Category haiku

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Green Zendo Haiku

Recent Haiku

Night Train, a sampling of my haiku, was recently selected by Buttonhook Press (an imprint of OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters) and is set to be released in a free, PDF format. These twenty-five haiku celebrate night and the wonder of the passing moment. I’ll post more information here as the publication date nears.

silver morning: cattails, April, 2023

peeling posters: hedgerow: a journal of small poems, #142

Flowers of Emptiness

Avrom Altman began his Buddhist studies in 1969, sitting zazen at Tassajara Zen Center with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. A Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Hokomi Therapist, he’s also Professor Emeritus at Pacifica Graduate Institute. The haiku in his new book, Flowers of Emptiness, sketch a life lived with “an astonished heart.” Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D, has written, “I loved reading them and delighted further in rereading them…Let them resonate within you.” Flowers of Emptiness: Imaginal Haiku (Sungold Editions, 2023)

Opportunities                                                                

bottle rockets press is now accepting haiku, senryu, and other small poem submissions (up to 10 samples) until May 15th. Submissions by snail mail only. Please see the site for more details. https://www.bottlerocketspress.com

Presence Haiku Journal, out of Britain, is accepting haiku, tanka, senryu, and related material for both print and online publication from April 15th to May 31st. For details, visit https://www.haikupresence.org

The Heron’s Nest, a quarterly online journal, is offering cash prizes for winning entries in the Peggy Willis Lyle Haiku Awards, open now until June 1st. Judging is blind and there is no entry fee. For details visit https://www.theheronsnest.com

Karumi

The quality of karumi, or lightness, can be found in Basho’s haiku as early as 1667. He was twenty-three years old when he wrote the following:*

cherry blossoms

in the breeze — breaking out

in laughter 

Haruo Shirane, Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, has described karumi as “a focus on everyday subject matter, on the use of ordinary language, and on a relaxed rhythmical, seemingly artless expression.” Here the traditional topic of cherry blossoms takes on an unusually welcome aspect. Rather than contrasting the beauty of the flowers with sadness at their brevity, for instance, Basho depicts the exuberance of the moment. Is it the blossoms that have broken out in laughter or the poet? Or both? In this case, ambiguity adds to the impact of the lines.

Much haiku is celebratory in nature. An exclamatory haiku such as the one above is a good example of this. Another approach, common to the Basho school of haiku, presents two juxtaposed images, offering up a view that embraces them both. Below, a view of the garden, written near the end of Basho’s life, evokes a minimalist yet wholistic response: 

morning dew —

muddy melons

on the ground

Here there’s no trace of poetic conceit, just the pristine scene as Basho found it. In that sense, karumi may be considered not only in its literal sense as “not heavy or dark” but as possessed of a light artistic touch, allowing the reader to bring to the scene what he or she will. Even on his deathbed, Basho found an unexpected lightness:

flies everywhere —

how lucky they are to meet up

with a sick man

In the 20th century, Nakagawa Soen was a lifelong practitioner of haiku. As a literature student at Tokyo Imperial University, he wrote his thesis on Basho and later became a Zen monk and teacher. This haiku, written in 1946, presents two images pointing to the connection of ordinary things:

small plums

and dewdrops —

alive together

Although penetrating, there’s nothing heavy about these lines. Instead there’s a clarity and freshness, and a sense of happiness at the simple pleasures. We, too, are alive together with the plums and the dewdrops. How wonderful! These are the primary characteristics of karumi.

*all versions by jg

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Writing the New Year Haiku

Originally celebrated on the first day of spring per the lunar calendar, the New Year is considered a season in itself in Japan and New Year haiku often depict elements such as blossoms and songbirds. Here’s one by Buson*:

plum blossoms

whether I go north or south —

pink everywhere

This one by Issa may refer to the Buddhist idea of the “dharma ending age”:* 

New Year’s Day —

petals drifting down

in this fallen world

In another year, date unknown, his spirits were up:*

clear blue sky

this New Year’s Day —

glad to be alive

In this haiku from 1689, Basho offers a glimpse of a spring thaw:*

warmth of the sun

on a glistening field — 

New Year’s Day

This last one by Basho, written toward the end of his life, acknowledges a depth of feeling in which beginnings co-exist with endings*:

