Roadrunner

Issue X: 1 • The Scorpion Prize #19

by Marjorie Perloff

• ku

• Masks III

• Shinsen 21 (a sampling)

translated by Fay Aoyagi

• Yasui Kōji

translated by Eric Selland

• Favorites from 2009

by the editors

Scott Metz Editor

Paul Pfleuger Jr AssistantEditor

“water lenses” by masako © 2010 ISSN 1933-7337

“serqet” by r’r’r © 2010

The Scorpion Prize #19In my view, a good haiku should observe, if not the 5-7-5 syllabic pattern, at least the three-line form, and its diction should exemplify the mot juste—the exact word required by the context. There should be an element of surprise, and the sound structure should be as tight and complex as possible. In view of these criteria, my first choice is:

                                a face beseeching                                before it becomes                                a  water lily                                                                            George Swede

Usually, one first sees the water lily and then reads a face into it. But here the poet con-fronts the face itself first, and “sees” it that way for only a moment before it turns into a water lily.  And “beseeching” is a good participle in the context: water lilies can’t beseech, of course, but once brought to life, they can and do.  At the sound level, Swede’s  5-5-5-

pattern works nicely:  we expect change, “becom[ing,” but here what changes remains the same, thus confounding the reader.

There are four other haiku that I liked very much for similar reasons:

                            a few grains of sugar                               at the edge of the fire                               slowly smoking                                                                                    Chris Gordon

One expects to meet a few grains of carbon here or perhaps particles of food, cooked on the fire.  But the few grains of sugar are a surprise: the references makes us look closely at that fire, slowly smoking.

                             look up into                                the pure blue death                                of clouds                                                                                    John Sandbach

Here the key word is “death,” a sort of shock since we’re expecting “sky” or even “breath.”  But look how accurate: the death of the clouds produces blue sky.

                             white wind                                where in the word                                is the world?

                                                                                       Lorin Ford

This one gets high marks for tight sound structure and reversal of word/world so as to deconstruct the cliché phrase, “Where in the world....?”  Here the world is contained in the word.  Poetry contains its own world—verbal, sonic, syntactic.  And the word contains paragramms, puns, etc.

                         the silence grows                            teeth—a tree                            with cracked windows

                                                                                        Scott Metz

Metz is an editor of Roadrunner, so is not eligible to win. But it deserves praise for its subtle metaphor:  first silence (an abstraction) is animated—it grows teeth; then, in a reversal, the natural (tree) takes on aspects of the man-made, with its “cracked windows.” The natural is subsumed under the unnatural. And even here there is no refuge for the larger silence outside.                           

All of the above are excellent, so it was difficult to take sides. But the water lily haiku is, in my experiences, unique and hence special.

Marjorie Perloff

Marjorie Perloff is Sadie D. Patek Professor Emerita of Humanities at Stanford Univer-sity and currently Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Southern California. She teaches courses  and writes on twentieth—and now twenty-first—century poetry and po-etics, both Anglo-American and from a Comparatist perspective, as well as on intermedia and the visual arts.  Her first three books dealt with individual poets—Yeats, Robert Low-ell, and Frank O’Hara; she then published The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage (1981), a book that has gone through a number of editions, and led to her extensive ex-ploration of avant-garde art movements in The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant-Guerre, and the Language of Rupture (1986, new edition, 1994), and subsequent books (13 in all), the most recent of which is Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy (2005).  Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media (1992) has been used in classrooms studying the “new” digital po-etics, and 21st Century Modernism (Blackwell 2002) is a manifesto of Modernist Survival.   Wittgenstein’s Ladder brought philosophy into the mix; it has recently been translated into Portuguese (Sao Paulo), Spanish (Mexico),  and Slovenian and will be translated in France for 2010 publication. Perloff has recently published her cultural memoir The Vienna Para-dox (2004), which has been widely discussed.  The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound, co-edited with Craig Dworkin has just been published by Chicago (2009), and UNORIGINAL GENIUS: Poetry by Other Means in the Twenty-First Century, is due out from U of Chicago Press, 2010. She has been a frequent reviewer for periodicals from TLS and The Washing-

ton Post to all the major scholarly journals, and she has lectured at most major universities in the U.S. and at European, Asian, and Latin American universities and festivals. She was recently the Weidenfeld Professor of European Literature at Oxford University.  Per-loff has held Guggenheim, NEH, and Huntington fellowships, served on the Advisory Board of the Stanford Humanities Center, and has recently completed her year as Presi-dent of the Modern Language Association.   She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recently was named Honorary Foreign Professor at the Beijing Modern Languages University.  She received an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters, from Bard College in May 2008.  For further information, see http:// marjorieperloff.com

Roadrunner X:1Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved by the respective authors.

