus years here. Issue #73, from November 1995, has a nice selection of poems that just happen to fit the season nicely, starting off with some nods to the beauty of the wind. Enjoy.

Wind:---------tree

Philip Miller

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Before Winter
generous maples!
dropping these crimson haiku
for just anyone

James Owens

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strangers
wind - photographs
linger oh so briefly
before blowing on past

Gary Jurechka

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Weeping In Autumn
Tears from the eyes
of the paralyzed Sibyl:
all those leaves wasted?

Tom Riley

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leaves
softening
each footfall
thinking lovingly
of all lives lost

------

---------------John Perlman

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About Man
Some head.
Two feet.
From water.
Through mother.
Into mountain.

Ken Waldman

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Finally in celebration of John Lennon's birthday, here's a little something that just seems to dovetail nicely with our contentious election atmosphere:





Till next time,
Don