2nd Annual Bashō Haiku Challenge

Well, folks, it's that time: this year I will be reading for the 2nd Annual Bashō Haiku Challenge beginning today and continuing through the entire month of October. With a couple of slight adjustments from last year (i.e. a different 1st prize), here are the instructions as outlined last year:

So, here's the deal: for the next four weeks, send along up to
5 haiku to lilliput review at gmail dot com (spelled out
to fend off pesky bots) and the best haiku wins a copy of
Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with
Commentary, edited by Makoto Ueda. Minimally, I will
need your name and email to contact you with the
results. In the subject line of your email, please put
"2nd Annual Bashō Haiku Challenge" so I can easily
differentiate it from the scads of other things that come my
way. The final date for submissions will be October 31st and
the winner will be announced in either November 18th or
December 2nd postings. My definition of haiku is about as
liberal as you can get: I follow no one particular method,
school or theory and there is no seasonal requirement.
Your haiku can be 1, 2, or 3 lines (over 5 would be a bit
much, folks, but I will keep an open mind for
experimenters). The one restriction would be that it be
in the spirit of haiku (I've always liked the definition of
English haiku as lasting the length of one breath, in and
out and pause, but that's just me - and, oh yeah, I'm the
judge, but, again, it's the spirit of the thing that counts)
and that the haiku be previously unpublished in either
paper or electronic form (ok, that's two requirements).

In addition, the winning poet will receive a 15 issue
subscription to Lilliput Review (or have their current
subscription extended by 15 issues), plus two copies of
the 2nd Annual chapbook, to be published sometime in
2010. Other poets whose work is selected for inclusion
will receive 2 copies of the chapbook plus a 6 issue
subscription.

That's it. This is an electronic submission contest only; it is my way of giving back to the online community that has been so vibrant and encouraging since I started actively blogging in July 2007.

Some of you may remember the genesis of this contest, some may have come along since then. In brief, I was contacted last year by Tomoe Sumi of Kodansha America Press, who had been following an ongoing series of posts and discussions about the work Matsuo Bashô. At that time, she offered a reviewer's copy of their fine new volume, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, translated by Jane Reichhold, to throw into the discussion mix. Since I'd already purchased it for myself, I politely declined and she offered to send it anyway, suggesting I give it away. And so the contest was born.

To continue in the tradition of a volume of Bashō as first prize, I've decided this year to purchase and give away the selected work, with critical commentary, as listed above. Again, I own a personal copy; it is a fine selection of Bashō, accompanied with criticism from a wide variety of sources, historical context, and scholarly discussion. For the novice, it may be read as a selected poems. For the more experienced or simply curious, it is a rich rewarding journey into the essence of haiku in general and Bashō in particular. It is a high quality, pricey trade paperback that will make a fine addition to anyone's Eastern poetry collection. Makoto Ueda is one of the finest authorities on the work of Bashō and his 1970 biography (link is to google books and is a perfect illustration of what can go horribly wrong there) is considered essential reading for those delving deep into the work of the haiku master. You can get a glimpse into Bashō and His Interpreters at the link above to google books, where there is nice little preview.

Spread the word and let the games begin!


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This week's featured issue is #160, from November 2007. If you are so inclined, you may literally (after a virtual fashion) flip through the entire issue here. Enjoy.




#213

Only a wisp
Of cloud above,
But like a
Sacred Song
It pointed the way

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

Autumn wind,
nudging me down the mountain,
quivers a grass seed
that clings to my skirt.

Suzanne Freeman

rail cars
stacked with wood
slowly pass the living-
i whisper to them
kaddish

Donna Fleischer

And a little seasonal thought, from the master:

wildflowers--
all we say or speak about
is autumn wind

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #22: "There She Goes, My Beautiful World"

Last week, it was mourning the death of a great poet/rocker, Jim Carroll. It's fitting then that this week we celebrate the birth of another great rocker/poet, Nick Cave. This is Cave's (& the Bad Seeds) second appearance on Issa's Sunday Service and, though I promised myself to keep the repeats to a minimum, at least to start out, my extremely biased opinions are showing.


There She Goes, My Beautiful World

The wintergreen, the juniper
The cornflower and the chicory
All the words you said to me
Still vibrating in the air
The elm, the ash and the linden tree
The dark and deep, enchanted sea
The trembling moon and the stars unfurled
There she goes, my beautiful world

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

John Wilmot penned his poetry
riddled with the pox
Nabokov wrote on index cards,
at a lectern, in his socks
St. John of the Cross did his best stuff
imprisoned in a box
And Johnny Thunders was half alive
when he wrote Chinese Rocks

Well, me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I'm lying here, for what seems years
I'm just lying on my bed with nothing in my head

Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles
while writing Das Kapital
And Gaugin, he buggered off, man,
and went all tropical
While Philip Larkin stuck it out
in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas died drunk in
St. Vincent's hospital

I will kneel at your feet
I will lie at your door
I will rock you to sleep
I will roll on the floor
And I'll ask for nothing
Nothing in this life
I'll ask for nothing
Give me ever-lasting life

I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

So if you got a trumpet, get on your feet,
brother, and blow it
If you've got a field, that don't yield,
well get up and hoe it
I look at you and you look at me and
deep in our hearts know it
That you weren't much of a muse,
but then I weren't much of a poet

I will be your slave
I will peel you grapes
Up on your pedestal
With your ivory and apes
With your book of ideas
With your alchemy
O Come on
Send that stuff on down to me

Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send it all around the world
Cause here she comes, my beautiful girl

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

Anybody who name checks Wilmot (and he's not referring to the talented and generous Eddie Anderson of Jack Benny fame), St. John of the Cross, and Philip Larkin, beside numerous others, is an instant inductee into the LitRock Hall of Fame as far as I'm concerned. Here's a video of the song performed during the Abattoir Blues tour.





This week's poem is from Lilliput Review #31, April 1992, to commemorate the passing of blues composer, arranger, consciousness objector, and bass player extraordinaire Willie Dixon, arguably the prime mover of urban blues. Unbelievably, these are just a few of the songs he wrote: Back Door Man, Bring It On Home, Diddy Wah Diddy, Down in the Bottom, Evil, Hoochie Coochie Man, I Ain't Superstitious, I Can't Quit You Baby, I Just Want to Make Love to You, Little Red Rooster, Mellow Down Easy, Pain in My Heart, Seventh Son, The Same Thing, Tollin' Bells, Wang Dang Doodle, You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover (which has already made an appearance on Issa's Sunday Service), and You Shook Me.

The Death of Willie Dixon

Late January, a handful of
leaves on a single tree -
the wind.

K. Shabee

a corrupt world
in its latter days...
but cherry blossoms!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don