X:1 ku

drowning with Icarus in the textbook print

Peggy Willis Lyles

bleeding under my skin the American dream

Eve Luckring

photos from Abu Ghraib broken blood vessels in my left brain

Eve Luckring

the old names for countries levitating the Pentagon

Eve Luckring

between our countries a knife patrols, sharpening its only thought

Peter Yovu

October the red shift you were buried in

Peter Yovu

the furnace starts up   in darkness the baby I was        puts on its bronze shoes

Peter Yovu

My voice carries onthe wind and eventually

turns into whisper.

Elena Peterson

between the walls of the Athenaeum nothing

Dietmar Tauchner

the lighthouse invites the storm then lights it

Malcolm Lowry (Garry Eaton)

All of the past days Three figure temperatures And great thunder storms

Paris Flammonde

I sweep the sky with my eyes Assemble pieces And make a perfect picture.

Paris Flammonde

down to the last line dusk slides off the table

Rob Scott

say it so it sounds like starling she says

Chris Gordon

when I least expect it you open your robe

Chris Gordon

things I did with my hand show up as dead skin

Chris Gordon

 

the same conclusion vomit in the flower pot  

Chris Gordon

apology moon tonight the word is ‘meniscus’

Cherie Hunter Day

they tie string to the tails of dragonflies the girls of Aomori

Patrick Sweeney

a sudden fish-like dart my womb tilts in balance

_kala

baby shoes one mind bends after another

Michele Harvey

When you dream the inside smoke between cypress trees 

Richard Gilbert

Stay with me with the light out and water glass 

Richard Gilbert

Please feel free to stay here there’s a system you always said that  

Richard Gilbert

Nunavik's moon out of sight, its ulu still in my heart

Chen-ou Liu

that side of the thin tree gathered cadences

Susan Diridoni

just east of our troubles the rainbow’s face

Susan Diridoni

pocket ing one chip  gravel for  this whole road 

john martone

 

winters my house-spider friends  

john martone

Headless rabbit         at the bottom of all things               lies something else

Mike Andrelczyk

so dark your candle floats in a sentence

Gregory Hopkins

a hierarchy of apples in the moonlight

Fay Aoyagi

the moon × the moon ÷ the moon

Fay Aoyagi

A breathing space     with the gutters     dripping light

呼吸的空間  伴著排水溝  滴落的光線

In the doorway      leaves on either side      of the brain

門口 樹葉在大腦的兩邊

At which point it revolves around the baby’s heart

在這點上  繞著這嬰孩的心藏轉

I’m a documentary of that blizzard I’m half true

我是那大風雪的紀錄片  我半真半假

Paul Pfleuger Jr.

 

nor the factory's weight or the wind through the firs

the heat’s gone to the pine’s head

one by one they fly to see it broken

the dawn the roses had in mind never comes together

Scott Metz

Roadrunner X:1Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved by the respective authors and artists.

MASKS I I I

wayo bo

Ms. Weston-Super-Mare

Paris Flammonde

Bridghost

eyesa

Clarrideau Knox

Rigel Knox

Chef Arnold Grayhull

C. Flor

Kwahi Front

Natsuki

giovù

Emmi Gnusec

BirdCage

EscotFeinour

Jack Dander

THE DOMINOAWARD2

all the sticks sharpened differently the moon has stained your gloves

Jack Dander

blue appleproductions

black foxstudios

contact haikumasks@gmail.com

links black fox studios http://blackfoxstudios.wordpress.com/

The Domino Award http://TheDominoAward.wordpress.com/

lakes & now wolves http://lakesandnowwolves.wordpress.com/

ant ant ant ant ant http://antantantantant.wordpress.com/

MASKS III

April 2010

http://www.roadrunnerjournal.net/

Creative Commons 3.0 LicensedFreely download, share & copy; not for commercial gain.

Shinsen 21(a sampling)

edited by Bansei Tsukushi

Yasuko TsushimaLeona Takayama

&You-shorin

(Nagano, Japan, December 2009)

selected & translated by Fay Aoyagi

Shinsen 21 (New Selection 21) is a new haiku anthology featuring 21 Japanese poets who are all under 40 years of age (born after 1968), and who did not publish his/her first haiku collection, or win any haiku awards, before the year 2000, thus showcasing voices of the 21st century. The anthology features a selection of 100 haiku by each poet; each selection is then followed by a short essay by some-one under 45 years of age. The anthology concludes with a round-table discussion that includes three of the editors and haiku poet Minoru Ozawa (born in 1956, and winner of the 2005 Yomiuri Prize for Literature [Haiku/Poetry]).

The following sample of the anthology was selected and translated by Fay Aoyagi and originally presented on her blog, Blue Willow Haiku World <http://fayaoyagi.wordpress.com/>. For this special presentation, some of the translations have been revised and a few new ones added.

Special thanks to You-shorin Publishing Company,

the editors, & especially the poets

of Shinsen 21 for granting Roadrunner permission to republish this work in English

Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved by the respective authors.

