Friday Morning with Po-Chu-i

For any number of years, the book The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Literature has sat leisurely at my bedside for me to dip into at fancy and whim.  What this approach to an anthology loses in continuity is made up for with the element of surprise: I pick up the volume and am on occasion taken back by the power and wisdom of much of the work found there.   Edited by Robert Payne and originally published in 1947, it's pocket book size somewhat makes up for its old school approach (I can't tell you how many doctor and dental appointments its accompanied me to, only to find its way back to the pile beside my bed).  Here's a little beauty I ran across a few nights ago:

The Harp

   I lay my harp on the curved table,
   Sitting there idly, filled with emotions.
   Why should I trouble to play?
   A breeze will come and sweep the strings.

                  Po Chu-i
                  translated by Chang Ti

This translation's virtues are many, not the least of which is the ambiguity of the 2nd line.   The ennui here should certainly appeal to most poets and just as assuredly describes the universal human condition.

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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #164, originally published in July 2008.  By the outstanding UK poet David Lindley, whose work has been featured many times over the years, this little is a reminder about something we who are not bodhisattvas are constantly doomed to repeat.

in imitation of a poem by Ishikawa Jozan

   Cherry blossom scattered
   on the lawn at evening.
   The spring and I
   both feel old.
   I can't say
   you betrayed me.
   When the blossom
   was on the tree
   it was I who
   forgot to look.

David Lindley

cherry blossoms scatter
snap! the buck
twists off his horns

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Louis Jenkins: Before You Know It

Prose poetry is an anomaly to the casual reader.  What exactly makes it a poem or, more precisely, what exactly is a prose poem?  There are no quick or easy definitions.  I think of prose poetry as supercharged language, as hyperkinetic and compressed in both image, idea, and execution.

Then again, that might be the definition of any good poem.  In any case, the work of Louis Jenkins meets all the above criteria and more.

My introduction to Jenkins came via a poetry friend and subscriber to Lilliput Review, who queried me one day if I would be interested in reading a volume of prose poems, one of her favorites, entitled Before You Know It: Selected Poems 1970-2005 by the poet Louis Jenkins.  She even offered to send me her personalized copy and so I took her up on it.

Louis Jenkins is a marvel of a prose poet, dealing exclusively in that form.   He has been featured any number of times on The Writer's Almanac with fine work, including "The Couple" and "The Speaker."  The site, Your Daily Poem, has also highlighted his work from Before You Know It, including "Driftwood."

Jenkins is at once imaginative, dark, humorous, and mysterious, as well as being always inventive.  On the surface, his style has a linear bent, which masks a cyclical intent.   At its very best, his work has a certain uncanny quality, a probing at essence, too often missing in poetry.  If there is a prose analog to his work it might be found in the magnificent fiction of Steven Millhauser, one of the few postmodern fiction writers I can get on board with precisely because of an attention to detail and loving description, to say nothing of a pervasive lyrical tone, akin to the poems of Louis Jenkins.



First Snow

By dusk the snow is already partially melted. There
are dark patches where the  grass  shows  through,
like islands in the sea seen from an airplane. Which
one is  home?   The one I left as a child?   They all
seem the same now. What became of my parents?
What about  all those  things I  started  and  never
finished?   What were they?   As we get older we
become more alone.   The man and his wife share
this gift.   It is  their breakfast:   coffee and silence,
morning sunlight.   They make love or they quarrel.
They  move  through  the  day,   she on  the  black
squares, he on the white. At night they sit by fire, he
reading his book, she knitting.   The fire is agitated.
The wind hoots in the chimney like a child blowing
in a bottle, happily.

In A Tavern

"It's no use,"  he says,  "she's  left me."   This is after
several drinks.  It's as if he had  said,  "Van Gogh is
my favorite painter. "It's a cheap print he has added
to his collection.    He's been  waiting  all evening to
show it  to  me.   He  doesn't  see  it.  To him it's an
incredible landscape, empty,  a  desert.   "My life is
empty."   He likes the simplicity.   "My life is empty.
She won't come back."    It is a landmark,   like the
blue mountains  in  the  distance  that  never change.
The crust  of  sand  gives way  with  each step,  tiny
lizards skitter out of the way ....  Even after walking
all day there is no change  in  the  horizon.    "We're
lost," he says.   "No," I say,  "let's go on."   He says
"You go on. Take my canteen. You've got a reason
to live." "No," I say, "we're in this together and we'll
both make it out of here."

                                                      Louis Jenkins

 

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This week's selection from the Lilliput Review archive includes two fine poems from #139, October 2004.  Enjoy.



in this old photo
see me standing in the shadow
of my father
ash, he casts no shadow now
and I struggle for light

Jeanne Lupton

Child
  Child
  you are just beginning
  to learn the lessons
  that finally
  I have unlearned.

  David Lindley

parentless
I only have my shadow...
autumn dusk

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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A Little Treasury of Haiku: Part 1

A Note: I began this post, thinking I would cover all I needed to and be done, but as I progressed it just got longer and longer.  As a result, I thought to spare you all the simultaneous misery and irony of a lengthy piece on such a brief book, so I've decided to split it in (at least) two.   Part II will, hopefully, be next week and if it goes on much longer, scream mercy and click away.

