ed markowski: The Essence of Haiku

Pictured above is pop up by ed markowski, a lovely little accordion-style publication, #6 of vincent tripi's "Pinch Book Series from tribe press, published in 2004. ed sent this along with a parcel of other things and I enjoyed it very much. One poem, from which the collection takes its title, in particular grabbed me:

summer loneliness. . .
dropping the pop up
I toss to myself

ed markowski

This little 10 word piece got me thinking about a variety of things. First, I might have to retract my avowal of hating baseball poetry; I find that I've talked about this at heated length in three different past posts and, on reading ed's poem, it occurred to me that there is going to come a point when saying "Baseball poems are awful but you've got to read this one ..." is just not going to cut it anymore. It seems, perhaps, I protest too much.

Could it be that I just hate bad baseball poetry?

In thinking it through, one of the problems I have with baseball poems is the fact that the game is generally taken for a metaphor for life itself. It seems to me that when folks start futzing with metaphors of a metaphor, it isn't post-modernism: it's just plain ugly.

And yet and yet ...

I'm stuck with these baseball poems I really like. ed's poem resonates so well it positively hurts. Baseball is a team sport and here we all are, social animals. We have to cooperate to get by, to say nothing of excel. Catching pop-ups is one of the big thrills of baseball for the young and ed's protagonist here is alone and is forced to play by her/himself. S/he's throwing the ball in the air, perhaps pretending to be catching a long fly, and drops the ball. And this cuts in so many ways. Is it the catcher's lack of skill? Lack of playmates? Boredom, causing lack of attention? Of course, it is all these things, which is the beauty of the haiku form. The reader participates in the writing, the poet creating a telling resonance with enough space for all to bring their memories and observations and feelings.

Summer loneliness: there is none deeper when you are young, summer being the time you just longed and longed for and when it came and it inevitably disappointed, that disappointment was deep, indeed.

Still, it's all just a damn baseball poem, right? But somehow this poem was digging deeper, it was getting under my skin in some very personal, inexplicable way. The poem stuck with me. It just wasn't assimilated, analyzed, admired and filed away pleasantly: it seemed to be bubbling just on the surface of my consciousness, sometimes in thought and, perhaps, sometimes just below.

Then, a few nights ago, I woke up around 3 am, thinking these thoughts about this poem and it hit me: it was a particular summer, 1959 or 60, I think:

My best friend, who lived across the street from me, and I lived and breathed baseball. We played night and day and when we weren't playing we were talking or watching or listening to baseball. We used to go down to the local field, just the two of us, and hit pop-flys to one another, about all you could do when there was only two to play. Being 8 or 9 years old, we couldn't hit fly balls like adults and the result was we chased a lot of grounders or hit a lot of balls that fell short or went over the fielder's head and a lot of downtime was spent chasing the ball, waiting around for the next fly and chasing the ball.

So, it was always a thrill when an adult deigned to take us to the park and hit out to us.

One Saturday, his dad, whom I remember as having played some minor league ball, said he'd take us to the park, about a half mile away, and hit out to us. We were ecstatic. He did some little league coaching and even had a fungo bat, a special kind of light weight bat designed for repeated hitting and perfect for fly balls. We were set.

We walked down to the park and had a glorious hour and half to two hours and could not have been happier. His dad positively wore us out, not an easy task when it comes to a couple of 8 year olds. We started walking home.

We were about 6 or 7 houses away when I saw it: a sign in a wire holder, orange letters on a black background, FOR SALE. And it was up in front of my house.

What this did to an 8 year old boy, walking up the street with his best friend, after a dream-come-true kind of baseball afternoon, hardly needs to be said. In affect, our friendship ended right there, at that moment, in the hot rush of shame and fear and an awful crushing sadness. It was the beginning of an all-encompassing summer loneliness that I can feel fifty years later like it happened yesterday.

It was dropping the pop-up I tossed to myself.

