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Urgency and Tradition in Jericho Brown’s Latest Collection

One of the traditions referred to in Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), is poetical — he’s writing in the lyric tradition, short poems that express intense feelings about his experiences as a black, gay man from the south.  (He’s currently an Associate Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Emory University in Atlanta.)  Another is political, echoing those writers before him who have depicted the pain and injustice African Americans have experienced in this country for hundreds of years.  In their citation for the Pulitzer, the judges stated that his lyrics “combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.”  This is especially apparent in the title poem, which compares the lives of at-risk black men to the brief lives of flowers, and in Bullet Points, both of which have been widely circulated since the violent deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police.  Bullet Points “was not born out of a sense of protest from me.  It’s a poem born out of a sense of desperation that comes from a fact in my life.  I don’t want anybody saying that I killed myself if I’m ever in police custody,” Brown has said (The Guardian, June 5, 2020).  Demonstrating that the personal is the political, these poems “question why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater…”, the publishers have written.  “Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither — or survive.”  The Academy of American Poets offers lesson plans for poems about social justice, including The Tradition; for more information, visit their site at www.poets.org.

In the Lateness of the World, by Carolyn Forche’

In Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (Norton, 1993), poet Carolyn Forche’ gathered the work of more than 140 twentieth-century poets who bear witness to war, imprisonment, torture, censorship, or exile, defending “the individual against illegitimate forms of coercion” (Mason Gazette).  The landmark anthology appeared twelve years after the second collection of her own poetry, The Country Between Us (Jonathan Cape, 1981), which was based on her experiences in El Salvador in the 1970s with Amnesty International.  Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Art Seidenbaum observed that those poems “chronicle the awakening of a political consciousness and are themselves acts of commitment: to concepts and persons, to responsibility, to action.”  The 1981 Lamont Poetry Selection, it was also the winner of the James Laughlin Award.  Now, in her most recent volume, In the Lateness of the World (Penguin Press, 2020), Forche’s unflinching gaze takes in landscapes from five continents, scarred by the effects of violence and environmental degradation.  In The Museum of Stones, the first poem in the collection, the poet gathers images of stones from “ruins of choirs and shipyards…from temples and tombs…stone from the tunnel lined with bones…stones where the bells had fallen, where the bridges were blown…”, curating them on the page with the dedication of an anthropologist.  Contemplative and elegiac, the poems invite us “to consider the sometimes unrecognized, though always felt, ways in which power inserts itself into our lives and to think about how we can move forward with what we know,” writes Hilton Als in the New Yorker.  A selection of Forche’s poems can be found on the website of The Academy of American Poets, along with lesson plans; for more information, visit www.poets.org.

Behind the Mask: New Poetry Anthology by Humboldt Poets

News stories about the pandemic that cite the alarming rise of cases around the country can leave you feeling depressed, if not hopeless.  An abundance of facts and figures often leaves out the human element.  A new anthology of poetry: Behind the Mask, 40 Quarantine Poems from Humboldt County, edited by David Holper and Anne Fricke, addresses that gap.  Holper, who is Poet Laureate of Eureka, CA, says that “the book captures the range of emotions that many people are feeling during this time,” according to an article from The Lost Coast Outpost (www.lostcoastoutpost.com).  The new book evolved from a Facebook group, “Poetry on the Edge.”  After the site had accumulated over 100 poems, Holper thought it would be a good idea to collect them in a book and solicited further submissions, asking poet Anne Fricke to help with the project.  “It’s frightening— the virus, the economics — some people are depressed by it,” he said.  “I think you’ll see that in some of the poems.  But some are also whimsical.  We tried to include a range.”  Behind the Mask is available to purchase in print or can be downloaded free from the above site.

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Poets on the Pandemic

A new anthology, Together in this Sudden Strangeness, edited by Alice Quinn and due as an ebook by Knopf in June, collects the work of over eighty poets who express their anxieties about life and writing during the pandemic.  Ada Limon, among those featured in the collection, observes that she initially felt “flattened and silenced” by the shutdown, according to a report on the site www.https://voalearningenglish.com.  In her recent poem, “The End of Poetry,” (New Yorker, April 27, 2020), she lists a series of subjects that she found “she could no longer access” during these uncertain times (see “Writing Prompts”).  Some of the other poets included in the new book are Major Jackson, Amit Majmudar, Billy Collins, Jane Hirshfield, Jenny Xie, and Julia Guez.  Poems cover topics such as parenting, grief, and the loneliness of social distancing.

Pandemic Haiku: Volume One, an anthology initiated by a haiku posted on Facebook by Iowa writer and therapist Robin Schinnow, is one of the best-selling books on Amazon in its category, according to a May 16th article in the Des Moines Register.  “People’s feelings, questions, and support are an important part of recording this event,” said editorial coordinator Cathie Gebhart, who helped produce the book containing over 100 haiku.  All proceeds from sales go to the Outreach Program of Des Moines, Iowa.