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Some time back, in the comments section to a post, we got to discussing the translator Peter Beilenson and the fine work he did for a number of publishers, in particular the Peter Pauper Press, which was almost singlehandedly responsible for introducing, at very modest prices, an entire generation of the uninitiated to haiku.   During that discussion, I promised I would take a look at the volume A Little Treasury of Haiku, and so that time has arrived.

Since it was a volume I didn't have and I'd seen in at the library and was impressed, I purchased a very nicely rebound, if somewhat foxed at the edges, used copy for a reasonable price and dug in.  My first pass through I marked, as is my custom, poems for a 2nd and 3rd review, in this case 75 of the over 440 translated.  The volume consists of a generous selection of poems by the four cornerstones of classic haiku, Issa, Bashō, Shiki, and Buson, as well as a nice cross-section of haiku by other classic haiku poets.

              One fallen flower
Returning to the branch? . . .  oh, no!
              A white butterfly

                       Moritake

I can never resist Moritake's little haiku, no matter who is the translator.  This is a fine version of a wonderful little ku.

      Hi!  My little hut
Is newly thatched I see . . .
     Blue morning-glories

                 Issa

I like the colloquial flavor of this rendition, capturing the playful poet's voice as I've often imagined it.  He thrusts us right in the moment with his exclamatory "Hi!," the reader experiencing the surprise along with the speaker at the same time.  Of course, I had to include it since this is where the blog gets its name - a nice coincidence certainly that the poem is very good.

     Twilight whippoorwill . . .
Whistle on, sweet deepener
     of dark loneliness

                     Bashō

The drawback of reading haiku in translation is obvious; we've often been told by classical scholars that we can never truly understand Japanese haiku.  We are too removed from the culture, from the subtly, from the language, to even come close to understanding.

However, the upside, it seems to me, is also obvious; if a great poet like Bashō wrote 2,000 some poems (and Issa wrote over 20,000) and 5 decent translators have renditions readily obtainable in English, there are 10,000 Bashō poems to read.  I'll often lay a number of different versions side by side and, as the blind man and the elephant, try to get a picture as I move round and round, catching an angle here and a glimpse there.

As long as I avoid provocation and those big feet, I start to get a bit of an idea, sight or no.

Which is my characteristically long way round saying I feel I've never read this whippoorwill poem before though I know I must have, at least 3 or 4 times, and I am extremely moved by it.   At this very moment (are you with me) it is my favorite Bashō poem.  It is totally immersed in the moment and ennui (or wabi sabi or whatever) and beauty and sadness, and did I say beauty, and it urges that heartbreaking whippoorwill sound on so as to continue its significant emotional impact, feeling lingering in the pure essence of its music.

Phah!  Words can't describe it - at least not mine.  But Mr. Beilenson has got it and Suzuki and the rest can, well, pound salt.

Whistle on, sweet deepener of dark loneliness!

      My good father raged
When I snapped the peony . . .
      Precious memory!

                Tairo

How even the memory of rage may be precious once a loved one is gone, especially when that loved one was right.

    Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief sweet waters . . .
    These dark hands of life

                       Bashō

Another Bashō poem I don't remember.  This rendition must delve in  from a direction I can't recall - the word "dark" reappears here, as in the previous Bashō poem, and this poem, too, turns on that ominous word.  Of course, the darkness is also the dirt which the speaker seeks to remove with the fleeting dew, but the dual meaning is undeniable.

        Quite a hundred gourds
Sprouting from the fertile soil . . .
        Of a single vine

                    Chiyo-Ni

The essential oneness of all things is expertly captured by one of the finest woman haikuists of all-time.  The reader wonders: is this not the single vine that the world itself sprung from?

          Starting to call you
Come watch these butterflies . . .
         Oh! I'm all alone

                      Taigi

Whether a lonely widow or widower, or an ex-lover, or a military wife, or someone thinking of a friend far away, we have all come to experience this type of expansive loneliness.  What is captured here is the speaker's emotional state of mind, of which s/he was totally unaware until this very captured moment.

           For the emperor
Himself he will not lift his hat . . .
    A stiff-backed scarecrow

            Dansui

The humor here is to the point: we are all equal in the "eyes" of an inanimate object.  Classicists may not like the poet's approach (or the translation) in this ku, but us peasants are all waving our own hats in the breeze.

     Live in simple faith
Just as this trusting cherry
 Flowers, fades, and falls

            Issa

I'm not very sure of the use of trusting here, but this is one of my favorite Issa  poems and it speaks to the big picture of life - not just death, but all of it, in a simple 3 line piece.

And, so, this seems as lovely a place to pause until next week as is likely to come down the pike anytime soon.  Till next week and part II for Mr. Beilenson.

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Just a quick note: Melissa Allen, over at the always excellent "Across the Haikuverse,"  features a couple of poems from the current Lillie issues, as well as giving a nice plug to the new "Wednesday Haiku" feature here at the Hut.

Cheers, Melissa!

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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #134 by British poet David Lindley.   Enjoy.

At long last, love see
the sun go down, so sure we
so unsure, watching.

