Scott Watson and Leo Tolstoy: Good and Evil

I'm a correspondent of fellow poet John Bennett, whose email distro list I'm on. Likewise, for another email correspondent and fellow poet, Scott Watson. In both cases, these two poets have an unblinking dedication to truth as they see it. It has been an honor to publish the work of both poets previously, in print (Lilliput Review) and online (here at the Hut).

A little while back, two emails arrived in my box, one right after the other, Scott's first and then John's. First, I read Scott's powerful, devastating poem, IN PREPARATION FOR LOOKING AT AN A-BOMB. The poem, parenthetically, asks two very specific questions.

In his email, John passed along a quotation from Leo Tolstoy (On Good and Evil), which he saw a couple of weeks back (at the time he sent me the email, it was a day or two before) on the Writer's Almanac. In the quote, Tolstoy asks and, in a very real sense, answers, Scott's more specific questions. 

I hasten to add that, in my mind, Scott's parenthetical questions were, in fact, rhetorical, Scott's sentiment being very similar to Tolstoy's own, all of which may be gleaned in his poem, if by implication.

Or it least my feeble brain made the segue. This may be a case of the reader, myself, being way off base. Be that as it may, I want to thank both folks for permission to reprint. See what you think when what they sent, poem and quotation, rub up, one against the other.

IN PREPARATION FOR LOOKING AT AN A-BOMB

[Why was Hiroshima chosen?]

600 meters above

on a mountain's peak

a Buddha bone--or

tiny piece of one--is composed.

Innumerable scenes

are collected here.

[No flash photography]

Eternal Flame.

A sudden enlightenment

burns away

rational. Irrational too.

[Why was the A-bomb made?]

This life we are

given took eons to evolve:

incinerated blink

of an eye gazing

Namu Amida Butsu

Mercy, compassion--

  fire blowing winds

      prevail

          nothing can be done

and it rains

  back

      human myth

              reasons

skin drips off mama melting river flames.

I move with you

  through this exhibition

      seeing slowly

          as a lifelong

              teardrop

                  death

to know,

  touch, feel

          how this can be.

There must be something wrong with me

      that is me too

          wanting to

              forget.

Reduced to this.

Scott Watson

8/2014

Tolstoy on good and evil...

"...In 1854, Tolstoy was promoted and sent to the front to fight in the Crimean War. He was horrified by the violence of war, and in 1857, he witnessed a public execution in Paris, which affected him deeply as well. He wrote:

"During my stay in Paris, the sight of an execution revealed to me the instability of my superstitious belief in progress. When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I."

~~~~~

not a devil
not a saint...
just a sea slug

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

Heart Sutra / Scott Watson

The following text was sent out by friend Scott Watson, from Sendai, Japan, to his email list.  Scott sends along all manner of material, keeping friends up to date with things lyrical, political (particularly the current nuclear situation), and biographical.  After this moving piece, he sent along some poems.  I asked his kind permission to reprint his news and to append one of the poems as I know readers of the Hut would be interested.  He graciously granted it.


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

HEART SUTRA

My daily correspondence begins after breakfast. Today there is an email from Mark in Nevada who is on his way to West Virginia to his grandmother’s funeral. Then I listen to music on Youtube, post Love, Devotion, and Surrender on Facebook. Possibly in some connection with Mark’s grandmother I find some sutra chanting and listen. It’s the hannya shingyo (The Heart Sutra).

This evening Morie and I have dinner with a former student at a Thai restaurant downtown. We take a subway part of the way home. We part with Keiko at Asahigaoka Station and get on a bus heading for Tsurugaya. An old woman, long white hair, boards with difficulty and sits in a red upholstered bench seat designated for elderly passengers.

Not long after we are on our way the woman’s shopping bag falls onto the floor. A teenaged boy standing in the aisle looks down at the bag, looks over at the woman. He thinks she is sleeping. He picks up the bag and replaces it one the seat next to the woman who is slumped against the bench’s back. From where I’m sitting I watch the woman closely to see if she is breathing. It is hard to tell. But all of a sudden her body slightly moves with a start. I’m satisfied that she is asleep.

At a bus stop in Tsurugaya a younger woman in a white coat is moving along the aisle towards the exit. She seems concerned about the elderly woman. I imagine that the younger woman knows that this is the stop the elderly woman gets off at; she tries to wake her. The old woman does not wake up. The younger woman reports this to the bus driver.

At the same time a man who is early old age, silver hair, gets out of his seat  and goes over to the old woman. He moves her upper body down along the bench so that he can perform CPR. He seems to know what he is doing. I get up and go to help, picking the woman’s legs up in my arms and holding them so that her body is level.

He asks if there isn’t something we can put under the woman’s head. I pass him a bag with a neck and shoulder warmer Keiko has given me. This goes under her head.

I mention that the Tsurugaya Open Hospital is just up the road at the next stop and that they have an emergency room there. The man performing CPR agrees and suggests this to the bus driver, but he has his mobile phone out and is about to call for an ambulance.  I take it that this is the procedure he has been instructed to follow.

The elderly fellow continues CPR and I continue holding the woman’s legs, at times massaging her hands where the thumb joins with the pointing finger. When I first do this I notice that her hands still have some warmth but while we wait for an ambulance crew to arrive her hands become colder. Her calves too.

Between 10 and 15 minutes later an ambulance and rescue unit arrives and their crews takes over. I can’t say whether going straight to the emergency room one stop away would have saved the woman’s life. Maybe. Maybe not. She would have been able to receive treatment 10 minutes sooner.

The ambulance and rescue unit crews carry the woman off in a stretcher into one of their vehicles. Meanwhile another bus has arrived and passengers from our bus transfer to that. Our bus driver will need more time to fill out an on the spot report.

Morie and I get off at our stop. I say to Morie that this woman’s is a good death. Quick and seemingly without pain. In her sleep. I tell her about listening to The Heart Sutra this morning. She chuckles.


--- Scott Watson

in my arms
all her goodbyes
unsaid

Scott Watson

The Heart Sutra

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






the master being dead
just ordinary...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Scott Watson: Three Poems

Photo by the Denver Post

Scott Watson in Sendai, Japan, sends along regular missives, updates and poems.  Some highlight grim news; others, such as one I received last week, contain some of his fine work which often challenges us all to look deep and hard within ourselves.  I was delighted when he granted me permission to share these with you.



Three poems from Scott Watson

securing a world against itself

police use clubs, flash bombs, hoses,

tear gas, guns. a world’s secret needs

securing, a world as it is, a world

that this way keeps itself.

neither violence nor nonviolence

change a world much. a world free

of itself is a free world.

OCCUPYING MYSELF


i’m preoccupied by

the way things are

before there was a me.


the world and not the

world. it does as i do,

lives as i live, dies.

IN THE PEN


we are arrested, imprisoned by a world, in a

world, from birth. some of us try to escape. some

demand reforms. some support harsh crackdowns

and death. i’m given a pen to celebrate life.

i’m armed against life with a pen.

                                               - Scott Watson


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


This week's featured poem comes from the Lilliput archive, issue #103.  Kitty Marie Sciotto's fine poem reminded me of another by Bashō, which I've included here, along with a 3rd by Issa to wrap things up or, more precisely, unwrap them.  Enjoy.