むかしには黄色い凧を浮かべたる　 鴇田智哉mukashi niwa ki’iroi tako o ukabetaru

for the pastI let a yellow kitefloat

Tomoya Tokita

空のすぐうしろに咳の聞えたる　　 鴇田智哉sora no sugu ushiro ni seki no kikoetaru

right behind the skyI hear someonecoughing

Tomoya Tokita

鳴り出して電話になりぬ春の闇　　 山口優夢naridashite denwa ni narinu haru no yami

spring darkness starts to ringand becomesa telephone call

Yuumu Yamaguchi

蝋燭を蝋燭立てに置く手套　　　 山口優夢rôsoku o rôsoku-tate ni oku shutô

a gloved handplacing a candlein the candle stand

Yuumu Yamaguchi

気絶して千年凍る鯨かな　　　 冨田拓也kizetsu shite sen’nen kôru kujira kana

fainteda whale freezesfor one thousand years

Takuya Tomita

卵てふ億年の闇冬灯　　　 冨田拓也tamago chô okunen no yami fuyu-tomoshi

an egg is the darknessof one hundred million years— a winter light

Takuya Tomita

白骨の反りと冬虹と揺らげよ　　 九堂夜想hakkotsu no sori to fuyu-niji to yurageyo

arched white bonesand a winter rainbowsway!

Yasou Kudou

冬すみれ人は小さき火を運ぶ　　 田中亜美fuyu-sumire hito wa chiisaki hi o hakobu

winter violetshe carriesa tiny fire

Ami Tanaka

歩きだす椅子歩き出さない冬の猫　　 中村安伸arukidasu isu arukidasanai fuyu no neko

a chair starts to walka winter cat does notstart to walk

Yasunobu Nakamura

寂しさも僕の衛星冬の蠅　　　　 豊里友行sabishisa mo boku no eisei fuyu no hae

loneliness too is my satellite—a winter fly

Tomoyuki Toyozato

雪らしい生理が遅れてゐるらしい　　 北大路　翼yuki rashii seiri ga okurete iru rashii

I hear snow will fallI hear her periodis late

Tsubasa Kitaohji

木枯しの壊しては組む星座かな　　　 村上鞆彦kogarashi no kowashitewa kumu seiza kana

a winter gustdemolishes and constructsthe constellation

Tomohiko Murakami

ことごとく未踏なりけり冬の星　　 髙柳克弘kotogotoku mitô narikeri fuyu no hoshi

none of themhave been landed on—winter stars

Katsuhiro Takayanagi

めくれつつ雑誌燃えゐる焚火かな　 中本真人mekuretsutsu zasshi moeiru takibi kana

its pages turning overa magazine burnsin the bonfire

Masato Nakamoto

梟やいずれの道も帰路ならず　　 神野紗希fukurô ya izureno michi mo kiro narazu

an owl—every road is not a roadto home

Saki Kouno

太古より仲間集まる日向ぼこ　 外山一機taiko yori nakama atsumaru hinataboko

from prehistoric timesmy buddies gather to bathein the winter sun

Kazuki Toyama

洞ひとつ抱へてをりぬ冬桜　　 谷　雄介hora hitotsu kakaeteorinu fuyu-zakura

it’s carryinga hollowwinter cherry tree

Yusuke Tani

牡蠣噛めば窓なき部屋のごときかな　　　 佐藤文香kaki kameba mado naki heya no gotoki kana

chewing an oysterit’s like a roomwithout windows

Ayaka Sato

時計から時間生るる冬の蝶　　　　 越智友亮tokei kara jikan umaruru fuyu no chô

time is bornfrom the clock—a winter butterfly

Yusuke Ochi

滝壺に届かざるまま凍りけり　　 五十嵐義知takitsubo ni todokazaru mama kôrikeri

its shapebefore reaching the bottoma frozen waterfall

Yoshitomo Igarashi

薄氷の割れて人魚の鱗かな　　 矢野玲奈usurai no warete ningyo no uroko kana

thinning icebroken . . . anda mermaid’s scale

Reina Yano

　   

秋風や汝の臍に何植ゑん　 藤田哲史　　　

 akikaze ya nanji no hozo ni nani uen 

autumn wind—what I should plantin your belly button 

Satoshi Fujita

　　　 

紐あれば結界となる秋の暮 藤田哲史himo areba kekkai to naru aki no kure 

a string will marka boundary of the sacred placeautumn dusk  

Satoshi Fujita  

東京といふ語は光る羽蟻の夜 相子智恵tôkyô to iu go wa hikaru ha’ari no yo 

the word “Tokyo”shinesa night of winged ants  

Chie Aiko

 

火星にも水や蚕の糸吐く夜 相子智恵

kasei nimo mizu ya kaiko no ito haku yo 

Mars, too, has water—a night when silkwormsspit out strings

Chie Aiko

眞青ナル文盲ノ魚飛ビ交ヘリ 関　悦史masao naru monmô  no uo tobikaeri 

blueilliterate fishflying around   

Etsushi Seki

 