David Lindley

blindly following
the setting sun...
a frog

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Poems from Dew on the Grass: Issa

Makoto Ueda, the author of Matsuo Bashō: the Master Haiku Poet (while searching for this link, I found this example of a google books scan gone kerfuffle) and Bashō and His Interpreters among other seminal works on Japanese poetry, wrote a book on Issa entitled Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa that some folks know about and not enough have seen.  Fortunately, my library has a copy so I have gotten to see it.  There are 15 copies available via amazon.com, both used and new, starting at $129. There are 11 copies available via abebooks at the lower rate of $105. Evidently books from Brill's Japanese Studies Library are priced liked this right from the get-go.

Welcome to the world of Haiku Academia.

If anyone's analysis is worth this kind of dough, it is Makoto Ueda.  His biography of Bashō is a master work and belongs on the shelf of any serious student of haiku.  I am looking forward to settling in with Dew on the Grass sometime in the near future.

In the interim, I did get the opportunity to read the 200 plus translations that Makoto Ueda has provided in Dew.  It is always a great pleasure to find new translations from the vast store of 20,000 plus haiku Issa wrote.  Despite such a large body of work, we often read the same relatively small set of poems translated again and again.  We are regularly reminded by the experts that Issa wrote a lot of mediocre verse; anyone who has spent time exploring David G. Lanoue excellent massive database of Issa's poems (or has signed up for his "Issa Haiku-a-Day" email service as I have) knows there is some truth to this statement.  It is amazing to me that anyone could write 30, 40, 50 or even more poems that survive for posterity; Issa has certainly done that and, as such, will forever be a pillar of the haiku canon.  Think of the volumes and volumes of verse by the great poets of all countries and persuasions from which we remember a handful to a dozen poems at best and we realize what an accomplishment this is, not in spite of all their bad verse, but because of it.

Think of all the mediocre cabinets the master cabinet makers built before they excelled in their trade. 

Here are 19 poems that got my attention in Dew.  I've tried to highlight ones I've never seen rendered before, though there are the occasionally familiar poems that I couldn't resist since they reveal new dimensions in Makoto Ueda's astute translations.  I also recalled a couple of poems while reading these, which I transcribed from memory, that felt related in either subject or mood.

to tell the truth
I too like sweet dumplings
better than blossoms

Ever honest, Issa tells it like it is.  Evidently, from the phrasing he seems to be watching someone (or perhaps others) at dinner or a festival digging in with relish and recognizes their humanity in himself.

"Get ready to die,
get ready to die," so say
the cherry blossoms

This is a haiku that has been translated before and is one of Issa's most important.  The significance of the cherry blossom in Japanese culture can hardly be over emphasized.  Though Westerners see the beauty in them, they don't necessarily contemplate the full implication, the wabi-sabi, of the tradition of cherry blossom viewing.  Here Issa reminds us that in the cherry blossom we see how very brief life is, whether measured in mere days, as with the blossoms, or years or decades.  Beautiful and transient, lovely with a deep shade of sadness, the cherry blossoms touch the soul. 

the loneliness---
whichever way I look
wild violets

Haiku often have two distinct parts, which the poet uses for contrast and comparison.  Sometimes, the link is not apparent and this is when we must feel or sense what the poet is after.  Beauty and loneliness, like beauty and transience, are in contrast here and the messages are related.  To paraphrase Issa's famous death verse ("a bath when you're born / a bath when you die / how stupid!"), you're born alone, you die alone, how poignant.

cicadas' screech---
so utterly red
a pinwheel

I pulled up when I read this one.  The imagistic style of Buson immediately comes to mind.  This feels as if the moment truly wrote the poem, evoking the idea of synesthesia, a common enough stylistic device with Buson and even Bashō .  The cicadas in Pittsburgh were certainly bright red this summer.

blown away
by the horse's fart
a firefly

Well, Master Issa always likes to have his bit of fun and here it is.  High art?  Maybe not.  Pointless?  Definitely not.  Humor in Issa is of great importance.  If the loneliness highlighted by wild violets is almost unbearable, the stupidity of life itself maddening, the sadness of cherry blossoms overwhelming, the humor of life is all-important.  Humor in fact is the answer for many a great philosopher and the refuge of the humble.

Plus, this just must have been a moment to see!

for each fly
that's swatted, I call on
"The Merciful Buddha!"

This seems slightly different than Issa's poems about swatting mosquitoes while praying to Buddha or sending a mosquito off to its next incarnation.  The sentiment is there; the contrast of praying and killing is one that speaks to the essence of human nature.  So many wars are waged in the name of major religions.

brushing the flies away
from his prostrate body---
today is the last time!

