National Poetry Month and the Nature of Argument

As part of the celebration known as National Poetry Month, I think it's time to let the poems speak for themselves. So here are a few of my favorite poets, in no particular order. Reading a poem or two by each of them should help combat the persistent rumor that poetry is dead. Or will it? Of course, not many people know who Bruce Wexler is, but if Martin Amis says it's dead, who can argue? Or, really, who would want to?

William Wordsworth

Louise Glück

Issa

Mary Oliver

Gerald Stern

Amy Lowell

Allen Ginsberg

Audre Lorde

e.e. cummings

Langston Hughes

Sharon Olds

Yehuda Amichai

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman

Han-shan

James Wright

Charles Baudelaire - in sidebar

Li Po

Anne Sexton

D. H. Lawrence

Franz Wright

Cover by Bob Zark

Since starting a Lilliput blog back in July 2007, samples of most issues from #100 through #150 have been posted, with the exception of some broadside issues it would be a disservice to excerpt. Beginning with this posting, we're going to step into the way back machine and begin posting poems from #99 (October 1998) down. Here's a couple of tiny gems from #99:




I'm getting old now
I think I'll marry
the rain
and settle down

Albert Huffstickler

poetry
the flowering morning
broken away.

John J. McDonald

An Imitation of Hsü Kan (171-218 A.D.)
4.
Since you, sir, went away,
my tiny trellis shakes with grief.
Red Chinese poppies you planted last fall
grow like tears --- immeasurable.

Linda Joan Zeiser

Before the ride ends she wants to go again

Patrick Sweeney

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the one line poem? Till next week,

Don

Literary Kings by Late July: Issa's Sunday Service, #65

It's time for a first here at the Sunday Service: the featured song, "Literary Kings," is by an indie singer/songwriter.  Late July is the artist and she has new her EP, her first, entitled Side Swept.  If you've followed things around here lately, you probably recognize the name.  I've mentioned the website "Miss Late July" a couple of times regarding some excellent music (and musing) postings in recent weeks.  We connected over blues (MLJ thinks it might have been Sister Rosetta Tharpe) or Eastern poetry or philosophy (I was thinking Basho or Issa, but whadda I know).  Just yesterday she posted this powerful video of one of my all-time favorite bluesmen, Lightnin' Hopkins.

Obviously, I'm very glad we connected.  Her 5 song Side Swept EP is solid, indeed.  You can pre-listen to and download  the whole of Side Swept at the same place that you can make a donation if you do decide to download it.  It may also be purchased here.  I slapped dough on the virtual table and downloaded it and have been listening incessantly at home and on the mp3 player all week long. There's a real kinship between the small press and indie music.  Why not support a new artist like you'd support a new lit mag?  Still on the fence? Here's the video for "Literary Kings:"









Love the Kabuki-reminiscent death mask in the vid.  And the song with a literary title has a hook that just won't quit.

Thanks, MLJ, for representing when it comes to indies and for all the great music.  It'd be great for this song to start an indie trend here at The Hut.


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Issue #99 from October 1998 provides today's feature poem, by the artist and poet John Harter.  John, who used eccentric spelling and typed everything in caps, died a few years back, highlighting another level of meaning in the following:

I TURN ON THE LIGHT AND LEAVE

John Harter

Here's an extra poem from #99 for those of you who've been following for awhile, since John's poem already appeared here 3 years back.   This poem has the narrative quality and slightly surreal feel of many a fine poem by the excellent David Chorlton.  Enjoy.

Between The Lines

The minute hand waves from the clock
to say I am only time, do not take me so seriously,
and the waiting passengers distract themselves
by reading.  Late again, how quickly
life goes past, they say to themselves
while they skim the news, page after terrible page.
Only when the first of them stands on his briefcase
to deliver a speech does the fine print fly
from the paper as a flock of doves, each
with an olive branch in its beak.