New Year’s Day

but everything feels like

autumn to me

*versions by jg

Writing Prompt

Writing a New Year’s haiku offers an opportunity to welcome a fresh outlook. This prompt joins mindfulness with images from nature. To begin, make a list of five positive feelings, thoughts, or intentions. Then list several of your recent observations from the natural world. Select one entry from each list and fashion them into a haiku. Here’s an example I wrote recently:

imagining peace,

an end to war — birdsong

from the chimney top

This isn’t the traditional way to write haiku — it’s generally more intuitive, even “accidental” — but I think it’s a good way to widen the lens of attention. You may get one or more effective haiku out of this process; if not, set them aside and try looking at them another day with a fresh eye. Sooner or later, a pearl will show up.

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In Praise of the Natural World

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

– Mary Oliver

Praise seemed to come instinctively to Mary Oliver. One of the most popular late twentieth-century poets, Oliver’s attention was often focused on the woods, ponds, and beaches that she explored in forays around her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In Upstream (2016), a collection of essays on nature and literature, she notes that early on she “did not think of language as the means to self-description…” but as a way “to notice, to contemplate, to praise…” One of my favorite poems, from New and Selected Poems Volume One (winner of the National Book Award) is “Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard.” It captures me from the first line and doesn’t let go until the last line. I could say the same for most of Oliver’s poems, but this one feels as if I’m right there in the orchard listening to a youngish owl “flutter down the little aluminum ladder of his scream.”  

If “attention is the beginning of devotion,” as she wrote, then wonder may be the beginning of praise — for the fox “so quiet — he moves like a red rain,”  for the hawk with “one exquisite foot” attached to a twig, even for “The cracked bones/of the owl’s most recent feast…” For Oliver, attention most often means being in the presence of, whether it’s the owl in the orchard, a hermit crab on the beach, a hummingbird in a trumpet vine, or egrets at the edge of a pond. This attention to wildlife and the environment alerts her to possibility — the possibility of danger, of beauty, of death, of life, or simply of nothing “but the cold creek moving/over the old pebbles…”

Unlike the narrative “I” of Whitman, who she considered a childhood “friend,” Oliver’s “I” enjoys a relative position in the background. From this vantage point, she offers observations rich with detail, color, and music. She’s not afraid to use a well-placed exclamation point occasionally, or just as often, a question mark. “Are you listening, death?” she asks in “The Rabbit.” These kinds of questions don’t always come with answers, of course, but reflect a sense of mystery that permeates her work, a respect for not knowing and for silence.

She had her darker moments, some of them probably attributable to childhood trauma. In “A Visitor,” she struggles to come to grips with her estrangement from her father, a subject she discussed frankly in her later years. In one of her most well-known poems, “Wild Geese,” she writes, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./Meanwhile the world goes on.” If there’s a secret to her appeal, I think it’s that she comes to the poem with an inclusive love for the world in all its imperfections — that and a willingness to embrace it again and again.

Writing Prompt: Gratitude

For this prompt, make a list of ten things you’re grateful for. They might be ordinary items around you — just-picked tomatoes, a set of salt and pepper shakers, or a glass of water, for instance, or they might be something more personal such as a family member, pet, or a prized possession. After completing your list, select the most promising subject and write continuously about that for at least five minutes, or more. When you’ve run out of steam, take a look at what you’ve come up with. Is there a poem there, or more than one poem? After fine-tuning your work, let it sit for several days. Then go back and have a second look. If it’s redundant, remove the deadwood. If it feels incomplete, you may want to weave in some additional details, or consider posing a question and answering it.

Writing Opportunities

Poetry Northwest is accepting poetry submissions from October 1st to November 30th. https://www.poetrynw.org

The Colorado Prize for Poetry is open for submissions of full-length manuscripts (48-100 pages) from October 1st to January 14th. https://www.coloradoreview.colostate.edu

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Haiku as Discovery

Haiku sometimes arrive intact and read just right. But more often than not (at least in my case), they can benefit from revision. This process is the subject of the article, “Haiku as Discovery,” forthcoming in the fall issue of Seashores, #8 (https://www.haikuspirit.org).