This poem written at his father's death is deeply moving; to be thinking this during the very moments of dying evokes at once the sadness and prescience which can be so often muddled in the rush of emotions surrounding the death experience.

in the blue sky
I scroll letters with a finger---
the end of autumn

Another poem that caught me by surprise from Issa and one I have no idea about.  It feels as if there is some cultural implication that I'm unaware of, yet the image is striking enough to be moving in itself.  The act of creation here is portrayed as fleeting as the season itself, the creator truly seeing the work in the larger context.  Art, too, is transient.

as it falls
the peony lets drop the rain
of yesterday

Makota Ueda nails this one which I've seen translated a variety of ways.  The peony has held the water for a day, since yesterday's rain, and the moment when the weight overwhelms the flower captures in miniature the cycle of all things.

moss in bloom
on his little scars---
stone Buddha

Again, this is a familiar haiku that is extremely evocative in Makota Ueda's translation.  It all turns on the word "scars," which I don't ever recall seeing previously in the context of this poem.  Truly a perfect poem, dovetailing as it does philosophy and lyricism.

that loner
must be my star---
Heaven's River

There are a number of poems about the Milky Way (Heaven's River) in this collection, ones that have been variously rendered by well-known translators.  This one, however, is new to me and quintessentially Issa.  Even in the great pattern of the stars, the Milky Way, Issa spots the loner that he identifies with, just as he does with lone sparrows and bugs.

life on earth
is as evanescent as dew---
why kill yourself?

Here is a philosophical poem with highly charged emotional and psychological underpinnings.  This from the same poet who gave us "The world of dew / is a world of dew ... / and yet, and yet ...," written on the death of his daughter.   There is a very real, very powerful connection between these two poems, if I'm not sorely mistaken.  "The world of dew" is almost universally present in selections of Issa's work; I've never seen any version of "life on earth" that I know of.

There is nothing more transitory than dew, which is what brings such force to "The world of dew" haiku.  The world is simply a world of dew, "but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass," and yet, and yet ... is there something else?  It is a wish one suspects Issa sorrowfully doubts, which gives the poem its pathos.  By the same token, that very doubt is what gives strength  to "life on earth."

he is careful
not to sit on the blooming grass:
the wrestler who won

Another traditional senryu/haiku, not very typical of Issa - but so wonderful.  The massive sumo wrestler's respect for delicate new grass is poignant in apparent contrast with his profession.  Perhaps there is a hint here of sumo's origins in Shinto religion and observance.

a wild duck in my yard
when I arrive back home
glares at me

This seems to be all about ownership or, more precisely, not about ownership.  Nature in Issa's work is about interacting, no laying back and observing here.  My guess is that our protagonists talked this one out.

nightfall---
as I hug my knees
another leaf falls

It takes but a single leaf for Issa to tell exactly how cold and desolate he feels this late autumn night.

the morning glory---
no human face is pure
of blemishes

There have been other versions of this poem that I have seen and enjoyed but this one sidesteps an overt comparison of its two elements, feeling more objective in its execution.  This is a favorite of mine, as are morning glories and, yes, human faces.

"How mean it looks!"
blowfish must think, gazing
at a human face

Another haiku that is new to me.   I'm not for the anthropomorphic approach in any poetic form, especially haiku.  Still this gives the reader insight to what Issa feels people think about blowfish and what Issa thinks about people.

bright like a gem
the New Year begins to dawn
on my lice

Even for the lice it is a bright beautiful New Year's - from this translation it is difficult to gather the mood, but knowing Issa and his reverence for his bug menagerie, I'm thinking upbeat.

mother I never knew---
each time I look over the sea
over the sea

This is a poem that transcends culture, language, and lyrical boundaries - to repeat 3 words in a 14 word poem, leaving only 8 to sketch it out and to compose a masterpiece of love, emotion, and longing, well, this is why Issa is Master Issa around here.

The repetition breaks the heart.


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This week's featured poem is by Britain's David Lindley, whose fine work has appeared in Lilliput quite often, and originally appeared in #134, in October 2003.

On the stream we float
little boats made from walnut
halves with paper sails.

All that has ever been is
still endlessly voyaging.

David Lindley

"Look! Plum blossoms!"
the little boat
turns around

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Issa by Robert Hass

In last Sunday's post, I mentioned that I'd spent some time with Robert Hass's The Essential Haiku. Most of the translations are by Hass himself but, as he mentions in a note, when he couldn't better a translation by R. H. Blyth, Sam Hamill, Lucien Stryk, Makoto Ueda, or Jorie Graham, he included them. I thought over a couple of posts to highlight some of what Hass has done in choosing work by 3 of the 4 great masters for this volume, the poets being Issa, Buson, and Bashō. Previously, I featured 27 poems by Issa as rendered by Hass. Since I've revisited the translations nearly a year and a half later, I thought I'd see if any others struck me this go round.

And of course there were, 7 more to be exact.

.......Zealous flea,
you're about to be a Buddha
.......by my hand.

I love this one. Here is this pious monk, Issa, sending off a flea to its next destination for fulfilling so well its current destiny. Is it rationalization, is it serious, or is it humorous?  Well, no, it's poetry, and it made me laugh, which probably says more about me than the ku. This reminded me of an interview Bill Moyers did, probably 20 years ago, with the Dalai Lama. It was outdoors at some sort of conference, a hot summer day, they were sitting under a tree and a single, persistent fly kept lighting on the Dalai Lama, on his arm, on his face, on his head. The fly was so persistent that finally Moyers could ignore it no longer and said, "I notice this fly keeps landing on you and yet you remain perfectly still. Is it because all life is sacred." And this was his answer:

.......The holes in the wall
play the flute
.......this evening.

