the journal of japanese form poetry...in the cactus patch melissa spurr - usa debate in congress two...

The Journal of Japanese Form Poetry

No. 3, December 2009

featuring

Haiku, Tanka, Haiga & More.

Notes from the Gean No.3, December 2009

Welcome to Notes from the Gean the haiku journal

Brought to you by Gean Tree Press

featuring haiku, tanka, haiga, & more.

Mission Statement:

We seek to encourage excellence, experimentation and education

within haiku and its related genres. We believe this is best

accomplished by example and not imitation. Our aim is for authenticity

above all else. We therefore solicit your finest examples of haiku, tanka,

haiga, haibun and renga/renku so that we may "hear" your voices

speak.

The Editors

For details on how to submit to Notes from the Gean please check our

SUBMISSIONS page.

cover artwork Grum Robertson

Magazine content copyright © 2009 Gean Tree Press. All Rights Reserved.

Individual works copyright © the artist/artists.

http://www.geantreepress.com/

http://www.geantreepress.com/subs


contents

haiku pp.4-30

Editor: Lorin Ford - Australia

tanka pp.31-38

Editor: H. Gene Murtha - USA

haiga pp.39-58

Editor: Melinda B. Hipple - USA

reviews pp.59-63

back page p.64

Editor-in-Chief / Resources: Colin Stewart Jones - Scotland


stopping and starting across the busy path... mouse or leaf?

Jeremy Thompson - Australia

squirrel! how the word jumps to your lips

Richard Stevenson - Canada

almost sixty— the beach pebbles larger than I remember

Richard Stevenson - Canada

high tide mark . . . the beach cricketer hits a six

Colin Stewart Jones - UK

one swallow— making the best of the season



the old Prof's burial . . . first-year physics students discuss wormholes


K-T boundary on the sandstone bluff . . . a rock wren calls

Allan Burns - USA

stallions graze at the arroyo's edge blustering gale

Allan Burns - USA

after the owl an owl-shaped hole in the clouds

Allan Burns - USA

long rain drops the dove drinks without

looking up

Allan Burns - USA


sunlight through smoke Caruso sings to us from 1904

Allan Burns - USA

crows on a wire . . . the twang of guitar strings from a pub

Susan Constable - Canada

my apology . . . the ocean turns from grey to blue


the slow swing

of a hammock . . . periwinkle sky


dust in a sunbeam that part when the story turns fantastical

Gregory Hopkins - USA


summer vacation two dollars worth of beach in a gift shop bottle


mountain and valley the high and low notes of a wood thrush


snow day the children run from room to room


snow moon eclipse eclipsed by snow

Ann K. Schwader - USA

deep winter— the shrouded moon fades to snow



late winter our heated bird bath one robin wide


garage mousetrap a stain we don't mention


while my dog is otherwise occupied crab-apple blooms


spring morning— the basket overflows with pups

Gautam Nadkarni - India

spring cleaning— the Burma teak chest full of memories



autumn fest— humbling and majestic the clay idol


winter twilight— the unfinished portrait of an artist


cold drizzle . . . photos of my family miles away

Melinda Hipple - USA

a tunnel through the mountain swallowing my fear


summer clouds . . . a dark strand divides into geese



school's out the riverbank flush with tansy florets

Matthew Paul - UK

brushing nipplewort the plumpest blackberry that got away

Matthew Paul - UK

at the end of a lane on the downs windmill-sails slowly turn

Matthew Paul - UK

by a coastal path the stems of viper's-bugloss coil in the breeze

Matthew Paul - UK

rain-mist up the steep battlefield ranks of spear-thistles

Matthew Paul - UK


in the bucket seat power-line staves lick you, play you

Kevin Gillam - Australia

horse out to pasture the old man throws a grain sack on his shoulder

Alan Segal - USA

still night a coyote call freezes the rabbit

Alan Segal - USA

an open fire . . . it used to be the future I looked for

Jo McInerney - Australia

Father's Day the distant rumble of lawn mowers



moths weave toward the headlights midnight run


evening mist the luna moth circles white hydrangeas

Pamela A. Babusci - USA

river fog the bridge under construction more incomplete

Rosa Clement - Brazil early morning frost even the scarecrow hunches its shoulders