蟻のよるグランドピアノたる私 関　悦史ari no yoru gurando piano taru watakushi 

ants gatherat a grand pianowhich is me  

Etsushi Seki

まだ夢を見てゐる牡蠣を食ひにけり 関　悦史mada yume o miteiru kaki o kuinikeri 

I eat an oysterit is stilldreaming 

Etsushi Seki

20 Haiku by Kōji Yasui 安井 浩司translated by Eric Selland

Kōji Yasui (安井 浩司) was born in Akita, Japan, in 1936. He studied haiku under Koui Nagata. While still in his teens, he became a member of the haiku magazine Bokuyoshin, edited by Shuji Terayama. He is a member of the Riraza Group, Haiku-hyoron, and Unicorn. He is currently a member of the Ki group (information courtesy of World Haiku Association).

The poems presented here have been extracted from an essay entitled Ban’ya Natsuishi and Kōji Yasui by Sayumi Kamakura, which was originally published in Kokubungaku (Gakutōsha, Dec. 2008 special edition).

Roadrunner X:1

Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved by the respective authors.

氷柱苛立ちわたしの内臓透けて見える

The column of ice irritated  You can see right through  To my insides

      

渚で鳴る巻貝有機質は死して

Sounding on the beach  Trumpet shells  Organic matter in their death 

 

ひるすぎの小屋を壊せばみなすすき

The old shack in the afternoon  After tearing it down  Nothing left but grass and weeds      

死鼠をのまひるへ抛りけり     　　　　　

Tossed the dead rat  Into eternal daylight      

何を恐れて闇に青梅撒きちらす

What is it that frightens  Scattering unripe plums  In the darkness     

汝が犬の入る門へとはいるべし

Thou shalt enter by the gate  Where the dog enters     

となるため声を検約する草ら

The grass saves up its voice For the coming north wind

      

西の空に龍重体となる美しき

In the western sky  Beauty like a sick dragon     

或る青空醜い棒へ車輪嵌める

Under a blue sky  The automobile’s tires  Ensnare an ugly stick      

藁塚の父をしめらしゆく雁列

A column of geese  On its way to moisten  My father on a mound of straw      

椿の花いきなり数を廃棄せり

Camellias— All of a sudden  Discarding their numbers      

をふたたびみれば岬かな

Seeing grandfather again  The promontory

遠い煙が白瓜抱いて昇るらん

Distant smoke  Bears a white gourd  In its ascent     

に散りたきさるすべり崖上に

The crape myrtle on the shore  Wants its flowers to fall eternally    

夕顔の水をかせて寂しけれ

The moonflower’s sadness  At emptying its water      

鷲の眼の高さと広さに我はいず

I am not  The height and breadth  Of the eagle’s eye

      

火のほとり水は流れて秋の家

Water flows  By the fire  The house in autumn      

牛の背に二人抱き合う春

On the back of a cow  Two children embracing  Spring

&

Two more by Kōji Yasui translated by Eric Selland 

山中孤塔に瞳のような窓入れけり

A window cut  Like an eye  In the lonely mountain tower

膝の辺りに宇宙菫の落下して

Around the knees  A cosmic violet  Falling

Well hello all, 

The good year 2009 brought to Roadrunner a diverse range of voices that we are proud to serve as a platform for. Over win-ter break, we mulled over the possibility of putting together something of a ‘best-of ’ for the year with commentary and the like. “How many ku to include?” we asked. 25? 15? 10? The thought of having to exclude a number of works was nearly enough to leave the idea in the bin, but we decided to move forward with ten that each of us has selected and will say a little about. We can relate to the challenges before each issue’s judge of the Scorpion Prize. It’s no small thing with so much strong work being published, but we’ll take a crack at it. We see these selections as being both representative of the range of haiku/senryu that Roadrunner has to offer and, hell, just darn good. Hopefully they are not too idiosyncratic, but they should give a sense of what moves us most. We’d like to express our gratitude and appreciation to all the poets that make us who we are. Special thanks to all of the contributors: Hiroaki Sato (where does he find the time?!), William Ram-sey, Richard Gilbert, David G. Lanoue & Philip Rowland. And many thanks to our 2009 Scorpion Prize judges—Matthew Dickman, Richard Gilbert, Ron Silliman, & Don Wentwor-th—for their willingness to participate, their time, their thoughtful words, and careful choices. Thanks to all! Please re-enjoy! 

Paul Pfleuger, Jr.  

❦

 

Paul’s

sun on the horizon who first picked up a stone  

paul m.   