Poetry is like that. If we let it in it can change our lives, it can make them richer in ways we can't even imagine. It doesn't matter if you're into haiku or epics or language poems or romantic poetry or whatever. I tell the lifelong learners in the classes on introductory poetry I occasionally teach that, for me, poetry is a way that I establish a dialogue with myself. The poet shares feelings, insights, adventures, ideas, images and we read them and compare what we have felt and thought and seen. We think about these things in different ways, from different angles, little dispatches from the poets themselves to us, little koans to help out in our everyday lives, ways to unravel knots maybe we didn't know we had, songs about how truly lucky we are or how we need to make ourselves and our worlds better places to be, ways to lift up and support our loved ones and friends.

I'm going to try and never say I hate baseball poetry again.

Thanks, ed, this one means a lot; ten succinct, insightful words, touching in ways you might never have imagined.

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

I had a number of things I was going to share this week but since I went on so long above, I'll leave them for another post. I did, however, promise I would mention one thing and it is well worth it. For those of you into outlaw, beat-style poetry, Klaus over at Outlaw Poetry and Free Jazz Network sent word along that there are some audios of the great Todd Moore, whose Dillinger Series is getting a bit of boost from the new Johnny Depp biopic, up on their sight here and here.

This week's sampling from the archive comes from issue #22, in May 1990, which was a broadside by Philadelphia area poet Louis McKee entitled Angelus. McKee writes beautiful, emotional verse, couched in everyday events and everyday language. He is a true small press wonder whom I admire a great deal. Here's a few short ones from the broadside, which is still available for a measly buck (9 poems) or a SASE if you're broke.

House Of Cards

Each room is a trick, held up
by the promise of another,
being too careful might be just
what it takes to bring the house down.

The Magic Of Eyes

You turned back
for a lasting look;
I am salt.
Something is wrong.

The Angelus

Stones are silent
but the stars are not;
it is easier to walk
with my head down.

And the master:

awaiting the stars--
does the grown man
feel young again?

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
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


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Brautigan's Near Perfect Book of Poetry: The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster

Richard Brautigan's The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster is probably his most read collection of poems and has been reader selected for the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list. It also appears to be the only volume of his poems, with the exception of his early fifties writings The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings (which contains some poetry) to still be in print. The Pill may be found in the omnibus volume Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar. However, most of his poetry may currently be found on line at richardbrautigan.net.

The Pill ... is subtitled "the selected poems 1957-1968 of Richard Brautigan" and collects previously published small press collections of his work. Here's the description from richardbrautigan.net:

In addition to thirty eight previously uncollected poems, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster included The Return of the Rivers (May 1957), all nine parts of The Galilee Hitch-Hiker (1958), nine poems from the Lay The Marble Tea (1959), seventeen poems from The Octopus Frontier (1960), and all thirty two poems from All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967).

Coupled with In Watermelon Sugar and Trout Fishing in America this is the one volume of Brautigan to get if there is only room for one on your shelf (or in your budget). A number of the poems in The Pill ... regularly show up around the net, which is testimony to the enduring quality of work that is sometimes viewed as whimsical and representative of a bygone era. They strike, however, a very deep emotional vein and have a universal appeal that speaks especially well to non-readers of poetry. Admittedly, they are not everyone's cup of meat; a great deal of his work does, however, resonate with me. Here's a taste:

The Beautiful Poem

I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
---about you.

Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
---affectionately.

Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
---feel beautiful.

Private Eye Lettuce

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man's imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of the world.
I think I'll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.

Haiku Ambulance

A piece of green pepper
--fell
off the wooden salad bowl:
--so what?

A Baseball Game
---Part 7

Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the 4th inning
an angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed
on second base,
causing the
whole infield
to crack like
a mirror.
The game
was called on
account of
fear.

So, what's so great about these poems? For me, with the possible exception of "Haiku Ambulance" (and I'd argue even for that), they balance a lightness of tone with a seriousness of subject that defies comparison. Of course, they are funny; when the laughter ends, though, the reader is left to wonder exactly what s/he was laughing at (or with). As an editor, I can tell you that people are still writing in the style of "A Baseball Game, Part 7" 40 years later. In fact, if there is any style that might be said to truly define the small press (as opposed to the so-called university"small" press), this is it. I get them submitted to Lilliput by the boatloads, have for the 20 years I've been doing this. Of course, there is one minor drawback.

