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Mirabai and the Poetry of Bhakti

Born into a royal family in Rajasthan, India, the 16th century poet/saint Mirabai (1498-1547?) followed the path of bhakti. One of the four traditional branches of yoga, bhakti encourages a personal connection to God or deity through the practice of dancing, singing, and recitations of poems and praises. So intense was Mirabai’s religious devotion that her marriage and relations with her in-laws suffered from it. Fleeing persecution, she lived an unconventional life, wandering from village to village and singing praises to Sri Krishna, whom she addressed as “Dark One.” Approximately two-hundred of these bhajans are attributed to her but she may have written as many as six-hundred to a thousand of them. They swing between the poles of presence and absence, at times depicting ecstatic states, at other times loss and the longing for union:*     

“Mira has met the love that ignites stars

and sends bees swirling from the hive.

The fragrance of that love is sweeter than jasmine.”

“Dark One, where have you gone?

Without a word from you I’m desperate

like a fish flopping in a pail.”

“When supreme love has left the throne

of the heart, what good is the world

with all its perfumes and  riches?”

As scholar Holly Hillgardner points out in Longing and Letting Go: Christian and Hindu Practices of Passionate Non-attachment (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016), “Separation (thus) serves not as a preliminary step on the path to ultimate fulfillment, but as an integral part of the beginning, middle, and end of the path itself”…“and grief cannot be sidestepped.”

A 2009 collection, Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, translated by poets Jane Hirshfield and Robert Bly, offers a bittersweet taste of this bhakti. Hirshfield brings to the project her experience translating Japanese poems from the 8th and 9th centuries (Ink of the Dark Moon) and a gift for revealing the ineffable in the everyday; Bly demonstrates a deep affinity for the subject matter and the same level of care seen in his earlier translations of Indian poet/saint Kabir. Together, they honor Mirabai’s originals while transporting them sensitively into the 21st century.

Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, Jane Hirshfield and Robert Bly (Translators), Beacon Press, 2009

The Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World, Edited with Commentary by Ivan McGregor, Poetry Chaikhana

*versions by jg

Opportunities

The Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Contest is open from June 27th to July 31st. Sponsored by the Center for Interfaith Relations, the contest offers $500 and publication of the winning poem in Parabola Magazine. Runners-up will each receive $100. https://www.centerforinterfaithrelations.submittable.com

Santa Fe Literary Review, an annual print and online journal, is accepting submissions now until November 1st. Committed to “promoting a diverse range of writers and artists,” they seek CNF, fiction, poetry, and visual art. This year’s suggested theme is “Myth: Invention, Legend and Lore.” https://www.sfcc.edu/santafe-literary-review

Next time

Versions of Kabir, plus more writing opportunities.

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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.

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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

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Ways to Help

Following the Russian invasion on February 24th, over two million refugees have fled Ukraine, approximately half of them children. A recent article in the Washington Post (“Here’s How Americans Can Donate to Help People in Ukraine,” February 27) provides links to several helping organizations, including Voices of Children and Save the Children (www.washingtonpost.com). Below are addresses for some other organizations that have dedicated their efforts to helping refugees displaced by this war, including UNICEF:

www.unicefusa.org

www.globalgiving.org

www.internationalrescure.org

www.doctorswithoutborders.org

www.airbng.org

www.unhcr.org

Poem Goes Viral

Ukranian American poet Illya Kaminsky’s poem, “We Lived Happily Through the War,” went semi-viral after the invasion. In an article in the New York Times (March 3), poet Victoria Chang introduces the poem, which originally appeared in Kaminsky’s volume, Deaf Republic (a NYTs Notable Book). The theme is complacency during a time of war. Born in Odessa, the author emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1993. He speaks at greater length about his work in an interview with Dan Kois (Slate, March 4).

Auden’s 1939 Meditation

W.H. Auden’s poem, “Crisis” first appeared in the Atlantic magazine in 1939, on the same day the German army invaded Poland. It’s been described by the Atlantic as “a meditation on the creeping horror of fascism and the dread of invasion,” and “an unofficial prologue to Auden’s famous poem on the beginning of the war, “September 1, 1939.” He continued to revise the latter work over the years, never content with the final line. Yet that line, “We must love one another or die,” continues to resonate. 

Teach This Poem

The Academy of American Poets offers lesson plans for teaching Kaminsky’s poem, as well as for those by Auden and others. Activities include reading, writing, speaking and listening, with suggestions for remote and blended learning. See “Teach This Poem,” www.poets.org. Biographies and poems of more than 3,000 poets can be found on the website. 

Poetry Peace Award

The annual Barbara Mandigo Kelly Poetry Peace Award contest is accepting entries until July 1, 2022, and is open in three categories: for adults, youth, and youth under twelve. First prize is $1,000 and publication. For more details, see www.peacecontest.org.

