Eastern Structures -- A Review

Eastern Structures – A Review

For the past maybe three to five years I have noticed that poets who are interested in a syllabic approach to eastern forms, such as haiku, tanka, ghazal, etc., have expressed a need to find locations, spaces, venues, where a formal approach to these forms in English is emphasized instead of undermined.  Almost all poetry journals and poetry societies dedicated to Eastern Forms are controlled by poets who use a free verse approach to lineation.  To pick a good example, English language haiku associations and journals are, without exception, devoted to a free verse approach to haiku in English even though haiku in Japanese is formal verse.

I think the first explicit expression of dissatisfaction with this situation was in the ‘Introduction’ to Ravishing DisUnities by Ali where he criticizes the tendency of contemporary English poets to write free verse versions of the ghazal.  Ali’s criticism is sharp, but it is also one that is knowledgeable of the traditional ghazal form and that this form has potential in English.  Ali was fluent in English and was comfortable writing in it and for that reason he was speaking from personal experience with the form in the English language, even though English was not his native tongue.  Ali was not saying that the ghazal has no place in English language poetry; rather he was suggesting that if English language poets are going to compose ghazal they should map onto English the formal features of that traditional form.

In ELH (English Language Haiku) the dominance of a free verse approach in official haiku organizations and publications is almost total.  The result is that those who take a syllabic approach to ELH find themselves gradually alienated from those official organizations.  Most of them simply move online and find others of like mind there.

The felt need for those taking a formal approach to these types of poetry to find their own spaces and journals has been gathering energy for some time. But exactly how to go about this has not been clear.  With the publication of Eastern Structures this inchoate feeling has finally born fruit in something concrete.  Published by R. W. Watkins, Eastern Structures is dedicated to a formal approach to such Eastern forms as Haiku, Tanka, Ghazal, and Sijo.  The first issue packs a lot of material into its 32 pages of 8-1/2” X 11”.  The ghazal are finely crafted and formally focused.  The haiku are seasonal, syllabic, and rooted in the traditional syllabics of the Japanese.  The article and examples of tanka are similarly focused.  I would say that the only weak section in this first issue is the section on sijo, the Korean form.  Watkins notes that he had difficulty contacting people who have written in this form, so if you are interested, or know others who are interested, forward information about this new poetry publication to them because they now have a place to publish their efforts in the sijo form.

Watkins has done a fine job with the layout and other publication matters.  Watkins has published poetry zines before (particularly for the ghazal) and this experience has served him well for this first issue of Eastern Structures. For example, the cover is of a famous skyscraper in Malaysia, the world’s tallest building; a reference to the name of the magazine, Eastern Structures.  And the back cover is a picture of a farm woman holding a lynx; a clever reference to Lynx, which was published by Jane and Werner Reichhold for 30 years, a poetry journal that emphasized the same forms that Watkins is interested in.  I like the way Watkins gives the Reichholds a bow in this picture.

The poetry is a pleasure to read.  I have some of my own work included in the section on tanka and I hope others feel the same way about my contribution.  The essays are thoughtful, sometimes funny, and in general optimistic about the potential for a syllabic approach to these forms. 

If you are interested in a formal approach to Eastern forms in English, this is a great resource.  If you are a poet who is writing in these forms, Eastern Structures is a great venue for you to publish in.  If you have essays, reviews, or thoughts to share with this focus, this is the place to share them with an appreciative audience.  You can send submissions to:

nocturnaliris@gmail.com

Watkins has decided to use print-on-demand to publish Eastern Structures.  It is available from Amazon for $5.99 – a great deal.  Buy a copy for yourself, buy copies for friends, and post reviews at Amazon. 

In closing I want to express my appreciation to Watkins for taking the time and effort to bring forth this publication.  As someone who has published poetry magazines in the past, I know how much time and energy goes into such an endeavor.  All of us who are interested in a formal approach to haiku, tanka, sijo, and ghazal can applaud this effort.

Eastern Structures

Editor: R. W. Watkins

Available at Amazon

$5.99

ISBN: 9781530638406

The Haiku of Bill Albert

The Haiku of Bill Albert

One of my ongoing projects is to recover some of the haiku written in the past which have now all but vanished.  Now and then I take time to see what is available from used book sites and then, using my intuition, select what I think might be valuable.  At other times I will notice in an older essay on haiku that the author mentions in passing a haijin or book I have never heard of.  This then sends me on a search.