waitress
pushing back damp hair
in mid-step

Kitty Marie Sciotto

Wrapping dumplings in 
bamboo leaves, with one finger 
she tidies her hair  

Bashō

rice dumpling in bamboo grass--
skillfully the cat
unwraps it

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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News, Reading, a Quiz, and Some Poems

One of the folks it was a great honor meeting this summer in Seattle during the Haiku North America conference was Jerry Ball.  Here's a neat little article on him I thought folks might enjoy.

------

I'll be doing a reading this Sunday at Nico's Recovery Room to help promote a brand new book of poetry by Robert Isenberg.  The book is Wander and is published by Six Gallery Press.  Other folks reading and performing are Jason Baldinger, Jerome Crooks, Gab Bonesso, and Vince Eirene on Sunday night at 9:30 pm.

------

I ran across this poem in a volume of original poems and translations by Thanasis Makaleris.  This is a one of the translations:

Poetry
   In vain the poets endeavor
   To fill the empty space
   With their verses and images.

   Empty space returns
   Larger than before
   Seeking
   To be filled again

   Nanos Valaoritis

I've a real soft spot for poems about poetry.  I know, either you love it or you hate it.

I love it.

------

I've been reading a lot of Charles Wright lately, a first for me and quite a fine experience.  One of his recent volumes, Sestets, I'll be having something to say about in the near future.  For now, I'll just say fab.  What follows is a poem from another fine book of his I've been reading, China Trace, a much earlier work.  I highly recommend both books for anyone one who enjoys insightful short nature-tuned poems.


Reunion
   Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead.
   It has my photograph in its soft pocket.
   It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind.

   I write poems to untie myself, to do penance and disapppeaar
   Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.


-------

Finally, since identifying the poem pictured in artwork a couple of weeks back was a bust (offer is still open and here's a big hint: it's by Ferlinghetti), how about identifying the following photo?   Free 6 issue subscription to the first right guess posted in the comments section as to this gentleman's identity.
 

------

This week's poem from the archive comes from issue #179, May 2011, and is one of the fine translations of Santoka by Scott Watson.  Enjoy.

until my clothes dry

this grassy breeze

Taneda Santoka
translation by Scott Watson

the autumn wind
blows as if it knows
I'm an orphan

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Walking By Myself Again: Santoka, translated by Scott Watson

I have great affection for the various lyric renderings by Scott Watson of classic haiku masters such as Bashō and Taneda Santoka; in fact, I've published a few of his translations, as well as Scott's own wonderful poems, in both Lilliput Review and on Issa's Untidy Hut. Let it, therefore, be duly noted that there may be some bias here.

Just sayin'.

It gave me great pleasure awhile back to receive a copy of Walking by My Self Again, versions of Santoka, by Scott Watson, from Japan's Bookgirl Press, and now being distributed in the US by Ce Rosenow's Mountains and Rivers Press.

The abstract of this review is as follows: this is a book that belongs on the shelf of any Eastern poetry aficionado, a book that in its straightforward power and simplicity can turn the head of anyone who appreciates the essence, the core, of what drives a poet to scratch or tap or sing a few words into life.

Into life.

Scott's renderings bring an astute sensibility to a poetic task: translating a master poet. I have read enough Santoka translations to know that these are very different indeed, and, I am happy to report, different in a very good way.

Here are 5 one-lines renditions from early in the book



left as they fall tea flowers falling is all

whatever it all is it all is blossoming

in rain camellia flowers not yet falling

all day too noone came fireflies

able to meet again camellia in bloom

If I might be so bold as to call these perfect - these are perfect. Perhaps, they are not perfect translations - I can't argue that, I don't know the language. D. T. Suzuki might disqualify me from even reading the poem, so there is that.

So, you probably shouldn't be paying any attention to me.

However, these poems, as a meeting of the minds and hearts of Santoka and Watson, a dovetailing of the English and Japanese languages, these poems are as near perfect as someone who has no qualifications to say so can ascertain.

The first three are precise poems of the moment, a moment perfectly captured. Poem four isolates an all too pervasive feeling. Poem five is a fine blend of the human and the natural, each aspect, in its essence, experiencing the exact same is-ness so well delineated in the first four.

Another beautiful poem of the moment, as imagistic in its own way as the fine work of Buson is:

neither waiting
nor not waiting
moonlight weeds

I love the double negative of the 2nd hinge line, reminding me somehow of a Dutch door swinging both ways. The Way that is not the way is the way. Which way? This Way:

pine boughs all drooping hail Buddha

One does not often hear of the compassion of Santoka, certainly not as often as one hears of Issa's. Yet next is a poem full, over-full, with compassion for a fellow spirit:

it's that always-tied-nothing-but-barking-to-do dog

Oh, I remember what it's like to be tied up in the backyard like that, all day, everyday. You, too? To forget that is to forget our humanity, to forget everything, really. This is about your soul.

I believe I'll leave it there; to end on a note of compassion is, truly, not to end at all. The way that is The Way.