Recent Haiku

old pine: Modern Haiku, issue #54.1, Fall 2022

empty swings: Haiku Corner, Japan Society, #34, 2022

walking (under redwoods): Seashores, issue #8, Fall, 2022 

Inquiry as a Poetic Tool

Questions naturally arise in first drafts but they can help during the later stages of composition, too, if we’re stalled, or seeking to develop a theme. The right question can move us from reason to intuition, from the prosaic to the unexpected.The following questions all have one thing in common — they ask “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” or “how:”

 “What is the world?”(from Book of a Monastic Life, by Rilke)

“Which side am I supposed to be on?” (from the poem of the same title by W.H. Auden)

“How can you look at the Neva…?” (from White Flock, by Anna Akhmatova)

“Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when…?” (from The Swan, by Mary Oliver)

“What can I say to someone…?” (from The Fire in the Center, by Rumi) 

“Don’t you want God to want you?” (from The Tradition, by Jericho Brown)

 “And what did I do today?” (from Kennedy’s Inauguration, by Robert Bly)

“When did we enter the heartless age?” (from Heartland, by Lisel Mueller)

Writing Opportunities

The Maine Review is open for submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry (including hybrid forms) from September 1st to November 30th. A triannual online journal, MeR “publishes culturally significant writing by writers living in Maine, across the country, and around the world. https://www.mainereview.com

Third Coast Magazine, out of Western Michigan University, will be accepting poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction from September 15th to October 15th. Work published in Third Coast has gone on to win both O’Henry Prizes and Pushcart Prizes. https://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com

modern haiku is accepting haiku now until November 15th. www.https://modernhaiku.org

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Ada Limon Named 24th U.S. Poet Laureate

Ada Limon, author of six poetry collections and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, was recently named the new U.S. Poet Laureate, taking over the position held for three years bv Joy Harjo. A professor in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, Limon called her appointment “an incredible honor” and the shock of a lifetime.” https://www.npr.org

Rumi’s Little Book of the Heart

This inspiring little book, with translations by Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, offers an excellent introduction to the life and poetry of 13th-century Sufi poet Mowlana Jallaledin Mohamad Rumi (Hampton Roads, 2016). Born in Persia on September 30th, 1207 (in what is now Afghanistan), Rumi was the son of a renowned Islamic teacher/theologian, a role Rumi himself later assumed. But it wasn’t until the age of thirty-six when he met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering Sufi mystic, that Rumi’s spiritual genius blossomed, notably in the form of his ecstatic, voluminous poetry. In poem after poem he reveals an overwhelming experience of love that “appears on the wings of grace,” and questions, “How can one remain sober drinking Your wine?” Working from Forouzanfar’s edition of Rumi’s The Divan, Mafi and Kolin have created a lively collection that respects it source yet still feels contemporary. Interspersed among the poems are samples of Persian calligraphy by Hassan Behras Shayjani and Rumi’s signature emblem by Nutan Gungorencan. 

The Essential Rumi

At a conference in 1976, Robert Bly handed Coleman Barks some dated translations of the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi, with the comment that, “These poems need to be released from their cages.” This was the beginning of a lifelong commitment for the former University of Georgia professor, now 85, whose streamlined versions of the great Rumi have now sold well over two million copies.

To say the poems in Barks’s The Essential Rumi (Harper One, 2004) are spiritual may be somewhat misleading. They don’t deal in hope or certainties, or conventional notions of good and bad. What they offer is clarity, openness, and an invitation to share in Rumi’s generous spirit. But there’s also the grief of separation and longing for the beloved — for union, for ecstasy, for the meeting of heaven and earth. In its mature phase, Rumi tells, us, love becomes “oceanic” and “begins to move with the whole” and (there is) “No better love than love with no object.”

