Today, I sit in midtown, thinking of the heart of poetry, remembering mountains and rivers, and centering on the resonance of haiku. I understand fun haiku, even catku if you will, but I hope for some kind of inspired depth.
A field of mustard,
no whale in sight,
the sea, darkening.
– Buson, 1716 – 1783
Welcome to MountainWord. Stick around, listen to some audio, read some poems, book notes and bits of poetry news. If this is your first visit to MountainWord, please visit earlier posts.
Send poetry-related news to Vic Burkhammer. E-mail and comments are encouraged and appreciated. Announcements for poetry events are also welcome, as are links to poetry sites.
If you’d like to recommend a book of poems or read one of your unpublished short poems over the phone, just call me at 348-5184 and wait for the voicemail to kick in, leave your name and number for verification and then read away. I’ll consider posting the audio on MountainWord. I’m looking for work of under 20 well-written lines. Nothing sentimental or old-fashioned. Prose poems of exceptional quality are eligible too. The tone can run the gamut from humorous to serious.
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Mike Pride of the Concord Monitor has a story today about Charles Simic, who stepped down as poet laureate after one year. Simic’s happy to return home to a life of writing poetry, since he was so busy that he hasn’t written a poem in about a year. Simic talks of his respect for Kay Ryan, the new poet laureate, and he reflects on the political culture and how the poet laureate job is too busy. We find a little of his outlook on President Bush and the war. Click the URL here.
Thanks to Todd Garland and Carol Warren for sending some four-line haiku. This is cool. If Jack Kerouac and others paved the way to a relaxation of the three-line 5/7/5 pattern, why not have four-line haiku?
To each his or her own sartori, I say. There can be, some say, one-word poems, horizontal and vertical poems, pinwheel poems and on and on. American haiku is supposed to break some rules, isn’t it? West Virginia haiku — why not? — can break even more rules. These are the first four-line haiku I’ve noticed, not that it hasn’t been tried somewhere. Then again, these may be haiku with titles.
Here’s the e-mail and nine four-liners, predictably light-hearted:
Dear Vic,
It seems that I recently saw in the Charleston Gazette a call for locally derived haiku which had as its subject or protagonist the feline domesticus. Tonight I jotted down a few and soon found my lovely bride peering over my shoulder eager to add her own.
So it goes.
Here are our few attempts. Don’t even begin to sort out which did what.
Trust me.
Todd Garland
Carol Warren
P.S. But do please write back if you find any of them interesting.
Beginner’s Mind
A mouse. Concentrate.
Breathe in. My eyes have not moved.
For thirty seconds.
My friend and poetry teacher Winston Fuller sends along news for MountainWord — that a relatively unknown poet, a native Californian named Kay Ryan, has been named the new U.S. poet laureate.
He put me onto a New York Times story by Patricia Cohen:
(click it) “Kay Ryan, Outsider With Sly Style, Named Poet Laureate”
It’s a one-year term that begins this fall.
The Times piece is accompanied by several of her poems, a Times Topics on her, and a Paper Cuts blog by David Orr. “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” is my favorite poem of hers so far. Her writing seems almost as accessible as Ted Kooser’s and as pared down as Emily Dickinson’s.
How the spirit of place feeds the creative process will be the focus of “Bridges to Other Worlds: An International Literary Festival” at Chatham University’s Shadyside campus in Pittsburgh, Pa., Saturday and Sunday, October 4-5, 2008. Host: Chatham’s outstanding MFA Creative Writing program.
Robert Haas, former U.S. poet laureate, will be the keynote speaker, and ten other international writers will participate in the panel discussions, readings and conversations. Registration is $30 for the public, free to Chatham alumni. E-mail sstgermain@chatham.edu for more information, call (412) 365-1190 or visit www.chatham.edu/bridges.
Here’s a YouTube example of the teacher side of Haas. Listen to him talk about the gift economy, calling to mind Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift. It’s a brief, fascinating excerpt you’ll never forget.
The Chuck Mathena Center’s 2008-2009 Inaugural Season features “everything from Bach to Rock.”
The grand opening weekend is this Friday, July 11 through Sunday, July 13. This whole experience should be saturated in poetry, the kind in the air around great performers. The line-up includes The Del McCoury Band, award-winning magicians Kevin and Cindy Spencer with their Theatre of Illusion, and gospel singer extraordinaire Ethel Caffie-Austin.
For complete details…and a Randolph County note about the GinSangers»
Poetry Alive, a group from North Carolina that uses high-energy poetry performances to enhance student literacy, will be here in Kanawha County, W.Va., today and Wednesday. They have performed in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, South Korea, China, Turkey, the Bahamas, Venezuela and Peru.
Musicians are gathering today at the Pour House, 4030 West Washington Street, Charleston, W.Va., to remember ex-coal miner Mo Truman. Known as West Virginia’s Willie Nelson, he was a much-loved member of the state’s music community. He died at 58, on June 4, 2008, of heart disease complications.
If you go today, the show starts at 4 p.m. The Carpenter Ants and others will be there. I understand that donations will be accepted, and an auction is planned to raise money to help Truman’s family defray funeral expenses.
Continue reading, Bob Henry Baber, Carolyn Foronda»
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