Along this horizon paul m. depicts, the sun could very well be rising, and sets up, in the two lines that follow it, a clean, clear image. Though no punctuation is used, there is a kireji-like cut after “horizon” that asks one to peer in.  It’s striking to me that the second line utilizes a somewhat similar, yet more subtle, technique which asks as much of a reader, yet it doesn’t disrupt the fluidity and movement. Where it ends with “stone,” much room is left for interpretation and contemplation. There, among the stones, even the most ordinary or mundane of landscapes might in-stantaneously be transformed into something of a great savannah at that moment where man first picked up a stone and human technology began.  One might also find the biblical allusion to Jesus and the woman taken in adultery in John 7:53-8:11, where Jesus tells the mob that threatened to stone the woman for having committed adultery, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Of course, the possibilities do not end there, and much depends on how a reader opts to read it. There is much space for readers to enter and reenter. We’re able to linger long with this one. It’s a strong haiku of substantial depth.     

  ❦

                                slammed by salt and sun the paint has no chance in this mexican prison  

David Caruso 

The paint’s chances make this. Caruso effectively renders it unable to serve its functional and aesthetic purposes. In at least one reading, the chance the paint has been given infuses it with a living quality, and per-sonifies it. Egad, hasn’t the poet broken a rule here? No worries. Paying any attention to that might have resulted in a less than compelling haiku. It adds layers of nuance. The poet still vividly depicts a moment with an image that makes good use of suggestion and implication; and it has an objective feel about it. From that slam at the beginning to its end, it brings to mind the brutal and unforgiving conditions of the Mexican correctional system, which has received a bit of news coverage in recent years, but nothing is overstated. The two-line construction seems utterly perfect for conveying the tone, as well as the rapidity of the machine gun’s firing, when reading the last line the way it stands.   

❦

  Job’s-tears in my hands a typhoon gathers strength  

Dhugal Lindsay   

Curious and peculiar, it goes without saying that much depends on the reader and what he or she brings with them to this challenging haiku. Ending the first line where Lindsay does, rather than at “hands,” opens it up to different interpretive possibilities. Living in Taiwan, I can attest to having heard on more than a few occasions of how beneficial to one’s health edible Job’s-tears are. It can be bought around the corner, as ori-ental medicine and restaurants that include it as an ingredient in certain dishes are scattered about. It is evident how associations might be drawn to health and even potency in Lindsay’s haiku. The tear-like seed pods are used in many places for making jewelry, and are also used for rosary beads. Of course, there could be at least a loose allusion to the tribula-tions of the biblical figure. The contrast brought to the fore is particu-larly intriguing when the small, hard seeds held in the palm are juxta-posed against the vast area and awesome might of a typhoon picking up speed, gathering strength.    

❦

A body of light Making room For a pillar of steel 

Jack Galmitz 

First off, there may be sexual connotations as Jack Galmitz could be metaphorically expressing a romantic union of lovers. Perhaps that “pil-lar of steel” represents his sturdy lover, his rock. Yet, knowing that the poet is a Buddhist, I wonder if the first line refers to the state arrived at when one sees the body much differently than we normally do during the routine of our everyday lives, and, instead, as some transitory form or inglorious container, something different from the mind.  I imagine there is an inner-soundness that comes with that. The third line is pro-vocative. We have ‘steel’ which can be taken as a symbol for strength, du-rability, resistance or strength, but connections drawn to the body of light—as with several of the Roadrunner ku of note that we have selected from 2009—are left for readers to engage, to unravel. Overall, I’d say I’m taken both by the way this arrives at some kind of an equilibrium and the majestic sounding of it. A wonderful poem.       

❦

 

their wings like cellophane remember cellophane 

Lorin Ford  

For me, this could end with a sigh or a snicker. The rhythm makes it a sound fit for one-line. Bee or fly wings lead to a surprising reflection. Lo-rin Ford injects the poem with an ironic nostalgia in the way it contem-plates what can be seen as a consumerist symbol of last century, when cellophane was a staple in most homes. It’s making a comeback, by the way, being that it is biodegradable. I digress. The exclusion of the ques-tion mark allows for ambiguity, further interpretation. And the simile (yes, a simile in haiku) is spot-on. A timely haiku that is penetrating on many levels.    

❦

honeysuckle  taking down  the spite fence

Peggy Willis Lyles 

Another solid offering, rich in many ways, from Peggy Willis Lyles. Could the honeysuckle be climbing all about and covering the fence, giv-ing the illusion that it is being taken over as it grows, oblivious to that border separating neighbors (it seems to recall the Old South)? Or is it just the poignant scent of the honeysuckle as the fence is literally being taken down? A perfect objective sketching? Not so fast. Without the punctuation, or an explicit cutting, at least one reading personifies the honeysuckle and sees it bringing down that spite fence. At any rate, room is left for interpretation and we’re able to linger here awhile. Haiku such as these, like that honeysuckle, cross boundaries and this one might have found itself a home in a number of journals.  I also see it as a testament to Roadrunner’s range, and we’re delighted that it ended up here.  

