POETRY: Read More, Blog More #4

When I returned to school as a "mature" student, my quest for a Bachelor's degree and Teaching credential took most of my time and even more of my limited intellectual resources - with precious little of either left for leisure reading. 

But I hate being caught out at odd times with nothing to read. You know those times when for one reason or another you end up with extra time - not enough to do something constructive but enough to drive you crazy.

So I began to carry a book of poetry wherever I went.
(A practice I continue to this day) 

Most poetry collections have the virtue of being small and portable while still offering real gems that can be read when time, and concentration, are limited.

It was also at this time that I developed a love of Haiku, first reading, then writing.

Successful Haiku capture and share the essence of an experience rather than a describing it. This is both the strength of the form and its challenge. For many folks, including myself, the time spent with each tiny, exquisite poem can also easily become a meditation.

 
 

Matsuo Basho remains a giant in the field, and I'm saving my pennies to purchase Basho's Journey: The Literary Prose Of Matsuo Basho. 

A crow

has settled on a bare branch -

 autumn evening.

- - Matsuo Basho

Early on I became quite enamored of some of the ladies. Two of my favorite volumes are, Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master and Far Beyond the Field: Haiku By Japanese Women.

to be in a world
eating white rice
amid plum fragrance

- - Chiyo-ni

one naked baby

is all I've got

and I pray

- - Ishibashi Hideno

I've also come across a few surprises along the way. For instance, did you know that Jack Kerouac wrote Haiku? 

Trying to study sutras,

the kitten on my page

Demanding attention

- - Jack Kerouac

Some other favorites include: 

The Haiku Year, a compilation of Haiku written by some surprising people, one for each day of the year.

No desire

to read the news - 

my life's enough for now

- - Jim McKay

Haiku U., by David M. Bader, makes literary allusion fun.

The Sun Also Rises

"Why can't we?" she said.

"War wound," I said. "Oy," Cohn said.

Back to Harry's Bar.

- - Ernest Hemingway (sort of)

Then there's If Not For The Cat, Haiku for children, by Jack Prelutsky.

When I raise my tail,

Expressing my displeasure,

Even wolves make tracks.

- - Jack Prelutsky

The Essential Haiku, ed. Robert Hass & The Haiku Anthology, ed. Cor Van Den Heuvel, are also mainstays.

There are many interesting links out there: online journals, poetry societies . . . Here are just a few.

• The Haiku Society of America
• Modern Haiku Journal
• Daily Haiku
• Review in Haiku

BOOK REVIEWS. Sort of.

The Gunslinger - Stephen King

This is my second trip through the series. Thanks to the Dark Tower Reading Challenge, I have encouragement and may actually finish the it. (I only made it through book 4 the first time around.)

I enjoyed this, the first installment, and am buoyed to continue. As I recall, the first time around with each passing book I felt less like I was reading a book, and more like I was actually making the endless voyage with Roland.

Question for those of you who have read any of the series. Who did you picture as Roland?

I always saw him as Rutger Hauer. Rugged, kind of scary, but still handsome.

The Spell-Checker Poem

- Mark Eckman & Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

And the Lesson for Today is . . .

Elements of Style, Strunk & White. (online via: Bartleby . com) (offline: many places)

(and Thanks to: Melody & Words)

A Myth of Devotion

    by Louise Glück

When Hades decided he loved this girl
he built for her a duplicate of earth,
everything the same, down to the meadow,
but with a bed added.
Everything the same, including sunlight,
because it would be hard on a young girl
to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness
Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night,
first as the shadows of fluttering leaves.
Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars.
Let Persephone get used to it slowly.
In the end, he thought, she'd find it comforting.
A replica of earth
except there was love here.
Doesn't everyone want love?
He waited many years,
building a world, watching
Persephone in the meadow.
Persephone, a smeller, a taster.
If you have one appetite, he thought,
you have them all.
Doesn't everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me. And when one turns,
the other turns—
That's what he felt, the lord of darkness,
looking at the world he had
constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind
that there'd be no more smelling here,
certainly no more eating.
Guilt? Terror? The fear of love?
These things he couldn't imagine;
no lover ever imagines them.
He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.
First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.
In the end, he decides to name it
Persephone's Girlhood.
A soft light rising above the level meadow,
behind the bed. He takes her in his arms.
He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you're dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true.


from: Averno. Copyright 2006.
illustration: Sandara.

Quote of the Day

It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life.

Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that.

And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young.

It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

- Kurt Vonnegut

 

Ladders

    by Elizabeth Alexander

Filene's department store
near nineteen-fifty-three:
An Aunt Jemima floor
display. Red bandanna,

Apron holding white rolls
of black fat fast against
the bubbling pancakes, bowls
and bowls of pale batter.

This is what Donna sees,
across the "Cookwares" floor,
and hears "Donnessa?" Please,
This can not be my aunt.

Father's long-gone sister,
nineteen-fifty-three. "Girl?"
Had they lost her, missed her?
This is not the question.

This must not be my aunt.
Jemima? Pays the rent.
Family mirrors haunt
their own reflections.

Ladders. Sisters. Nieces.
As soon as a live Jemima
as a buck-eyed rhesus
monkey. Girl? Answer me.

from: The Venus Hottentot. Copyright 2004.

Quote of the Day

I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.

 - Hillary Clinton, Nightline.

Also:

 TEXTS FROM HILLARY