Karen Reynolds - USA

Hanukkah candles the toddler sings happy birthday

Karen Reynolds - USA


among the thistles a molted snake's skin— she turns sixteen

Victor P. Gendrano - USA

dining alone the piped-in music plays our love song


the roaring sea . . . a fisherman's boat doing the twist

Keith A. Simmonds - Trinidad & Tobago

Columbus Day— in the tide pool a new world

H. Gene Murtha - USA

hitching a ride home . . . lilacs

H. Gene Murtha – USA


church ruins . . . the grace of a butterfly

H. Gene Murtha - USA

confetti ban . . .no telling the cherry

Helen Buckingham - UK

May Day the green sans green


Twelfth Night— a dozen dead stubs in the poinsettia


Christmas night reflected in puddles the empty streets

Adelaide B. Shaw - USA


tree gazing— the brightest shades of red on poison ivy


afternoon snow a rustle of newspaper from the easy chair


crescent moon between a gap in the drapes lamplight


steep cliff-side—

icicles connecting rock to rock


empty tissue box the gloom of a winter's twilight

Bob Lucky - China


scudding clouds I sniffle into the ginger steam

Bob Lucky - China

half moon trying to remember if I took my pills

Bob Lucky - China

black ice— I linger over coffee

Laryalee Fraser - Canada hoarfrost— the letter I don't want to write

Laryalee Fraser - Canada contours of a snow-laden fir— the discord of crows

Laryalee Fraser - Canada


a crack in the slate-grey sky . . . rumbling snowplow

Laryalee Fraser - Canada the blueness of this winter sky— frozen door lock

Laryalee Fraser - Canada sea mist a bee roams the bluest clusters

Paul Cordeiro - USA grey morning a chalk rainbow by the puddle

Paul Cordeiro - USA full barbershop the nature strip needs cutting

Paul Cordeiro - USA


jigging mackerel the sharp hook of the new moon

Alan S. Bridges - USA Milky Way— frogspawn on the old pond

Alan S. Bridges - USA new moon— the archer's bow pulled taut

Alan S. Bridges - USA bronze archer aiming at the sky— aeroplane vapour trail

Anthony Anatoly Kudryavitsky - Ireland morning breeze— inside the dolmen, the sheen of an English coin

Anthony Anatoly Kudryavitsky - Ireland


two rows of poplars along the canal crows mend the gap

Anthony Anatoly Kudryavitsky - Ireland twitcher lookout— this Kakadu sunset dark with crows

Cynthia Rowe - Australia school fete— wondering about the blue jam

Cynthia Rowe - Australia purple moon the magnolia bud still closed

Cynthia Rowe - Australia magnolias in bloom my three year old calls me her best friend

Rob Scot - Australia


clouds on clouds the dream I can't remember still with me

Rob Scot - Australia autumn squall one rotten potato fills the bag

Rob Scot - Australia burial or cremation? clouds adrift in the autumn sky

Carolyn Hall - USA cottonwood fluff the sheepdog cuts a ewe from the flock

Carolyn Hall - USA budding willows in the morning stillness the kingfisher's cry

Carolyn Hall - USA


spring sunshine the python oozes onto my roof

Nathalie Buckland - Australia rain dimples the birdbath . . . piano practice

Nathalie Buckland - Australia first light song sparrows scale the clematis ladder

Warren Gossett - USA river's mouth the osprey disappears into mist

Warren Gossett - USA county fair rising sparrows trail ribbons of dust

Warren Gossett - USA


tree-lined road the accelerated turn to gold

Warren Gossett - USA cicada husks clinging to the screen door . . .autumn deepens

Warren Gossett - USA autumn wind a pair of bluejays flutter with the oak leaves

Catherine J.S. Lee - USA wind and rain strip the leaves— another quarrel

Catherine J.S. Lee - USA recess bell— kids take over the crow's puddle

Catherine J.S. Lee - USA


puddle . . . shattering the moon into stars

Quendryth Young - Australia the rustle of a lizard in leaves . . . broken coat zip

Quendryth Young - Australia red hibiscus— hummingbirds fan away the summer heat

Nancy Nitrio - USA red hibiscus the lizard's throat expands

Peggy Willis Lyles - USA thick-veined leaves— a sparrow shaking off the summer rain

