Stone Buddha by Karma Tenzing Wangchuk

We all know the old saw: form dictates content. By extension, artistic concept also dictates content, arguably in more restrictive way. I'm not much for a whole particular set of poems about "blah," especially if the poems are all written by one poet. Even more especially when the form is haiku.

There you go, my quirks, laid out on the line, for all to see.

And for one to prove decidedly erroneous.

That one is Karma Tenzing Wangchuk and the volume in question is Stone Buddha, put out by John Martone's exemplary tel-let press. Each volume from this press is unique; as you may see above, Stone Buddha is handmade, with a sort of papier-mache cover, front and back of which has a whole leaf (actually, the back has leaves) embedded beneath a thin layer of handmade paper. My cover, which has traveled back and forth in my satchel from work to home, is beginning to fray a bit. Two little tiny ends of leaves disengaged from the cover and now adorn the desk where I sit.

It feels as though the book wishes to return from whence it came and how very right that feels.

The poet's concept or conceit is that each poem is about or addresses a stone buddha. In his short but prescient foreward, Stanford Forrester observes that, utilizing this single object, Tenzing looks at "Time, impermanence, temporality, existence and many other concepts are explored playfully in these pages ..." I would only add playfully, yes, and very seriously also. There are over 50 stone buddha poems in this wonderful little collection. Here's a few that grabbed me and wouldn't let go:

no thought best thought stone buddha

see no evil here no evil speak no evil

----------stone buddha

the wind
not always at his back
----stone buddha

losing weight
one grain at a time-
stone buddha

like everyone else
empty of self-substance-
stone buddha

stone buddha-
never a thought
for himself

In the first one-line ku, immediately the blending of humor and seriousness is apparent. A poem of a mere six words is working on 3 levels that I can discern: a riff off the famed Beat Writer mantra "first thought, best thought," the fact that in meditation the ideal state is to cease thought or break the cycle of obsessive thinking, and, of course, lumps of stone don't think, I think.

The second ku plays off the famed pictorial proverb

and, of course, is once again literal. Still, the literal is the embodiment of the principle, again as in the first.

The third reminds me of timelessness and change - in terms of a lump of stone, it may be only one grain at a time, but like all things, including man, it tends to entropy, no matter how slowly. Buddhism does have a response to entropy; at least a handful of my own ashes will be sprinkled in the garden. We all reincarnate somehow; I tend to lean to the literal and, well, there is really nothing quite like a fresh, off-the-vine garden tomato.

The fourth ku has some deep philosophical resonance and, I suspect, is the one many people might have the most trouble buying, philosophically speaking. Still, again the goal of Buddhism is no-self and, though we are all very conscious of ego and"who we are," perhaps it is a lesson being taught here by Master Stone Buddha.

The last of my favorites from stone buddha takes us back to the first: no thought, never a thought. The literal again brings the humor, resonance elicits the depth.

I'm not sure if there are any copies of stone buddha available if you are interested or what they might cost if they are. If you are interested, try contacting John at the above link at tel-let. Meantime, here's another stone buddha poem I found at Mann Library's Daily Haiku. Click the previous and next buttons for other poems by Karma Tenzing Wangchuk - there is still another stone buddha poem, it is one of my favorites and it's not even in the book.

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This week's featured broadside is #140, October 2004, entitled For Cid by Alan Catlin. For Cid is a 7 poem suite in memory of Cid Corman, who had recently died. Broadsides are available for $1 apiece or, for this featured series, a simple SASE. They may also be purchased 3 for $2: here are the details. Finally, enough with the jabbering, already: here are 3 little beauties from that collection:

So still this night
a lone dog’s bark
is swallowed by the moon

A fade of light in tall
marsh grasses-still

water thick with refuse;
nothing moves.

Deer prints in fresh
fallen snow-

frozen scat where he
stood-no path forward

or back

--- Alan Catlin

And caught by the precise eye of Master Issa, that which isn't even there:

bush clover sprouting--
when people aren't looking
the deer eats

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

David Giannini: AZ 2, Words of Travel

The high quality small press publisher, Adastra Press, has just published a new book by the poet, David Giannini, entitled AZ Two: Words of Travel. The book is an excellent example of fine quality, handset publishing. The edition is limited to 220 copies, is "handset Monotype Garamond type, letterpress printed on archival quality Mohawk Superfine text, handsewn with a Classic Laid Duplex recycled cover and illustrated with Sinagua Indian designs and petroglyphs, printed in different hand-mixed colors."