Issa is so poor that his hut is full of holes and yet what does he make of it but music.

........From the end of the nose
of the Buddha on the moor
........hang icicles.

When I first read this one I didn't like it much. But when I thought more about it, how the vapor from breathe, too, can form icicles, I realized there was more here than I originally assumed.

.......face of the spring moon-
about twelve years old
.......I'd say.

Here is another where the poet, with a touch of Zen, catches the reader off guard.   How deep might one dig for the truism herein.  When reading this I think of the adage, it is the moon and not the finger pointing at it.

.......Fleas in my hut,
it's my fault
.......you look so skinny.

Like with the hut with holes, we see here that Issa is so impoverished he feels obliged to apologize to his friends, the fleas, because he is so skinny himself he can't feed them very well.

....

.......Her row veering off,
the peasant woman plants
.......toward her crying child.

Issa, the orphan, was always appreciative of attentive parents and longed for that attention himself. Here he observes what others might overlook.

.......The moon tonight-
I even miss
.......her grumbling

Possibly for his wife, who died before him, his sadness overwhelms his thoughts, and this reader.  The melancholy humor is typical of Issa in its resonance.

.......The world of dew
is the world of dew.
.......And yet, and yet ...

The most famous of these 7, this poem in 13 monosyllabic words encompasses the entire world and the summation of all of knowledge, be it religious, philosophical, scientific or spiritual. Here is all we know, and all we don't know, about our life on this tiny spinning ball. He did this with a couple of the 20,000 plus poems he wrote - I'm thinking about the one with the insect on the branch singing as it is carried downstream  and the one about walking on hell's roof gazing at flowers - huge philosophical statements about life summed up in a few slight words.

It's amazing to me that this time round, from over 100 poems by Issa translated by Hass, I picked between 35 to 40 and, of those, 27 were the same as I'd picked before.




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This week's feature poem from the Lilliput archive is by British poet David Lindley and was originally published in issue #139 in October 2004.  Things being what they are, anytime a poet composes a haiku with a frog, a comparison is inevitable.  This one, however, gives a different angle to man's place in nature and, for that matter, Mr. Frog's, too.

My hand trailing in
the water.  The frog and I
surprise each other.

David Lindley

old pond--
please, you go first
frog jumping

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

Here is David Lanoue's note to this Issa poem:

This haiku has the prescript, "Looking at the ruins of Bashô's hut." The opening phrase, "old pond" (furu ike ya), is a playful reference to Bashô's famous haiku: furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto:

old pond--
the frog jumps in
with a splash

Shinji Ogawa adds, "I would like to point out the humor Issa put into the haiku. The old pond is not any pond but the pond of the great haiku master Bashô. Therefore, there must be the descendants of Bashô's frog [in the pond]. The ordinary frogs, perhaps Issa's, must pay respect to the frogs of high birth. When it comes to this type of humor, Issa towers above the rest."

best,
Don

On The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku

In perusing my poetry shelves to see what was what, it occurred to me that, as a semi-regular feature, I could delve into the items found there and share a thought or two. So, the first couple of shelves consists of anthologies of Eastern or Eastern influenced verse, haiku, tanka, and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Indian verse. In addition there are some modern anthologies of English and American verse in traditional forms, which brings us to the first item on the shelf, The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, edited by Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey.

The first thing I realized about this book is that I must have purchased it on a London trip because it is going for ridiculous sums via amazon and has evidently never been published in the States. I bought it for 4.5 pounds, probably as a remainder at the Ulysses Bookshop near the British Museum.

I'm over halfway through the volume (so it goes for perusing part of this "project") and I have to say it is as fine a collection of contemporary haiku as I've run across. The hint of regret (have to say) I believe betrays the fact that I'm recommending something that is costly and difficult to get a hold of.

The volume's selection and tone bears all the earmarks of Stryk: poems stark, precise, and imagistic in nature. Stripped to the bone, the bones boiled, and placed out on large leaves, gleaming as they dry in the sun. Imagine my surprise when I ran smack into three poems that have graced past issues of Lilliput Review. Here they are:

Spring

The earth bears
everything,
even your sadness.

David Lindley

ancient headstones
the name and numbers
worn to murmurs.

William Hart

Summer

When the page was blank
no one thought, suddenly
a flower would appear.

David Lindley

One of the things that surprised me a bit was the lack of acknowledgment, a pet peeve of mine. Don't get me wrong; I don't think it is something a press or poet is obligated to do, it's just a courtesy. I explain to folks that it is akin to being accepted for publication for a poet/writer. It is a great lift and, most importantly, recognition of quality in the editorial process. This is not a gripe with this particular press or either poet, just me talking out loud. In my estimation, these are great examples of the finest work in haiku form and I'm proud to have helped them see the light of day. As far as I'm concerned, it is the poet who owns the work, from inception through publication and in any further incarnations, unless they explicitly sign that right away. And they'll never do that here at Lillie.

So, no harm, no foul ... just a little boy griping.

But I digress (and feel the better for it). Here's a selection of a few items that grabbed my attention and held it.

in the corpse's
half-closed eyes
the flame of a candle

Vasile Spinei

one word
but so many varieties
of rain

David Findley

Another robin in my mousetrap:
few of us fail to give
humanity a bad name.

