Gary Hotham & Akila G.: Wednesday Haiku, #200

Photo by skycaptain2

     snowmelt
sounds we didn't hear
    when it fell

      Gary Hotham

Photo by Stuart Anthony

 
morning mist…
a stray sunbeam carves
a mountain

Akila G

Photo by Scott Beale

city life--
even melting snow
costs money

Issa
trans. by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Happy New Year, 2014: Haiku Challenge

Artwork by John T. McCutcheon
 

Well, as my father used to say, I should have known better. The modest little one week challenge/call for New Year's haiku elicited quite an amazing response, so amazing as to cause me to adjust a bit my original plan.

So, I've selected 6 haiku for your reading pleasure, the first and winner, by Alan Bridges, warrants a 15 issue, rather than 6 issue, subscription to Lilliput Review as originally announced. The 5 runners-up, a category I originally had no intention of utilizing, will receive the original first place prize of a 6 issue subscription (or 6 issue extension to a current subscription) to Lillie. 

The runners-up are presented in no particular order.

And cheers, first, to everyone who responded. There were many a fine haiku that just missed the cut, for a variety of reasons not the least of which is editorial ignorance. 

And second, cheers to the winners and runners-up (I'll be in touch about your subscriptions). For the rest, I hope something grabs you here. 

Happy new year, all!

 

New Year's Day
setting my playlist
to shuffle

   Alan Bridges

new year's day
the earth
retracing her steps

          Robert Davey

new year's day –
I let the tea steep
a little longer

        Angie Werren

Artwork by Andrew Stevovich

     New Year’s day
the party hat not made
         to stay on

                      Gary Hotham

Twilight Zone: Season 5, Episode 145 (directed by Ida Lupino)

New Year
all the masks
yet to discard
yet to try on

Andrea Grillo

Photo by Alvimann

year’s end
the to-do list
in pencil

Ann K. Schwader

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

Because serendipity is the only way to travel, I investigated the artist responsible for the artwork I'd found to grace this post (pictured at the very top), and was fascinated to read his story, which you can find by clicking on his name below the picture. 

Along with the writer of the article on McCutcheon (R. C. Harvey), I was particularly fascinated with the artwork below, entitled The Ballad of Beautiful Words. Clicking on the art won't enlarge it enough to read, so click here instead and I think you'll agree that many a poem may be found within.

click here to see picture enlarged 

In the late 19th century during the the artist's early career all the illustrative material in newspapers was drawn, as it was previous to the perfection of photographs for newsprint. So, the artist literally drew everything: sports, news, crime, portraits and sundry topics. What follows is Carey Orr's comment on perhaps the most significant contribution of all by McCutcheon, something which, at the time, was entitled "slow ball:"

 “John McCutcheon was the father of the human interest cartoon. His Bird Center series was perhaps the first to break way from the Nast and Davenport tradition of dealing almost exclusively and in the most intense seriousness with political and moral reforms. McCutcheon brought change of pace. He was the first to throw the slow ball in cartooning, to draw the human interest picture that was not produced to change votes or to amend morals but solely to amuse or to sympathize."

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

Art by Walter Appleton Clark

an arm for a pillow--
the year ends
or doesn't end

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Gary Hotham & Angele Ellis: Wednesday Haiku #103

Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston

the more things dry off
   the rest of our life
       after the rain

        Gary Hotham

Photograph by Pictoscribe

 


half-ripe tomatoes
lined up on the warm sill--
grandmother

     Angele Ellis

Tramps (photograph) by H. Koppdelaney

the little crow
slips so cleverly...
spring rain

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don   

 

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Wednesday Haiku, Week 22: Gary Hotham

 Wednesday Haiku, Week #22

days after reaching 60
           ---
  no volume control
      on the wind

     Gary Hotham

is the wind
on summer vacation?
grassy field

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Gary Hotham: Spilled Milk

Some days I think the highest praise I can say about the work of a haiku poet is that her or his poems suggest the world.

