Sometimes 26 letters are not enough. Dr. Seuss fans will know what I’m talking about.
Anyone who writes seriously at all, I’m guessing, is frequently frustrated by the inadequacy of language to express the full range of things there are to express in the world. There aren’t words for everything. There aren’t even combinations of words for everything, although one of the things that great writers (and sometimes even we lesser writers) do is find new combinations of words to express things that haven’t been expressed before, or that have been expressed before but are in need of refreshing.
On my journeys around the Haikuverse that’s chiefly, I believe, what I’m looking for — people saying things in ways that are new, or new to me. I read a lot, I always have, so it’s not that easy for me to find words I haven’t found before. But it happens, still, many times each month. It’s one reason to keep going. There are others, but I keep coming back to words. I think language, for me, might occupy roughly the same space in my brain that religious awe occupies in the minds of many. We are endlessly finding new things to describe and inventing new ways of describing old things, as individuals, as a species; this seems like reason enough to believe in some form of eternity. Thanks to everyone who’s given me some reason to believe this month.
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Haiku
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just
kidding
you’re
not
alive –
morning rain
.
driller
kun
du
lever
ikke –
morgenregn
— Johannes S.H. Bjerg, 2 tongues/2 tunger
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Dear Malvina,
It’s been a long time since we It’s already autumn here . . .
lonely evening
— Rafael Zabratynski, DailyHaiku, 12/21/11
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うごけば、 寒い 橋本夢道
ugokeba, samui
if I move, cold
— Mudo Hashimoto, trans. Fay Aoyagi, Blue Willow Haiku World
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Slime trail—
glancing back at
the glinting
—Don Wentworth, Tinywords
(Also, you should read this lengthy interview with Don from Christien Gholson’s blog.)
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crow watching –
the unseen tree branch suddenly
seen
— Angie Werren, feathers
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dusk at the beach
a stone and I
touch each other
— Dietmar Tauchner, International Second Prize, The 15th Mainichi Haiku Contest
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冬蜂の死にどころなく歩きけり 村上鬼城
fuyu-bachi no shini-dokoro naku arukikeri
a winter bee
continues to walk
without a place to die
— Kijo Murakami, trans. Fay Aoyagi, Blue Willow Haiku World
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dark
the TV ignores
everything
— John Stevenson, ant ant ant ant ant’s blog
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cave mouth
a scream beyond my range
of hearing
— George Swede, Mann Library Daily Haiku
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first
snowflakes
like me
made to last
till
they’re
gone
— Johannes S.H. Bjerg, 3ournals and frags
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Tanka
.
hour upon hour
a veil of simple snow
falling without reason
I feel an urgency
to risk everything I know
— William Sorlien, Haiku Bandit Society
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trailing my hand
through the water
for a moment
more river
than man
— Paul Smith, Paper Moon
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Haibun
.
Another grey day has fallen as a pall on the new calendar as if what makes a difference really doesn’t. Only the ticking clock and the distant squawking of a crow or better yet, complaint, as well as the deep sigh of engines passing by tell the trudge goes on. I look on the cypress with a creeping sense of sorrow. The deep cold has darkened its twigs. Gifts piled beside it now holiday debris. A black garbage bag rests folded in the bin. I gather the cards. The wishes slide off my fingers. A bag of pebbles waits to be planted on the vase. Like wishes that might take root, I would have to water them each day. But for now
blue notes waver under the lamp
— Alegria Imperial, jornales
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No, It’s Not Japanese Short-Form Poetry, But It’s My Blog And I Can Do Whatever I Want
.
Almost Ready
five forty five a.m.
very cold
I move
close to a heater
night like wind
forming
itself
By god
I hear
a rooster
Crow
I had
only heard
a rooster
Crow
In the movies
before
this
To think
of the beautiful things
Your memory
has led me
into
And this poem
Almost ready!
— Aditya Bahl, dipping butterflies
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Essayed
Gene Myers, the blogger over at The Haiku Foundation, asked a bunch of poets in December what their hopes were for English-language haiku in 2012. One of my favorite answers to this question, part of which I’ve quoted below, came from Scott Metz:
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“One of my hopes is that the aesthetics and techniques—the poetics—that have become traditional (classical?), and entrenched, in English-language haiku (with all its wonderful and creative misreadings, limitations, misinterpretations and ahistorical stances) continue to flourish and intensify, and deepen. With an emphasis on transparency (and directness) of language, simplicity, plainness, literalism, direct experience, season words, and ‘ordinary reality,’ a remarkable, timeless foundation has been created.
“Another one of my hopes for English-language haiku is that it will continue to diversify and evolve; that poets will continue to play (the hai in haiku) artistically (with language, modi operandi, imagery, structure, culture, media, history, literature), go where they need to go—go where they must go—and continue to question and resist. …
“I look forward to the craft and artistry and invitations in everyone’s poems: all the doors and windows left open and/or cracked, all the lights on in the attics, all the latches and locks left undone. I hope for more of all of it and thank everyone for sharing it.”
— Scott Metz, Hopes for English-Language Haiku in the New Year
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Linked
Alan Pizzarelli and Donna Beaver, the team behind the haiku-podcast goodness of Haiku Chronicles, have once again teamed up with the astounding Anita Virgil to produce something amazing: a video exploration of the many dimensions of modern English-language haiga, narrated by Anita and set to music. You need to spend half an hour watching this: Haiga Gallery.
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Journaled
ant ant ant ant ant 12
Contact Chris Gordon at mrcr3w@yahoo.com for a copy of the most recent issue of his intermittently-published and mind-altering journal, featuring the poetry of the great Jack Galmitz. [Apologies to Jack for leaving his credit off the original version of this post. All I can say is, I need new glasses.] I highly recommend the ant ant ant ant ant blog too.
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The Heron’s Nest
just how
to hold you
paper kite
— Dan Schwerin, The Heron’s Nest, Dec. 2011
Amongst the usual THN goodness in the most recent issue was this haiku? senryu? which was discussed at length at the most recent meeting of (one of) the real-life haiku groups I attend, during a session on senryu led by the great Bill Pauly. The author, Dan, a wonderful person and poet, is a member of our group — he drives two hours each way to join us every month, which makes us all feel very lucky. This poem of his is so light and deft and well-constructed that it reminds me of a paper kite; I keep expecting it to lift into the air any minute.
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bottle rockets #26
pinwheel —
as if a second thought
starts to turn it
— Satoru Kanematsu
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Booked
One day in December when I was feeling very gloomy Peter Newton’s new book showed up in my mail, with a cover illustrated by Kuniharu Shimizu and an interior designed (oh, and written, of course) by Peter, with the kind of attention to detail that one normally associates with the finer still-lifes of the Flemish Old Masters. Or, you know, something like that. What I’m trying to say, in my usual pretentious way, is that this book is a lot of fun to hold. And page through. And look at. And read. Plus, there aren’t enough orange books in the world.
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.
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on my ceiling
the untraceable wanderings
of an ant
someone’s words carved deep
on a tree in my mind
.
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Red Dragonfly 