Nobody, but nobody, writes this style of poem this well. It's like watching a trapeze artist - they don't call them artists for nothing - like watching somebody walk a high wire between two skyscrapers in a brisk breeze. Somehow you know they'll never fall, but everyone shouldn't even try.

In addition, the fact of the matter is I love baseball and it is precisely this consuming passion that makes me detest baseball poems. I can't abide them. I have a huge blind spot when it comes to them. I have to turn away. I'm at once embarrassed and repelled. What can I say?

Well, what I can say is I love this baseball poem, unashamedly, unabashedly, I love this poem.

'Nuff said.

Is "Private Eye Lettuce" really about the human science of naming, of the need for language and classification? The power of a single word is demonstrated here, turning a humorous poem dead serious, and then back again.

What kind of dressing you want with that salad, bub?

And, yeah, it's 40 years later and when's the last time you heard a man say he felt beautiful? Squeezed into a poem of a mere 24 words which also happens to contain the word penis, a word a poem rarely, if at all, contained back in the soon-to-banished uptight day.

It certainly could be argued that Brautigan himself was a victim of the transition from those up-tight days to an unimagined freedom, as were Plath and Sexton. But I won't argue it here. It all is simply what it is. Beautiful.

Beautiful poetry.

By a beautiful man who knew he was.

How about that, hey, bub?

best,

Don

Guest Post: Ed Markowski - Blue Collar Baseball

Forbes Field, circa 1900-1910, courtesy the Library of Congress

Back about a month or so ago, Ed Markowski sent me the following email that I asked his permission to reprint as a blog post.  He kindly granted the same, and so it was decided that this lovely piece of baseball-iana should appear on opening day, 2011.  Here it is in all its glory.

Hope you enjoy it.


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


Don

Loved the Pirates of the late 50 ' s to the late 70 ' s
from Harvey Haddix & Smokey Burgess to Roberto
Willie & Manny Sanguillen to Doc Ellis Dave Cash
& Kent Tekulve hands down my favorite National
League team & had they played Detroit in the WS
would have had a hard time rooting for the Tigers.
______________________________________

When I think of it can ' t help but wonder about the
blue collar connection between Detroit Pittsburgh Chicago ,
my grandfather & father ' s union activities & my loyalty
to the Tigers , Pirates , White Sox & Cubs . Oh , i liked
the Giants of Marichal , Mc Covey , & Mays well e nuff ,
but never as much as the lunch bucket teams .
______________________________________

& Don , go figure , on June 12th , 1970 , the only game ,
complete game , shut out , and no hitter ever thrown by
a pitcher tripping on acid while thrown in California ,
was thrown by Pittsburgh ' Dock Ellis . At that time ,
my heroes had already changed from Kaline , Clemente ,
Matty Alou , Ernie Banks , Ron Santo , and Bob Gibson ,
to Rennie Davis , Grace Slick , E Cleaver , Tom Hayden ,
The Dead , and The Doors .
_____________________________________

So you know Don , when Dock tossed all them zeros
in some crazy way the lesson I learned was that it 's
entirely possible & wise to keep one foot in both worlds ,
I realized that it was perfectly ok to have Bob Gibson
& Bob Dylan as heroes ..... Our minds are vast and endless ,
& there ' s room enough at the inn for everybody .
_____________________________________

Well ok , when Cor , Pizzarelli , & I were doing the
radio interview with Jimmy Roselli at Chautauqua I
recited .............


FACTORY WINDOWS
THROUGH A FILM OF GREASE & SOOT
OUTFIELD GRASS


and told Jimmy , " alot of the auto plants had baseball
diamonds on the plant property & they sponsored teams.
Well , I was working on the assembly line and I knew
my childhood dream was over when I looked out that
window on my lunch break & realized that the side of
the window I was on was the side of the window I
would stay on for the rest of my life .

After we did the readings , we went to this bar down
the road & off Chautauqua ' s property .

I sat next to Cor and asked ......

" Why didn ' t you send factory windows for the baseball
anthology ?