Rumi was the son of a Moslem theologian and served in the same capacity for many years, but his poetry isn’t doctrinaire. It stems from a wide knowledge of religion and deep insight into the “living marrow” of being. Coleman Barks’s translations in The Essential Rumi (2004)containnot only Moslem references, but several Christian, Hebrew, Buddhist, and Sufi references, as well. In one poem, “How Finite Minds Most Want to Be,” Jesus, Joseph, and Moses are referenced; in another, “The Well of Sacred Text,” both the Qur’an and the Bible are mentioned in the same line. There are several other examples that demonstrate a kinship of faiths and Rumi’s fluency with their stories. In “A Pilgrimage to a Person,” he says, “Be a pilgrim to the kaaba inside a human being,/and Mecca will rise on its own.” To be “inside the majesty,” to “become a lover,” this was Rumi’s message and the heart of his realization.

I think of these poems almost as living things, as scrapings of DNA from the life of an extraordinary teacher/poet, one whose songs go beyond belief and provide a direct view into “the radiant depth of the self,” as Barks has put it. Jacob Needleman summed up the importance of these translations: “Through Coleman Barks’s inspired renderings, we tired, modern people have come not only to love Rumi, but even — a little — to love who and what Rumi himself loved.” In addition to the poems, which are themselves teaching devices, the introductory comments at the beginning of each section in The Essential Rumi are an education — in culture, history, religion, the use and limits of metaphor, and the fluidity of identity. And if that’s not enough, the volume closes with several savory sounding recipes. Like the poems, they’re guides for living a nourishing life.

Interviews

This interview with poet John Silbey Williams by the editors of the River Heron Review (https://www.riverheronreview.com, July 6, 2022) focuses on craft and offers some of the most practical advice I’ve ever heard from a writer. The author of nine books of poetry and winner of multiple awards, Williams also serves as editor of the Inflectionist Review.

Nicole Vassell interviews poet and playwright Claudia Rankin for The Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk), June 24, 2022.  The author of Citizen, An American Lyric, called one of the most influential poetic works of the 21st century, Rankin speaks candidly here about racism and her new play, The White Card. 

Writing Opportunities

New Women’s Voices Chapbook Contest, sponsored by Finishing Line Press, is now accepting poetry manuscripts “by a writer who identifies as a woman and has not yet published a full-length manuscript.” Open until September 15th, the contest offers publication and a prize of $1500.

Blue Mountain Review, an online journal out of Athens, Georgia, is currently accepting poetry, fiction, and visual arts (no simultaneous submissions) “What we sing saves the soul,” reads the introduction to their website. https://www.bluemountainreview.submittable.com/submit

Next time: The poetry of Japanese Zen poet Ikkyu (Crazy Cloud), and more.

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The San Francisco Renaissance

The First Festival of Modern Poetry took place in San Francisco in April, 1947. Organized by Madeleine Gleason, founder of the San Francisco Poetry Guild, the two-night event featured readings by twelve poets including Gleason, William Everson (Brother Antonius), Robert Duncan, Muriel Rukeyser, and Kenneth Rexroth. Together with poets Robert Creeley, Kay Boyle, and other transplants to the Bay Area, they comprised what came to be known as the San Francisco Renaissance. Although her work was overshadowed by the advent of the Beats in the mid-1950s, Gleason continued to publish throughout the 1960s and 70s. Her poetry was featured in Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry:1945-1960 and Collected Poems:1919-1979, with an introduction by Robert Duncan, was published posthumously in 1999. Samples of her work can be found at www.poetryfoundation.com.

Exploring North Beach and Telegraph Hill

Centered around Washington Square, just below Telegraph Hill, San Francisco’s North Beach district is the kind of neighborhood where poets scribble at sidewalk cafes and seniors practice Tai Chi in the park. Although the Beat movement that once flourished there is long gone, you can still get a feel for it at Café Trieste, 601 Vallejo Street. It’s a good spot to sip a cappuccino at a sidewalk table while writing in your journal or catching up on emails. Just up the street from Café Trieste, The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway (near the corner of  Columbus Avenue), features books, manuscripts and ephemera of poet Allen Ginsberg (Howl), novelist Jack Kerouac (On the Road), and other North Beach habitués of the 1950s and 60s.

