Rumi & Issa: Across Cultures, Across Worlds

Art by Gustave Dore

Recently, in my day job, the poetry group I moderate had a session on the mystic poet Rumi. It was the second best attended meeting, after our session on haiku.

I read lots of Rumi in preparation since, though I appreciated what I'd come across of his work randomly, I hadn't delved deeply. I learned a lot, including the controversy over the 'Americanization,' or New Age approach, to translating his works, which de-emphasizes certain specific religious aspects for a more general spiritual approach. 

While doing some background work, I ran across the following intriguing brief poem, or quatrain:

O my God, what irony it is
That we are at the bottom of hell,
And yet are afraid of
of immortality.

              Rumi 
              translated by Nevit Oguz Ergin

Which immediately called to mind this:

           In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
          gazing at flowers.

                    Issa
                    translated by Robert Hass

Could it be that, at the core of both these poems, from markedly different cultures, there is a single message? 

Could they be about our lack of attention to what is, both invisible and visible?

Of course even between two brief poems, there may be much that is dissimilar. Still, what is more important: the common ground or the disparities?

Art by Gustave Dore

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Cuckoo & Hydrangea by Buson

so is haiku hell
over that-a-way...
mountain cuckoo?

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Rumi & Shinkichi Takahashi: Two Poems for a Friday Afternoon

Photo by Trabajo Propio

I have lived on the lip 
of insanity, wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside!

     Rumi  (quatrain #1249)
     translated by Coleman Barks  

Photo by Mathias Karlsson

 

Potato

Inside of one potato
there are mountains and rivers.

   Shinkichi Takahashi
   translated by Harold P. Wright 

Sometimes, on the surface, it would seem that two poems share little in common. But that's on the surface. What might be their relationship? Is it purely the mind that dovetails their separate meanings, or is it something else?

Certainly, they are both mystical.

These two poems, by two poetic masters, somehow ended up on my radar within the same week. They seem, in a mere 4 and 2 lines respectively, to contain universes. 

Let's leave it at that, eh?