Suggest, of course, is the operative word.  In classical haiku, an image is presented, a feeling conjured, and thus a contemplative source provided for the reader.  The poet interacts with the world; the reader interacts with the poem.  Ideally, as the adage goes, haiku is like a finger pointing at the moon; once you've seen it, you now longer need the finger. This is haiku as spiritual quest, as a way, for both poet in the composing and reader in the interaction.

Gary Hotham's poems suggest the world.

Spilled Milk: Haiku Destinies is a new volume by Gary, published by Pinyon Publishing.  It is a full length collection of haiku, with a brief preface and afterword by the poet.  As Gary is one of my favorite contemporary haiku practitioners, I was very excited to hold this volume and that excitement has proved justified.

There are many fine poems in Spilled Milk.  As an example of what I was trying to express about suggestion, here is a poem from early in the collection:

enough sunrise—
a small window
in an old hotel 

On one level, this is simply a perfect image, something a student of Buson might be justifiably proud of.  What makes this a fine haiku is, first, its evocative nature and, second, its emotion.  At first, I was tempted to say its joy (and, for me, it is joy) but the emphasis, the word the poem turns on, is its very first: enough.  I realized, in my hasty rush to meaning, that this is a word that might just as soon evoke despair or ennui.

This poem doesn't just suggest a world, it suggests a universe - a universe of possibilities, all while being firmly ground in a moment.   There is mystery here, too, a mystery of evocation.  The next two also hit this chord:

My brother's birthday—
places on the path the rain
can't move out of

dark clouds without warning—
a piece of string not tied
to anything 




There is a psychological density to the first poem, certainly for the poet but also for the reader.  But, no, that's not quite right.   There is a myriad of possible reactions, that suggestiveness again, that makes the poem feel dense.  Does a particular reader's own relationship to a brother color that reader's reaction, is there a universal element or meaning that transcends such subjectivity?   Is the reader being nudged to connect the disparate elements in a certain way?

The Way?

The second poem feels even more complex.  As with many traditional haiku, contrasting or seemingly unrelated elements are brought together in both poems and their meeting sparks - what?  How is an unattached piece of string like sudden dark clouds?    A puddle that can't "move out" like the birthday of a brother?

slow squeak—
the cage door
hinges 

Here is a poem of a mere 6 words, 6 very carefully chosen and placed words.  Squeak suggests the sound of the hinge, but a pet bird or other animal, too, might squeak.  And hinges, obviously a noun, but which might also be interpreted as a verb.  Could the squeak be the dovetailing of the two sounds, the hinge and the bird?  Hinges generally squeak from lack of use.  

And birds?

plain darkness—
a firefly blinks with 
the speed of light

In another approach, the contrast can be between big and small - Issa's snail climbing Mt. Fuji supplies a good example - can give us the big picture in another way, as with the light of the firefly moving at the exact same speed as that of the stars or a rocket or a laser.  Here that light is an example of a unifying element that unites all things.

protected
by warning signs—
walls left by the Roman Empire

Another big picture poem, this time the contrast being time, the paradox of the sign underscoring this great distance, yet also slyly unifying both eras.

too many stars
no one
is near

Again, a tiny 5 word poem that contains the visible galaxy.  There is a lot going on here - no one star is too near, prompts thoughts of how humans are always reaching for the stars.  There seems a frustration or a sadness here - couple this with another possible reading, that "no one" means there is no one person to share these too many stars with.

And why too many?

I could give many, many more examples of Gary's finely detailed renderings.  The collection is 132 pages, with a single poem per page, allowing the time and space for proper contemplation. There are also a number of beautiful interior paintings of leaves and birds by Susan E. Elliott, who also did the cover.  The volume sells for $15 and may be purchased at the link above or, what the heh, right here.

One final poem because who can resist a 7 word haiku that chronicles the end of the world:

last day—
mountains coming to 
an end 

---------------- 



This week's featured poems come from Lilliput Review #149 , from February 2006, where they shared a damp, lovely page.  Enjoy.

at once
            a bird
         cloud
            puddle

Mark Kuniya

Rain (Van Gogh, 1889) 

   a grayness
      falling
on spring fields 

Jeanne Shannon

cool air--
the half moon moves
across a puddle

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Animal in Man: Issa's Sunday Service, #88

This week's selection is one of many songs that make reference to the work of Eric Blair, otherwise known by the pen name George Orwell, this one being possibly the most powerful and most relevant to his original message. "Animal Farm" is every bit as political and vile as "1984," and Dead Prez underscores this loud and clear.