No tour of North Beach would be complete without a visit to City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue (near Broadway). Co-founded by legendary poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who served as San Francisco’s first poet laureate, it carries a wide range of literature, counter culture magazines, and poetry broadsides. You’re likely to find a copy of Diane Di Prima’s Recollections of My Life as a Woman on the shelves, along with Ferlinghetti’s classic, A Coney Island of the Mind, not to mentionan array of current releases.

Vesuvio Cafe, 255 Columbus Avenue (across Jack Kerouac Alley from City Lights), has been a bohemian watering hole since the 1940’s. Enjoy a glass of wine and people watch from a window seat, or jot down some random free verse on your napkin.

On and Off the Streets

San Francisco has changed dramatically over the years but it’s still a place of surprising beauty. Although much of the downtown and South of Market areas have acquired a bland, corporate look, North Beach has managed to maintain its quirky charm. Part of the fun of exploring the area is leaving your car behind. Narrow side streets are lined with bay-windowed flats while sidewalks merge into stairways that practically beg to be investigated. If you’ve got your walking shoes on, head up Telegraph Hill Boulevard to Coit Tower and Pioneer Park for the 360-degree bay and city views. Funded by Lillian Hitchcock Coit, the tower was designed in a pared down classical style by Arthur Brown, who also designed City Hall, and was completed in 1933. After checking out the tower’s WPA murals by artists such as Clifford Wright, consider trekking down the Filbert Steps on the eastern side of the hill where a colorful flock of green parrots can sometimes be seen. At the bottom of the steps you’ll find Levi-Strauss Plaza with its “participatory” fountain, just across from the palm tree-lined Embarcadero.

Summer Reading

Did you know that you can borrow digital and audio books for free on your library card? Just download the Hoopla and Libby Apps on your device, set up your account, and you can borrow up to six books for a month at a time. (An added advantage of Libby is that it works with Kindle.)

Opportunities

Salt Hill Journal is now accepting poetry submissions to September 5th, along with nonfiction, fiction, and art year round. https://salthilljournal.net

Parenthesis Journal is now accepting poetry submissions to September 1st, along with art and photographs. https://parenthesisjournal.com

Orison Books is now accepting entries in multiple genres for a chapbook contest to July 1st. Manuscripts should be between 25-45 pages.  https://orisonbooks.com

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Haiku Notes

Recently, I’ve been updating a batch of haiku and adding newer ones to the mix. The goal is to get them into publishable form, but the more immediate focus is just on relaxing and enjoying the process. There’s another factor at play, too, and that’s the benefit to be had from a regular practice that builds on itself. Time spent at the keyboard or easel (or engaged in any art form) is nurturing time for the psyche. I don’t think we can ever get too much of that.

Voices of Nature

With its de-emphasis on the “I” and emphasis on nature, traditional haiku often invite us to let go of our preoccupations, if only for a moment. The following haiku by Issa (1763-1827) is a good example of that:*

at home on a branch

racing downriver — a cricket

chirruping

This piece locates the reader in its environment with just two words, “branch” and “downriver.” Here, the cricket appears as a locus of experience, at home and singing from its perch as the world rushes by.     

One of Basho’s students, who later became a nun, Chigestsu (1632-1706) was also adept at conveying the voices of nature:*

songbird riffing

outside the window — pausing

from dishwashing

Here’s another domestic scene, this one from Ryokan (1758-1831):*

sounds of pot scrubbing 

mixed with the voices

of tree frogs

A good haiku offers more than an escape from our cares; it may also depict them as universal, as these lines by Chigetsu suggest:*

a murmur now,

cry of the katydid

grown old

Onitsura (1660-1738) manages to depict the music of silence in these three lines, no small feat:*

silent music

of blossoms, drifting

through air

This one, by Buson (1716-1784), isn’t exactly a voice, yet still evokes its subject:*

