John Bennett: Small Press Friday

Photo by Tevaprapas Makklay

Paths to God - John Bennett

A Zen monk
on a
six-month
silent retreat
with a
smuggled-in
cell phone
& a
stock portfolio.   

A little something from John Bennett, who won't back down, who tells it like it is, and who has a low tolerance for BS.  Check out his work here at Hcolom/Vagapound Press and drop him a line @ dasleben@fairpoint.net.  I love his tribute to another small press icon, Kell Robertson, which you can find at the always in your face outlaw poetry network.  

John Bennett, who spends a good deal of his time doing what he notes of Kell: bringing Moloch to its knees. 



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

Artwork by Katsushika Hokusai

a monk beats his bowl--
by now a dent
in the mountain! 

 Issa

 translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don 

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Lillie poem archive

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

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Bart Solarczyk & Lisa Espenmiller: Wednesday Haiku #86

 Photo by Gage Skidmore

Before the day
turns hard
the cat's orange head

Bart Solarczyk

Photo by LoopZilla

long shadow
of morning's empty tea cup

Lisa Espenmiller

 Photo by Tevaprapas Makklay

temple tea--
the cat is served
too

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 138 songs

Gary Snyder & Allen Ginsberg: Selected Letters

Snyder and Ginsberg, Walking Not Talking

A spring night in Shokoku-ji

Eight years ago this May
We walked under cherry blossoms
At night in an orchard in Oregon.
All that I wanted then
Is forgotten now, but you.
Here in the night
In a garden of the old capital
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao
I remember your cool body
Naked under a summer cotton dress.
Gary Snyder

Allen Ginsberg - Father Death Blues

For those interested in all things Beat, a little something to brighten up a day: The Selected Letters of Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, as reviewed by Jeff Baker at The Oregonian.

Here's the publisher Counterpoint's blurb:

One of the central relationships in the Beat scene was the long-lasting friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Ginsberg ventured west in 1956 and was introduced to Snyder by Kenneth Rexroth, a mentor to the Beats and the man who knew everyone. Snyder, a graduate student in the department of East Asian languages at the University of California, was living in a tiny cottage in Berkeley, sitting zazen, making tea, and writing poems. He had already spent some time as a merchant mariner and as a solitary fire lookout in the Cascades. Ginsberg introduced Snyder to the East Coast Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, while Snyder himself became the model for the serious poet that Ginsberg so wanted to become. Snyder encouraged Ginsberg to explore the beauty of the West Coast and, even more lastingly, introduced Ginsberg to Buddhism, the subject of so many long letter exchanges between them. Beginning in 1956 and continuing through 1991, the two men exchanged more than 850 letters. Bill Morgan, Ginsberg's biographer and an important editor of his papers, has selected the most significant correspondence from this long friendship. The letters themselves paint the biographical and poetic portraits of two of America's most important--and most fascinating--poets. Robert Hass's insightful introduction discusses the lives of these two major poets and their enriching and moving relationship.

As Snyder more succinctly observed of their relationship: "I made him walk more, he made me talk more."

Yes, many an old fart's holiday list is now complete.


best,
Don

Buddha Beat: Snyder, Kerouac, and the End of the Beginning of the End

Two Beat items of interest: 1) the reemergence of the Beatnik Questionnaire and 2) a short but very deep interview with Gary Snyder, entitled The Koan Ranger. I first saw item 1 in a posting by the glorious Bookslut and then had it forwarded by a friend giving me a gentle nudge, the second comes courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

The Snyder interview is more Buddha than Beat: no, wait, that's the same thing or maybe not.

No, wait, that's Zen: is that Buddha and Beat or Buddha or Beat or Buddha or Beat or what?

Yeah, or what.

Ok, so there is a third Beat related item: one of my favorite sites since forever is Lit Kicks, which has morphed over the years and is now the Literary Kicks blog. It is always at least interesting and frequently much more. Check it out.

Yes, as you probably already suspected, there is a fourth thing Beat: since it ain't a poetry blog if there ain't no poems, here are a couple of haikus from one of the Near Perfect Books of Poetry. I decided to open Kerouac's Book of Haikus at random and here are three of the eight haikus on facing pages (now I lost the page and can't find it again to let you know - can you beat that?):


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

Just woke up
-----afternoon pines
Playing the wind

Ah the birds
--at dawn,
my mother and father

You paid yr homage
--to the moon,
And she sank

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

Right, four Buddha related items, three Buddha related poems. Not too shabby, and that's Beat thing number five.


best,
Don

Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
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PS pp. 146-147 ... I found it.