Native American Poetry Anthologies

Joy Harjo has been appointed to a second term as U.S. Poet Laureate.  An enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, she’s working on an anthology of Native American poetry along with an online resource featuring biographies and recordings of Native poets, entitled, “Living Nations, Living Words: A Map of First Peoples’ Poetry.”

The first anthology in thirty years of Native poets “exclusively from the United States,” New Poets of Native Nations (Greywolf Press, 2018) contains the work of twenty-one indigenous authors.  Edited by Heid E. Erdich, an Ojibwe writer and scholar enrolled at Turtle Mountain, it won the American Book Award and has been described by The Washington Post as “A wonderful introduction to the diverse landscape of native voices.”

Michael McClure (1932–2020)

Michael McClure, who participated in the legendary San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 that helped launch the west coast literary movement of the Beat Poets, died May 4th at the age of 87.  A former Playwright in Residence at San Francisco’s Magic Theater, McClure is the author of the controversial play, “The Beard,” as well as thirty books, and is co-author of the song, “Mercedes Benz,” popularized by Janis Joplin.  (A selection of his haiku can be found online at Terebess Asia Online).  Robert Creeley said of his work that he “shares a place with the great William Blake, with the visionary Shelley, with the passionate D. H. Lawrence,” to which might also be added the names of Basho and Chuang Tzu.  In her recent tribute, “Remembering Michael McClure, Poet, Teacher, Friend,” historian Rebecca Solnit writes, “He helped transform the culture.  He was an opener of doors and a builder of bridges.”  www.https://lithub.com

Buddhism and the Beats

Buddhism was the primary philosophical foundation for several of the Beats, a term coined to describe the free-spirited literary innovators who came into prominence in the mid-1950s.  Jack Kerouac studied Buddhism and wrote about it in “Some of the Dharma,” Gary Snyder lived as a Zen monk in Japan, Michael McClure practiced tantric yoga and Zen, Allen Ginsberg and Diane Di Prima embraced both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Bob Kaufman converted in his later years, and Philip Whalen was ordained as a Zen Priest in the Soto school, serving as Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco.  Despite being initially disparaged by some (but not all) in the literary establishment, the work of the Beats helped to introduce the principles of Buddhism into mainstream American culture and broadened the range and style of American poetry — notably, linking it to the breath in free verse and haiku.

Philip Whalen is one of the lesser known figures of the Beats.  A participant in the landmark Six Gallery poetry reading in 1955 (along with Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, and Gary Snyder), he lived for a time as a monk in Kyoto, Japan, at the San Francisco Zen Center, and later as head monk of Dharma Sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  By the early 1990s he was nearly blind, but that didn’t stop him from welcoming practitioners to the Hartford Street meditation hall.  His poetry appeared in The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960, edited by Donald Allen (Grove Press, NY, 1999), in Overtime: Selected Poems by Philip Whalen (Penguin, NY, 1999), and in The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen (Wesleyan University Press, Conn, 2007).  Many of his poems function as a form of quasi-meditation, honoring the moments of everyday life while framing that within the larger historical and philosophical context of Buddhism.  A selection of his work that appeared posthumously in Lion’s Roar illustrates this point (Poems & Zen Talks of Philip Whalen).  David Kherdian puts it this way: “Whalen has managed to espouse the religious principles of Zen Buddhism without renouncing the world around him, retaining a humorous, whimsical balance in his poems, and mixing the pleasures of California life with contemplation…”  (Six Poets of the San Francisco Renaissance: Portraits and Checklists).

English romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Shelley, American Transcendentalists Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau, and early Asian writers such as Han Shan, Du Fu, and Dogen, were the literary forebears of Whalen and his contemporaries, notably Gary Snyder.  In Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, Snyder’s translations of the work of Han Shan marry the spirit of the originals with his background as a scholar, monk, mountain climber, fire lookout, and trail builder.  Reflecting a deep connection to nature, his poetry and essays bring the principle of reverence for life (ahimsa or non-harming) into the ecological movement.  Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his 1974 collection, Turtle Island (New Directions), he has written that, “One of the major challenges facing our large current human populations is what role we should play in regard to the many thousands of other living beings we share the planet with.”  Now aged 90, Snyder is a long-time resident of the Sierra foothills in California, near Nevada City.

The late Michael McClure’s work also reflects a profound awareness of nature, especially animal nature, and this was evident early on when he presented his poem For the Death of 100 Whales at the Six Gallery reading (he was 22 at the time).  The author of fourteen volumes of poetry, more than twenty plays, two novels, and four collections of essays, his poetry “combined spontaneity, typographical experimentation, Buddhist practice, and “body language” to merge the ecstatic and the corporeal,” according to the Poetry Foundation.  In an interview with Rebecca Foresmen in the New Yorker (January 14, 2013), he mentions that he “practiced tantric yoga in my early life, and now practice Zen to Hua-Yen, or Flower Garden Buddhism…a practice intended to elucidate the actual moment of Buddha’s enlightenment.”  Many of his Zen poems can be found in the volume, Touching the Edge, Dharma Devotions from the Hummingbird Sangha (Shambala Publications, 1999).  A recipient of the Obie Award for Best Play (The Beard) and the Alfred Jarry Award, he co-authored the song, Mercedes Benz, with Janis Joplin.