Anthony Weir

The old barn
--looks more like a tree
----each year.

Hannah Mitte

late afternoon sun
the shadow of the gravestone
slants towards my feet

Brian Tasker

Works Gloves

On the garden gate
left here with me --
Shape of her hands

Bob Arnold

The white kitten
playing and playing
with the faded cherry petal

Vincent Tripi

Still in my garden
--------I bend to pluck a weed but
----------------see its smiling face.

Harold Morland

In the garden of Saleh
The silence is soothed
By the whispered lisp of leaves.

David Gascoyne

sunrise
the fisherman's shadow stretches
across the river

George Swede

A moorhen dives
Ripples spread
To the ends of the earth

Aasha Hanley

I hear the magpies
and you you have give me
this sense of longing.

Paul Finn

I was equally delighted to see a number of poets whose work has appeared in Lilliput featured in Acorn. From this selection alone are the fine poets George Swede, Vincent Tripi, and Bob Arnold. What is most amazing, really, is I've just dug through to the first layer of this exemplary volume. If I have the time and space, perhaps I'll highlight a few more poems from the 2nd half of this work sometime soon.

For an additional insightful, theoretical review (with a large selection of poems) of The Acorn Book of Contemporary Haiku, see Lynx Book Reviews (last review toward the bottom of the page - and from this review which I read after completing this post, I discovered another Lillie poem in the volume, from the 2nd half I haven't gotten to, this one by Gary Hotham).

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In the Bashô Haiku Challenge update, I can say that I've narrowed down the nearly 500 haiku received to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 poems after two complete read-throughs. Lots of decisions still to made, one big one being exactly how long will this year's chapbook be. I believe I'll let content dictate form in this instance, so living with the poems for another two weeks or so should help answer that question very well.

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This week's featured issue is #152, from November 2006. Hope something grabs you here:

After Basho

Chrysanthemums bloom
in a gap between the silence
of the stonecutter's yard.

Michael Wurster

trumpet vine
still waiting
for you

David Gross

in the park
--struck
by a falling leaf

Peggy Heinrich

Four ancient rocks rose from the earth:
Grief, Rope, Axe, and Sparrow

Gail Ivy Berlin

And, before I flit off, one more:

baby sparrow--
even when people come
opening its mouth

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Hot August Night and Captain Beefheart

For those of you who'll be in town and not watching the Steelers pre-season game (both of you), a reminder, along with an updated lineup and new poster, for tomorrow's Hot August Night reading at the Modern Formations Gallery.

For everybody else, here's a little treat from Captain Beefheart and the boys ...

After all, it is Friday ...

Summer

When the page was blank
no one thought, suddenly
a flower would appear.

David Lindley, -from LR#148

in the short summer night
wriggling to climax...
maiden flowers

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Bird Effort by Ronald Baatz & a "Hot August Night"

Cover art by Henry Denander
There are so many wonderful small presses out there, doing all manner of work, in all manner of styles. One of the finest operations around is Kamini Press out of Sweden. The quality and care put into their books is obvious even before you hold one of their books in your hands: they are, as the cliché goes, a sight to behold.

Once in hand, first impressions are confirmed: the cover, the art, the paper, and the overall production is outstanding. Their statement of intent from their website says it all. Respect the poetry with the highest quality production possible, the rest will follow. It makes those of us on the lower end of things hang our heads in shame.

All this before even arriving at the first words. The poetry itself.

Bird Effort by Ronald Baatz is No. 4 in the "Kamini Press Poetry Series" and here are two little gems that open the volume:

When the stream overflowed
the long grass
is combed close to the earth


You sing to the bird in me
I sing to the bird in you–
an effort
we love to face
each dawn

There is a depth of feeling in these poems delicately hinted at, subtly revealed:

Leave me bread
at least a few slices
leave me your voice
at least a few words
to go with the bread



Snow this morning
when I part the curtains
after getting out of bed
one rib
at a time

A sudden shift in perspective, and the introspective mode becomes all-embracing:

Finally
winter is losing its grip-
in my sleep
I hear the pond's spine
cracking


Receiver
hanging off the hook
in a phone booth
hanging off
the earth

And again:

Digging
her canary's grave
she catches the reflection
of lovely orange feathers
in the spoon


The old die old
sometimes the young
die young
and the little we know
the harsh winds blow

This beautiful little book contains 50 small poems, many 5 lines each, all tankas in their mood and construction, beautiful in their revelation. There is a simultaneous sadness and acceptance, a joy tempered by the real, a resonating wisdom. I can't resist - here is one more:

So many crows-
as though the earth
is turning black
from so many bones
buried in it


Can't blame the crickets
for crying out hour after hour-
summer having lied about
how long
it'd stay

This is the small press at its finest, the quality of work matched by the quality of the production, a beautiful reflection of life, work, dedication, and truth.