That is how I discovered a small volume called Haiku by Bill Albert.  It was published in 1991.  As far as I know it was never reissued.  And I am not aware that Albert’s haiku have ever been placed in any anthology that I have read. 

The collection of haiku is truly excellent.  They have a secure basis in the traditional syllabic shape of 5-7-5, they are seasonal, and they are elegant in their use of language.  Most of the haiku are in two parts though the sense of juxtaposition is muted.  I appreciate this.  Using renga parlance, the two parts are ‘close’, which means accessible.  Often the two parts are divided along sensory lines.  Here is an example

The frost-sharp window

shatters the violet dawn –

The garbage truck squeals.

Lines 1 & 2 are visual; they also set both the season and the time.  Line 3 shifts to a sonic sensation that is strident, merging with the verb used in line 2, ‘shatters’.

Here is an example where the two parts focus on two sonic elements:

A sapling’s branches

patter against the window –

a car not starting.

‘Sapling’ is a season word, so line 1 sets the season.  Line 2 introduces the sound of branches against the window; implying a breeze.  Line 3 introduces a sonic element of a car turning over but not starting.  The two sounds are similar and the reader can hear them merge.  This is a nicely contrapuntal soundscape.

Here is one I particularly like:

A full moon tonight . . .

all of the light in my room

comes from a street lamp.

It’s a nice setup.  The ‘full moon’ is a season word indicating autumn.  The reader is set to think of a room flooded with moonlight, and then Albert puts in a little twist.  Instead of moonlight in his room it is a streetlamp’s light that fills the room.  There is a contemplative and lonely mood to this haiku which continues to resonate with the reader long after reading it.

Albert’s approach to lineation interested me because he effectively uses certain means that I often find fault with.  For example, Albert will end a line with a preposition:

Two crows rise from

the hollow of scrub-oak

the northeast wind.

Here the count is 4-6-4.  Line 1 ends in the preposition ‘from’.  Normally I think lines ending in prepositions are careless; but with Albert I found myself seeing how such an approach can work effectively.  In a way this haiku is a list haiku; each line has its own image.  The ‘from’ links two of the images together and I think that is why it works to end line 1 at that point.

Here is another example of line ending usage that surprised me:

Awakened by the

sudden cold of the spring night –

The frogs singing.

Line 1 ends with ‘the’ and, again, normally I think of such usage as sloppy.  Here Albert makes it work by having line 2 be a self-contained image so that the word ‘the’ acts as a kind of link in the same way that the word ‘from’ does in the previous haiku.  I found this to be skillful.

A few times Albert uses a single line approach to his haiku:

Branches lattice the chipped moon.

This is a striking image.  It is one of the very few single line haiku that I have resonated with.  Most single line haiku are infected with obscurantism and self-conscious displays of avant-gardism.  Albert’s single line haiku are, in contrast, accessible and striking.  My sense is that Albert now and then, not often, experiments with the haiku form, but that his overall approach is strongly rooted in the traditional 5-7-5 syllabics and the necessity of a seasonal reference.  For this reason his experiments still retain some connection with the haiku tradition.

According to the ‘Publisher’s Note’ placed at the end of the book, Albert died in 1988 at the age of 37.  The ‘Note’ does not tell us the cause of his early passing.  But I get the impression that it was some kind of degenerative disease.  This is a pattern among haiku poets: think of Shiki and Richard Wright.  Of course not all great haijin were chronically ill; most were not.  But it is still intriguing how, at times, really good haiku comes from those whose lives have been circumscribed by a long illness.

In any case, Albert worked on his haiku and left a modest number of notebooks.  His friends gleaned what they considered to be his best and published the haiku as an offering from their friend on their friend’s behalf.  They had to do this for Albert because Albert seems to have been disinclined to publish on his own behalf.  The ‘Note’ says, “He was without worldly ambition, made no effort to publish or otherwise promote himself.  His ambition, turned inward, was purely aesthetic: he was aiming to write the perfect haiku, and in the best tradition of the form, wanted to write it anonymously.”  Albert seems to have been a modern Emily Dickinson in his distrust for the more worldly aspects of poetry, such as publication and promotion.  What is remarkable, given Albert’s attitude, is how many friends he had who participated in the publication of this work.  The list of people who donated to get the book into publication is over 200.  It seems that Bill Albert made a significant impression on a wide group of people in spite of, or perhaps because of, his reclusiveness.