I said ......
" Because I wrote the piece two nights back in room 16
the Super Eight in Mentor , Ohio while I was eating a
ballpark frank & sipping a coke that my wife and I got
at a seven - eleven "


Cor said ......
" Factory Windows would ' ve been the best in the book . "

I said ........
" Cor , I wrote baseball for ten years , you know , it ' s
an old rabbit I can still yank out of the hat every now ,
then , and there in room 16 . "


Ed

zero zero after nine the blonde in seat 7 ignoring us both

Dog days     a white butterfly       knuckleballs  its  way  to  nowhere

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




playing their games
on the sly...
pale blue butterflies

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Masoka Shiki and the Cosmic Baseball Association

Following Thursday's post, I got an email from the intrepid Ed Baker, pointing out that Masoka Shiki was such a great fan of baseball that he was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Here's the link Ed sent along.

Which got me to thinking about a great site that's been around quite sometime: the Cosmic Baseball Association. I've linked here to the All-Time rosters page as the homepage has a little political flavor right now that might be confusing (though it is non-partisan) to start out with.

In fact, the whole site may seem a bit confusing, but I urge you to feel it first and think about it later. I recommend you just choose a team in the right hand column and follow the links try (try "Beats" first - actual team name: Dharma Beats). Once you get the flavor (and your mind starts drifting away like you were playing right field on a bright August afternoon with your ace on the mound), click back to the homepage and check out the links along the left hand side.

Finally, to put all this in proper perspective, Ed also sent along a link to an archive of Shiki's work from the University of Virginia that is well worth checking out.

Thanks, Ed, for stoking the cerebral furnace early on a Saturday morning ...


best,
Don

Talking, Writing, Teaching, Spewing, Loving: Another Week of Poetry

Cover art by Wayne Hogan

Though off from "work" this week, I've been busy with things Lilliput related, which include getting issues #'s 163 and 164 out in the mail to subscribers. Also on my plate, has been wrapping up an interview for Poet Hound, which covers a wide range of questions about the history of the mag, its focus, and how I go about doing what I do. Since Lillie will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2009, it was a good thing for me to sit, think about the journey, and what's ahead. The interview should be appearing at PH sometime around the end of the month. I'll keep you posted.

Dovetailing nicely with that project, I was also asked to write an article for Café Review, for their 20th anniversary issue, about how I select poems for Lillie. I'm working against a deadline, so that has kept me considerably occupied. The article is scheduled for January, but the deadline looms large. More on that in the future.

Two other fall projects that are gobbling up time like twin black holes are two sessions concerning poetry I'm working on. The first is an Osher lifelong learning one-shot class on poetry appreciation and this is the second year I've been asked to conduct it. The second is a new poetry discussion group I've put together with a fellow staffer at the library entitled "3 Poems By ... ." The idea is to have a poetry discussion group similar to typical book discussion groups, only focusing on 3 select poems by a given poet for an hour long session instead of an entire book of poems. The first session will be on Emily Dickinson, with future sessions on e. e. cummings, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, and others. We also will be doing one session entitled "3 Poems About," the subject being time, handled by 3 different poets. Both of these projects will be in the first two weeks of October and the clock is ticking.

When the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list hit the 100 milestone, Ron Silliman picked it up for his blog and this page got mighty busy, mighty fast.

As noted in previous posts, Acres of Books has lost its battle against closing (though gallantly championed by Ray Bradbury) to the Long Beach, CA, city fathers. Now, unbelievably, they have turned a jaundiced eye to the Long Beach Main Library and once again Mr. Bradbury has risen to the occasion. Maybe the mayor of Long Beach, the honorable Bob Foster, needs to hear from you.

Since I'm expelling angst, I might as well make a confession: I hate baseball poetry. Let me be clear: I love baseball, it's baseball poetry I hate. I've tried. I can't help it. It's just one of those things. But Jonathan Holden's poem, How To Play Night Baseball, from a recent posting at The Writer's Almanac, has put the lie to any type of definitive statement I was reaching for. This one's a beaut.

One final note before turning to this week's featured work from the Lillie archives; Jill Dybka at the Poetry Hut Blog has pointed to a nifty list, put together by Amy King, of Movies with Poetry. Check it out and if you can think of any that were missed, just add it in the comments section. I did.