In "Animal in Man," all the characters names remain the same except Mister Jones, the farmer, who is transformed into Sammy, and we all know whose Uncle he is.

The revolution will not be televised.










The British made a fine full-length animated version of "Animal Farm" in which no punches were pulled. If you have one hour and eleven minutes, treat yourself. If you'd just like a taste, here is the first ten minutes:







Hallmark Entertainment did a live action version but we are not going there. The Kinks also have a song called "Animal Farm," a million miles from Orwell, so we won't go there today either; perhaps, later in a different installment, from a different point of view.


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


Rita Cummings pointed out this excellent feature on Issa done at Haiku Chronicles.  While listening to the audio, you can follow along the text with this .pdf.  Anita Virgil does not avoid the tough questions about Issa, right from the get-go.  In addition, she admits when she's been wrong; it doesn't get much better than that for me.


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


Keep the poems coming for the Wednesday Haiku @ Issa's Untidy Hut feature.   Details may be found here.


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


This week's feature poems come from Lilliput Review, #111, July 2000 from two masters of the short poem. Enjoy.



2 Reasons To Get Up

The sun shining through the parched rice grass.
The rice letting it.

Carl Mayfield

too small
to roll off -
the drops of morning mist.

Gary Hotham

in the misty day
not growing older...
grave tablets

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

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Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

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

An Award for Gary Hotham, Franz Kafka, and The Other Place

Cover art by the late, great Harland Ristau

Some great news: Missed Appointment by Gary Hotham has been awarded an Honorable Mention in this year's Haiku Society of America's Mildred Kanterman Memorial Merit Book Awards. The awards were announced at the June meeting of the Haiku Society of America and the full list of award winners will appear in the autumn issue of frogpond. As a publication of Lilliput's "Modest Proposal Chapbook Series," it is a great honor for the press.

Most importantly, however, this award highlights the unflagging quality of one of the best artists writing in the haiku form today. Gary has always been extremely generous with his work with the micropress that is Lilliput Review and it means a great deal to me to see him so honored. Congrats, Gary! Stay tuned for additional news about the awards as it becomes available.

As part of a comment to Wednesday's post about Hermann Hesse, I've posted some info on the 4 poetry books translated into English (in the post, I said 3 and I was only partially right) as a comment to that post.

In other Lillie news, I think I neglected to mention that the always informative Poet Hound posted an insightful review of issue #161 on June 24th. The Hound regularly features markets for poetry and interesting poems from around the web and is worthwhile reading on a regular basis.

Since the bad news on the bookstore front about Cody's, here's some positive news about a poetry bookstore in Seattle.

A wonderful little poem by Naomi Shihab Nye about outdistancing loneliness was posted yesterday on the Writer's Almanac, along with the news that it's Franz Kafka's birthday. Celebrate the later (well, the former, too, come to think about it) by reading something from this parcel of translations from The Kafka Project. Today's poem on Writer's Almanac really set me back on my heels: it's a public domain work entitled "Quiet After the Rain of Morning" by Joseph Trumbull Stickney, a poet I didn't know. It reads the way you would expect a public domain poem by an "unknown" poet to read, perhaps a bit above average: lyrical, wistful in an almost nostalgic way, all the way down to the very last word. But, oh, that last word!

Lastly in the news department, if you are interested in the creative process, do not miss the Lynda Barry interview at The Comics Reporter. If you don't know her work or even if you do and don't like her, you just have to read how she describes getting to that "other place" from which the work flows. Absolutely spot-on.

This week's feature issue from the Lilliput Review archive is #82, from August 1996 (can it really be 16 years ago?!). The issue opened with a one-two punch:



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

Reality

reality is
the metal all
the maya is
made of

Steven M. Thomas

w/only the moisture of our breath
against the metal of it,
eventually the beast, he'll rust away.

scarecrow

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


Wayne Hogan reels us back in with a statement that could serve as his manifesto of the art we've come to know and love:

More Black-And-White Checks

One of my
jobs in life as
I see it is to put more
black-and-white checks
in things, and fish, and
starry night skies with
quarter-moons, too.