Peggy Willis Lyles - USA


roots exposed— a wire helps us hold the trail

Peggy Willis Lyles - USA long shadows— a bronze David left from the Renaissance

Peggy Willis Lyles - USA in the dark places first fireflies

Peggy Willis Lyles - USA if only I could drift away . . . dragonfly

kala - India classical singer... the diamond nose pin shines at every nuance

kala - India


a sudden turn — the string of jasmine swings from her hair

kala - India flower show the bees about their business

Bill Kenney - USA vacation's end we buy another seed pot

Bill Kenney - USA crowded bus station teenagers kissing summer goodbye

Bill Kenney - USA autumn afternoon children's voices wake me from a daydream

Bill Kenney - USA


mountain path as far as I can follow the butterfly

Bill Kenney - USA such stillness a monarch on her tiny finger

Wanda D. Cook - USA her first two-wheeler the steady scratch of the bike's rusty chain

Wanda D. Cook - USA stinging nettle . . . the bee's shadow swells into mine

Mary Davila - USA petals drift from the butterfly tree . . . fragrant rain

Mary Davila - USA


neighborhood watch a rainbow slips over the fence

Mary Davila - USA the latest gossip quails gabbling in the cactus patch

Melissa Spurr - USA debate in congress two dogs drizzle their scents on the lilac

Melissa Spurr - USA the curl of a scorpion's tail desert heat

Melissa Spurr - USA the kind of breeze I knew as a child . . . seersucker

Jennifer Corpe - USA


prickly heat the schnauzer snaps at a bee

Jennifer Corpe - USA a cabbage white barely brushes my lips . . .sultry noon

Jennifer Corpe - USA late winter rain . . . watching the postman fill mailboxes

Jennifer Corpe - USA October evening— only the black eyes of Susans

Jennifer Corpe - USA Halloween hangover... brushing my vampire teeth into the dustpan

Terry O'Connor - Ireland


blustery day a beech tree's shadow loses its leaves

Terry O'Connor - Ireland scarred wrists she cuts and pastes her family album

Terry O'Connor - Ireland explaining his ancestry— far-off laughter

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand grey-bellied clouds circling the lagoon pelicans

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand waking just when the sound of traffic overtakes the sound of the sea

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand


tsunami warning the ceiling fan gathers speed

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand being told how things are— glacier debris

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand#


my mother's cookbook thumbed over and over but still her recipes never quite the same

Cynthia Rowe - Australia autumn light that striking beauty at middle age the sunflower and I quickly go to seed

Karen Reynolds - USA hearing the news he drowned like a butterfly in a teacup

M. Kei - USA


he points out the place where they burned the cross and closed the bridge to history

M. Kei - USA a gaunt white man dredging the marina with a small boat anchor, bringing up lost lines to scavenge their sinkers

M. Kei - USA how tired my life without him at winter's end my pale shadow falls across his side of the bed

Dawn Bruce - Australia


gold glitters in the winter city street a sari swings to the rhythm and beat of young sidewalk buskers

Dawn Bruce - Australia an old fisherman lifts a floor board in his shack, counts note after note . . . willow canes trawl the river's surface

Dawn Bruce - Australia the old pear tree its health in question— in full white bloom thoughts of cutting it down again put on hold



party's over I drink her leftover wine to prolong the feeling of her presence


each day you struggle to catch the sea on canvas but the sea caught you— angry waves pound rocks silent tides reflect the moon

Peggy Heinrich - USA exchanging memories we disagree about our childhood— the autumn wind spreads fallen leaves

Peggy Heinrich - USA


a lone cactus braves the desert wind . . . their separation she says, happened long before they even gave it a name

kala - India

stray cats behind the vet's clinic . . . a warbler feeds a cuckoo chick more than twice its size

Rodney Williams - Australia

moonless night— behind his pinprick pupils my love is lost I follow the tracks along his arm

Melissa Spurr - USA


sinking deeper into the water I gasp for breath the boy who saved me so still in his coffin

Melissa Spurr - USA

burnt toast and the kettle's hum hurried prayers at the start of a day I know I can't control

Jo McInerney - Australia staring into the refrigerator's cold breath I look for something that isn't there