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


This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review, #171, from December 2009. Enjoy.

intricacies
of life
lines of ants
in & out
the grounded hull
of a cicada

David Gross

big caterpillar--
into the ants' hell
it has fallen

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Japan Nuclear Disaster Update: the Michio Kaku CNN Interview

Followup from our friend, Scott Watson, from Sendai, Japan, on the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan, in the form of a link to a CNN interview with famed nuclear physicist, Michio Kaku.  Not much more needs to be said if you truly absorb the facts as laid out here.

timing his death
extremely well...
the Buddha

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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A Certain Romance: Issa's Sunday Service, #85

Photo by Johann "nojhan" Dréo

The songs that comprise the Issa's Sunday Service list need to contain a direct reference to some element which most people would agree is literary in nature.  Some bands, whose subject matter is literary in tone or style, don't necessarily base their work on a literary precursor or make direct allusion to something literary and so don't make the list.  On occasion decidedly un-artsy bands make the list because of a specific allusion to some well-known literary fact.


Today's entry is at once literate and un-artsy.  Among recent bands, Arctic Monkeys definitely have a way with words and, if not strictly literary in tone, they are most definitely sharp.  They manage to be smart and pop-ish at the same time, no mean feat.  Today's song,"A Certain Romance," contains a simple name drop: Sherlock Holmes, one my favorite literary characters.  So the song's in.  Enjoy.

And, oh, yeah, as a live band they bring it.  Watch.

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

This week two poems come from Lilliput Review, #131 (an issue featured twice previously), which shared the same page since they riffed on a particular image or, more precisely, a particular portion of the visible spectrum.  Ah-hem.

Issa, too, has something to say about it. Enjoy.

behind the
shack-up
joint
leaves
reddened

Scott Watson

their red door
    of correct feng shui
       always locked

Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

downstream, the gate
to knowledge...
evening's red leaves

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Hear all 84 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

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Scott Watson: On Translating

I am privileged to be on a list of email recipents of the thoughts, poems, and translations of Scott Watson. Back in Lilliput issues numbering in the 120's and 130's, I published a number of Scott's renderings of haiku masters Taneda Santoka and Basho. In a recent mailing, Scott shared his thoughts on the art of translation. I was struck by them and thought you might be, too, so I requested permission to post his musings here. He graciously acceded to my request and, in addition, has allowed me to reprint the 5 translations of Santoka that were published in Lillie. I hope you enjoy this and the translations; I'm happy to say that I will be publishing two more Santoka renderings by Scott in a future issue.



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

Translator’s Words

Ten years ago I wrote: “There is neither rhyme nor
reason to my method here. Just that each poem I take
--from wherever I take it--one at a time and follow
wherever it takes me, and if feels like it is two lines I
put it in two lines; if it feels like two words, two words
are what it is. Some go to four lines, some three. It
depends on how I sense each poem with, as, and in my
life-and-death, my breath, words.”

Ten years later all that can be added is that continuing
along with Santoka the poems his poems start in me at
times feel as if there is a trickling as with the flow of a
brook only downward. A small and gentle waterfall.

Others seem to call for a single ink brush stroke across
the page. These are the ones with what I call the Zen
grammar, which is a label I use for lack of a better one
to describe his poems that use a possessive to modify
a possessive to modify a possessive and how such a
poem retraces itself to a beginningless beginning.

Some choose to call this simple ungrammaticality that
may be a result of Santoka being a lubricated with drink
when composingor editing his work, but I think not.
Drunk or sober, the challenge is to respond to those
poems as my own wordlife. That requires letting go of
whatever protocol or accepted language behavior one
may have picked up over the years at home or at schools.
One must be uninhibited. One has to go with the flow.

Back in the USA sisters Clara Wright and Marsha Benson
at elementary school class parties used to complain that
white boys can’t dance. But they’d dance with me. It’s not
just a matter of knowing the right steps. The words
eventually appear and feel to me as if they are the ones
needed, the words that seem to best respond as Santoka’s
poem lives through me. Dance to the music beyond
measure.

Much is intuition. A sense of things that comes out of the
blue. Though I can live, sense things, through the Japanese
language I can’t say that I’m an official expert. No
certificates adorn my walls. At times I need a dictionary
and at times, with Santoka, even a dictionary does not help.
I ask Morie. Sometimes she can help, other times she can't.
I’m not out to make versions that are grammatically or
technically correct. If Santoka’s original has a present
progressive verb form it doesn’t mean my version will.
Anyway no linguist to my knowledge has ever proved that
a progressive verb in Japanese is exactly the same as a
progressive verb in English. They’re just labels anyway.