I am grateful to the friends of Bill Albert for taking the time to publish these haiku.  It is a rich and rewarding collection.  It deserves to be reprinted and more widely known.  Readers may be able to find a used copy on amazon or abebooks.com.

Children stop chasing

fireflies to watch shooting stars --

the porch light flickers

Pi Poems, by Becket -- A Reivew

Pi Poems, by Becket – A Review

One of the intriguing things about the emergence of syllabic forms in English language poetry is how often the syllabic shape of these forms is determined by mathematical constructs.  Forms that are based on some kind of maths include the Tetractys, Fibonacci, Etheree, and Lucas.  The Tetractys is based on Pythagorean number theory; the Fibonacci and Lucas are based on related number series; and the Etheree is based on the standard counting sequence of 1 to 10. 

Given that background, it makes sense that someone would use the number Pi as the basis for a syllabic form.  The number Pi is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle.  It is a mathematical constant.  It is also an irrational number; meaning that the resulting ratio continues without ever coming to a conclusion or repeating.

The poet Becket, who does not give us his first name, has published a collection of poems based on this numerical sequence.  As far as I know this is the first book of Pi poems.  Becket writes in his ‘Introduction’,

Similar to the way each line of a haiku is written according to a set number of syllables, the syllables for each Pi poem line is determined according to the number of Pi – 3.1415926535 . . . and on into infinity.  So the first line of a pi poem would be 3 syllables, according to the first number of Pi; the second line would be 1 syllable . . . and so on until the poem is finished.

The challenge in using an irrational series like Pi is that with the constantly fluctuating numerical count there will be a strong tendency for the poem to read like a free verse poem.  In the Fibonacci there is an overall shape to the poem, a steady increase in line length which the reader can feel as the poem grows.  The same is true of the Etheree.  But with an irrational number the series will fluctuate; there will be no perceived repetition of numerical sequences and no overall shape for the reader to use as a basis for comprehending the shape of the poem. 

Becket’s solution to this is to base the structure of his poems primarily on grammar.  But Becket is not consistent with this approach.  Here is an example where grammar defines the lines:

4

Do not stop.

Run.

Keep going on.

Push.

Never surrender

because our lives are journeys from peace

to peace,

between which dwell deserts

of misadventures,

tragedies,

and too much worry.

Fearfulness undermines progress.

So sidestep fear, leap over self-doubt,

push away biting

demons crouching interiorly,

remember

to breathe,

and be kind.

With the exception of the transition from line 14 to 15 (biting/demons) the lineation is grammar based.  Many of the lines end in periods.  Five of the lines are full sentences.  This works well and the reader can enter into the numerical sequence that underlies the lineation.

On the other hand, some of the Pi poems seem to have completely arbitrary lineation:

22

Flowering

thoughts

invigorate

my

curiosity.

This is a standard sentence and there is no strong feeling as to why the words have been laid out vertically rather than horizontally; nothing is added by their placement and the reader doesn’t really see anything new.

Sometimes Becket will use rhyme to define a line:

11

Right now will

pass

away like grass.

Fears

wither while sorrows

wilt like meadow heather in autumn

weather.

Whether I suffer or

jubilate, my life

keeps going.

So I go.

The pass/grass rhyme is effective, although there will be the tendency to sonically move ‘pass’ to the end of line 1.  And the use of ‘weather’ and ‘Whether’ as initial words for lines 7 & 8 resonates nicely with ‘wither’ at line 5.  Overall this is a good example of lineation which effectively uses a few devices to present to the reader/listener the underlying syllabic shape.

Here is one of Becket’s shortest Pi poems:

74

The present

is

the only gift.

Here is another example where this reader feels like the lineation is arbitrary, that nothing is really added to the thought by putting it on three lines.  ‘The present is the only gift’ seems to me to be just as effective.