David Chorlton

And, finally, because I seem to be thinking of dead friends quite a bit lately, here is Ringo, performing a song that now is forever linked with George, due to his lovely dedication at the concert for George.  Because of copyright restrictions on the concert, here is a different equally wonderful performance of "Photograph" from Ringo (check out the band).  Since I don't wish to forget what Ringo said and why I'm posting it, here's a photograph to look at:

at the sound of the sunset
bell...
wildflowers

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

PS Following up on a recent Sunday Service that featured "A Whiter Shade of Pale," here's a Bill Griffith comic take on that song from his strip this week (click to enlarge)

"The groom was strumming harder
As th' earwig flew away ...
When we called out for a hyperlink
Th' ghost lost his toupee"

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome: Issa's Sunday Service, #99

Verlaine & Rimbaud

The count up to #100 is now just one week away and I've been thinking a bit about what that selection might be.  But, of course, as usual, I get ahead of myself.

This week's selection comes from the master, who has appeared here a time or three: Bob Dylan.  And though one might not think about this particular song when thinking litrock, you just have to love these lyrics:

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

So the bard drags two other bards into "the scene," only to say there is no way he's going to compare their situation to his.

Harrumph.

That may be the verse that got the song on this list, but you know you truly are in the presence of a master when the pen flashes across the page, rhyming:

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Honolulu and Ashtabula!  I'm sure you don't need me to tell you it doesn't get better than that in a pop song.

Taking a decidedly left turn at Ashtabula, here's Weird Al to set "the record" straight about genius or genius on genius:





Yes, it is easy, so easy to throw around the word genius, but writing a parody pop song composed of rhyming palindromes - and making it sound good - well, I'll just leave it there.

For the nostalgic, rock's first "music video":




Finally, back to my opening ruminations: who to choose for #100 on the Litrock list? Well, it took a bit of a thunk, but I've got my choice, to be revealed next week. Wonder if anyone can guess, not the song, but the particular artist/band?

For those who made it this far through another rambly post, here's a challenge: name the artist that will be featured on #100 of Issa's Sunday Service, and you get a free 15 issue subscription to Lilliput Review (or a 15 issue extension for the terminally faithful).  First one who rings in with the right name is the winner.



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Today's selection from the archive is of two very different poems that somehow managed to share a page (with another poem between). The first is a John Harter poem I somehow overlooked when I previously collected some of his Lilliput work in a post.  The 2nd is a telling piece by Mark Forrester.  They come from Lilliput Review #98, July 1998.

NOR THE WRITER TALKING

OF SELF NOR THE PAINTER

PAINTING OF PAINT

John Harter

White Ash
What is it in the scent of wood
that reminds me of my father?
He was no handyman.
When my brother-in-law's
thick fingers ease
thin sheets of blond wood
over his table saw, the dark
supple blade sheds narrow splinters
of hard bone, pale and odorless.

Mark Forrester

a wood fire--
her shadow in the window
pulling thread

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 99 songs
Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Bug Powder Dust: Issa's Sunday Service, #98

Let's see, there are more allusions to literature, song and pop culture than is really imaginable in this one 7 minute Bomb the Bass song.  Here's a list of what I've ferreted out so far:

Bill Lee (protagonist, Naked Lunch), Beatniks, the musical Hair, Kurtz  (The Heart of Darkness), William Tell (Burroughs), Agent Cooper (Twin Peaks), Mr. Mojo Risin' (Jim Morrison of The Doors), Mugwump (creatures in NL) Exterminator (Burroughs short story collection, Cronenberg film of Naked Lunch), Interzone (early draft of NL), Annexia (place NL), Houses of the Holy and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jane (Jane Bowles),  black meat (drug in NL), Big Brother (Orwell), Ginsberg's Howl, Lulu/Top of the Pops (British pop star/TV show), Abbey Road (Beatle album, cover pic), Men at Work (Aussie pop group), "Waiting for the Sun" and "Spanish Caravan" (Doors songs), Serpent and the Rainbow (Davis book and film re: zombieism), Jeff Spicoli  (film Fast Times at Ridgemont High), The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (film!), Great Space Coaster (children's television show), and Dr. Shrinker (from a segment on the TV show The Krofft Supershow)

I didn't include any references that duplicate previous ones.  I'm sure that I missed a whole bunch in this song, but there you go.  Pretty incredible.  Bomb the Bass is new to me - evidently the collective name for the work of musician/producer Tim Simenon.  He says the name came about this way:

Though large sections of 'Beat Dis' were lifted off other people's records, the drums and bass were written by Simenon. It's a credo to which he's remained faithful to this day: he doesn't like to adapt rhythms or bass lines from other people. Programming them himself -- or having them played by live musicians -- is a working method that's essential to him: "It's how the name Bomb The Bass came about, because the samples were either scratched in live or sampled and looped on top of the rhythm section. So the concept was one of bombing the bass line with different ideas, with a collage of sounds. Bombing was a graffiti term for writing, like people would 'bomb' trains or whatever."

Here is a very different, very fine version of the same song "Bug Dust Powder":






Fine work, indeed ...

To ratchet up the vibe a notch, here is William Burroughs spoken word collaboration with Kurt Cobain titled "The Priest They Called Him" - this one gets a bit intense, even for ol' Cowboy Bill ...





There is a recent documentary out on Burroughs, William Burroughs: A Man Within, that was just recently released on DVD.  Here is something of a trailer for the film:





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This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review, #99 from October, 1998.   Enjoy.

recognizing the
emptiness

seeing it as
holy.

Mark Terrill

the holy man leaves
them behind...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 98 songs
Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Ed Baker & Tony Burfield: Wednesday Haiku #99

 Panel from Little Nemo In Slumberland by Winsor McCay

same old Holly
dreaming
in this morning's  fog

Ed Baker

 

 Art by Anders Zorn

her smile–
I miss the door knob
once, twice

Tony Burfield

Photo by Dodger

in dream world
was I laughing at a turtle?
winter seclusion

 Issa

 translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

   

PS. Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 154 songs

Haiku Canada Review

Today, I thought I'd share one of a handful of haiku journals that I really love: Haiku Canada Review. HCR is the publication of Haiku Canada, which is a society of "haiku poets and enthusiasts." The review publishes works by members and non-members alike, both traditional and non-traditional haiku, as well as haiku-related essays, haibun, linked verse (renga), and reviews. The issue I'm looking at also has 9 pages of haiku in French; I'm not sure if this is a regular feature. The magazine comes with a $25 membership and is, in my estimation, something of a bargain if you cost out how many good poems there are (and if you figure out how to do that, let me know). It is published 3 times a year in February, May and October, which means I'm at least one issue behind, reading-wise. In addition, Haiku Canada Sheets often accompany issues, usually focusing on the work of one particular member. More of that below.

HCR is edited by LeRoy Gorman, someone whom I have a great deal of admiration for as both an editor and poet. I've learned a great deal from studying his editorial eye over the 10 plus years I've been reading this magazine and owe a large debt to him for all the ideas learned and, I'm sure, stolen from his insightful approach.

The February 2008 issue is 58 pages long (counting the back cover, which I do since there is an excellent haiku by Natalia Rudychev printed there). By my approximate count, there are well over 200 poems here. Of the 200 plus I marked 17 as quite good, indeed, plus a linked sequence of 34 poems by Bruce Ross and Brent Partridge entitled "Another Heaven," which is one of the finest I've ever read (N. B. I am neither a fan of linked verse or of haibun in general, but HCR often shows me the error of my ways). Here's just a taste of some of the work:





hauling home
the Christmas tree bringing
the mountain with us

Tom Drescher

I AM - looking at stars through a straw

McMurtaugh

chicken coop
a sashaying coyote
and a thousand stars

George Swede

from a haibun:

------England
---sheep grazing
among gravestones

Chris Faiers

------ppp
---ooo
------nnnn
--dddd
-----sssss
-ttttt
-----aaaaaa
rrrrrr
------ssssss
-rrrrr
-----iiiii
-pppp
-----pppp
----lll
-----eee

McMurtaugh

From an article entitled "Wordmusic" by Gerald St. Maur comes this tanka:

With the sun behind,
you stand like a mythic swan,
the glare so blinding
I can't tell which is the way
to heaven or which to hell.