Known primarily for his novels, Jack Kerouac was also a poet, haikuist, and Buddhist scholar.  With the publication in 1957 of his second novel, On the Road, he became an “overnight sensation” and the key figure of the Beats.  This was followed two years later by The Dharma Bums, which was dedicated to Han Shan, hermit poet of the Tang dynasty.  Another semi-autobiographical tale, this one centered on his quest for spiritual awakening while on a mountain climbing trip with Gary Snyder.  According to Allen Ginsberg (Negative Capability: Kerouac’s Buddhist Ethic, Tricycle, Fall, 1992), Kerouac was introduced to Buddhism through A Buddhist Bible, a collection of Buddhist sutras translated by Dwight Goddard that presents the Four Noble Truths and the three “marks” of existence: suffering, impermanence, and anatman or “no permanent self.”  This was the impetus for Kerouac’s collection of meditations, Some of the Dharma, begun in 1953 and published by Viking in 1997.  He was awarded a posthumous honorary degree in 2007 by the University of Massachusetts Lowell (his hometown) and his Collected Poems was published in 2012 by Library of America.

Besides Jack Kerouac of On the Road fame, Allen Ginsberg is probably the most recognizable of the Beat writers.  Born in Newark, New Jersey, he attended Columbia University in the 1940s, studying briefly with critic and teacher Lionel Trilling. While living in Manhattan, he met Kerouac, William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), and Gregory Corso (Gasoline Alley), who also came to be associated with the Beats.  Relocating to San Francisco in the mid-1950s with his life partner Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg read his declamatory poem, Howl, at the Six Gallery event to much acclaim.  Poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was present at the reading, recognized Ginsberg’s potential, sending him a telegram the following day that read: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career” (echoing Emerson’s words to Walt Whitman).  When Ferlinghetti went on to publish Howl in 1956 as a paperback under his City Lights imprint, the publicity from the subsequent obscenity trial (which exonerated Ferlinghetti) all but assured Ginsberg’s role as one of the main voices for an alternative literature movement.  His interest in Eastern religion prompted travel to India, where he met His Holiness The Dalai Lama and His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche.  On his return, he became a student of Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.  He also served on the board of Maitri, an Aids hospice in San Francisco.  Although Ginsberg was shunned by some in the east coast literary establishment, his collection, The Fall of America, won the National Book Award and he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Diane Di Prima attended Swathmore College but dropped out to pursue writing in Manhattan in the late 1950s, editing the newspaper The Floating Bear (with LeRoi Jones) and co-founding the New York Poet’s Theater.  Her first volume of poetry, This Kind of Bird Flies Backward was published by Totem Press in 1958.  Relocating to the West Coast in the early 1960s, she studied with Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center and, upon his death, with Chogyam Trungpa in Boulder, where she taught for several years at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.  In the 1990s, she became a student of Lama Tarchin Rinpoche, the late Tibetan Dzochen master.  Her poetry blends political, personal, and spiritual themes in an intimate, stream-of-consciousness mode.  “I wanted everything — very earnestly and totally,” she has said.  “I wanted everything that was possible to a woman in a female body…”  A fictionalized story of her early life, Memoirs of a Beatnik, was published by Olympia Press in 1969, and her selected poems, Pieces of a Song, was published by City Lights in 1990.  This was followed by a memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years, published by Viking in 2001.  A recipient of the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement (2006) and a former Poet Laureate of San Francisco (2009), Di Prima has lived in the city for over thirty years.  Now 85, she continues to write and has taken up watercolor painting.

Bob Kaufman was one of the finest poets — and one of the least known — to come out of the Beat movement.  Regarded as the “Black Rimbaud” in France, his work exemplifies the ideal of free-flowing spontaneity valued by Kerouac and others, in part because much of his poetry was composed orally to jazz accompaniment and later written down.  Born and raised in Louisiana (one of thirteen children), he attended the New School in New York City, moving to San Francisco in 1958.  A convert to Buddhism and a founder of the influential poetry publication “Beatitude” with Allen Ginsberg and others, he published three volumes of poetry in his lifetime: Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness (New Directions, 1965), The Golden Sardine (City Lights Books, 1967), and Ancient Rain: Poems, 1956-1978 (New Directions, 1981).  Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he took a vow of silence, not speaking until the end of the Vietnam War (Poetry Foundation).

 

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Silence

We began to notice the silence in the first few days after the shutdown.  There was no longer the white noise of traffic from the nearby state highway, and the comings and goings of cars on our block had tapered off.  Something seemed different in the call of birds, too, as if they were testing this new quiet, listening to the resonance of their songs.

