Helen Vendler, Peter Pauper, and the Meaning of Everything

Best to get the important stuff out of the way first: the Meaning of Everything. This should clear up everything nicely. If, perchance, there are any further questions, try here. Or here. Not quite: how about here? Surely here (which may be continually refreshed). How about a little old school? Perhaps a tad older? No? Yes?

Let this be the last word on that ... And now for something completely different ...

Every once in awhile, something will just leap up from behind a rock to scare or surprise the bejezus out of us. As I may have mentioned previously, in my paying job I spend a great deal of time reading literature reviews, most of which are functional at best and run of the mill most of the time. Word limitations are the culprit in many cases, so it is sometimes a pleasure to read lengthier work when time allows. This week I stumbled across a Helen Vendler review of a new book by Charles Wright in the New York Review of Books (March 6, 2008). Always insightful, Vendler manages to at once balance particular detail with the larger picture of Wright's career to make for pleasurable reading in and of itself. In the midst of her precise, lyrical explication the following arrested me in mid-work mode:


"Like Yeats, he (Wright) thinks that each of us, poet and non-poet, must invent the unfolding choreography of his own life. The choreography that non-poets trace is a virtual poem---the same, although silent, as the spoken poem of the writer."


And the review continues from there. It felt like one of those emergency early warning system tests one still hears occasionally on the radio (on the what?), only this one came in the middle of a book review. Followed by the new Tommy James and the Shondells song. This has only been a test. Ms. Vendler now returns you to your regular work mode. And somehow that Tommy James song just never sounds the same.

In the midst of a rather busy week and a 12 hour work day Monday, shuffling between two jobs, I managed to pick up a little something to read in the off free moments while grabbing a bite etc. I was looking for something light (weight-wise; I had a two mile walk ahead) yet filling. And I ran across one of the old Hallmark editions of haiku on the library shelf, as pictured above, so gave it a go. It reminded me of how, for so many people, the first introduction to Asian poetry came in the form of these Hallmark/Peter Pauper editions, many of which were charmingly illustrated:




What is most impressive about this particular volume, Silent Flowers: a New Collection of Japanese Haiku Poems, is the fact that the translations are by the master haiku sensei, R. H. Blyth, whose 4 volume magnum opus on the haiku is still the standard that translation should be measured against. Here are a few examples from the patron of this site, Issa:



Just simply alive,
Both of us, I
And the poppy

A world of grief and pain:
Flowers bloom;
Even then ...

"The peony was as big as this"
Says the little girl,
Opening her arms.

Reflected
in the eye of the dragon-fly
The distant hills

Spring begins again;
Upon folly,
Folly returns.

Cover by Cornpuff

This week we arrive at Lilliput #146, from October 2005. Hope something from these samples grabs you. As always, copies of this and any other back issues are available for one buck each, less than a pocketful of change.

the tall trees remind me

how much less I could say

than I do

Constance Campbell

field of sunflowers

far as the eye can see

farther

Anne LB Davidson

Silence spreading
across the ridge
after the hawk

Carl Mayfield

To Rise

Lily buds
curve,
hum
secrets.
Again,
o wet pale loop of swan's logic.

James Owens

Autumn wind -
sidewalk leaves whirling
a perfect enso.

Greg Watson

Finally, a bit of news. The contributor copies of the new issues, #161 and #162, will begin going out in the next two weeks, with the full subscriber run hitting the mails during the month of March. FYI, it takes about a full month to send the entire run out to subscribers, what with notes to be written, apologies to be proffered, and praise to be lavishly distributed.


best till next week,

Don