Gerald St. Maur

Here are three poems selected by the always excellent H. F. Noyes, from an article entitled "Old Age Haiku:"





Growing older
I have further to return from
when awakening

Willam Lofvers

A moment
left his deathbed
to give his
flowers water.

William Lofvers

old folks' home-
--the square of light
-----crosses the room

Michael Dylan Welch

I can't even begin to describe how beautiful the sequence "Another Heaven" by Bruce Ross and Brent Partridge (in mostly alternating verses) is, so I'll just tempt you with the first 6 verses:





lotus position
a speck of snow
on Buddha's thigh (BR)

the tip of a feather
brushes across a forehead (BP)

first real melt
a cat's muddy prints
from the garden (BR)

walking more lightly
in a haze of pollen (BP)

cloud after cloud
and up higher still
filmy day moon (BR)

like a breath– the sun
breaks into a dream (BP)

You can feel a narrative begin to develop as the poets go with each others work. Some sequences of this sort work at odds with each other (or amongst, when more than one other poet is involved), but as this sequence develops you feel the poets' egos have truly dropped away and the sequence and the poets are one.

Also, there is this beautiful one word poem that is at once humorous and, quickly upon the heels of laughter, resonant:

eyebrowse

Sandra Furhinger

letting go is the Haiku Canada Sheet that accompanied this issue and is simply stunning. A trifold 8½ x 11" sheet with 12 poems letting go is by one of truly fine purveyors of haiku in English today, Natalia L. Rudychev. Every single one of these poems spoke to me and, frankly, that's unprecedented.





silence between us. . .
cherry petals
in flight

Natalia L. Rudychev

the night of calling geese
longing to hear
the sound of my name

Natalia L. Rudychev

grandma's birthday
snowflakes fill the letters
carved into stone

Natalia L. Rudychev

nameless–
a stepped on flower
slowly reshapes itself

Natalia L. Rudychev

There is so much I could say about all this work, but that is not really the point of great haiku, senryu, renga and the like. Truly great work in the shorter Eastern modes allows the reader to participate in the creation of the verse itself; an essential element of the traditional haiku is leaving space for this type of participation to happen. In essence, the poem completes itself in the readers' mind.

What more could a poet ask of the work s/he creates? Here is the path to immortality, immortality of the moment in the moment: the teeny bud within the drop of dew.

If you are either a haiku poet or enthusiast, as stated above, Haiku Canada Review is an essential read. Over 600 poems for $25 a year?

Hmn, even I can do that math.



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This week, it's time to revisit Lilliput Review #19, from December 1991. 19 years ago. This tour of the archive is beginning to wind down. Originally begun as a count up from issue #100 back on July 17, 2007 at the old Beneath Cherry Blossoms blog, continued with a countdown from #99, it should finish sometime in the next 3 months. There are newer issues that I haven't covered (151 through 168) and then it'll be time to make a decision as to what direction the blog should take. Because of a lack of time, I haven't had an opportunity to link all the posts back into the archive but hopefully that will happen sometime. It has been really great to share 20 years of poetry with samples from nearly every issue published.

#17 contained some political rumblings - the first Gulf War had "concluded" earlier that year, but it was the beginning of the morass in which we find ourselves currently embroiled. Philip Waterhouse's short poem manages to cram in a lot of history and culture in 9 short lines and the mood seemed to echo throughout even the "non-political" poems in the issue:



Retirement

What say we all meet
for r&r at the Khyber
Pass with Cary and Doug.
Drink pink ladies concocted
by Gunga Deen. Dig for
meerschaum. Anything. To
get rid of this cloud
of planets buzzing around
inside our skulls.

Philip A. Waterhouse

Folk Woman Hatching

I am the woman inside
a woman inside
a woman
red-scarved
painted woman
shrinking smaller
and smaller
'til the eyes
disappear

Gina Bergamino

greek revival

while the old stones crumble
we find new forms of fucking:

parthenogenesis, & mouthless
children climb up from the ruins

with automatic eye shadow
blocking the scorched sun.

Ron Schreiber

Graveyard, Flatonia, Texas

Non-
returnable
empties.

Albert Huffstickler

not shrinking back
from the sunset...
wildflowers

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don