The subject matter of the Pi poems is almost entirely focused on the poet’s inner feelings.  I think that is its greatest weakness.  Whether the poems are read as free verse or syllabic verse, the subject matter is remarkably self-centered; but oddly, we learn almost nothing about Becket himself and his specific life.  That’s a shame because he has led an interesting life.  Becket is a former monastic and is currently an assistant to Anne Rice; the author of famous vampire novels.  I would like to have read more about his specific biography in his poems. 

What I noticed is that there is almost nothing of the world in the poems: no tulips or oaks, no birds or beasts, no mountains or streams.  And the world of human beings is mostly absent as well: no trucks or bridges, no houses or offices, no specific men, women, or children.  A few times Becket introduces the wider world through metaphor or simile; see the above poem that mentions grass and heather.  But that poem is unusual; it is one of the reasons why it is one of my favorites.  More typical is a poem like this:

78

Fear never

ends

my yearning to

end

the sickness in me

that spreads from me whenever I fail

to love.

The world of Pi Poems is about the author’s own fears and psychological, as opposed to sociological, difficulties and his hope of overcoming these limitations.  I believe that his approach to these poems is rooted in the literature of affirmations.  I have to confess that I do not find this type of literature attractive.  I know my limitations; this kind of writing always strikes me as self-absorbed.  On the other hand, I have friends who have benefitted greatly from the use of affirmations; so I recognize that it can have value.  If you are one of the many who find affirmations attractive and helpful (e.g. readers of Louise Hay or Wayne Dyer or the Hazeldon books of affirmations) you will probably be more receptive to the subject matter than I am.

My difficulty with Becket’s Pi poems is their abstractness and their psychological orientation.  The above poem about the interaction between fear and love is not placed in any specific incident; it remains a floating abstraction.  Perhaps it resonates with your own experience, perhaps not; it is not clear what I can do with it or what there is to learn from it. I am intrigued by this collection and its attempt to use a numerical series that never repeats, and wildly fluctuates, as the basis for a poetic form.  At times Beckett meets that challenge effectively; at other times my feeling is that it falls short.  On the other hand, I am not particularly inspired by the subject matter; it is too self-fascinated for me.  So in the end I am ambivalent.  I want to give it four stars for trying out a difficult form and, at times, succeeding with it.  But I have a two stars feeling for the subject matter.  As I said above, other readers might find the subject matter more agreeable.

I wonder if others will follow the lead given by Becket.  My feeling is that there is a yearning among 21^st century poets for form.  But that yearning is not met in MFA programs, Universities, official poetry journals, or in the numerous volumes of free verse that are churned out year after year.  But this yearning will find an outlet and one of those outlets is the emergence of various syllabic forms that an individual poet finds attractive.  There have been a lot of these offered since the eighties.  A few, such as the Fibonacci, have developed a following, along with the older Cinquain and syllabic Haiku.  It will be interesting to see if the form that Becket has presented in his Pi Poems generates a following.

Pi Poems – for the one who needs them . . .

By Becket

ISBN: 9781941240182

$5.99

Available from Amazon.

Poetry For Sale, by Pat Nolan -- A Review

Poetry For Sale

By Pat Nolan and Poet Friends

A Review

Renga is my favorite form of poetry.  Those who have read this blog regularly know that my personal poetic output is dominated by renga and that I have been involved in writing renga for over 30 years.  There are a few others who have found renga congenial, but the number of English language renga poets is very small.

like some awesome god

in my aspirations I’ll turn time

back after midnight

reflections in a black glass

eclipse of the autumn sun

reflections in a black glass

eclipse of the autumn sun

          visiting brother’s

          cigarette ember at dusk

          father’s ghost coughs

(Page 50)

Here is an interesting factoid about those renga poets in the U.S. – In the early to mid-80’s two of the tiny number of people who have spent a lot of time devoted to renga lived in a small town in Sonoma County, California.  The name of the town is Monte Rio.  It has a population of 1,152 people as of the 2010 census; less than that in the 80’s.  A third poet who has devoted a lot of time to renga is Jane Reichhold who lives just up the coast, in Southern Mendocino County.  So three people who found in renga a vehicle for their own poetic expression resided, at first unknown to each other, within easy driving distance, and two of them lived in the same rural town.

under a pay phone’s dim glow

static from long distance lies

          imported jonquils

          whole flock of ‘em in a jug

          hello, fake spring!

          imported jonquils

          whole flock of ‘em in a jug

          hello, fake spring!

damn tank takes forever to fill

one more flush should do it

(page 89)

In the early 80’s I moved to Monte Rio.  Soon after I started the first English language magazine devoted to renga.  I was completely unaware that residing in Monte Rio was Pat Nolan who was another person devoting a lot of time to the renga form.  Eventually I would meet Nolan; I learned about him through a mutual poetry friend.