Yes, this is small press publishing surviving and thriving in the 21st century with beauty, class, and lyrical resonance.

The publisher describes the poems as a suite of 25 inspired by the Sedona, Arizona area and the Sinagua Indian culture that once resided there and eventually disappeared. As a set, the poems have the feel of a lyrical travel journal, recounting the visitors encounter with the land and the spirit it emanates. It opens with an invocation that honors that:

------Dawn hills black
take on sky rouge and pink
---keep it all day in rock
----at dusk give it back

Inevitably, Giannini touches on the meeting of cultures, the lost Sinagua and today's modern desert migration and its attendant incursions. Here though what may be, and indeed in later poems is, portrayed as a clash is rendered as transcendence:

Feel of the Desert

We walk into silence
and nothing

in this air
feels heavy.

Breath with breath
hand in hand

we weigh
only ourselves.

Who can prove
we are not the spirits

of this
we move through?

Each word precisely put, step-by-step, as the poet/narrator moves we feel a presence, within and without. In the following, Giannini again senses something beyond the ordinary, perhaps just an elderly, confused man or a spirit of an age long gone, yet psychically contiguous:




---

---A Sound Inside the Rain

The rasp of something
—owning very little—

--perhaps an old man
-----filing the edge

--of his voice, wanting
--------to receive

----and be received
---—----only if

-------outside of
----------rain.

Outside the rain, inside the rain. What resonates here, makes me think ghost, really - it is the name Sinagua, the name of the tribe that survived for so many years in the desert, the name which means "without water."

Without rain.

Perhaps something of a maxim, the following truly captures the dovetailing of cultures, together but forever separate, feeding each other: a model of nature itself -

Indians Selling Turquoise

The higher
the place

the lower
the price.

"Wupatki" captures a very similar feeling in a much different way:

—Wupatki

At
day's
end
feel
the
ruin
a-
ban-
don
the
site-
seers.

I often ask life-long learners I instruct and in the library discussion group I'm a part of "where does the poem turn," and, in this case, it literally pirouettes on the word abandon, divided into its syllabic essences for emphasis. But as in "Indians Selling Turquoise" both cultures are touched here and it isn't just the easy dismissal of our modern culture, which literally and metaphysically knows how to abandon everything. The site has abandoned the seers and if that doesn't resonant, nothing in this world ever will.

The syllabic break (or perhaps true hyphenation, since "site-seers" perfectly stands in for the more common "sightseers") of "site-seers" is almost percussive, like the boom of the firework after the light.

Here is a great example of the form being dictated by the content, no mere structural gimmick from the poets sack of illusions.

As a set, there is something redemptive blended with the melancholy here, making AZ Two a great addition to any small press collection of high quality poetry. An earlier edition of the book, published by John Martone's excellent tel-let press, is available in pdf form online; the sequencing of the earlier edition is different than this print edition, something I'm sure the poet did not do lightly. The physical book is available via Small Press Distribution (1-800-869-7553), amazon and directly from the publisher at:


Adastra Press
16 Reservation Road
Easthampton, MA 01027


The price from the publisher is $18.00, plus $2.50 for shipping. Of course, there are copies available at abebooks and amazon at a reduced rate. As a matter of policy, I've made it a point not to direct people to amazon, but for a book like this exceptions are made.

Do remember, supporting a small press publisher like Adastra directly, which might cost you a couple of bucks more, yields untold benefits as it echoes on through the culture for years to come.

Just saying ...



best,
Don


PS If you are a small press publisher or poet and would like to have your poetry collection (chapbook or book) considered for review or notice on Issa's Untidy Hut, feel free to send a review copy along to the Lilliput Review address. Of course, there is no guarantee it will be reviewed or noted on the blog. Review chances increase exponentially if the poetry is in my area of expertise : the short poem. Collections by poets published in Lillie are always welcome.