Over the last couple of week's, I've been skipping around a bit in the archive and this week is no exception. The following selection is from issue #157, from August 2007, a year ago this month.

gentle,
the wish of not to wish

Sean Perkins

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

just squeeze into
----hollow sycamore
---------& close my eyes

John Martone

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

#374
Lying with my lover,
From the bed I see
Through the curtain
Across the Milky Way the parting
Of the Weaver and the Oxherder stars!

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

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

Be Still
This shall be the unspeakable:
Long after you've grown old
You will be the breath
Of a lion,
A basket of blue tears,
Landscape of dry reeds.
Your life shall float
Past the warm,
Slow river, skirting banks
Of black mud and straw

Jeffrey Gerhardstein

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

"nowhere & nothing" from the tao of pooh

time
patience
drift

one
flower/poem
after
another

Marcia Arrieta

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


Till next time,
Don

PS The Wayne Hogan cover above is supposed to be grey. Every now and then the scanner craps out. It is now.

The Book of Love: Issa's Sunday Service

  In case of wonky widget, click here    

Today's tune goes way down the alley, as B.B.King used to say: The Book of Love by the Monotones. Reportedly inspired by a classic toothpaste commercial. Since the Sunday Service has been dealing in weighty matters of late, it seemed to relax, kick back and just enjoy. 

The song is referenced in Don McLean's own classic, American Pie, in the line, "Did you write the Book of Love?" The great music site Songfacts notes that 

The banged drum in the first line of each verse (while that line was sung accapella) was not planned - in one of the first takes, a batted baseball struck the outer wall of the studio. When the take was played back, the group decided to keep the sound in the song. 

 

A fine spontaneous moment, the kind of thing that happens when the stars line up just right in the creative act. "Oh, I wonder, wonder ohm ba doo doo who -- BOOM! -- who wrote the book of love?" Boom, of course, being the baseball hitting the wall.

According to the All Music Guide, the group started at the Baxter Terrace Housing Project in Newark, NJ (demolished in 2009), where they lived. As noted there

They practiced in the project's recreation hall, inspired by acts like the Heartbeats, the Spaniels, the Moonglows, and the Cadillacs. They adopted their name from a previous group who already had it and were in the process of breaking up. The six friends and neighbors also began singing with the New Hope Baptist Choir, along with other choir members Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, Judy Clay, Cissy Houston, Leroy Hutson (of the Impressions), and several of the Sweet Inspirations. Houston was the choir director and Dionne and Dee Dee were cousins of Jim and Charles Patrick (leader of The Monotones).

That's some incredible collection of talent, all in one church choir. 

In the category of literary rock and roll, interestingly one of the Monotones subsequent unsuccessful follow up songs was "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", which certainly of its own accord qualifies for the LitRock list. But all that's literally another story.


--------------------  

Photo by Straitic

 

the old dog
looks as if he's listening...
earthworms sing

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

 
best,

Don   

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Between the Chimes: Charles Trumbull

Wise, gentle, funny, and humble: that's some tall order in one poetry collection and #23 in the Hexagram Series from King's Road Press, Charles Trumbull's Between the Chimes, fits the bill..   Though a brief chapbook, at 14 pages with 32 poems, it displays all the qualities mentioned and is, indeed, very fine as a result.

Trumbull deals in everyday things, with an easy, often self-deprecating humor, reminiscent of Master Issa himself.  Like Issa, some of the poems are plainly what they are; others resonate far beyond their apparent subject.  Here's one with all those elements:

thinking deeply
about my principles—
a wave collapses

The poet's revelation is right on the page: the wave crashes, being as deeply philosophical as will ever be necessary in this life, snapping the poet to attention.   The spirit of haiku comes from a deep, meditative-like attention to things and, when that attention wanders, frequently, if we are lucky, nature calls us back.