Walking to the local market yesterday, I found myself sauntering — a practice, and a word, that seems to have gone out of fashion.  It’s not so much about the need to hurry to my destination these days as it is about enjoying the scenery along the way.   The hills are still green.  A few horses graze below the ridge.  Roses are in bloom, and the scent of flowering citrus blossoms is in the air.  Does silence have a scent?  Well, no, not exactly.  But it permeates the scent, just as it permeates my thoughts.

I hope the current shutdown helps to “flatten the curve” of COVID infections — that we’ll all be back to work, again, soon, that schools can safely reopen, and business as usual will return to our communities.  But this may not happen as soon as we wish, at least not entirely.  So I also hope that something of this moment stays with us, something more than uncertainty and fear.  That we’ll listen for the silence that underscores political messaging, birdcalls, and the sound of our own breathing.

Writing Prompt: Settling in with Haiku

Haiku have a way of occurring out of the blue, but you may want to try a “haiku walk” in your neighborhood or in a local park to refresh your senses and mind to what’s going on around you — to nature “as it is,” minus the usual preoccupations.  In Japan, these walks are known as ginkoo (gin -singing, praising, poem-making; koo – walking).  You may want to take a notebook and pen along so that you can jot down a few key words about your experiences.  These may serve the basis of one or more haiku later.

If that’s not possible, list some of the memorable places you’ve visited.  What was the outstanding thing, event, or experience about your visit to each of them?  Compose a haiku about one or more of these places, incorporating a seasonal image, or possibly a reference to your feelings or state of mind at the time.

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Poetry of the Pandemic

The first poem I read about the pandemic was written by Lynn Unger, San Francisco Bay Area minister and author of Blessing of the Bread, and it’s still the one that resonates with me most.  Pandemic originally appeared on her blog and later was the subject of an article in the Chicago Tribune, March 13th.  Reflecting on the practice of social distancing, Unger offers that it’s not something we do to remove ourselves emotionally from others, but to affirm a sense of compassion for each other.  It’s a message I’d yet to hear from Washington, and I don’t think we can hear it often enough.

Poets have written about epidemics in the past — Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) wrote A Litany in a Time of Plague, John Davies wrote The Triumph of the Dead, and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) wrote The Plague, to name just a few examples.  More recently, Rafael Campo (1964 – ) wrote Silence = Death about the Aids epidemic and Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate of the U.K., wrote Lockdown.

Not Shutting Down in a Shut Down

The demands of sheltering in place can be daunting.  “Feelings of anxiety can creep up when you’re sheltering in place,” according to Jei Africa, Director of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services at the Marin County Health and Human Services Department.  In a recent story in the Marin Independent Journal, he’s quoted as saying, “You could have trouble sleeping, not feeling like eating or eating too much, shortness of breath, heart racing or feeling irritable or impatient.”  Keeping stress levels down is important, and this can be done by “controlling the things you can control,” he says.  His advice: “Exercise, limit exposure to news and social media, keep in contact with friends and family, eat healthy, get enough sleep and make sure to have a solid connection with your main health care provider.”

Saving City Lights

Like other small businesses that are suffering from the economic impact of the health crisis, the futures of many independent bookstores are threatened, including the legendary City Lights bookstore and publishing company in San Francisco’s North Beach.  Founded by poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti, it helped to launch the careers of Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lenore Kandel, and many others.  A recent message from Elaine Katzenberger, Publisher and CEO of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, described City Lights as “a steady beacon…there whenever we need a place to feel at home with our fellow humans, their ideas and aspirations, their curiosities and their wild dreams of a new beginning.”  The landmark store, opened in 1953, has been closed since March 16th and currently has no way to generate sales.  The good news is that a GoFundMe campaign exceeded the initial goal of $300,000 in just a few days, raising over $400,000.  The store will go on, Katzenberger says, at least for now.  “Knowing that City Lights is beloved is one thing, but to have that love manifest itself with such momentum and indomitable power, well, that’s something I don’t quite know how to find words for.”

Acknowledging Grief

In an interview with Amapour & Co. on PBS (available on YouTube), grief and dying expert David Kessler observes that many people are now grieving for the loss of loved ones but, in addition, we’re also mourning for the world we’ve lost.  “Everything has changed,” he says, and “it’s sinking into us that next week the world’s not going back to normal.”  Acknowledging grief over our losses is important, he adds.  “If we name it, it allows us to be sad, to cry, to feel those emotions…suppressing them isn’t going to work.”  His most recent book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief (Scribners, 2019) explains that these six stages aren’t linear, and that in acknowledging our felt experience, we can begin to find meaning, and healing, in that.  The process is deeply personal one, and what’s meaningful for one person may not be for another.  For Kessler, it comes in the form of helping others through his lectures and writing.