Both Nolan and I were catalyzed into the world of renga by the work of Earl Miner.  When Miner published his Japanese Linked Poetry it opened up the world of renga in a way that no previous scholarly work had been able to do. 

I took to writing renga by adopting many of the features of topic placement and gradually learning about linking and shifting and primarily looking at renga as a solo form, though I have engaged with others poets in composing renga as well.  Nolan’s approach was more social than mine.    And Nolan found in Miner’s work specific features that he chose to replicate in his own explorations of the renga form.  A distinctive feature of Miner’s translations of Japanese renga was to repeat each verse (with the exception of the closing verse) to highlight the nature of the link and shift that takes place as the renga unfolds.  Nolan and his renga partners liked the effect this had on renga poetry and adopted this repetition procedure when writing, or leading, his own renga.  This is in some ways a new approach to renga; in Japanese renga the verses are not repeated.  Miner repeated the verses in his translations in order to shed light on certain ambiguous features of the Japanese language which can be used as pivots as verse X assumes different relationships to verse X - 1 and to verse X + 1.  For example, because the Japanese language uses pronouns less frequently than English, and because the Japanese verb does not decline by number or sex, it is possible for a verse to refer to a woman when linked to the previous verse, and then refer to a man when linked to the following verse.   But Nolan, and his cohorts in renga, found the effect of this repetition in itself esthetically appealing, adopting it as a distinctive feature of their approach to renga.

And now, after more than 30 years of writing renga, Nolan has gathered 11 renga into his latest book Poetry For Sale: Haikai no Renga (linked poetry).  The title is taken from one of the opening verses (hokku) in the collection which is derived from a haikai by Basho and Kikaku that has the title ‘Poetry Is What I Sell’.  It reads:

Mortality not debt

leads me to hoist another

poetry for sale

                   after Kikaku

 Poetry For Sale is a fantastic collection.  Anyone interested in the interaction between Japanese and English poetry needs this book.  And anyone interested in renga should definitely get it.  It is an immensely pleasing collection: entertaining, surprising, sometimes sharp and witty, sometimes introspective, sometimes descriptive, the renga unfold with great skill and elegance.  They are a pleasure to read.

a butterfly’s premonition

it’s safer not to move

          me and my paper lantern

          not surprisingly a scoop

          among a river of stars

          me and my paper lantern

          not surprisingly a scoop

          among a river of stars

the howl of dogs

hushed by the silence of birds

(Page 77)

I have to admit that the feature of repeating all the stanzas at first puzzled me.  It is not the route I have chosen with my own renga.  However, I have come to appreciate this innovation.  If you read the renga aloud you’ll get the pleasing effect the repetition has.  By repeating the verses they take on a chorus like feeling.  On November 6^th I heard a reading from Poetry for Sale; two of the poets, Pat Nolan and Sandy Berrigan, read from one of the renga and the effect of the repetition was soothing.  The innovation works in a musical way that I find very pleasing and attractive.  The repetition makes the renga journey accessible.  I suspect this is particularly true for those who have no previous experience with the form.

And speaking of the renga form, Nolan and his partners chose a respectful, but at the same time relaxed, relationship to the numerous formal regulations.  This is explained in Nolan’s introduction, “Hardly Strictly Haikai” and in the ‘Forewad’ to the haikai ‘Random Rocks’.  Generally speaking one finds seasonal and topic placement, a rough commitment to the overall syllabic shape, and a traditional sense of pacing.  It has been my observation that this respectful yet relaxed approach is the stance that all renga poets have had to adopt in their relationship to traditional Japanese renga.  Nolan compares renga to the music of a jazz combo and that feels right to me.  In good jazz there are rules and at the same time there is improvisation.  Nolan and his partners have a good grasp of what the rules are (for example, topic placement), but they also have an intuitive sense of when to let the renga find its own way.  This is actually how the great renga masters of Japan related to the form.  A good example is how Sogi lead a 100 verse renga that does not contain any summer verses; Sogi allowed the energy of the renga to flow where it was going.