Collin Barber - USA


train set— the god looking over a world built in my garage curses and drinks

Collin Barber - USA


A Hint of Red (Tanka Sequence) you lead me upstairs by the hand and I sense the dawn will be a long time in coming when i am with you time stands still one moment is a lifetime within the ocean of your love a hint of red in the evening sky— only a day apart and already this deep, deep longing this body permanently stained by yours like pollen from a floating lotus embedded in my heart in candle light you call my name over and over and once again I disappear into you

Paul Smith - UK

Pamela A. Babusci - USA



(Haiku first published in Wisteria, Issue 9, 2008)


Colin Stewart Jones - UK (Haiku & Haiga)

Grum Robertson - UK (Photography)

(Haiku first published in paper wasp 11:4, Spring 2005)




(Haiku first published in simply haiku 7:2, Summer 2009)


Mike Keville - UK


Tony Piccini - Italy


Geert Verbeke - Flanders, Belgium


Scarlet Scissors Fire by Jane Reichhold

A review by Colin Stewart Jones

'I only know that the subject matter, the syntax, and the metaphors of tanka in English are becoming tiresome to me in their repetition.'

Jane Reichhold needs no introduction in haiku circles. However, this quote taken from the preface seems as good a starting point as any to try and understand Reichhold's reasons for undertaking such a bold venture as Scarlet Scissors Fire. While acknowledging the Japanese, Reichhold expresses the wish to see the form develop for the future by pushing the boundaries today; and hopes her own experimentation will encourage others to do so. On a more personal level, Reichhold also wishes to reconnect with the free verse poet she once was before she went on to be a student of Japanese form poetry. Significantly, and perhaps wisely in an attempt to avoid the criticism of the purists, the title page of the book just calls these experiments poems and not tanka. The mechanics of Scarlet Scissors Fire are simple enough: Reichhold took all her old free verse poems, letters and prose and cut them into 'snippets' of short or long lines and mixed them up in a box and would alternatively draw and read a snippet then blindly select another. On first glance, the title seems to have been arrived at by such a process but the reviewer would like to believe the 'Scarlet' represents the ribbon which would have held all Reichhold's writings together; the 'Scissors', the cutting up of the works; and the 'Fire' is the renewed passion Reichhold felt as she revisited her earlier work. 1,2,3 wiggling off as serpents are feminine to me the ripples of a swan passing in the shapes of high-borne kites In this poem we begin to count with Reichhold. There is a child-like delight as we count and the shapes of the numbers are echoed in the imagery of serpents, swans and flying kites. These images which are feminine to the poet — the serpent usually representing a masculine image — suggest a playful sense as Reichhold turns straight lines into curves and therefore claims them as her own.


Far from just presenting pretty images, however, Reichhold also covers the whole gamut of human socio-political and religious experience. god is a candle who recognized the way to power the hum grows quiet bush lets a cold materialism reign since you are stuck in a clay bowl The above while critical of Catholicism and its lessening influence on the poet, and the world, reluctantly accepts the growing influence of the market place and its Laissez Faire nature as its successor. One feels that bush should have been capitalised but then god would also have to be and perhaps this is the speakers point: that neither are important to her. In a final irony, rather like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, the poet deliberately returns to the Biblical symbolism of a clay body, and our mortality, and seems to ask: “But what else can we do?” Likewise the following poem though dealing with sexual politics and female emancipation, nonetheless, has a sense of the poet's reluctant acceptance of her lot: in bed a field of clover and daises almost not needing the century in the park watching him stride off with his seed in my mouth I walk The poet often seems to be in a state of flux in Scarlet Scissors Fire. This is understandable as Scarlet Scissors Fire represents many years of the poet's work and one would find it surprising, and indeed tedious, to encounter the same persona throughout. The following is an example of the poet being more assertive: what are you doing in the perfect kitchen in T-shirt and jeans pushing on the wire to play like that one didn't know that the conversation had ended Though the person mentioned seems at ease in the 'perfect kitchen' in their T-shirt and jeans, the domesticity is shattered in the final line. It is the writer's view, however, that Reichhold's poems work best when the poet exposes her vulnerability and combines these with natural imagery. attention with the violins of worms in a misty pink common with a fraternal air to see a man at the end of day Even though there is no exclamation mark and the end of line one, the word 'attention' is still an effective device to slow the reading for the arresting imagery that follows, which depending on your reading, may be a surreal fairy story that ends with a wish or an actual green space where one may eventually meet another person. The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. - Carl Jung


