THREE HAIKU
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Richard Gilbert was the featured interviewee for this issue. An excerpt from the conversation will appear next week.
THREE HAIKU
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Richard J. Fleming: “I was introduced to haiku when I studied Zen Literature under Lucien Stryk at Northern Illinois University. Over the years, my admiration never wavered for the ability of masters, such as Bashō, Buson, and Issa, to say so much in so few words. However, I never attempted to write any haiku. That changed recently, when a random phrase inspired an examination of various interpretations of ‘Western’ haiku. There ensued an intense six-month period in which I endeavored to write, whether sacred or profane, a haiku every day. It wasn’t easy. There were very few survivors.” (website)
WHAT IF
Tanka Prose
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Peter Fiore: “Writing Gogyohka poems and tanka prose is for me akin to playing jazz piano and playing tennis—complete immersion in the moment. It’s one of the things that helps me feel complete, part of the whole fabric of things and in touch with the spirit that flows through the thousand things. Many years ago I was drawn to the beauty and simplicity of Japanese poetry because, among other things, I thought it would help me attract exciting women. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way.”
from HAIKU IN CONCRETE
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Michael Luis Dauro: “What’s not to love about haiku? Poems that attempt to approach an absolute point of view of the everyday mind, the profound in apparent simplicity. A finger pointing to the mundane, its truth and poetry, and ultimately ourselves. How goddamn awe-inspiring is that! I’m drawn to concrete poetry for some of the same reasons. It pulls us out of our humdrum routines of reading and allows us to acknowledge the abstract beauty of those squiggle marks posted all around us. These ‘Haiku in Concrete’ are dedicated to Mary Ellen Solt, an amazing poet whose work is a great inspiration.”
from HAIKU IN CONCRETE
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Michael Luis Dauro: “What’s not to love about haiku? Poems that attempt to approach an absolute point of view of the everyday mind, the profound in apparent simplicity. A finger pointing to the mundane, its truth and poetry, and ultimately ourselves. How goddamn awe-inspiring is that! I’m drawn to concrete poetry for some of the same reasons. It pulls us out of our humdrum routines of reading and allows us to acknowledge the abstract beauty of those squiggle marks posted all around us. These ‘Haiku in Concrete’ are dedicated to Mary Ellen Solt, an amazing poet whose work is a great inspiration.”
FIVE HAIKU
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Billy Collins: “I follow the seventeen syllable limit because it provides me with a pleasurable feeling of push-back, a resistance to whatever literary whims I may have at the time. If you want to create a little flash of illumination, the haiku tells us, start by counting on your fingers. A three-line poem with a frog is not necessarily a haiku.”
THREE HAIKU
—from Rattle #47, Spring 2015
Tribute to Japanese Forms
__________
Helen Buckingham: “The reading and writing of Japanese style short-form poetry is my grounding mechanism, be that ground high or low, urban or rural, external or internal. The poems included here were written while living in Bristol and in the past six months since moving to Wells, in the heart of the Somerset countryside, though in many instances their gestation can be traced to my South London childhood. I only wish I’d had access to haiku and its associated forms back then.”