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This Saturday night, there will be a reading sponsored by Six Gallery Press at Modern Formations Art Gallery here in the Burg. There are some mighty fine people reading that evening and so, if you are in the area, stop by. 14 writers for $5, it doesn't get much better than that. It will be my first public reading in over 20 years and will be a mixture of Lilliput work, in celebration of the 20th anniversary, and my own poems. A number of folks, including Kris Collins, Che Elias, René Alberts, Jerome Crooks, and John Grochalski have managed to drag me out of hiding after all these years and I have to thank them all for helping re-energize an old fart. Fortunately for me (and everyone else), there are so many folks reading that our time will be necessarily brief.

We'll see if I'm into this poetry thing after all ...


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This week's featured issue of Lilliput Review ,#165 from November 2008, is so new it's still not in the archive. Enjoy.



Autumn's vibrant hues
or is it we who vibrate
in vivid rhythm

Harry Smith

lotus blossom
------evening twilight

M. Kei

full
moon
belongs
to
no one

nonetheless

Ed Baker

Chrysanthemums

He was a Japanese tourist.
At the checkout
they had to take his check
without proof of signature.
For all they knew
he might have written:
In the eastern garden
frost
on the late chrysanthemums.

David Lindley

cultivated chrysanthemums
wither
first

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

NB There were a number of transcription errors, along with one factual, in the original version of this post, which have been corrected. Thanks very much to Ronald Baatz for pointing this out and for his sympathetic understanding. My apology has been most graciously accepted.

Gerald Stern and Chicken Pie

I'm in love with Gerald Stern. It is unabashed, it is obsessive, it is irresponsible, and it is nigh on devotional, this love for Gerald Stern.

It all started a couple of years back when I ran across a couple of poems in the much maligned anthology, Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor. Keillor was attacked, pilloried, really, by no less a poet, one whom I greatly admire, than August Kleinazhler. He has since been defended
by another poetic luminary, Dana Gioia, which ended up creating the proverbial poetic tempest in a teapot that ended up in a vaguely clicheish flurry of exchanges. Points were scored on both sides and, god forbid, people were talking about poetry in a semi-heated fashion.

Little of this mattered to me. I enjoyed Keillor's anthology very much, but more importantly I'd fallen in love; and though the white hot passion I had for 6 months or so has cooled a bit, still, my devotion is true. Which leads to the recent publication of Stern's new Quarternote Chapbook, The Preacher.

I am at a loss to describe my love. Stern, on the surface, appears staid enough, surely nothing unsafe here. Yet he plays like a wild-haired, poetic clarinetist, suddenly deviating seriously from the charts. The metaphors, the allusions, the connections are sparks flying from downed wires; careful there, isn't that water, rushing nearby?

The Preacher takes its title and begins as a rift on the narrator from the opening lines of Ecclesiastes in the King James version of Bible (yup, the version is important; not only which one, but which particular King James version). Or perhaps it actually began with listening to another riff, this one by one of the very few people I'll let preach to me: Charles Mingus.

Eat that chicken, eat that chicken pie: oh, yeah.

Or maybe it all really began with the poet executing one of his signature moves, well-known to devotees, lovers and acolytes alike: hugging a tree. Though you might not end up rich if you got a dime for every time Stern alludes to this most lyrical of occupations, you still could get yourself a cup a joe, possibly even at one of the upscale clip joints passing for coffeehouses these days.

What's it about, you say? Who cares, says I, it's by the loved one. It's about everything. We dip our big toe in Dante's (or was that Milton's) fine Lake in Hell (Cocytus 32-4), discover many lamentable holes, very black, indeed, throughout the miserable existence of our heroic human race. Truman, Sharon, and Genghis Kahn (typo, variant spelling, or just plain sic?) all get their fiery comuppance, with Kant, Leonard Cohen and Lord Mingus all strolling in and out for perspective and three-part harmony.

The whole is structured on a poetic riff of a conversation with fellow versifier Peter Richards; this conversation is spoken, however, in the language of Tongues, one long familiar to the Preacher, Mr. Stern, and the composer of that famed autobiography, Beneath the Underdog.

All in all, the dialogue is free associative, manically passionate and, probably, in the key of B flat. As is well known, my attention tends to wander after 10 lines or so, but Stern's standard 30 to 50 or so line work usually keeps me riveted. This 23 page, book-length poem might have been expected to tax that haiku-like attention span yet it kept me in my seat and brought me back for more (after reading a library copy twice through, I bought my own copy).

By way of disclosure, Mr. Stern started life in Pittsburgh, where I've ended up. He's hit many of the world's high spots in his journey, notably NYC, Jersey and Philadelphia, all places I touched base with in the beginnings of my journey. So, there is a corruption of place, a sort of geography of influence in this post I felt I had to confess, along with my above heralded love. I've never met Mr. Stern, am not shilling for any one particular agenda or another except the reader's agenda, specifically this reader's agenda: mine. If you are unfamiliar with his work, if you like things a tad untidy, if you sing off key or, perhaps, don't mind doing the dishes in the morning, get a hold of a copy of Leaving Another Kingdom: the Selected Poems.

He rarely disappoints.

Cover by Gyorgy Kostritski

This week, the tour of past issues of Lilliput arrives at #143, from June 2005. Enjoy.