winter night —

the patter of rats, walking

across dishes  

A follower of Pure Land Buddhism, Issa suggests a kinship between nature and faith in the following haiku. There’s something about the call of geese overhead that commands attention and announces our “place in the family of things,” as Mary Oliver has put it:*

passing overhead,

a flock of wild geese, chanting

Amida Buddha’s name

Besides his well-known lines about the dreams of “lost warriors,” written in 1689 (and mentioned in my last post), Basho wrote another war-related haiku that year after visiting a shrine to the warrior Sanemori:*

how sorrowful —

under an old helmet,

cries of a cricket 

Is Basho’s sorrow for the cricket and/or Sanemori? Or is it for the folly of war, in general? This piece leaves much unsaid. What does it evoke for you? For more on this subject, see Basho’s classic Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings.

*versions by jg

Haiku Writing Prompt:

Find a comfortable and safe place in nature to relax for ten minutes or more. Begin by jotting down a list of any sounds you may hear, whether natural or mechanical. Select one and then add to this an appropriate kigo or seasonal word that connotes the time of year. (Some examples of words for summer that appear in kigo dictionaries are dandelion, sunflower, lightning, summer dew, ice water, firefly, and so on.) Practice shaping the words you selected into phrases that form a viable haiku, whether in a 5-7-5 syllable format or something close to that. Limit the number of syllables to 17, more or less. Then go back and look at your lines again, making any changes or additions that clarify or add depth.

News

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April is Poetry Month

National Poetry Month began in April, 1996, spearheaded by the Academy of American Poets. Visit their website to sign up for Poem-a-Day, to order a free poster, and find out the many ways you can celebrate poetry at home and in the classroom. www.poets.org

The Beauty of Passing Things

Traditional Japanese haiku often show an appreciation for the aesthetic of transience, known as mono no aware (the beauty of passing things). The following two haiku by Basho, below, include seasonal references, evoking transience with images from the natural world:*     

spring fades —

birds cry out, and tears

blur the eyes of carp

In these lines, Basho depicts nature as sentient. Birds and fish seem to be aware of spring’s passing, possibly even lamenting it. There’s an intimacy that suggests the poet shares a connection with the creatures and cycles of nature.

This next one, written at the site of a famous battle, reminds me of Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. Both deal with the folly of dreams of conquest, yet Basho’s lines suggest the element of rebirth in nature and, by extension, in human nature:*   

dried grasses —

all that remains of the dreams

of lost warriors

*versions by jg

Recent Publications

Humana Obscura is a print and online journal that focuses on work “where the human element is concealed but not entirely absent, aiming to revive the nature genre,” according to their website. Founded in 2020, they seek poetry, short prose, and artwork in a variety of mediums. “Notes from Snow Mountain” (Spring 2022, issue #4) is a brief account of a hiking trip on Mt. Lassen, known originally by the name Snow Mountain (or Kohm Yah-mah-nee in Maidu). www.humanaobscura.com

Canary is an online journal “that explores one’s engagement with the natural world.” They seek poetry, essays, and fiction “that address the environmental crisis with its heartbreaking loss of habitat and species.” “Sleeping Deer in the Afternoon” (Spring 2022, issue #56) depicts an encounter with a group of deer sleeping in an orchard. www.canarylitmagazine.org

cattails is an online journal that publishes “new and unpublished English haiku, senryu , tanka, and haibun with translations in the poets’ own language. “baby squirrel” (April 2022) was written several years ago, but the use of the adverb “this” suggests otherwise. www.cattailsjournal.com

News

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Sights and Sounds

Sandhill cranes have been wintering recently in the Sacramento Delta region, drawn to the marshes and fields where they feed on waste grain from harvested crops. Standing up to four feet tall and with wingspans of up to seven feet, they’re known for their unique courtship dance and trumpet-like calls. The Woodbridge Ecological Preserve and the Cosumnes River Preserve in Lodi offer some of the best designated viewing spots around. A wide range of other birds can also be found there, including whooping cranes, double-crested cormorants, white pelicans, grebes, egrets, and various species of hawks, quail, geese, and ducks.