Wayne Hogan

It seems this was one of those issues that was just packed with moment after shining moment:

Caboodle

Start with some sort of a rock
plant grows from rock
animal eats plant
person eats animal
person gets incinerated
Start with some sort of rock

Beaird Glover




Eclipse

I leave grief behind
No more than crescent thumbnail
on a soft-skinned pear.

Marianne Stratton

And a final one-two:

My webbed fingers
wave in recognition--
air is melted water.

Doug Flaherty




Cherokee

she smokes a teakwood pipe
dark pond eyes laugh
-----------water
-------------hit by wind

Tim Bellows

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

Posted July 4th, started July 3rd, hence the erroneous header date, courtesy of Blogger, in case you like to keep your "yesterdays" and "todays" straight.

Till next time,
Don

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Gerald Stern, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Despair That Is Modern Poetry

Cover by Wayne Hogan

Well, just when I thought I had everything reasonably under control I realized I've fallen behind in replies to poetry submissions, the bread and butter of a little magazine, or at least this one. So, although I'd planned to concentrate on proofing and tweaking the layout for issues #163 & 164 this weekend, I believe I'll be concentrating more on the mentioned work at hand.

For those waiting an inordinately long amount of time (over 90 days), my apologies. I should have that corrected within two weeks.

I mentioned in one of two posts last Sunday that I have been reading Gerald Stern's new book, Save the Last Dance. I finished it up yesterday and won't comment in depth until I've gone through it again at least once more, but confess to being mildly disappointed. As is usual with most modern books of poetry, there were 3 or 4 poems that grabbed me. This is exactly opposite to my usual reaction to Stern: there are usually only 3 or 4 poems that don't grab me. But, before I get ahead of myself, I obviously have some rereading to do. I'm also reading Adam Zagajewski's new volume, Eternal Enemies. Zagajewski is another poet I usually enjoy very much and I'm having a similar reaction, though there are more than 3 good poems. Perhaps more on that front later. In the meantime, here is one of the poems by Gerald Stern that did grab me (plus an audio of Stern reading it last year):


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

Death By Wind

As for those who face their death by wind
and call it by the weird name of forgiveness
they alone have the right to marry birds,
and those who stopped themselves from falling down
by holding the wall up or the sink in place
they can go without much shame for they
have lived enough and they can go click, click
if they want to, they can go tok, tok
and they can marry anything, even hummingbirds.

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


I'm not sure if I'm getting a bit jaded, having a little "modern" poetry burnout, or if these are just two more examples of books that prompted my quest for books of poems that are nearly perfect. The reader contributed list is currently up to 36 books. If you'd like to make a suggestion for the list, just leave it in a comment to this post or send it in an email to lilliput review at google dot com. Meanwhile, I may find myself scurrying back to Han Shan's Cold Mountain, Basho's never ending road, or Issa's most accommodating, if decidedly disheveled, hut.

A tip of the hat goes out to Rus Bowden at The Poetic Ticker for pointing the way to last week's column by Ted Kooser at American Life in Poetry. Though I'm not much for parody, the item he posted last week by R. S. Gwynn is too good in and of itself not to share. First the much esteemed original by Gerard Manley Hopkins:


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

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
---FFor skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
-------For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnuts fall; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
__And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
_Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
__With swift, slow, sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
_________Praise him.

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


Here is R. S. Gwynn's Fried Beauty, from the original American Life in Poetry post:



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

Fried Beauty

Glory be to God for breaded things—
_Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
___ Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-flow onion rings,
_-Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
____ That in all oils, corn or canola, swim

Toward mastication's maw (O molared mouth!);
__Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
______On paper towels' sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
------------------ Eat them.

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


Yes, refreshing as that is, I believe a return to Cold Mountain is in order very soon. For now, it's time to take a look at some poems from Lilliput Review #86, from January 1997. This one opened with a beauty by Mary S. Rooney (with one more to follow):


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

The wheel is geared

carved for movement, and we,
born in winter, move,
are moved forward
_____________into spring

knowing only:
this apparent fixity of seasons,
this sweet, uncertain wobble
____________________of earth.