Robins’s nest in the tangle

of climbing roses

Careful, bird! I, too,

have been pierced by the barbs

that kept out the wolves

Emily Rodgers– Ramos

Movement

I lean on the balcony rails

and breathe in the sun-spliced

winds of the west.

A cross glimmers on the front-range

mountains, blends with the light

of the sun. Hidden in the drain

shafts red-throated sparrows

trill to my steam heavy thoughts.

This morning, I try to bend

two waves of light into one.

Brian Dickson

Though I am departing for Mt. Inaba

I will return home at once,

-if I hear your voice

in the sigh of the wind

in the pines

Chunagon Yukihira

translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

on the phone

my daughter and I

watch different sunsets

Anne LB Davidson

the day departs

of course

without me

David Lindley

Till next time, Don

Robert Service, Jean Shepherd, & Gary Hotham

Artwork by Guy Beining

As inevitably happens from week to week, I think of something to share and, in the press of getting other things done, forget some detail or other. One thing I really wanted to post last week relates to the recent anniversary of the birth of Robert Service (January 16^th). Though I’m not much for narrative poetry, the uniqueness and power of the work of Service is something it would be foolish to ignore. As with all great poets, Service had an insight and overwhelming empathy with the human condition; yes, empathy, because, I believe he wasn’t particularly happy about it but he knew it to the core, not unlike Bukowski, the subject of last weeks musings.

In any case, what rescues Service from morose oblivion is humor; an overriding, abundant, dark, deep sense of humor. So, for his birthday, here is a real treat: a dramatic reading by another student of the human condition, radio monologist and raconteur of many an obscure topic, Jean Shepherd. Admittedly someone who is little known outside the New York metropolitan area (aside from the adaptation of his work in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story), Shep was something of a rite of passage for the young in the late 50’s and early 60’s, one of the last threads to old school radio. He had a soft spot for poetry in general (he once did a whole show reading haiku translations of the masters, deadpan, with “Oriental” music wafting in the background, to somewhat limited success) and Service in particular and, on odd nights when in a certain mood, he would break out the Service and regale the WOR airwaves with tales of the Yukon. So, in celebration of Service’s birthday and in concert with the recent cold snap that has much of the country longing for a little heat not unlike ol' Sam McGee, here is The Cremation of Sam McGee. For more Shepherd, unexcerpted from his natural environment, see the archive of shows Mass Backwards, by Max Schmidt of WBAI, which has a permanent link at the bottom of the sidebar on this page.

I’ve received news that Gary Hotham’s Missed Appointment has been reviewed in the British magazine Presence. Here is a copy of that review by Matthew Paul:

Missed Appointment, Gary Hotham

22pp, $4 inc. postage ($3 within USA).

Cheques payable to Don Wentworth, from:

Lilliput Review, 282 Main Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA

Gary Hotham has been writing haiku for four decades and his economical style is one of the most distinctive within the homogeneity that comprises much of the English-language haiku published today.

In a brief introduction, Hotham approvingly quotes the belief of Billy Collins, the American 'mainstream' and haiku poet, that haiku contains "a very deep strain of existential gratitude" and that "[a]lmost every haiku says the same thing: 'It's amazing to be alive here.'" This 'Modest Proposal Chapbook' of just 15 haiku exemplifies Hotham's ability to be absolutely in tune with what it means, at any given time, to exist. Quite simply, and in plain language adorned only by mundane adjectives, Hotham writes about things that most haiku poets would overlook:

no where else

but the next flower---

afternoon butterflies

over the parade---

a window no one

looks out of

Whether other writers would ignore such subject matter deliberately or merely by not paying enough attention to the world around them is open to debate. Hotham certainly attunes himself and his readers to moments which, rather than being vitally significant, could be considered trivial, perhaps to the point of banality; but, for my money, the humble and persistently downbeat nature of these poems is admirable in a small dose such as Missed Appointment provides. In longer collections of Hotham's work, though, I'd need a dollop or two of verbosity to offset and lighten the minimalism.

Whatever the merits of his style, one fact about Hotham surely cannot be disputed: that he writes excellent, poignant senryu, two of which I'll end with:

farewell party---

the sweetness of the cake

hard to swallow

Dad's funeral---

the same knot

in my tie

Review by Matthew Paul

This week, the following poems are from LR #141, from January 2007. If anyone is following along, you might notice I’ve skipped #140. #140 is a broadside by Alan Catlin in honor of Cid Corman, entitled “For Cid.” It is a 7 poem collection of short, delicate work which would not be served well by excerpting, though many of the poems stand well alone.

Roethke wrote:

It will come again.

Be still. Wait

How to embrace the stillness.

How to wait with grace.

Pamela Miller Ness

pollen-heavy

a bee easily clears

the headstone

LeRoy Gorman

What is there

before or after

experience?

Everything waits in the dark

for you to say,

Come in.

David Lindley

My heart is torn

since I’ve seen you.

Like the watermark in Osaka Bay

I measure my life

waiting to meet you again.

Princess Motoyoshi

translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

Finally, let me recommend this morning’s poem on The Writer’s Almanac: “How to Kill” by Keith Douglas, who died in the Normandy invasion. It puts a human face and sensibility on the deaths that continue today as war rages on.

best,

Don