"Grieving Over Spring": Two Haiku by Buson

This fall, I've been invited to do two more sessions for life long learners on poetry, one on haiku and one on Robert Frost. The prospect of the haiku session has sent me scurrying about, collecting various books I don't have, and consulting the ones I do, in preparation. It's to be a short session, one hour, so I'll be doing a basic intro, including history and an attempt at a definition, and the rest of the session will be pure enjoyment of the work.

I've been looking at a number of older books on haiku, some which I plan to highlight here in the coming months. One such early collection, One Hundred Famous Haiku, selected and translated by Daniel C. Buchanan, adheres closely to the 5/7/5 approach to English haiku, as did many of the early English haiku collections. Since it's generally agreed that 10 to 14 syllables in English is closer to the 17 "syllable" Japanese, this approach can sometimes lead to haiku that seem decidedly bloated. However, since rendering is rendering, it can also result in provocative work, which informs other, more modern versions of classic poems we may be used to.

Two particular haiku by Yosano Buson grabbed me in these translations. I've not featured many of Buson's poems here because, with a couple of exceptions, I haven't connected as often with him as the other classic poets. Buson is noted for his artistic sensibility, being also a painter, and his poems often contain vivid images and are objective in tone. They are what might be termed word pictures.

Cherry blossoms fall
On watery rice-plant beds:
Stars in the moonlight.

This is a perfect example of lush imagery; what engages the reader immediately is the imagery, the blossoms floating, the stars twinkling. This is lovely in a way that really transcends the comparison at its heart; it is the stuff that makes life worth living, the mystery of existence itself. It is speaking the unspeakable, if you will.

Coincidentally, I read the next one on the last day of spring. When it comes to the half full, half empty paradigm, I'm one of those people who, at summer solstice, thinks only that the days are now getting shorter, neglecting the fact that we are entering one of the finest times of the year. Upon reading this, the kinship was immediate:

Candlestick in hand,
See, he strolls through the garden,
Grieving over spring.

Those of us who prefer spring and fall over summer (and winter), relate to Buson's feeling. And that single element is what makes this so unusual a poem by Buson: it is overtly about feeling, at least as it is translated here. This is Issa territory, if you will, more senryu than haiku, and it is all the more beautiful for it ... says the half-empty glass kind of guy.

They'll be a few more from this collection in a future post.


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This week's poems from the Lilliput archive are a set, all on one page, taking a collective look how things are, plus one poem that gently pushed open the door as the last poem of the issue. They were originally published in Lilliput Review #147, October 2005 (5 more poems from this issue may be found in this post).





buying medicine for my father
I take a shortcut
through the cemetary

Jay Leeming

after his death
my father's brushstrokes
on the wall he painted

Jay Leeming

Farewell – and though there be
no budding in the spring
no autumn withering, as well.

Hakusai

O
this perpetual
is

David Lindley

katydid--
"katy-katy!" not dead
yet

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

About Last Saturday's Reading

Last Saturday's reading at Modern Formations Gallery went well and any trepidation I had about reading for the first time in over 20 years rapidly evaporated as the poems took over. Because there were so many readers (14), we were limited to 8 minutes apiece, which made things even easier. I had decided early on that I would do a combination of poems from Lilliput, in recognition of this 20th anniversary year, with a few of my own to finish up. This is another instance that working in the short form really paid off.

I thought I'd share the Lilliput poems I read with you in today's post. Selecting the poems for reading really highlighted some differences between the long and short forms. Most poems of 10 lines or less really don't have public presentation as a primary goal; it's no stretch to say the short poem is generally not designed for public readings. There really isn't enough time to pick up a rhythm, get up some steam, and deliver the goods. The poem is over before you know it.

That doesn't mean that poets don't bring considerable talents in matters such as rhythm, meter, word sound, rhyme and more to the short poem to make them amenable to reading aloud. In fact, if a short poem doesn't bring some poetic device(s), it is in real danger of appearing to be an aphorism or even just a wise (or wise ass) remark. So, in going through the Lillie archives I went in search of certain types of short poems and, happily, found them in reasonable abundance. As a result, the poems I selected actually are not representative of the magazine as a whole, just a certain aspect of that magazine.