West Marin Review

Thanks to West Marin Review of Point Reyes Station, California, and especially to co-founder Madeleine Corson, whose attention to my poem Temple Snow helped it come to life.  Their website describes the journal as “influenced by the natural beauty of the land and water, and the surrounding agricultural lands and open space.”  A collaborative effort with Point Reyes Books and Black Mountain Circle, the latest issue is due shortly.  https://www.westmarinreview.org

 

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The Comfort of Haiku

The practice of haiku cultivates awareness of what is, and this awareness can offer a kind of psychological comfort for what ails us. Shiki, who suffered from tuberculosis, rarely addressed his condition directly in haiku.  Yet, his verses provided him with a more expansive lens with which to view his condition and the world, one that encompassed both light and dark.  I like this one:*

winter cold —

gulping medicine, saving

the tangerine for later

Here, the tangerine suggests a healing purpose as much as whatever formula Shiki was ingesting: beauty is medicine, too, and so is color, shape, and texture.  And then, what a comfort to hold a small, perfectly ripe tangerine, to peel it, expose the pulp, release the pungent scent, and taste the juicy tartness.  Even on his sickbed, Shiki noted the allure of all this.

African-American novelist Richard Wright (“Native Son”) was introduced to haiku through the translations of R. H. Blythe in 1959 and, during the last eighteen months of his life, he wrote hundreds of them.  Struggling to recover from amoebic dysentery and often bedridden, “he was never without his haiku binder under his arm,” writes his daughter, Julia, in the introduction to Wright’s collection, “Haiku, The Last Poems of an American Icon,” (Arcade, 2012).  “I believe his haiku were a self-developed antidote against illness, and that breaking down words into syllables matched the shortness of his breath…”, she observes.  Others have suggested that his passion for haiku was something more than therapeutic, that it offered the structure (and brevity) for deep contemplation, and for transcending the political and racial boundaries of his work.  I think that both of these suggestions are probably true — that writing haiku kept the streams of Wright’s creative imagination alive during a time of stress and suffering, and helped to allieve that suffering, as well.

*version by j.g.

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Reading and Writing Haiku: A Brief Introduction

The basics of haiku are straightforward, making it accessible to just about everyone.  In English, haiku are traditionally written in the present tense in a format of three lines; the first line is composed of five syllables, the middle line of seven, and the last line of five, for a total of seventeen syllables.  But modern examples often vary from this 5/7/5 format.  The pronoun “I” is generally excluded, as are rhyme and metaphor; punctuation is often unconventional or nonexistent, with dashes or ellipses sometimes serving as breaks between images.

These norms evolved from an earlier poetry form, the renga, a linked, collaborative effort that begins with a three-line verse called hokku.  The great renga master, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), also practiced writing hokku apart from renga, and is now recognized as the “father of haiku.”  But it wasn’t until poet and critic Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) advocated calling these compact verses “haiku” that it was formally acknowledged as an independent literary form.

The main purpose is to express a slice of life and, in so doing, enhance awareness of ourselves and the world.  Mitsu Suzuki, author of A White Tea Bowl: 100 Haiku from 100 Years of Life (Rodmell Press, 2008), has observed that haiku is “a practice of meditation and life…” that “helps us penetrate deeply into ourselves and cleanse ourselves.”

Probably the most well-known example is by Basho:

The old pond.

A frog jumps in —

Plop!

(trans. R.H. Blythe)

In this version of the Japanese original, the fundamental event is depicted through two primary images and an aural cue: out of the waters of stillness comes life, movement, and sound.  The emphasis here is on direct perception — the verse invites the reader to share the essence of the moment, without an obvious authorial persona.  As authors William J. Higginson and Penny Harter point out in The Haiku Handbook (Kodansha USA, 2013), the ideal of the Basho School-haiku is that “both the language of the poem and the mind of the poet should be transparent to the reader….”  Much has been written about these three lines, yet there’s a playful, even celebratory aspect to them that’s often overlooked, and this aspect presages Basho’s later work which stresses karumi, or “lightness of tone.”

While haiku generally doesn’t use the pronoun “I,” it nevertheless recognizes the person and the richness of human feeling — from wonder, ebullience and laughter to loneliness, anger, and sorrow.  Here’s one by Issa that’s somewhere in between the poles:

blossoms everywhere

this New Year’s Day — yet something

remains unopened

(version by j.g.)

A more thorough introduction to the subject would include reading a few anthologies and browsing through a handful of dedicated journals.  Or, you may want to start by reading the “four greats” — Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki.  As you do, you‘ll notice that their work often contains a reference to the season.  This practice stems from the hokku which traditionally contained an image to date it (cherry blossoms in early spring, for instance).  Many haikuists today continue to evoke nature through the use of official “kigo,” words that allude to the seasons and affirm our deep connection to the elements, and to plant, animal, and insect life.

Among the many Japanese poets who expanded the scope of nature-focused haiku is Keneko Tohta (1919-2018), who incorporated his WWII experiences as well as surrealist-like images akin to imagist poetry.  Americans such as Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, Jane Reichhold, Nick Virgilio, and Elizabeth Searle Lamb continued to broaden the scope so that, now, it’s hard to imagine many topics that would be out of bounds.  Reading old and new haiku from around the world provides an opening into a dialogue that spans time and cultures.  Writing and sharing it with others, both in person at haiku meetings and in print and online journals, we can cultivate that dialogue within ourselves and our communities.