English is not Japanese, Japanese is not English. I am not
Santoka, Santoka is not me. I don’t accept translation in
the sense that this is equivalent to that. I do what I can.

Scott Watson
Sendai, Japan
June 3, 2010

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


5 poems by Taneda Santoka as rendered by Scott Watson





falling leaves
deep deep seeing
Buddha

air raid sirens
one after another
persimmons are red

with the crowd around
a dead body
a sky without clouds

no matter news is
good or bad
spring snow

drizzling.
undying.

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


For some further thoughts on Santoka, check out my review Mountain Tasting here. And now, one from a third master, Issa:

dying to the beat
of the prayer to Buddha...
one leaf falls

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

"There are so many stories ..."

Cover art by John Bennett & Cornpuff

Last week was the anniversary of the birth of James Wright, one of finest poets America produced in the 20th century. His combination of moving lyricism and deep-felt sadness served as a model for some of the best 20th century poetry to follow. White Pine Press, which I mentioned in my last posting, has recently reissued the wonderful collection of prose/prose
poem pieces The Shape of Light by Wright. Most of the pieces in this book run from a paragraph to a few pages and center around an Italian journey. The following, in its entirety, is one two line sentence that captures the flavor of this resonating book:

Saying Dante Outloud

You can feel the muscles and veins rippling in widening
and rising circles, like a bird in flight under your tongue.

Also in my last posting, I mentioned the latest chapbook by Gary Hotham in the "Modest Proposal" series, Missed Appointment. Here a few of poems from that collection:

window, window...
the child pressing against
the rain

missed appointment---
late morning sun spreading over
the faded sofa

farewell party---
the sweetness of the cake
hard to swallow

Over the past two weeks, I've added 8 more issues to the Back Issue Archive, each containing 6 poems per issue, for a total of 11 issues. I will be posting more back issues to this archive on a regular basis for general reading and to give newcomers a chance to see what Lilliput is all about. Combined with the samples given in the 7 previous postings in this blog and over 30 postings in the old Beneath Cherry Blossoms (beware, pop-up zone) blog, there are now sample poems from nearly 50 back issues available.

Also, a page of Small Press Links has been added to the homepage this week in my regular effort to transfer over material from the old homepage. Do feel free to suggest other small press links, particularly to pages for Lilliput poets and mags that count themseleves among Lilliput's friends.

So, what is the title of this posting about anyway? Well, over the last few weeks I've been slowly going through Mary Oliver's stellar collection, House of Light, where I came across the following, from the poem Snake:

There are so many stories,
more beautiful than answers.

Frequently, I'm asked for the magazine's guidelines and, of course, I provide the usual, poems under 10 lines, a 3 poem limit per batch etc. But qualitatively, the above two lines might serve very well, indeed.

Finally, it's on to a selection of poems #134, which originally appeared in October 2003:

2003
Just before spring
the war begins

but - - ignorant - -

the pink blossoms
keep opening
their tiny fists

Judith Toler

what far off peace
some will war for--right here
a moon

Scott Watson

Rain at the window
wood doves of the morning's first
light. How long, how long?

David Lindley

a long sleepless night-
your voice on my machine
saying hello
again and again
while the rain softly falls

James Rohrer

Till next week,
Don

Sculptures of Silence & Thanks George

Today is the anniversary of the death of George Harrison. Most folks know the story of George as little brother, always tagging along behind Paul and John. But, when it came to music, though not as prolific, at his best he was every bit their equal. And his spirit was, and is, immense. From Isn't It A Pity:

Isn’t it a pity
Isn’t it a shame
How we break each other’s hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other’s love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn’t it a pity

Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we’re all the same
And because of all the tears
Your eyes can’t hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Now, isn’t it a pity

There is a new chapbook out by Franz Wright entitled Address from the Vallum Chapbook series out of Montreal. I've just read and done a work up of a review for the Small Press Review. It is a limited run of 200 and if you are a fan of Wright, this is his finest work yet. In fact, this is the best book of poetry I've read this year and I have read quite a few.

Continuing the tour through past issues of Lilliput, what follows is from #131, with cover art above by Christoph Meyer.

When the known
& unknown are
one what is there
but poetry?
~ Scott Watson


A Reply to Ars Poetica
A poem should …” says Archibald, and by
the third word has circumscribed our world.
~ Liam Weitz


I think there is a way
to sculpt silence.
Perhaps that’s what
poems are:
sculptures of silence.
~ Albert Huffstickler


Breakfast
A cup of sweet coffee
one salted egg
a side of salsa
glass of nouns
a bowl of verbs
several silent vowels
swimming in sharp consonants
~ Lonnie Hull DuPont


The Poetry Reading
Metal chairs, bad backs,
the cups of bargain wine.

Outside
cold mists travel the cedar grove,
stirring a hidden gong.
~ Suzanne Freeman

I continue to work on new issues, now long since overdue. Hopefully, some will begin to hit the mails in the next two weeks, the rest following shortly thereafter.

best,

Don