It didn't make much sense to get up and read work that wasn't designed in a way for reading and wouldn't connect in that type of setting. As a result, what follows was specifically chosen for the reading and, from the response, seemed to go over fairly well. It was a real challenge to present the work of other poets and to do the work justice.





springtime in a city park

look at them all
carrying weight and shoes
and pants,
briefcases and glasses.
a cigarette slowly lifted
to the lips.
sunlight on a youthful book
open.
hope.
look at them all
they're so fucking beautiful.

Charlie Mehrhoff, LR #48

business as usual

money says have a nice day

money says bark like a dog

money says bark like a dog
and roll over

money says blame each other

money says have another biscuit

Don Wleklinski, LR #153

The Arrival

We have arrived without luggage
in a country we don't recognize
among people who distrust us
where the walls have no windows
and the doors open only
for the chosen. Welcome home.

David Chorlton, LR #145

Apple

Sometimes when eating an apple
I bite too far
and open the little room
the lovers have prepared,
and the seeds fall
onto the kitchen floor
and I see
they are tear-shaped.

Jay Leeming, LR #72

I RIP OFF YOU, YOU RIP OFF ME, WE RIP OFF THEM
THAY RIP OFF US, THAY RIP ME OFF, I RIP OFF THEM
YOU RIP OFF THEM, THAY RIP OFF YOU, HE RIPS OFF
ME, I RIP OFF HIM, HE RIPS OFF YOU, YOU RIP OFF
HIM, WE RIP OFF HIM, HE RIPS OFF US, I RIP OFF
HER, SHE RIPS OFF ME, SHE RIPS OFF YOU, YOU RIP
OFF HER, I RIP OFF ME, YOU RIP OFF YOU, THAY RIP
OFF THEMSELVES, I FOLLOW YOU, YOU FOLLOW ME AND
SO ON DOWN THE LINE, THAY HYPNOTIZE US, THAY
HYPNOTIZE US, I HYPNOTIZE YOU

John Harter, LR #106

THE LIBRARIAN ASKED
CAN YOU WAIT
FOR THAT BOOK
ON
FIFTH CENTURY
BUDDHIST STATUARY

John Harter, LR #110

Lost in the Translation

I'm impotent today she
said, closed the book
capped her pen. You can't
be impotent or potent, they
laughed. You have no penis.
She listened, and for a long
time, she believed them

Celeste Bowman, LR #89

He crept in
like mildew.

Suzanne Bowers, #59

We forget
we're mostly water
till the rain falls
and every atom
in our body
starts to go home

Albert Huffstickler, LR #116

Yawn Series of Younger Poets

annual politician of
a first book of
plums by ailing
writer under 40.
Marmosets may be
sulimated only
during February
and must be
accompanied by
a stamped, self
addressed moose

Lyn Lifshin, LR #6

your body

each piece a shining eye
examining
the rest of the explosion

scarecrow, LR #71

2003

Just before spring
--the war begins
-but - ignorant -
the pink blossoms
--keep opening
--their tiny fists

Judith Toler, LR #135

Disaster

Last night the past broke
and there was history
all over the cellar.
You should have seen it -
Rome was here, Greece was there,
Egypt floated near the ceiling -
finally I had to
call an historian:
and you know what they charge
for emergencies.

Gail White, LR #22

One Small Poem

can take you
a long way

think how far
you've come

to find
this one.

Bart Solarcyzk, LR #123

I chose not to use any haiku per se for this particular reading simply because the ones I was considering didn't make the final cut, though I did feature a number among my own poems (since it is the form I most exclusively write in these days). There were a number of great readers that evening, particularly Renée Alberts, Nikki Allen, and Jerome Crooks. I felt very fortunate to be sharing the stage with so many talented artists.

I guess I'm good for another 20 years.

the preacher's
hand gestures too...
summer trees

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Kooser's Valentines, Franz Wright, and Charles Simic

Had email from a local friend recommending some recent work by some of my current favorite poets. There is a new poem in the current New Yorker by the always interesting, deeply resonant Franz Wright, entitled The World of the Senses. The current Virginia Quarterly Review has 4 poems by Charles Simic featured, as well as an archive of things they have published by him, 3 of which grabbed me: An Address With Exclamation Points, Meditation in the Gutter, and House of Cards. All of them are well worth a look.