The book contains, with a one exception, renga written by two or more poets, which is the standard procedure for writing renga.  Pat Nolan’s partners in renga are Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven LaVoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia.  It is a great cast of characters.  Each of them has a distinctive voice.

The collection starts out with a solo kasen renga by Pat Nolan.  (All the renga in the collection are kasen, or 36-verse, renga rooted in the style of Basho.)  Nolan achieves the effect of having multiple participants by selecting haiku, and then editing them, from Blyth’s collection to form the verses of the haikai.  It is an effective collage.

The other ten renga all have multiple participants, starting with two poets and ending up with five.  Several of the renga, ‘Yellow Music’, ‘Poetry for Sale’, ‘Bamboo Greeting’, which is dedicated to Earl Miner, and ‘Random Rocks’ have a running commentary.  On the left page are the verses of the haikai, and on the right page are comments from the author of the verse which illuminate what the poets were thinking or trying to accomplish with their link.  This is really interesting and helpful for people who want to compose renga themselves.

Nolan notes in the ‘Introduction’ that, with one exception, all of them were written via snail mail.  Remember that this began when the internet was still nascent and in many ways unreliable.  Eventually Nolan used email attachments; but that was towards the end of these efforts.  The effect of this is that each poet could take their time considering their link.  This gives the renga a polished feel. 

a raven on the blue post

office box silent – still silent –

all their beauty gone

the mud rut of a bike tire

through pale confetti

all their beauty gone

the mud rut of a bike tire

through pale confetti

ice islands in thawed lawn –

shiny dribble melts a spilled moon –

(Page 62)  

Nolan and his partners have done a great job adapting renga to an English language poetic context.  Renga is a unique poetic genre; I don’t know of any other form which has the effect that renga imparts.  It is a combination of the concrete details of life combined with a dream like sense of traveling, like some kind of strange astral journey.  It is a difficult form to do well.  It is remarkable how graceful this collection is.  My hope is that this collection will help others access this form so that they can also walk the journey down the renga road.

that was the reason I bought

the bamboo shower curtain

          at the merest touch

          flurries of blossoms cascade

          onto the bright grass

          at the merest touch

          flurries of blossoms cascade

          onto the bright grass

where the black rock fell off

a sunlit cliff – steam curls up

(Pages 143-144)

Poetry For Sale: Haikai no Renga (linked poetry)

Pat Nolan with partners and friends

Nuallain House, Monte Rio

$16.00

The book is only available directly from Nuallain House, which is on the web here:

http://nuallainhousepublishers.com/

'Searching for You' by Leonard Dabydeen -- A Review

Searching for You

By Leonard Dabydeen

A Review

I reviewed Leonard Dabydeen’s earlier collection of poetry, Watching You, a few years ago.  Watching You is the first collection of Tetractys poems; meaning the first book consisting entirely of the Tetractys form.  The Tetractys is a five-line syllabic form with the count as follows: 1-2-3-4-10.  It is based on Pythagorean number theory where the first four numbers add up to 10.  1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, so in a way the last line syllabically gathers the first four lines.

In Dabydeen’s second book, Searching for You, the author continues with his exploration of the Tetractys form.  But in this volume Dabydeen has added Fibonacci poems as well.  The relationship between the two forms is intriguing.  The overall count for the Tetractys is 20 syllables.  Dabydeen uses the six-line form of the Fibonacci: 1-1-2-3-5-8, which also adds up to 20 syllables for the overall count.  The two forms are similar in the overall shape; both forms start with a one-count word, then they open up into longer lines, but the pacing of how they open differs.  In both forms the last line has the longest count.  The interplay between the two forms is one of the things which gives Searching some of its charm.  The book is a demonstration of how a syllabic line in English functions by using two forms with the same overall count, that share an overall shape, but with different distributions of that count.