Suggested Reading

Seeds from a Birch Tree, Clark Strand, Hyperion, NY, 1997

Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, Patricia Donegan, Shambala, 2008

The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa: edited by Robert Hass, The Ecco Press, NJ, 1994

The Genius of Haiku: Readings from R.H. Blythe on Poetry, Life, and Zen: The British Haiku Society, Hokuseido Press, 1995

The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Teach, and Appreciate Haiku: by William J. Higginson and Penny Harter, Kodansha USA, 1985

A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen: Robert Aitken, Weatherhill, 1978

A White Tea Bowl: 100 Haiku from 100 Years of Life, by Mitsu Suzuki, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Norman Fischer (Rodmell Press, 2008)

Resources

Haiku North America sponsors biennial conferences on haiku that include readings, panels, workshops, and more.  www.haikunorthamerica.com

Haiku Poets of Northern California sponsors an annual reading that’s open to the public, and a members only anthology.  www.hpnc.org

The Haiku Society of America promotes “the writing and appreciation of haiku and haiku related forms in English” and publishes the journal Frogpond.  www.hsa-haiku.org

Journals

Frogpond

Wales Haiku Journal

Hedgerow

Bottle Rockets

The Heron’s Nest

Modern Haiku 

Presence

Dodging the Rain

Mayfly

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Briefly Noted

Shiki (1867-1902) was one of the first of the modern Japanese poets to expand the traditional view of haiku as a practice strictly devoted to the natural world.  He introduced subjects as diverse as railroads, war, and baseball, into the mix.  A new book, Haiku as Life: A Kaneko Tohta Omnibus (Red Moon Press, Winchester, VA, 2019), adds to our understanding of modern haiku reform with the work of Keneko Tohta (1919-2018) by presenting over two-hundred translations of this influential critic, teacher, and poet.  In his introduction, Richard Gilbert draws from Tohta’s lectures, in which he suggests that, “If we are only to compose haiku on the life of ‘birds and flowers,’ failing to include the whole of life, not excepting humanity, our range of expression will become narrow as a result.”  Tohta’s early work doesn’t shy away from the war time topics he experienced first-hand such as air raids, torpedoes, gunfire, and the bones of the dead, while later examples incorporate surreal-like images, such as the one that depicts bank clerks as “fluorescent squid” and one that evokes “blue sharks” in a spring garden.  And although Tohta abjured the use of “kigo” or official seasonal words, his oeuvre is interwoven with images from nature, evoking perennial themes of impermanence and change.         

The winter issue of World Haiku Review, edited by Susumu Takiguchi, can now be found online: https://sites.google.com/site/worldhaikureview2/.  Congratulations to Marie Shimane, winner of the Editor’s Choice award for her superb haiku about a winter walk that traverses youth and old age.  WHR’s anthology, Fuga No Makoto: Ten Years of World Haiku, 2008 – 20017, edited by Rohini Gupta, has been published as an ebook and is available through Amazon.  The title, referring to Basho’s dictum “truth and sincerity in art,” is reflected in a soulful array of haiku ranging from classical to modern, and those that fall somewhere in-between.  Editor Takiguchi’s commentary offers both context and insight into some of the writers’ approaches.  Commenting on Lawrence Barrow’s haiku that depicts the swift-moving Kiyotaki River, for instance, she writes that it has “a story to tell, a drama to enjoy, and music to listen to,” while pointing out that it falls into the Japanese tradition of Utamakura — the poetic practice of alluding to beautiful sites in nature.  Recommended for novice and seasoned haijuns alike, as well as readers who just want to sample the diversity of the many voices heard here.       

Hidden River Arts Awards

In the Cool of Morning, was selected as a finalist for the Trilogy Award in Poetry by Hidden River Arts.  Based in Philadelphia, the organization is “dedicated to the service, support, and celebration of all artists.”  www.hiddenriverarts.wordpress.com

Poetry Prompts

Melissa Donovan’s article, A Selection of Poetry Prompts from 1200 Creative Writing Prompts, August 22, 2019, offers a wealth of ideas to jump start your writing.  www.writingforward.com

Warm wishes for a peaceful and happy new year!

 

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Picking Berries

So many of my favorite poems are about picking berries.  I’ve always loved one by Lisel Mueller, Picking Raspberries.  The first four lines are memorable: “Once the thicket opens/and lets you enter/and the first berry dissolves on your tongue/you will remember nothing/ of your old life”  (Alive Together, Louisiana State University Press, 1996, Baton Rouge, LA).  Mary Oliver has written two that I know and admire — Blackberries, and Blueberries (Devotions, Penguin Press, 2017, NY, NY), and there’s Galway Kinnell’s Blackberry Eating, that compares the ripeness of berries to “certain peculiar words/like strengths or squinched,/many-lettered, one-syllable lumps…”  (Collected Poems, Galway Kinnell, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2017, Boston, NY).  Then, there’s Seamus Heaney’s Blackberry Picking with its compelling turn at the end (Death of a Naturalist, Faber & Faber, 1966, London).

