Issa's Sunday Service

Welcome to Issa's Sunday Service, a little experiment from Issa's Untidy Hut in music and poetry.

Above, you will find one of my favorite songs, Van Morrison's Summertime in England from the album Common One. Hope you enjoy it. Though the album itself was not much of a success, it remains my favorite.

Along with a literary-themed piece of music on Sunday, there will also be a poem. Those of you who follow The Hut regularly know that for going on two years now I've been posting once a week, in countdown form, some sample poems from back issues of Lilliput Review. Recently I added another feature, a Monday through Friday posting of one poem from Lillie on Twitter. Poems there are limited to 140 characters, including spaces, so that service really highlights the short poem. Again, I started with the latest issues and am currently posting a poem a day in countdown form (right now I'm in the early 150's).

With these Sunday posts, I'm going to feature one poem from each issue of Lilliput Review, this time counting up from #1, which was a limited "test run" issue (initially 10 copies, later expanded out to 20) to see if the concept of a tiny mag was practical and doable for someone who'd never attempted it before. As such, it contained 7 short poems and the issue is from March 1989.

Future Sunday posts will simply feature a song and a poem, with little or no commentary. Since this was the first of a series, I thought some explanation was appropriate. From issue #1 of Lilliput Review:

When Religion Invents Man

trees shimmer, leaves curl
up, in, tiny balls into tight
buds, bud through branches,
into thick trunks, down &
down, the earth opening,
thin crust, unsplitting,
fine white threads, a
single hard kernal &
this new beginning.

best,
Don

Tanka Twitter: Miriam Sagan

Busy dealing with a computer problem, so check out today's Lilliput Review Twitter poem by Miriam Sagan, from issue #130, a broadside entitled Fish Ladder: 19 Tanka.

A regular post will be back Monday ...

loneliness--
under the fallen leaves
my ancestors

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Diane di Prima: Lunch Poems

Courtesy of John Burroughs's Crisis Chronicles Online Library, by way of Facebook, here's one of our great contemporary poets, Diane di Prima, reading from the Lunch Poems series:

Speaking of Facebook, Lilliput Review now has a presence there and it has been a pleasant, informative, exhilarating experience. There is a lot to be learned, exchanged, and enjoyed for any poet or magazine/press. For anyone already there, stop by and give me a shout. For those who don't have an account, take a look. It's worth it.

Also, on the shiny, glittery Internet front, I'm starting a new project, since I don't have enough to do. Inspired by David Lanoue's use of his Kobayashi Issa archive on Twitter, the 140 character limit social networking cite, I'm going to start a Poem-a-Day Project, one from each Lilliput issue, backwards from #166 through at least #2. Today's "tweet" features the poem "she mentions ..." by M. Kei from issue #166.

Finally, something of an anomaly that I stumbled upon the other day: a two-line poem by Robert Frost. Enjoy.

The Secret Sits

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Robert Frost

best,
Don

Issa for the Twitter Generation

Folks are thinking up lots of ways to use the new technologies to serve classic content. The latest is David S. Lanoue's world famous Issa Archive for folks Twitter addicted (and perhaps poetry deficient).

Old school as I am, I get my daily dose of David's Issa via email. Now you can get that same daily dose while immersed in daily doses of, well, a million other things. Here's a look at the Twitter version.

Calls to mind the thousand petaled lotus or a field full of morning glories.

Here's a little Issa the old fashioned way:


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voice of the bell--
the morning-glories are the first
to stir

Issa
translated by David S. Lanoue

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best,
Don