Japanese Forms

June 11, 2015

“Three Haiku and a Tanka” by George SwedePosted by

George Swede

THREE HAIKU AND A TANKA

tar pit an urge for immortality

 

 

only an eternal present jackhammer

 

 

the wasp’s face
what friendship
can become

 

 

Night hurrying
down the mountainside
to work as shadows
for the day—
I re-knot my tie

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

George Swede: “I got hooked on short-form Japanese poetry in the mid-1970s after getting a review copy of Modern Japanese Haiku (edited by Makoto Ueda, University of Toronto Press, 1976). The twenty anthologized poets did unexpected, marvelous things with the form that made me see haiku as poetry rather than as a school exercise for counting syllables. Since then I’ve published twenty or so collections of haiku and two of tanka.” (website)

Rattle Logo

June 10, 2015

“Four Haiku” by Marsh MuirheadPosted by

Marsh Muirhead

FOUR HAIKU

third day hosting in-laws
I remind them
about the poison ivy

 

 

caterpillar’s odyssey
same fate
any direction

 

 

after sex
the blow-up doll and I
share an e-cigarette

 

 

wood tick
in the middle of my back
no wife

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

__________

Marsh Muirhead: “Haiku and haibun are a great place to store and flex the notions and images that come to us all the time and everywhere. They are sometimes starts to longer pieces, or as finished writing they serve as a kind of journaling, whether as fact or fiction, about our own lives or others we imagine.”

Rattle Logo

June 9, 2015

“Willows on the Crow” by Marsh MuirheadPosted by

Marsh Muirhead

WILLOWS ON THE CROW

Haibun

The willows whipped us along the banks of the Crow River, the wind-driven lashings hustling us along on our cobbled raft between mucky dunes, over carp shadows, boulders whose slimy beards danced in waters stenched by the adhesive plant miles upriver. She and I were Tarzan and Jane, pirate and captive, boss and slave, poling deeper into the jungle, discussing her fate—flogging, short rations, thrown overboard. Later, we drifted in the sun on our backs.

the scent
of her wet swimsuit
after we took it off

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

__________

Marsh Muirhead: “Haiku and haibun are a great place to store and flex the notions and images that come to us all the time and everywhere. They are sometimes starts to longer pieces, or as finished writing they serve as a kind of journaling, whether as fact or fiction, about our own lives or others we imagine.”

Rattle Logo

June 4, 2015

“from Salaryman (A Certain Sorrow)” by Michael MejiaPosted by

Michael Mejia

from SALARYMAN

Adapted Haiga

eMejiaUmami

A certain sorrow cannot bear this suit. Bowing politely,
it guides us home. It washes the body,
revealing the strokes of the luxurious kaimyō,
the final name of our exhaustion.

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

Michael Mejia: “Salaryman is a sequence of brief prose poems attached to candid photos of Japanese salarymen and -women I took during a recent trip to Tokyo, where I was researching a work of fiction. After a few days of watching these ubiquitous figures of contemporary Japanese business culture heading resolutely toward some destination or other at all hours, I began to envision a sequence of 36 views, echoing those of ukiyo-e artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, their images of Mount Fuji, bridges, and famous places in Edo. Though lineated, I conceived, and still think of the texts as prose. I didn’t intend these pieces to hold to the ‘rules’ of haiku. Rather, they appropriate the form’s concision and often its dicta concerning seasonal references.”

Rattle Logo

June 3, 2015

“from Salaryman (No George)” by Michael MejiaPosted by

Michael Mejia

from SALARYMAN

Adapted Haiga

eMejiaUmami

No George. No John. No Paul or Ringo.
He crosses over accompanied only by his bag,
his suit, his solitude.

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

Michael Mejia: “Salaryman is a sequence of brief prose poems attached to candid photos of Japanese salarymen and -women I took during a recent trip to Tokyo, where I was researching a work of fiction. After a few days of watching these ubiquitous figures of contemporary Japanese business culture heading resolutely toward some destination or other at all hours, I began to envision a sequence of 36 views, echoing those of ukiyo-e artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, their images of Mount Fuji, bridges, and famous places in Edo. Though lineated, I conceived, and still think of the texts as prose. I didn’t intend these pieces to hold to the ‘rules’ of haiku. Rather, they appropriate the form’s concision and often its dicta concerning seasonal references.”

Rattle Logo

June 2, 2015

“from Salaryman (To Arrange Oneself)” by Michael MejiaPosted by

Michael Mejia

from SALARYMAN

Adapted Haiga

eMejiaUmami

To arrange oneself, like the iris,
upright but approaching repose,
half-closed, prepared to emerge.

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

Michael Mejia: “Salaryman is a sequence of brief prose poems attached to candid photos of Japanese salarymen and -women I took during a recent trip to Tokyo, where I was researching a work of fiction. After a few days of watching these ubiquitous figures of contemporary Japanese business culture heading resolutely toward some destination or other at all hours, I began to envision a sequence of 36 views, echoing those of ukiyo-e artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, their images of Mount Fuji, bridges, and famous places in Edo. Though lineated, I conceived, and still think of the texts as prose. I didn’t intend these pieces to hold to the ‘rules’ of haiku. Rather, they appropriate the form’s concision and often its dicta concerning seasonal references.”

Rattle Logo

June 1, 2015

“from Salaryman (Umami)” by Michael MejiaPosted by

Michael Mejia

from SALARYMAN

Adapted Haiga

eMejiaUmami

Umami or the taste of absence, a fading bell,
like the fraying seam, anticipating the next tie or pair of shoes.
The change of lines.

—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms

[download audio]

__________

Michael Mejia: “Salaryman is a sequence of brief prose poems attached to candid photos of Japanese salarymen and -women I took during a recent trip to Tokyo, where I was researching a work of fiction. After a few days of watching these ubiquitous figures of contemporary Japanese business culture heading resolutely toward some destination or other at all hours, I began to envision a sequence of 36 views, echoing those of ukiyo-e artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, their images of Mount Fuji, bridges, and famous places in Edo. Though lineated, I conceived, and still think of the texts as prose. I didn’t intend these pieces to hold to the ‘rules’ of haiku. Rather, they appropriate the form’s concision and often its dicta concerning seasonal references.”

Rattle Logo