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

ed markowski: The Essence of Haiku

Pictured above is pop up by ed markowski, a lovely little accordion-style publication, #6 of vincent tripi's "Pinch Book Series from tribe press, published in 2004. ed sent this along with a parcel of other things and I enjoyed it very much. One poem, from which the collection takes its title, in particular grabbed me:

summer loneliness. . .
dropping the pop up
I toss to myself

ed markowski

This little 10 word piece got me thinking about a variety of things. First, I might have to retract my avowal of hating baseball poetry; I find that I've talked about this at heated length in three different past posts and, on reading ed's poem, it occurred to me that there is going to come a point when saying "Baseball poems are awful but you've got to read this one ..." is just not going to cut it anymore. It seems, perhaps, I protest too much.

Could it be that I just hate bad baseball poetry?

In thinking it through, one of the problems I have with baseball poems is the fact that the game is generally taken for a metaphor for life itself. It seems to me that when folks start futzing with metaphors of a metaphor, it isn't post-modernism: it's just plain ugly.

And yet and yet ...

I'm stuck with these baseball poems I really like. ed's poem resonates so well it positively hurts. Baseball is a team sport and here we all are, social animals. We have to cooperate to get by, to say nothing of excel. Catching pop-ups is one of the big thrills of baseball for the young and ed's protagonist here is alone and is forced to play by her/himself. S/he's throwing the ball in the air, perhaps pretending to be catching a long fly, and drops the ball. And this cuts in so many ways. Is it the catcher's lack of skill? Lack of playmates? Boredom, causing lack of attention? Of course, it is all these things, which is the beauty of the haiku form. The reader participates in the writing, the poet creating a telling resonance with enough space for all to bring their memories and observations and feelings.

Summer loneliness: there is none deeper when you are young, summer being the time you just longed and longed for and when it came and it inevitably disappointed, that disappointment was deep, indeed.

Still, it's all just a damn baseball poem, right? But somehow this poem was digging deeper, it was getting under my skin in some very personal, inexplicable way. The poem stuck with me. It just wasn't assimilated, analyzed, admired and filed away pleasantly: it seemed to be bubbling just on the surface of my consciousness, sometimes in thought and, perhaps, sometimes just below.

Then, a few nights ago, I woke up around 3 am, thinking these thoughts about this poem and it hit me: it was a particular summer, 1959 or 60, I think:

My best friend, who lived across the street from me, and I lived and breathed baseball. We played night and day and when we weren't playing we were talking or watching or listening to baseball. We used to go down to the local field, just the two of us, and hit pop-flys to one another, about all you could do when there was only two to play. Being 8 or 9 years old, we couldn't hit fly balls like adults and the result was we chased a lot of grounders or hit a lot of balls that fell short or went over the fielder's head and a lot of downtime was spent chasing the ball, waiting around for the next fly and chasing the ball.

So, it was always a thrill when an adult deigned to take us to the park and hit out to us.

One Saturday, his dad, whom I remember as having played some minor league ball, said he'd take us to the park, about a half mile away, and hit out to us. We were ecstatic. He did some little league coaching and even had a fungo bat, a special kind of light weight bat designed for repeated hitting and perfect for fly balls. We were set.

We walked down to the park and had a glorious hour and half to two hours and could not have been happier. His dad positively wore us out, not an easy task when it comes to a couple of 8 year olds. We started walking home.

We were about 6 or 7 houses away when I saw it: a sign in a wire holder, orange letters on a black background, FOR SALE. And it was up in front of my house.

What this did to an 8 year old boy, walking up the street with his best friend, after a dream-come-true kind of baseball afternoon, hardly needs to be said. In affect, our friendship ended right there, at that moment, in the hot rush of shame and fear and an awful crushing sadness. It was the beginning of an all-encompassing summer loneliness that I can feel fifty years later like it happened yesterday.

It was dropping the pop-up I tossed to myself.

Poetry is like that. If we let it in it can change our lives, it can make them richer in ways we can't even imagine. It doesn't matter if you're into haiku or epics or language poems or romantic poetry or whatever. I tell the lifelong learners in the classes on introductory poetry I occasionally teach that, for me, poetry is a way that I establish a dialogue with myself. The poet shares feelings, insights, adventures, ideas, images and we read them and compare what we have felt and thought and seen. We think about these things in different ways, from different angles, little dispatches from the poets themselves to us, little koans to help out in our everyday lives, ways to unravel knots maybe we didn't know we had, songs about how truly lucky we are or how we need to make ourselves and our worlds better places to be, ways to lift up and support our loved ones and friends.

I'm going to try and never say I hate baseball poetry again.

Thanks, ed, this one means a lot; ten succinct, insightful words, touching in ways you might never have imagined.

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I had a number of things I was going to share this week but since I went on so long above, I'll leave them for another post. I did, however, promise I would mention one thing and it is well worth it. For those of you into outlaw, beat-style poetry, Klaus over at Outlaw Poetry and Free Jazz Network sent word along that there are some audios of the great Todd Moore, whose Dillinger Series is getting a bit of boost from the new Johnny Depp biopic, up on their sight here and here.

This week's sampling from the archive comes from issue #22, in May 1990, which was a broadside by Philadelphia area poet Louis McKee entitled Angelus. McKee writes beautiful, emotional verse, couched in everyday events and everyday language. He is a true small press wonder whom I admire a great deal. Here's a few short ones from the broadside, which is still available for a measly buck (9 poems) or a SASE if you're broke.

House Of Cards

Each room is a trick, held up
by the promise of another,
being too careful might be just
what it takes to bring the house down.

The Magic Of Eyes

You turned back
for a lasting look;
I am salt.
Something is wrong.

The Angelus

Stones are silent
but the stars are not;
it is easier to walk
with my head down.

And the master:

awaiting the stars--
does the grown man
feel young again?

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don