One may justifiably say that the poems contained within are a collection of word collages — the cover artwork is also a collage. Reichhold is employing Freudian and Jungian thought in her method of unconscious composition to arrive at fresh insight through the random. One may argue that though serendipity may produce new and exciting links; human beings are naturally drawn to pattern forming and nothing can be truly random once it has encountered a human mind. Taking the book as a whole, one is instantly reminded of the work Break Down by Michael Landy (one of the Young British Artists) where he shredded all of his possessions. Reichhold is, indeed, also a brave artist to undertake a poetic 'breakdown'. Rather than be left with nothing, however, she has juxtaposed herself as a free verse poet with her other persona as a Japanese form poet to produce a work of merit and of beauty which may just inspire others to experiment more within the tanka form. _________________ Scarlet Scissors Fire by Jane Reichhold Published by Aha Books 2009 Gualala, CA, USA ISBN 978-0-944676-46-2


a wattle seedpod by Lorin Ford

A review by Colin Stewart Jones

They say, "Those who can, do and those who can't, teach!" Lorin Ford is a retired school teacher who proves that this saying is false. Her first collection of haiku, a wattle seedpod published by Post Pressed is a delightful dance through the seasons of Victoria, Australia and it announces that Ford most certainly can. Like most haiku books, a wattle seedpod begins with spring and follows the natural order of the seasons. As Ford is based in the Southern hemisphere, therefore, festivals such as Halloween appear near the beginning of the book and Christmas is somewhere in the middle.

Halloween i go to the party as myself

There is self-deprecating humour here and perhaps acceptance of the self which is prepared to go to a fancy-dress party without wearing costume. Yet, there is also an underlying sadness that the writer simply cannot be bothered to go to the effort of dressing-up or may think that they are ugly enough to pass as a witch at a Halloween party. Ford's haiku often use humour to stress a deeper truth:

temple looting — another Buddha loses his head

the image of a Buddha 'losing its head' that is, getting angry is an absurd one but the device neatly highlights the poet's anger at the literal defacing of yet another statue.

rain! i dance barefoot between snails

The above also paints a picture of the absurd — what self-respecting female would ever dance barefoot next to such slimy and squishy creatures as snails. We forget, however, how welcome the rain is in certain climates and this haiku is a lovely rendering of how enmity can be put aside to celebrate our commonality. The following is also a simple statement of the concrete:


city schoolyard a teacher shows children how to skip rope

However, Ford also neatly portrays a loss of childhood innocence where children have forgotten how to play in an urban environment. The poem encapsulates modern living and society's fears where there are now couch potato kids and parents who are afraid to let their children out to play. One also feels that the poet believes this would not happen in a rural setting. Ford's haiku manage to counterpoise the right amount of wabi/sabi without ever becoming sentimental:

Mothers' Day the weight of fog on a late rose

One sees a woman who perhaps came late to motherhood waiting expectantly for a card. Yet, like all mothers, she is still prepared to make excuses and offer her child the benefit of the doubt as they may simply have forgotten the date. Every haijin has attempted a reflection haiku at some point. Few manage to pull them off, however, Ford is one of the few.

finally getting the why of loneliness —

bright sun on ice

Again the cyclical nature of life its checks and balances is neatly expressed. The opposites of fire (sun) on ice bringing the poet to the realization that it is the full complement of emotions that make one whole. a wattle seedpod is a beautifully crafted book, with cover artwork provided by Ron Moss, that deservedly took First Place in the 2009 Mildred Kanterman Memorial Merit Book Awards for Excellence in Published Haiku, Translation and Criticism, judged by an'ya and Cherie Hunter Day. It is thoroughly recommended reading. _________________ a wattle seedpod by Lorin Ford Published by Post Pressed 2008 Teneriffe, Australia ISBN 9781921214349

the journal of japanese form poetry...in the cactus patch melissa spurr - usa debate in congress two...

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