❦

look up into  the pure blue death  of clouds

John Sandbach  

This one grew on me after several readings. At first, the tone appeared insistent and statement-like, sharp—perhaps too strong and imposing, I thought, as he appeared to be commanding us to face up there, above us, to an eventuality that can be seen as both comforting and disturbing at the same time. It’s not something we can do every day. Then I asked who it might be directed toward, who is being told to gaze into this sky. It might be an example, a ‘first thought, best thought’ haiku (well, senryu), and I see it being something of a poet’s note-to-self, a reminder to retreat from the rat-race and slow down in order to take in the idea of death, of permanent absence from this world that is there to ponder when one looks hard enough into the blue heavens. That “pure blue death” adds a certain existential charm to it and also seems to remind the poet and readers of the ephemerality of our time in this world. I like to think that it is the minor voice, the poet’s speaking small to himself, that is heard and, ultimately, speaks to its audience.     

❦

in and out of meaning a finned word minnows 

Peter Yovu   

Pardon the pun here, but I see Peter Yovu as a sort of ‘fisher of men’ in recent years. He’s taking chances, and there is gusto in his work. This is by no means a typical haiku. It shows and tells. I find that telling convey-ing a tension or instability in language. “A finned word” could be in ref-erence to the written word, rather than the spoken. It is my impulse to say that it is the former here, although it’s not stated. The first line could imply an active search for meaning, and while a context might be imag-ined, the unspecified location adds to the unease of this peculiar experi-ence and how it is to be expressed. It’s not kigo-less (minnows: spring), but are these minnows in their natural habitat? Is this a bait shop? Is it a day spent fishing? Or is Yovu offering minnows as an intriguing meta-phorical verb? These things matter to a certain degree, as they color reader interpretations, but it also leaves a good deal up to the imagina-tion, and I like that about this poem.  I’m convinced that it communi-cates a subtle restlessness toward the notion of haiku as merely report-age—telling objectively some here-and-now realization found in the world—when it is often not entirely that simple; and, personally, I find it difficult, on occasion, to remain true to myself when conveying these moments of clarity, joy, confusion, what have you, that we come across, without including elements that might tend to be seen as fantastical or obscure. “A finned word” also effectively conveys the elusive qualities of language in the way it sometimes gets away, like a shimmering minnow would, from our field of vision; I don’t see it being an accident that

‘meaning’ and ‘minnows’ alliterate. Think of times that one word or line shimmered away before you had a chance to pencil it down into a note-book or the closest piece of paper. How intriguingly ironic it is that the end result—this fractured snapshot of experience—stands as something intensely meaningful.   

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I see the iris and its stamina and am blue  

Charles Trumbull   

Sentimental?  Perhaps, but not gushingly so, and it works here. There is so much depth behind the seeming simplicity of this poem which makes it a gem. I am reminded here of something the American poet Archibald MacLeish said in his ‘Ars Poetica’: "A poem should not mean. But be." The resilience of an iris in its full bloom—however ephemeral it may be—is astonishing and humbling, particularly in our exhausted mo-ments; and I can’t help but think that this was written around the time Trumbull, Modern Haiku’s editor, was moving from Illinois to New Mex-ico, when there would have no doubt been loads of packing, prepara-tions and running back and forth going on. There’s something about the repetition of “and,” and I feel much hinges on this. In addition to the as-sonance—depending how one sounds it (try grumbling it!)—I find it lends a touch of humor to the experience crafted by one of our finest poets.    

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under the nitrogen blue sky the white horse of my life  

Patrick Sweeney

We may instantly recall a number of storybook tales ending happily with a knight or a prince charming riding in on a white horse. We may think of gods riding chariots drawn by white horses, or the Book of Revelation (19:11-16), where Christ appears as the Word of God. A white horse as a symbol has no shortage of meanings. If it is, in fact, a metaphor, it’s un-pretentious. “The white horse” could represent someone or thing that rescued or completes the poet—a lover, a child, a friend, a place. Re-garding the latter, years ago, it was mountains that set me straight, and I don’t see it being too far of a stretch to see the likeness between snow-capped mountain humps bearing resemblance to a white horse. And there are literally White Horse Mountains that I know of in China (Yun-nan and Zhejiang provinces), America (California), in Japan (Nagano Prefecture), and there may be others. We know Patrick Sweeney lives in Japan. Just a thought. At any rate, this is an exceptional offering from a poet who also included several other strong ku inside Roadrunner in 2009.

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Scott’s

the crow in the road refuses to move a thunderstorm at dusk

Chris Gordon

Roadrunner published many ku by Chris in 2009, many of which played with more recherché materials; and yet, i am drawn each time back to this one for its seeming simplicity in imagery, and yet its oddness and freshness in presenting them. Simply put: the ku has great power for me, great magnetism, and i think this is because the poet uses animism in such a dynamic and playful way. Also, he surprises us with his choice of line breaks and lack of punctuation, where a different poet may have forced meaning and a particular, singular, reading upon us; Chris, in-stead, allows multiple and simultaneous readings to occur, all of which are bold, dark, supernatural, and rather unnerving.