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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.

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Books Noted

Kindest Regards, New and Selected Poems, by Ted Kooser (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), contains four decades of poetry in addition to recent work. The Pulitzer Prize winner, who hails from Nebraska and served as Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006, is known for his short, imagistic poems that focus on everyday events and objects. Reflecting the landscape of Midwestern towns and farms (he lives on acreage in Garland, Nebraska), his poetry expresses universal experiences and the need for meaningful connection. He has said of his work that, “I want to show people how interesting the ordinary world can be if you pay attention.”

As the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo gathered the poetry of Native peoples past and present in the 222-page An Anthology of First People’s Words: Living Nations, Living Words (W.W. Norton, 2021). Poets such as Natalie Diaz, Sherwin Bitsui, Ray Young Bear, and Santos Perez address themes of displacement, visibility, struggle, resistance, and other subjects here. The anthology demonstrates “that heritage is a living thing,” Harjo writes in the introduction, “and there can be no heritage without land and the relationships that outline our kinship.” A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, she is the author of several poetry volumes and a memoir, “Crazy Brave.” 

Poet and teacher John Brehm’s The Dharma of Poetry: How Poems Can Deepen Your Spiritual Practice and Open You to Joy (Wisdom Publications, 2021) is geared toward poets and poetry lovers who practice meditation, but it’s a rich resource for readers and writers of any persuasion. Brehm presents poetry as a “powerful way to disrupt the habitual momentum of the mind, its automatic reactions and obsessive self-concerns.” His analysis of poems such as James Wright’s “A Blessing” and Ryokan’s “First Days of Spring” point out how these poems offer the reader an opportunity to pause while “full of imaginative engagement,” and invite us to enter “the timeless experience the poem describes.” The book also contains writing prompts and suggested meditations.

In Memoriam

Three of San Francisco’s former poet laureates died in 2021 — Lawrence Ferlinghetti (at age 101), Janice Mirikitani, and Jack Hirschman. In addition to their innovative literary output, each made a vital contribution to the city’s cultural life — Ferlinghetti as co-founder of City Lights Bookstore and publisher of the Beat poets, Mirikitani as ambassador of love (with her husband the Rev. Cecil Williams) and Hirschman as an outspoken writer who reminded us of the importance of politically relevant poetry. Other outstanding American poets who passed recently are: bell hooks, Stephen Dunn, Thomas Kinsella, Jean Breeze, and Robert Bly. May they all rest in peace.

Open Submissions

Split Rock Review, an independent online publication, is accepting submissions for Issue #18, including poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, hybrid, photography, and art with an emphasis on place and the environment. Until Jan. 31st. www.rockreiew.org

The Emerson Review, out of Emerson College, is now open for submissions until February 1st for the spring issue, due to be published in April. Seeking poetry, fiction, nonfiction, photography and art. Selected pieces are nominated for a Pushcart Prize. www.emersonreview.submittable.com

Beloit Poetry Journal, a print publication, is open for poetry submissions in various forms and styles. Send up to five unpublished poems or one long poem by January 31st.  www.bpj.org

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? 

Haiku Notes

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…The Awakened One, a new anthology of Buddhist-themed haiku, is now available on Amazon and other platforms. Published by Poetry Chaikhana and edited by Adjei Agyei-Baah and Gabriel Rosenstock, the anthology features haikuists from around the world in dialog with Japanese masters such as Basho, Buson, and Issa. 

…The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan, by Abagail Freidman with an introduction by Michael Dylan Welch (Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, CA, 2006). Abigail Freidman was living in Japan as an American diplomat when she met haikuist Momoko Kuroda. At that time Kuroda was already a prominent teacher who had been featured in the anthology, Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women, by Makoto Uedo (the title comes from one of Kuroda’s haiku):*

greening the sky

far beyond the field —

lightning flash

Friedman, who was already studying calligraphy, joined Kuroda’s haiku group, Aoi Kaiku Kai, writing her first haiku in Japanese. She traces her learning curve here, offering passages on the significance of kigo and cutting words, and the value of working with a group. This lively account is as revealing for its intimate glimpses into Japanese culture as it is for its many insights into the practice of haiku.       

…The Poems of Nakahara Chuya, translated by Paul Mackintosh and Maki Suglyama (Gracewing Publishing, 2017). One of Japan’s early 20th century poets, Nakahara Chuya was influenced by both Dada and French symbolism and has been referred to as the “Japanese Rimbaud.” He is known for his collections Yagi no Uta (Goat Songs, 1934) and Arishi Hi no Uta (Songs of Bygone Days, 1938).

*trans. jg