Dabydeen’s approach to lineation is grammatical; each line forms a grammatical unit.  In overall structure, most of the poems are single sentence poems so that they flow from the opening one-count line to the end where the reader usually encounters the longest line.  (There are some exceptions where Dabydeen uses a reversed structure of the lines.)  The two forms both start with a one-count word; so they share that in common.  As in his previous book, the first line often consists of a pronoun, which makes sense.  It seems to me that in this second book, though, Dabydeen is more expansive in his choice of opening one-count words.  The opening word in forms like the Tetractys and Fibonacci carries a lot of weight; a single word of one count holds an entire line.  And Dabydeen draws us in with his opening words.

Dabydeen writes his poems based on his personal experience, often commenting on his own emotional state, current events, the plight of refugees, and landscapes, particularly at night.  There is also a strongly religious element threading through the collection.  Dabydeen’s Hinduism plays a prominent role and some of the poems are invocations or prayers to deities such as Krishna. 

Lonely as a Star

Dark

tonight

no moonlight

behind the clouds

I sit on this bench lonely as a star.

This is beautifully shaped.  The lineation is clear.  There is an elegant integration of the landscape with the author’s interior mood.  There is also a judicious use of rhyme, tonight/moonlight, which helps us to feel the sense of the form.  And there is a sonic resonance between dark/star which also helps to clarify the shape of the poem.

Here is another Tetractys:

Friendship

Each

moment

standing here

being with you

brings me closer to a wish coming true.

Again we see the well-crafted lineation and the judicious use of rhyme, you/true.  I also appreciate the way the first four lines tumble into the long closing line in a way that feels rhythmically natural.  It’s almost like you are hearing someone speaking this, pausing slightly at the end of each short line, and then opening their heart in the last, longer line.

Here is a seascape:

Sea

Now

the sea

beckons me

from the boardwalk

I watch waves rushing to shore quietly.

Not all of his Tetractys rhyme, but I admire the skillful, and natural, way that Dabydeen uses rhyme in a way that is unaffected.  Here is an unrhymed Tetractys:

My Watch

On

my watch

snowflakes dance

this cold morning

sunshine pretends to keep melting the snow.

There are 125 Tetractys poems.  These are followed by 76 Fibonacci poems.  Here are some prayers to Lord Krishna:

I

chant

your name

seek blessings

like flowers blooming

in a garden with trees of thorns.

We

live

this Age

in darkness

in Kali Yuga

free us from evil, Lord Krishna

I enjoyed reading the specifically religious poems in this collection; they add a deeper dimension to the collection.  Notice how in the second prayer to Krishna, Dabydeen starts two lines with ‘in’, while the last two lines use a mild end rhyme, Yuga/Krishna.  This gives the prayer a chant-like sound; I wonder how this prayer would sound put to music; I can almost hear the tune.

At times Dabydeen is philosophical:

So Much of Life

So

much

of life

is made up

of how we gather

all the things we do together.

Dabydeen is a major syllabic poet writing in English.  His two books are a significant contribution to the small, but growing, body of English syllabic verse.  His work is carefully constructed, wide ranging in topics, and imbued with both emotional and intellectual honesty.  His second book is a wonderful collection and I look forward to future publications.

Botany of Life

Let

me

take you

where flowers

bloom in abundance

it is the botany of life.

Searching for You:

A Collection of Tetractys & Fibonacci Poems

By Leonard Dabydeen

ISBN: 9781514409756

$19.99

Available from Amazon, Xlibris, or through Ingram Distribution.

Chester Creek Ravine: A Review

Chester Creek Ravine

By Bart Sutter

The variety of approaches to haiku in English can be confusing.  Newcomers, in particular, can find it difficult to negotiate the different approaches and the various arguments, and dogmatics, used to support conflicting claims of how haiku should be written in English.  One way of looking at this, an approach I have found useful, is that there seem to be two main approaches.  One approach to haiku is to deconstruct the English language along theoretical lines so that the language conforms to some view.  The belief, for example, that haiku ‘captures a moment’ is applied as a rule to English grammar.  And the result is a kind of attack on standard English usage such that certain verb forms are considered bad form.  The minimalist ideology that is foundational for a number of haiku organizations is another example: when it is applied to the English language redundancies are questioned, modifiers reduced or eliminated, etc.