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A candle is a sweet machine to fly across the crow- shaped night

Grant Hackett

This is wild; beautiful, crazy and wild. The imagery is just amazing, sur-real, dream-like, mythological. It is not only about movement, but the need for movement, for flight, for change. Not only is the poet in motion, on an odyssey, but the night, animated, is too. And it all seems to be spontaneous, brought on by something unknown and undetermined (so inviting for me as a reader). In the dreamscape of the poem, the night is “crow-shaped,” giving it an intense, sinister edge; and though this in-vokes darkness, it also, regarding motion, establishes a connection and parallelism with the poet and “i” of the ku: they are both traveling, transforming together, almost as one, simultaneously. . . . i love the play-fulness of light v. dark, fact/factual simile (“is”) v. metaphor. Wonderful implications. The ku bursts with an almost child-like sense of adventure, and excitement, and is contagious for me.

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placesfor the ocean to end

―his birthday no longer a party

Gary Hotham

What are these “places”? i feel i want to be one of them; in fact, even more so, i want everyone to be one of those places, to be open and inviting, to have that strength to hold such substantialness. Of course, those “places” could be much more concrete, specific, local, non-human, and, down through the centuries, for this or that tribe/country/culture, sa-cred. Ultimately though, the lingering emotion here for me is sadness (“to end”); and yet, it doesn’t necessarily have to end there; perhaps it’s just a new beginning. In which case, the emotions are mixed; and com-plicated. The last line invokes sadness as well though, but also longing, even (non cringe-worthy) nostalgia. Is it the corporatization of the world the poet laments? (i think of Jesus, the season being the end of the year/Xmas). The diminishment and fading of spirituality, love, celebration, sacredness? Whatever the case, these are the ideas i find myself contem-plating. Combined, the ku’s two parts create new emotions to be deeply felt—something about vastness and greatness are being questioned, re-calibrated, and placed back upon the reader and their own concept of the sacred.

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opening her robe against forgetting distant music

Michael McClintock

Instead of closing something, blocking something off in order to forget, or start over, the opposite is offered to us here: an opening up. With this, we are swept into a stream (a flood?) of need, desire, wanting, longing, freedom, all mixed up into a cocktail of memory that is tantalizingly, in-vitingly, knowingly, offered. Is she the one opening her own robe—inti-macy shown through the watcher’s/lover’s knowing of the whys (some-thing they just got finished discussing: how it used to be)? Or is it the poet who is acting on her, doing the opening (which leads to other open-ings), trying all they can to bring back the love s/he once experienced? The level of intimacy is to be determined: is the “distant music” some-thing the couple once had together, and are trying to re-ignite? Or is it “distant music” remembered with others?—passion, spontaneity, and in-tensity experienced with someone else, or numerous others? Music is al-ways more than just music. Even when it is dissonant, difficult, or dark, it is still music. In this poem though, the music is bright, happy, full of light. And it is intense. The longing is hard and immediate though—an absolute need and desire for it. And it must happen now. It must be ex-tinguished, and reborn. The ku spins on the word “against.”

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close to someone in the stars white seeps inward

Marlene Mountain

i’m drawn to a break between “someone” and “in.” But the intriguing nature of one line ku allows the reader to decide, and to allow ambiguity, and find different breaks, and different meanings, at different times. Or all at once: taken in, all at once, this ku has a meaning/reading that is all its own, quiet and intimate. Is that someone somehow “in the stars”? This implies death—that that person is now part of, or one with, the universe/cosmos. It’s abstract, but makes sense. Read a different way, the poet is presently “close to someone” (a lover, a friend, a neighbor) who is right there with them (in bed, on the porch, stargazing . . . ) and notices the color white, or the idea of the color white, in action. Why white? Is it, here, symbolic of purity, innocence, or a total absence of color?—all of which is entering the poet who is in need of these things, at least mo-mentarily, in order to escape the “darkness.” Though the poem creates ambiguities and choices, it is, nevertheless, emotional and intimate, but not in an easy way. It guides, but makes one work for resolution, if that’s even desirable. It ends with “inward” and, thankfully, leaves us searching and quest/ioning there.

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a man in a crowd in a man

John Stevenson

This was a ku i immediately fell in love with, devoured, and have inter-nalized. Which makes sense: the poetic aesthetics are internal, the words and imagery within it turning and playing with and off one another in dramatic and extravagant ways. It’s playful, yet profound; simple (wow, all one syllable words, with an “ow,” an echo of pain and hurt, right there in the center of it all), yet intricate. It is seasonless, and yet some-thing tells me that for each reader a season will naturally well up, be-come a bubble and float inside the brain (for me, it’s “the fifth season”). It’s composition is so tight that not a word can be changed, rearranged, added or subtracted, yet it feels like it’s about to explode. Not just haiku or poetry at its best, but words at their best.