M. S. Rooney

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

one after the other--
the last sound
the wave makes

Gary Hotham

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

"Lust For Life"

smoking a cigarette, bleached
by the tv light at 1 a.m.
watching Iggy Pop
Sufi dance across an all white
sound stage on MTV

God, i wish
my dead uncle
had lived to see
this

Mark Borczon

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

Answer from Tibet

When the wind
increases
to blizzard
and your feet
are not your
own, and your open arms
write without notion, that
is a prayer
flag, my friend

M. S. Rooney

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

Scattered diamonds
__far below the skyscrapers:
Life isn't so beautiful.

Kiyoe Kitamura

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

One final note about something I am reading and enjoying very much: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. For many years I had been scared off this title as too complex, too hard, overwhelming etc.; I've found, in fact, that for me it is just the opposite. Though character names can be a bit difficult to follow, there is a family tree at the beginning of the book that untangles any twisted skeins. This is the art of storytelling at its finest, the oral tradition in written form. Though Louise Erdrich has long been one of my favorite contemporary writers, it's taken me until now to make the connection between these two writers. Fine stuff, indeed. And, if you are still scared off, check out Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It is one of my favorite novels and clocks in at an unthreatening 120 pages. I don't think you'll be sorry.


Until the next go round,
Don

Robert Hass Reads Issa, Thoreau Grinds Away & Damned Baseball Haiku

Cover by John Bennett

Ran across a number of interesting pieces this week, including a video of Robert Hass reading Issa haiku at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival. This short reading (less than 2 minutes) of 9 poems perfectly captures the playfulness and humor that endears Issa to so many. In addition, it a a model of how to perform haiku, no easy task. It misses the immense sadness of Issa, the other dimension that contributes to his immortality, but that was not the point of this reading as may be readily seen. This reading is part of a larger series entitled Poetry Everywhere, which includes such poets as Charles Simic, Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds, and Robert Frost.

Fine, fine stuff. I've made it a permanent link in the Issa section of the sidebar.

In Monday's post, I mentioned The Blog of Henry David Thoreau; here is another gem from that journal, entitled Grinding Away.

Mary Karr has recently taken over the Poet's Choice column in the Washington Post and it has taken me a little time to warm up to her style and tastes. A recent post in which she began by admitting she never liked Emily Dickinson did the trick; she mentioned the anecdote that has long been making the rounds that you can sing almost any Dickinson poem to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Try it with Because I could not stop for Death.

Hmn.

Her latest column takes on something I just can 't abide: baseball haiku. It's not the fault of the haiku; I can't stand baseball fiction, baseball short stories etc. (n.b.: I am a big baseball fan). However, in her column covering the recent publication of Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball, she quotes the work of George Swede, among others. Congratulations to George, one of our finest purveyors of the haiku form. He ably proves why in the two poems quoted in the article:


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

empty baseball field
a dandelion seed floats through
the strike zone

video ball game
through knotholes in the old fence
evening sunbeams

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


Now, there are a couple of baseball haiku that even I like. The first is simply perfect and the use of the single word "evening" in the second has me on my back waiting for my tummy to be scratched (and you thought you could never really please an editor).

This week's selection of poems from a past issue of Lilliput Review takes us back to #89, July 1997. As the summer season begins, here are a couple of seasonal works from back then:


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

Tentative Summation

A poem is ocean -
without shore.

Tim Scannell

in my hand--
the rock smoothed
by part of the Pacific Ocean

Gary Hotham

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


And two by the late Joseph Semenovich:


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

narcissi

i present
whoever i am
both subject and object

and just like narcissus
how unlucky can you get
the pond became

the verb
he drowned
himself in

my step-father's paintings

the black rocks
the green frothy water breaking over them
the sky pulled apart like the innards of a pillow
one screaming gull

outside
the heavy trucks/the grinding
gears/the chug-a-lug
the way the world

is

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

best,
Don


Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books page.