The Music of What Happens

Reviewing the BBC production of Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens (The Guardian, November 18, 2019), Rebecca Nicholson observes that the documentary “stands as an excellent tribute to the man and his work.”  Heaney’s poetry has beguiled readers since the publication of his first major collection, The Death of a Naturalist in 1966, and continues to do so.  Like his countryman, W. B. Yeats, to whom he’s often compared, Heaney has a gift for finding the music in both the somber and the prosaic, especially as it refers the rural life he knew and loved.  In his commentary on the title poem of The Death of a Naturalist, poet Andrew Spacey notes that the “language is typically rich with what has become known as clusters of sound — alliteration and assonance juxtaposed…”   This is poetry that begs to be spoken, not only read.  For Spacey’s line by line analysis — in effect a mini-course in poetic devices, go to www.owlcation.com.

Historic Greta Hall

If you’re in the market for an historic house with a literary pedigree, Greta Hall in England’s Lake District may be just your cup of tea.  The three-story, Georgian style house was variously the residence of poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, and has hosted such notables as William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and John Keats over the years.  Boasting ten bedrooms and a 335 year-old fireplace, it served most recently as a B&B.  Not to be missed: the Venetian window and view of the woods from Southey’s one-time study.  www.mansionglobal.com

Line Breaks and Enjambment

Hannah Huff’s article, Dear Bad Writers: Read This Poetry Line Breaks Guide offers some good tips on the effective use of line breaks and enjambment.  The examples are especially helpful.  www.notesofoak.com

Pushcart Nominations

Three poems that appeared in Rumors of Wisdom have each been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  The poems are “Looking Out at the Stream,” “Shed,” and “Crow Makes a Scene.”  Many thanks to Concrete Wolf Press and Editor Lana Hechtman Ayers for this recognition.

Poetry and the Contemplative Life

In the article Poetry and the Contemplative Life (Commonweal, July 4, 1947), Thomas Merton wrote:  “It is obvious, then, that contemplation has much to offer poetry.  But can poetry offer anything in return, to contemplation?”  What poetry offers, I think, is an invitation to experience the sacred in our everyday lives, which Merton — himself a poet — likely intuited.  This may also be one reason so many people are instinctively drawn to it, both as readers and writers.

Wishing you all the joys of the season, and a happy and healthy new year!

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Poetry Contests: Pros and Cons

Every other small magazine seems to have a poetry contest of one kind or another, whether it’s an “editor’s choice” for an individual poem or group of poems, a themed contest, or a competition offering publication for a chapbook or a full-length manuscript.  It’s one way for editors to drum up interest in the magazine and cultivate new subscribers.  Obviously, contests are also an alternative for new poets to attract the attention of editors and get their work published.  From my experience, I’d say that participating in contests has more pluses than minuses.  I’ll address the pluses first.

I’ve found that the prospect of entering a contest has motivated me to compose new work, revise and polish older poems, and to reconceptualize a manuscript.  Recently, I entered a contest that asked entrants to write poems using select words — the one that interested me was “sforzando.”  I didn’t have a clue what it meant but, looking it up, I found that it was a mark on sheet music “to make a strong, sudden accent on a note or chord.”  That one word was enough to inspire a short poem which I gleefully sent out along with the fee (more about those later).  It really wasn’t a very impactful poem and I wasn’t surprised to hear back in short time that it wasn’t a winner.  The good news, though, is that I still appreciated the poem for what it was, and more importantly, for what it might be.  It wasn’t showy, and it wasn’t emotionally riveting like many of the winning poems I’ve read, but with a little more work and a few more lines, it came into focus — much improved I think, and very much on theme for a new collection I’ve been working on.

Winning a contest generally comes with publication and often a cash prize.  But, it can also be a confidence booster.  Winning the Louis Award (Concrete Wolf Press, 2019) for my first full-length volume, Rumors of Wisdom, gave me the boost I needed to tackle a second volume, and a third.  Although I’m still revising and polishing both, I don’t think I would have gotten this far without knowing that someone out there found my work engaging enough to publish it.

One of the downsides to contests is that the entry fees seem to be going up and up.  I recently decided to forgo one that charged forty dollars, and find that it pays to shop around for a suitable contest that doesn’t drain your wallet, or better yet, one that’s free.  (For a list of free writing contests, visit www.https//jerryjenkins.com and www.https//trishhopkinson.com.)  Also, keep in mind that many publishing houses have no cost, open submission periods for manuscripts and don’t require that a writer have an agent.  These “over the transom” submissions may seem like a long shot, but definitely shouldn’t be ignored.  Other firms prefer to see a book proposal first.