There is a haiku about baseball, a subject I formally hated for poetry (until straightened out by Ed Markowski), two about graveyards, and another about elections.   Election Day, it seems to me is a "holiday" which often is captured wonderfully in haiku - somebody should think about a small collection of election poems someday, if it hasn't been already done.

line drive to center
all faces turn toward
the sunflower field

This poem is exactly why I was wrong about baseball and haiku.  What a beautiful little piece, drawing us into the nature element of the national past time and making sure that people know exactly what they are like.  For some reason, probably obvious, I thought about the delicious tennis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.

nearly dusk . . .
the shadow of her tombstone
reaches his

One of two graveyard poems, "nearly dusk" is probably my favorite in the book.   It is at once literal, figurative, heart-wrenching, and lovely.  Also possibly dark, creepy, horrific and more.  It's your half glass of water: choose.

election posters
a neighborhood dog
marks his choice

Really, someone should do a small collection of election day poems.  This one is a beaut and would deserve a prominent place.

on my copy of
Robert's Rules of Order
a dried speck of blood

Somehow, this poem feels like it should have been placed (by me) before the graveyard poem.  One of the great virtues of these poems is their truth - they have a quality of the found poem about them, a satori-like state again in that true spirit of haiku of which this is a good example.   Also, in this case, it happens to be very funny, especially for anyone who has had to suffer through emotionally charged meetings governed by the thin veil of civilizing influence which Robert's Rules provides.

grocery line—
the dancer's feet
in fourth position

This fine ku catches the poet in the attentive mode - how often we miss the details in everyday mundane tasks such as standing in line, as suggested above in the wave poem.   A perfect little moment here.

pansies      we smile back

This is another personal favorite - plainly stated.  Four words, one moment, universal - live in it, dwell there, it's eternity.

between
the chimes of the clock
shooting star

Again, another moment ensnared, a suggestion of time stopped, if just for an instant. One might think of this as the unmeasured moment. This is the heart of haiku, the heart of life, the breath held, in, out, rest ... live.

It is noted in the prefatory material that the cover image for the chapbook is Hexagram 10, from the I Ching, entitled "Treading Carefully."  Here is the explication:

When treading upon the tail of a tiger, if it does not bite you have success.  For the weak to take a stand against the strong is not dangerous if it happens in good humour.

Looking back over the book and the poems highlighted in this post in light of the hexagram is potentially instructive.  The hexagram gives fair warning, and also a potential approach to a hostile environment.  Humor is a key; backing down not a particular option.

As another bard so aptly put it, "it's life and life only."


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


This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review, #177, December 2010.  Enjoy.

end
  I pull up a weed
  to find at bottom
  a heart rough
  and split
  earth dangling
  green
  shooting out

Christina Manweller

traveling geese--
the human heart, too
soars

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Lyric for a Lazy Sunday Afternoon: Richard Brautigan

Photo by Alexander Rapp

"A Baseball Game" Part 7

Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the fourth inning
and angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed
on second base,
causing the whole infield
to crack like
a huge mirror.
The game was
called on
account of
fear.

   - Richard Brautigan

Photo by Schyler

lying down
it looks like a handball...
spring mountain 

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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1959: Issa's Sunday Service, #161

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I really can't go very long without revisiting the Patti Smith: she is known as the high Poetess of Rock for good reason. Today's song, 1959, is a bit of a history lesson from a counterculture point of view. Certainly the year was pivotal in so many ways. Here are some random facts from that year, courtesy of Wikipedia and HistoryOrb.com (a bit of an indulgence, yes, but an informative one):