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whose ghost did you talk to all the way down

Peggy Willis Lyles

A descent into hades/hell? Or down to earth? Or a spiraling inward, into the soul? i revel in the mysteriousness of this ku; it challenges a sin-gle reading, perception, and beliefs, and invites my imagination. Who is the speaker? Who is being spoken to? What’s implied is that the person (the being being spoken to) did indeed speak to someone all the way down (i get the feeling that they are in a state of in-betweenness); that they’ve reached a conclusion/end, and reached it with the help and guidance of one of the ghosts. What did they talk about? And why? That familiar but eerie question bubbles up: if you could talk to a dead per-son, who would it be? i get the impression that whoever is being ad-dressed was given a choice (adding yet another layer to the poem’s odd-ness and mysteriousness), and that the descent was a long one (“all the way down”). This ku feels biblical, mythological, with a nod to western literature (Dante’s Inferno), and with implications of an unresolved trans-formation. And while the ku evokes death and ghosts, it is full of life and spirit, energy and consciousness (an afterworld/afterlife/life after death). All in all, a dream-like state. The lack of punctuation (a question mark) creates further ambiguity and enigmaticness. It’s a ku that invites the reader to bring their entire life to its heart.

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under the nitrogen blue sky the white horse of my life

Patrick Sweeney

For me, this ku is about the fleetingness of life, motion, and also trans-formation. By invoking a gas (nitrogen), something ungraspable, yet de-finitive, is conjured. It’s a peculiar thing to use in a haiku poem—some-thing scientifically named—yet it’s 78 % of the earth’s atmosphere, and so not that very peculiar at all; it feels modern though and part of our world and slang. The use of the word conjures exactness; it is precise and elemental. Again though, it has a vacuity to it, something odorless, es-capable, always in motion, something that can not be held or tied down. What is “the white horse”? For me, it conjures speed, beauty, strength, freedom. It’s a strong (even mythically mighty) image that takes us from the infiniteness and ubiquitousness of the sky/air to something concrete. Yet, at the same time, it’s abstract and metaphorical. Is it not simply a cloud that looks like a horse? And does this cloud not remind the poet of their own life? How simple; how beautiful. There’s a purity and evanes-cence that i love about this ku. All in all, it leads me, ultimately, to disin-tegration.

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Twilight in the arrangement of stones

Patrick Sweeney

This ku lends itself immediately to a concrete reading: the very ar-rangement of its words, their careful placement and organization, and how they allude to the stones’ arrangement. The one line construction also evokes the bareness of the day’s light, of “twilight,” as well as the thinness of thought and energy at day’s end. What are these stones? If they are indeed in a a line, are they a wall, a boundary, a line not to be crossed, part of a game, or only the beginning of something’s construc-tion (a house)? Alternately, i am drawn to them being the beginnings of a a ring of stones for a fireplace. Or perhaps, for no reason at all, other than fun, they’ve been lined up from smallest to largest by a child. Better yet, when i was a child, my brother and i would build a wall in the stream, a kind of cell, for the fish my father would catch. What i love about this one is how the ku escapes me time and time again; each time, i feel i am about to “get it,” and yet, whatever it is, remains just beyond my grasp. It lulls me and makes me work, makes me search (“how can twilight be in something? What does that arrangement look like?”). It lov-ingly—through the juxtaposition of the solid and the ephemeral, the cy-clical and the stable—and simply involves, without pushing or pulling hard in one direction or another. It guides, and nudges, and then disap-pears, like a Cheshire cat.

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Monday bleeding down to money

Peter Yovu

I love the way this ku plays with words, time, images, and emotion with-out being overt or simplistic about it. Only two letters separate “Mon-day” and “money,” and by the time the poem ends they have, somehow (because of anxiety, violence (?), burnout), made a metamorphosis into “money,” something which is concrete, and yet, more often than not, quite abstract (especially in this Age of Swiping Plastic); what the hell is money, anyway? As so often, sadly, is the case, it does come “down to money.” There’s something sinister and blue about this ku for me, though the dominant color might be “in the red”. It conveys sadness, even heartbreak, over the way a system (on both a micro and macro level) works (chipping away/“the daily grind”). Not only is there a trans-formation in words, but also a transformation in personal well-being, feelings, consciousness, and attitude—the fluctuations of one’s mind and one’s role and function within a system. The one line structure adds to the overall effect: pressure, frailty, deadlines, a sense of being worn “down”/burnout, laying things on the line. On top of that, it’s playful with time. This ku, even more so than others, is not just cut out, but bloodily severed from time, from reality. Time resonates from both ends of it: the actions and energy spent before the poem occurs, creating a world of replenishing and stockpiling energy over a short weekend, and then, from its other end/cut (“money”), the draining of energy, stretch-ing things (money) out, and struggling to Friday. Then starting all over again. All of this sense is juxtaposed against what image(s)? Each one is an open, surreal, abstraction: a day of the week bleeding, and money. And yet it all works, it makes sense, it feels right.

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authors and artists.