Someone I haven't connected with yet, until this month, is Ted Kooser. I'm not sure why; perhaps I had typecast him as a typical Midwestern poet, someone whose subjects and sensibilities are not things that often show up on my radar. In some recent reviews, I read about his latest collection, Valentines, and was intrigued. So when a copy came in for our "International Poetry Collection" at the library, I grabbed it. As he explains in his author's note, Kooser tells how he began sending out annual Valentine poems in 1986 to at first a select group of 50 women, the poems being printed on standard postcards. 21 years later, his list had burgeoned to 2600 and, he implies, all the printing and postage was getting to be a bit much. So the last card went out in 2007 and this book collects all the poems together, with one last one written especially for his wife.

The work in Valentines at once celebrates and transcends the genre of occasional verse. The poems are, of course, all relatively short since they were originally published on postcards and I have the feeling that different poems here will appeal to different people. I thought these two were quite good:



For You, Friend

this Valentine's Day, I intend to stand
for as long as I can on a kitchen stool
and hold back the hands of the clock,
so that wherever you are, you may walk
even more lightly in your loveliness;
so that the weak, mid-February sun
(whose chill I will feel from the face
of the clock) cannot in any way
lessen the lights in your hair, and the wind
(whose subtle insistence I will feel
in the minute hand) cannot tighten
the corners of your smiles. People
drearily walking the winter streets
will long remember this day:
how they glanced up to see you
there in a storefront window, glorious,
strolling along on the outside of time.




A Map Of The World

One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.



Needless to say, my sensibilities have been duly corrected and expanded. This delightful volume from the University of Nebraska Press is marvelously illustrated by Robert Hanna. If you are a Kooser fan, it is a must. If not, check it out and you might soon be.

Once again congratulations, go out to Jay Leeming; this morning The Writer's Almanac featured a wonderful reading of one of Jay's poems, Man Writes Poem. As noted previously, Jay has had 3 poems published in past issues of Lilliput Review.

Seems there is lot of poetry info this week, so here's one last note. Well worth reading is Robert Pinsky's column in Slate entitled Why Don't Modern Poems Rhyme Etc., in which he tersely answers typical questions about poetry with poems by William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Edgar Guest, Allen Ginsberg and more: no clunky exegesis for Robert! This will definitely strike a chord with (and perhaps provide a few ideas for) anyone who has taught a poetry appreciation class.

On to our tour of back issues of Lilliput. I've been struggling all morning with Blogger to get this post done and, at the moment, I can't seem to upload images so I'll eschew posting the cover right now (ah, finally got it: covers may be seen below) and go right to the featured issue, #95. #96 is a broadside by Albert Huffstickler entitled Pre-Dawn Cycle and, as such, not excerpt-able, hence the need to skip back to #95. This issue was originally published in April 1998, ten years ago this month. Here's a little taste of what was happening then:

from Poems to Eat and Say (from Octavio Paz)

Glowing butterflies:
one dreaming, one awake; all
of us tossed by wind.

Leonard Cirino

when the treetop sways
a thousand butterflies
stampede in me

William Hart

Quatrain

This moth fluttering against
the window screen. I could go on
killing 'til the end of time
and never be satisfied.

Greg Watson

And this final note from the incomparable Albert Huffstickler:

from Interim Notes

Those beautiful moments
I've sculpted from the past,
chiseling away the rubble
of conflict and sorrow.




best till next Thursday,
Don

Good News: Jay Leeming

This morning, congratulations go out to Jay Leeming, whose poem, "The Light Above Cities," was read this morning by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac. Jay's work has been featured twice previously on The Writer's Almanac : on April 10th and April 24th, 2006.

Seems there is just something about April besides National Poetry Month, eh, Jay?

Jay has also appeared a number of times in Lilliput, most recently with two haikus about his father in #149. His most current book Dynamite on a China Plate is published by The Backwaters Press.


Back again on Thursday,
Don