• In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana.
• Motown Records founded by Berry Gordy, Jr.
• Pope John XXIII announces that the Second Vatican Council will be convened in Rome.
• Swiss males vote against voting rights for women.
• A chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper and pilot Roger Peterson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all 4 occupants on board.
• Recording sessions for the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis take place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City.
• Recording sessions for the influential jazz album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis take place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City.
• Two monkeys, Able and Miss Baker are the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18.
• Groups of Kurdish and communist militias rebelled in Kirkuk, Iraq against the central government.  
• At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, United States Vice President Richard Nixon and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev engage ine the "Kitchen Debate".
• The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public.
• Typhoon Vera hits central Honshū, Japan, killing an estimated 5,098, injuring another 38,921, and leaving 1,533,000 homeless. Most of the victims and damage are centered in the Nagoya area.
• The first official large unit action of the Vietnam War took place when two companies of the ARVN 23d Division were ambushed by a well-organized Vietcong force of several hundred identified as the "2d Liberation Battalion".
• Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev meets Mao Zedong in Beijing.
• The 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China is celebrated with pomp across the country.
• Rod Serling's classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS.
• The U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 sends back the first ever photos of the far side of the Moon.
• Riots break out in the Belgian Congo.
• The Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas is brutally murdered, inspiring Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
• MGM's widescreen, multimillion dollar, Technicolor version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, is released and becomes the studio's greatest hit up to that time
• The first known human with HIV dies in the Congo.
• Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Theodore Roethke
• Texas Instruments requests patent of IC (Integrated Circuit)
• Vince Lombardi signs a 5 year contract to coach Green Bay Packers
• Boston Celtic Bob Cousy sets NBA record with 28 assists Boston Celtics score 173 points against Minneapolis Lakers
• Iran & US sign economic & military treaty
• Iraq & USSR sign economic/technical treaty
• Uprising against Chinese occupation force in Lhasa Tibet
• Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India
• "Raisin in the Sun," 1st Broadway play by a black woman, opens
• Oklahoma ends prohibition, after 51 years.
• Vatican edict forbids Roman Catholics for voting for communists
• Pulitzer prize awarded to Archibald Macleish
• "Kookie, Kookie Lend Me Your Comb" by Byrnes & Connie Stevens hits #4
• Japanese-Americans regain their citizenship
• Presbyterian church accepts women preachers
• 1st house with built-in bomb shelter exhibited
• Harvey Haddix pitches 12 perfect innings, loses in 13th
• Allen Ginsberg writes his poem "Lysergic Acid."
• Bob Dylan graduates Hibbing HS in Minn.
• Postmaster General bans D H Lawrence's book, Lady Chatterley's Lover
• 1st telecast transmitted from England to US
• "West Side Story" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 734 perfs.
• Dr Leakey discovers oldest human skull (600,000 years old).
• William Shea announces he plans to have a baseball team in NYC in 1961.
• "Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis," debuts on CBS-TV
• Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to US.
• 12 nations sign treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica
• 1st color photograph of Earth from outer space
• Citizens of Deerfield Ill block building of interracial housing
• Richard Starkey receives his 1st drum set

Here's Patti's take, desolation angels and all, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times:

1959 

Listen to my story. Got two tales to tell.
One of fallen glory. One of vanity.
The world's roof was raging, but we were looking fine;
'Cause we built that thing and it grew wings,
in Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

Wisdom was a teapot; Pouring from above.
Desolation angels
Served it up with Love.
Ignitin' strife like every form of light,
then moved by bold design,
slid in that thing and it grew wings,
in Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

It was Blood, shining in the Sun;
First: Freedom!
Speeding the american claim:
Freedom; Freedom; Freedom; Freedom!

China was the tempest; And Madness overflowed.
The Lama was a young man,
and he watched his world in flames.
Taking Glory down by the edge of clouds;
It was a cryin' shame.
Another lost horizon. Tibet the fallen star.
Wisdom and compassion Crushed, in the land of Shangri-La.
But in the land of the Impala, honey, well,
we were lookin' Fine,
'cause we built that thing and it grew wings;
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.
'Cause we built that thing and it grew wings;
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

It was the best of times, it's was the worst of times;
In 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959.
It was the best of times; It was the worst of times.
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine. 

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

And here's a near perfect live take:

 

       

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

 

Artwork by Ion Theodorescu-Sion

 

spring's first dawn--
the priest pretending
to sweep

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don 

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Gerald Stern on W. H. Auden

Cover by Oberc

This past Sunday, February 27th, was the birthday of a personal favorite here at Issa's Untidy Hut: Gerald Stern. Stern was born in Pittsburgh, which has been my home for the last 18 years, and lives in New Jersey, where I was born and raised. Much of our non-mutual time was spent in the same haunts in Jersey, New York, Philly, and Pittsburgh. His imagery is familiar, I might almost say familial, an imagery that is spot-on in both detail and emotional sagacity. I won't belabor the point, as I've covered much of this territory in past posts.