The other problem with entering contests is learning how to spot illegitimate ones from the real thing.  The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (www.https//:clmp.org) discusses the importance of ethical guidelines for literary contests while recognizing that there is a range of ethical models.  Most legitimate contests post their standards along with guidelines — if they don’t, be wary of entering; one of the very real risks is that you may be signing away your future publishing rights by winning.  In her article, “Confessions of a Contest Junkie,” Carolyn Moore discusses the problem of poetry anthology “scams,” but just as valuable is her discussion of how to target your work for the right contest (www.https//winningwriters.com).

New Anthology Praised by American Library Association

The American Library Association’s BOOKLIST Magazine described the recently released anthology, Loon Magic and Other Night Sounds, as “uniquely tuned to the beauty and fear expressed in the night’s symphony…offering unexpected moments of connection and reconciliation.”  Kudos to Editor Whitney Scott of the TallGrass Writers Guild!

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Joy Harjo Appointed 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate

For Joy Harjo, newly appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, poems are “carriers of dreams, knowledge, and wisdom,” and have the power to change lives.  The author of eight books, including the recently released collection, An American Sunrise, Harjo is the first Native American to serve in the position.  She hails from the Muscogee Creek Nation and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  In her memoir, Crazy Brave, she recalls growing up in poverty, her alcoholic father, and a first, failed marriage.  Poetry, she believes, “is a kind of music” that can “transform experiences that could potentially destroy people, a family, a person, to experiences that build connections and community.”  “Humanizing” and “healing” are two of her goals as poet laureate, Harjo told Lynn Neary in an interview with NPR   “I really believe that if people sit together and hear their deepest feelings and thoughts beyond political divisiveness, it makes connections,” she said.

In Memoriam

New York poet, performer, and artist John Giorno, 82, whose early poetry broke conventional boundaries and whose recent “text art” features graphic phrases against bold backgrounds, has died.  In 1967, he started Dial-a-Poem, a service that presented callers with short poems by Manhattan poets, and went on to collaborate with artist Brion Gysin and writer William Burroughs, among others.  A gay man, he spearheaded efforts to raise funds for people with HIV/AIDS and, in the 1970s, studied with exiled Tibetan teacher Dudjom Rinpoche in India, converting to Buddhism.  A retrospective of his work, organized by his husband, Ugo Rondinone, opened at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2015, later traveling to venues in New York.  “John was filled with extraordinary generosity, presence, and humor, not to mention a deep drive to be part of conversations and collaborations with artists…we may never see the likes of someone like him again,” commented art dealer Elizabeth Dee to Art News.

Submissions

Reed Magazine, “California’s oldest literary journal” is currently open until November 1st for submissions of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art.  www.reedmag.org/submit…..Emry’s Journal is open until November 1st for submissions in poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction.  For more information, visit www.emrys.org…..Crazyhorse, out of the College of Charleston, is open for general submissions until December 31st  and will also be accepting submissions for prizes in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction during the month of January.  www.crazyhorse.cofc.edu…..Allegro Poetry Magazine is currently accepting submissions for poems on the theme of “Home” until October 31.  www.allegropoetry.org   The Haiku Poets of Northern California is sponsoring a contest for haiku, senryu, and tanka (until October 31st), and rengay (until January 31st).  Prizes will be awarded and the winning poems will be published in the organization’s journal, Mariposa; for guidelines, visit www.hpnc.org. 

New Poems

Night Song received the grand prize in the TallGrass Writers Guild Contest and will appear in their anthology, Loon Magic and Other Night Sounds, available this month from Outrider Press (www.outriderpress.net).  My sincere gratitude to Editor Whitney Scott and to the judge, Diane Williams, for this award…..Invisible Ocean will appear in the October issue (volume 19) of The Healing Muse, the nonprofit literary and visual arts journal published by SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities (www.upstate.edu).  Founded by the late poet, BA St. Andrews, the journal focuses on themes of medicine, illness, disability, and healing…..White Camellias in November and Walking Among Redwoods will appear in the fall issue of California Quarterly, 45:4.  Edited by Pearl Karrer, it’s published by the California Sate Poetry Society (www.californiastatepoetrysociety.org)…..After Beauty will appear in the December issue of Linden Avenue Journal.  Founded by poet and essayist Athena Dixon in 2012, Linden Avenue offers a venue for “daughters of the diaspora” as well as others, and seeks work “that highlights the intersections between art and everyday life and gifts us with extraordinary imagery.” (www.lindenavelit.com)…..When it Appears will appear in Spiritus, A Journal of Christian Spirituality, Fall, 2019.  Published semi-annually by John Hopkins University Press, the peer-reviewed journal “covers research on Christian spirituality while fostering creative dialogue with non-Christian traditions.”  (www.press.jhu.edu)…..Thinking About Not Thinking will appear in issue #34 of Urthona, A Journal of Buddhism and the Arts, that includes in-depth essays, art features, and interviews (www.urthona.com).  Thanks to the editors and staff of all of these publications!