This journey is certainly scenic.

~~~~~~~

 

The Moon and the Milky Way by Yoshitoshi

 

looking pretty
in a hole in the paper door...
Milky Way

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Rumi: The Root of the Root of Your Self

I've been spending a little time with Rumi (as well as Keats - more on that some other time) and have found him calming, challenging, frustrating and all the things we expect of other human beings. Above all, he is philosophically inspirational, a lyric wonder that takes a back seat to no one.

The edition I'm reading, The Pocket Rumi, is one of those Shambhala Pocket Classics, which literally fits in your shirt pocket and was just a great little pickup when I was on the road in Seattle (thanks, Elliot Bay Book Company!). So here's a poem from that collection which grabbed me this week.

The Root of the Root of Your Self

Don't go away, come near
Don't be faithless, be faithful.
Find the antidote in the venom.
Come to the root of the root of
your self.

Molded of clay, yet kneaded
from the substance of certainty,
a guard at the Treasury of Holy Light—
come, return to the root of the root of
your self.

Once you get hold of selflessness,
you'll be dragged from your ego
and freed from many traps.
Come, return to the root of the root of
your self.

You are born from the children of
of God's creation,
but you have fixed your sight too low.
How can you be happy?
Come, return to the root of the root of
your self.

Although you are a talisman protecting
a treasure,
you are also the mine.
Open your hidden eyes
and come to the root of the root of
your self.

You were born from a ray of God's
majesty
and have the blessings of a good star.
Why suffer at the hands of things that
don't exist?
Come, return to the root of the root of
your self.

You are a ruby embedded in granite.
How long will you pretend it isn't true?
We can see it in your eyes.
Come to the root of the root of
your self.

You came here from the presence of
that fine Friend,
a little drunk, but gentle, stealing our
hearts
with that look so full of fire; so
come, return to the root of the root of
your self.

Our master and host, Shamsi Tabrizi,
has put the eternal cup before you.
Glory be to God, what a rare wine!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your self

Rumi, translated by Kabir Hilminski

Note: Shamsi Tabrizi was Rumi's teacher


Find the antidote in the venom. The secret is in plain sight. Open your eyes. Light up. Smile until you can't smile anymore. And keep smiling. Find the antidote in the venom.


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


This week's featured poem from the Archive comes from Lilliput Review, #176 and is a beautiful little gem from Leonard J. Cirino. Enjoy.





The Road Going Nowhere after So Chongju

The road going somewhere always leads to an end.
Sadness, like a red blossom, also comes to an end.
The limbs of a willow bend to the stream, the moon
descends. Sorrow, an ache laced with opium, and joy
that never ends. The floating worlds go on in a dream.
What of the taste and stiff scent of blood?
Its stain? The road long coming home?

Leonard J. Cirino

cherry blossoms
in a nook in this floating
world of craving

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Jean Cocteau, Harlan Ellison, & Cid Corman

This past weekend , I fell in love with Jean Cocteau.

I've always been infatuated with him, frankly. His film Orpheus (1949) is one of my all-time favorites; Beauty and the Beast, too, is a wondrous achievement. I had the opportunity to go back and take a look see at the other two films in the Orphic Trilogy (The Blood of a Poet (1930) and The Testament of Orpheus (1959)) and they are truly amazing and should be of great interest to poets as well as film buffs. The dvd versions I took out of the library had some first-class extras; in the case of The Blood of a Poet, the biographical documentary Autobiography of an Unknown, directed by Edgardo Cozarinsky, accompanying the main feature was every bit as entertaining, putting Cocteau's life and career in perspective with heavy doses of the lyric surrealism that infuses all his work. I actually enjoyed it more, it has a polished feel as a documentary that somehow Blood does not have as a film. In many ways, The Blood of a Poet is an early rehearsal for Orpheus; I would actually recommend watching the later first, though it comes "second" in the trilogy. This is not to detract from Blood: it is excellent.

Similarly, The Testament of Orpheus is something of an anomaly as a film. It might stand alone without Orpheus yet it is greatly enhanced by it. It is Cocteau's farewell to film and he gathers together his previous motifs, characters and even actors who played various roles to make his final artistic statement in the medium. There is much humor here; Cocteau himself becomes the main character in the film, a sort of time traveling Orpheus, stuck in modern times. It is nearly as good as Orpheus and a beautiful chronicle of the poet's journey. Another interesting extra is Villa Santo Sospir, which is a 16mm color film shot by Cocteau at the summer home of a friend. It has the feel of a combination home movie and travelogue and focuses almost entirely on the house, which Cocteau painted inside and out with his unique artistic creations, making it a work of art in and of itself. It must be seen to be believed. Here's a brief glimpse to get the flavor:






Sticking with the theme of the artist, a clip of the always provocative, incredibly original Harlan Ellison is making the rounds about the need for a writer to be paid for her/his work. Check it out:






There is, of course, no small irony that the circulation of this clip, an excerpt of the film Dreams With Sharp Teeth, is, perhaps, violating the very principle he so passionately (& profanely, bless him) espouses. So, that being said, the above is being passed along in the interest of the greater good, if there be such a thing.

And, yes, Lilliput being the micropress mag that it is, can only pay in the bane of the poet's existence, contributor copies. Sigh. The layers are thick.

Let the beatings begin.

Before getting to the Lilliput samples, one final bit of news. Longhouse Publishers of Vermont has issued a number of Cid Corman related items, including a new selected poems, The Next One Thousand Years, which I can't wait to see. Bob Arnold of Longhouse has sent along two of his delightful slip card productions of works by Cid: a Rumi translation ("What can I do - friends?) and a work entitled New Proverbs. Here are two from the master, resonating as his work always does:

Any moment
yields as much.


Don't ask more of yourself
than the mirror does.

Cover by Wayne Hogan

Continuing with the theme of the artist's plight and segueing from Wayne Hogan's beautiful cover above, here is the man himself, this time wielding the written word to speak, as always, directly to the point. From #97:



How To Be An Artist

Save all your
string. Save all your
empty paper cups.
Save all your missing socks.
Save all your wasted
words. Save all your Indianhead
nickels. Yes, especially
your Indianhead nickels.

Wayne Hogan

Regarding This Poem

The idea was to put
together as one compelling
composite all those parts you
said you particularly liked from
poems of mine you rejected over
the years but on second thought
would the conglomeration work as a
whole and besides you have a ten
line limit but don't think
that I haven't noticed
the exceptions.

Kenneth Leonhardt

Returning home

after long work
two corbies
and a dove
cut a pale sky.

A second dove
nowhere in sight,
the world is still
too dark. We must

begin again.

Jim Tolan

Obituary

cigar box
(shaken like a rattle):
shoehorn, stubby pencil,
cuff-link.

James Magorian

Till next Thursday,

Don

PS Don't miss Alicia Ostriker's devastating poetic observation of the American psyche, Fix, on today's The Writer's Almanac.