Happy birthday, Gerald. Wishing you all the happiness you have so generously given others in the sharing of your work and life.

Yesterday, I noted the recent anniversary of W. H. Auden's birth. I thought it might be nice to dovetail these birthdays together with a poem by Gerald Stern in memory of W. H. Auden. It's a bit longer than I usually post here, but a lyrical, insightful homage.

In Memory of W. H. Auden

I am going over my early rages again,
my first laments and ecstasies,
my old indictments and spiritualities.
I am standing, like Schiller, in front of Auden's door
waiting for his carved face to let me in.
In my hand is The Poem of My Heart I dragged
from one ruined continent to the other,
all my feelings slipping out on the sidewalk.
It was warm and hopeful in his small cave
waiting for the right word to descend
but it was cold and brutal outside on Fourth Street
as I walked back to the Seventh Avenue subway,
knowing, as I reached the crowded stairway,
that I would have to wait for ten more years
or maybe twenty more years for the first riches
to come my way, and knowing that the stick
of that old Prospero would never rest
on my poor head, dear as he was with his robes
and his books of magic, good and wise as he was
in his wrinkled suit and his battered slippers
—Oh good and wise, but not enough to comfort me,
so loving was he with his other souls.
I had to wait like clumsy Caliban,
a sucker for every vagueness and degeneration.
I had to find my own way back, I had to
free myself, I had to find my own pleasure
in my own sweet cave, with my own sweet music.
--Once a year, later even once a month,
I stood on the shores of Bleeker and Horatio
waving good-bye to that ship all tight and yare
and that great wizard, bobbing up and down
like a dreaming sailor out there, disappearing
just as he came, only this time his face more weary
and his spirit more grave than when he first arrived
to take us prisoner on our own small island,
the poet I now could talk to, that wrinkled priest
whose neck I'd hang on, that magician
who could release me now, whom I release and remember.

Gerald Stern

And, since it is his birthday, here's a beautiful, touching, resonant, celebratory, and tragic piece of wonder, that high steps to all the right notes, perfectly pitched:




The Dancing

In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture
and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots
I have never seen a postwar Philco
with the automatic eye
nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did
in 1945 in that tiny living room
on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did
then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,
my mother red with laughter, my father cupping
his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance
of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,
half fart, the world at last a meadow,
the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us
screaming and falling, as if we were dying,
as if we could never stop — in 1945 —
in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home
of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away
from the other dancing — in Poland and Germany —
of God of mercy, oh wild God.

Gerald Stern

Though all of us wish an end to the long, senseless wars that rage on, perhaps none of us will ever dance as those who danced on that day in 1945.


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


If it's Tuesday, it's time for a dip into the Lilliput Review Back Issue Archive. This week it's issue #51, from December 1993. As I've mentioned previously, the further back in time we go, there is a noticeable change in tone and approach. This issue, I think, reflects this more than most. The sampling opens with a powerful piece by the excellent poet and Vietnam vet, Bill Shields.

dead poem #9

in the night
I'm my dream

my enemy

rabid dogs
suck my wet fingers

headless children sit in a circle
of chairs around my bed stomping their feet

as the mattress burns
the worms flow

my face
fills

out

Bill Shields

what dostoyevsky might have meant

-----------as
-----------dead dogs die

-----------let's
-----------shiver

-----------for
-----------them

------------Todd Kalinski

Orphans Adopting Themselves

from our fathers
we inherit feet
from our mothers
long arms

we walk away
always reaching back

Robert S. King

So It's Sometimes Said

Big Apple celebrityites
are to the ontological plenitude
of quotidian propinquity as
Arnold Schwarzenegger (minus
Great Garbo) are to the
ruck of humanity. Or so
it is sometimes said.

Wayne Hogan

Listening
Where there is nothing to hear
And no listener

James J. Langon

Issue #51 was dedicated to the memory of frequent contributor and correspondent during Lillie's first four years, Beatrice George. It's been almost 16 years since her passing.

This is still for you:

Something in the slight spring
of the branch
as the bird
alights —

best,
Don