The second approach takes the English language as a given and then seeks to shape the language in accordance with certain standards: like the 5-7-5 syllabic shape.  In this approach English poetry is seen as a resource upon which the haiku poet can draw so that traditional poetic devices such as metaphor, simile, alliteration, assonance, etc. are integrated into the haiku form.  One of the most significant poetic devices in English language poetry is rhyme.  In the second approach I find that rhyme often makes an appearance; whereas in the first approach it seems to be actively discouraged.  (Now and then I have found rhyme used in the first approach.  It is rare, but it does make an appearance.  Sometimes it is used humorously, and sometimes affectively.  On balance though, its presence is unusual.)

Rhyme moves into the foreground in the haiku stanza poems of Richard Wilbur, who rhymes the first and third lines of each verse.  Wilbur’s haiku stanza poems are among the finest haiku written in English.

A recent example of a poet who takes advantage of rhyme for the haiku form is Bart Sutter, the author of the newly published Chester Creek Ravine.  In this collection almost every haiku rhymes.

Wood smoke on the breeze

The heavy-headed grasses

Bow as summer passes.

In the haiku quoted above Sutter rhymes lines 2 and 3.  Often Sutter will rhyme 1 and 3:

The crow above the creek

Keeps cursing flowing water

In a fit of pique.

That snowfall was a beaut.

No sound now but chickadees,

The creaking of my boots.

The effect that the use of rhyme has is to make the haiku more memorable and to give them a sense of rhythm.  The use of rhyme also clarifies lineation.  In addition, the use of rhyme links Sutter’s haiku to the great tradition of rhyming English verse.  Also traditional is Sutter beginning each line with a capital letter: this is standard for the vast majority of English poetry and a lot of English language haijin that take a syllabic approach use it as well.  There is something inherently attractive about these little, rhyming, vignettes; there is an elegance about them that draws the reader in.

Sutter arranges his haiku in four chapters following the standard seasonal arrangement of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.  All of his haiku contain seasonal references and in that sense they are traditional haiku.

Though 5-7-5 seems to be a starting point for Sutter’s haiku, a large number of them go over that count.  Here is an example:

Spring at last?  It has to be:

A pair of woolen mittens

Stuck in a leafless tree.

Here we have 7-7-6, for an overall count of 20.  I haven’t counted all the haiku, but a longer count seems to be what Sutter leans towards.  I suspect that metrics plays a role here. 

There are some haiku with a short count:

A stem of lupine

Left on the sign

For the hiking trail.

Here we have 5-4-5, for an overall count of 14.  Sutter’s counts fall into what I have observed as the overall range that syllabic haijin allow themselves.  The standard seems to be 5-7-5 with a plus or minus 3 count giving a range of 14 to 20. 

Sutter’s haiku are written in full sentences.  The haiku are either a single sentence or two sentences.  Here is an example of a single sentence:

Out here in the cold,

The woodpeckers tap telegraph,

But we can’t crack the code.

And here is an example of two sentences:

Way back in there,

Tiny songsters.  Doesn’t it sound like

They’re sewing in the air?

Sometimes in haiku with more than one sentence Sutter will have one of them run over to the next line, like the one above.  At other times the sentences are matched to the line:

How the dog’s tail wags!

I bring home wildflowers

And windblown plastic bags.

The back matter states that Sutter lives near Chester Creek Ravine.  These haiku, then, are the poet’s observations on a local ecological feature that he has grown familiar with.  They are rooted in place. 

I enjoyed this book.  The rhyme is pleasing and the author has absorbed the significance and importance of the nature-centeredness of haiku.  There is a lilt to these well crafted haiku.  Many of them are cheerful, but a significant number also have a thoughtful dimension.  The world Sutter shows us is filled with many aspects of nature, but he also takes time to introduce us to neighbors, offer thoughtful observations on the state of the world in a way that is subtle (like the above haiku that mentions plastic bags), and there are haiku that have resonated with me for days:

I thought I was alone,

But I hear women’s voices,

Water over stone. 

I think this is a fine collection of haiku.  They are well-crafted, picture perfect, pleasing to the ear, and thoughtful for the mind. 

Chester Creek Ravine

Bart Sutter

ISBN: 9781935666752

79 pages

$16.00