We received abundant snow and rainfall in California earlier this winter. In Yosemite, the falls are all flowing and accessible (some services may be limited due to COVID; for the latest information visit www.nps.gov.) In Mill Valley, the Cascade Falls are running again, and in Sunol Regional Wilderness, the scenic gorge of the Little Yosemite Area offers hikers the sight and sound of cascades spilling over boulders into swirling pools.

The increased rainfall has been a boon for spawning salmon. In Lagunitas Creek in Samuel P. Taylor State Park, female coho salmon can be seen preparing nests in the shallow waters while males compete for the best spots in the creek. (“A Good Year to See Coho Salmon Make Their Annual Return to Marin,” by Tara Duggin, SF Chronicle, January 4). 

World of Wonders

I don’t know how I managed to miss this book. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments,” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, was on the best seller lists for weeks. A review by James Rebanks in the NYTs (Sept. 11, 2020) offers that the author has written “a timely story about love, identity, and belonging (more accurately often about not belonging, because of racism and her family’s immigrant experience).” A poet with four collections to her credit, Nezhukumatathil, links her personal history with the natural world, focusing on the wonders of the catalpa tree, fireflies, and Narwhals, among other subjects. The result is an engaging and intimate memoir, and a wonder itself. It reminds me of some of the early writing of Gerald Durrell, though without the comic lens. With illustrations by Fumi Mini Nakamura (Milkweed Editions, 2020). 

The Colors of Nature

This breakthrough anthology, edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming and Lauret Savoy, reveals how bias influences attitudes and policies about nature. In The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, thirty writers of various backgrounds examine how conditioning can shape our awareness of the environment and how we write about it, and how important diversity is in our approach to planetary struggles. (Milkweed Editions, 2011).

Open Submissions

Terrain.org is an online journal seeking poetry, nonfiction, fiction, art, multi-media and mixed genre work that inspire “just and joyous relations with the planet and each other.” Since 1997, they’ve published award-winning literature, editorials, and case studies about place. Deadline is April 4, 2022 for the spring issue. Visit www.terrain.org for details.

About Place is an online journal published the Black Earth Institute. Dedicated to finding “pathways to peace” and to “cure what is wrongfully impacted by ecological destruction,” they seek poetry, fiction, essays, creative nonfiction, and audio/visual artwork. Open for submissions until March 10 Visit www.aboutplacejournal.org for details.

Haiku Notes

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Chiyo-ni

Anybody who’s ever lived around morning glories knows that they often turn up in unexpected places — curled around a shovel or a ladder, growing around a drainpipe, or climbing up a fence post, to name a few. The haiku, below, reflects that trait*:

morning glories 

wrapped around the well bucket —

borrowing water

According to D.T. Suzuki, this haiku by Fukudo Chiyo-ni (1703-1755) conveys the experience of suchness, in which the speaker is “perfectly at one with reality” — so much so that she went to a neighbor to borrow water rather than disturb the scene she described. Chiyo-ni began writing haiku at the age of seven and by seventeen was well known throughout Japan as a follower of Basho’s style. Below is one of many haiku she wrote expressing evanescence*:

clear water

cool to the touch —

fireflies vanishing

Late in life, she became a nun in the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, while continuing to write haiku and renga. Here are a few more examples of her work*:

pampas grass,

made for this life

in the wind

from the heart of this one vine,

countless gourds

flickering

between maple leaves —

twilight

   *trans. jg 

Gratitude

As 2021 draws to a close, I’m reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem, “Gratitude,” from the collection, Thirst. It contains eight questions, any one of which might serve as a prompt for a poem:

– “What did you notice?”

– “What did you hear?”

– “When did you admire?”

– “What astonished you?”

– “What would you like to see again?”

– “What was most tender?”

– “What was most wonderful?”

– “What did you think was happening?”

For me, the question,“What was most tender?”, invites reflection. The tender moments we experience in life are often the ones that are imbued with love — the love of close relationships, the love for pets, for wildlife, or the beauties of nature. Which questions resonate with you? What are you most grateful for?