Two News Items: Haiku Songs & Carlos Colon

Fleur-de-Lisa, the immensely talented a cappella quartet comprised of Sarah Shunk, Deborah Stewart, Andie Piddington, and Sylvia Freeman, launched a new web site recently. Their debut CD, Willow Songs, contains 27 songs based on haiku by members of the North Carolina Haiku Society. Sample songs from the CD are available on the discography page. The quality and beauty of these hai-ka (haiku songs) are pleasing to the ear and have helped me through many difficult Monday mornings. :-)


The Shreveport Times recently published a great story about award-winning poet Carlos Colon. Carlos is one of the many haiku poets featured in Tazuo Yamaguchi's film documentary, Haiku: The Art of the Short Poem. I saw Carlos at a reading filmed by Yamaguchi at Haiku North American 2007. I learned a valuable lesson from Carlos that day: inject a little lightheartedness and fun into your readings. Carlos, you're "da man!" ;-)

I'll be back in a few days with the weekly Haiku - Three Questions post.

Hortensia Anderson - Three Questions

Hortensia Anderson lives on the lower east side of New York City. She is the author of numerous chapbooks as well as a volume of poetry, Trust (fly-by night press, 1995). She is interested in the function of the Internet on poetry in the 21st century. Her current passion is renga and other forms of collaborative poetry.

She has been on dialysis since 1981.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

For you.

I can remember Zen Master Seung Sahn answering the question "Why do you sit?" with those two words. I gave his response an unspoken one word - "jerk". It took me decades to grasp his meaning.

Originally, I wrote haiku as poetic reminders of "epiphanies" for me. As I kept studying haiku, I realised the finest haiku re-created the "epiphanies" in the reader.

So, to answer your question again:

For you.


2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I don't consider haiku a "form".


3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credit).



spring thaw —
the stream parts to embrace
the stone

Mainichi - Best of 2002



midnight swim —
we glide through the galaxy
naked

5th Annual Suruga-Baika Winner



moonlit night —
the pond floats
a water-lily



I consider this my absolute favourite. I can't provide original publication credit as it has been repeatedly rejected. I don't care. I love it.

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Charlie Smith will be our Haiku - Three Questions guest next week.

Tea, Haiku, and Wu

Bob Moyer, Kate MacQueen, and I participated in a haiku reading and tea tasting at the Golden Flower T'ai Chi Center in Winston-Salem, NC yesterday. IMHO, there's no better combination of events than sipping fine teas while reading and listening to haiku; in fact, it can be inspiring: I walked away with a couple of haiku moments that will likely become poems.

This reading was especially enjoyable in that it was very informal. I also liked the format of the poets reading about three poems each, then pausing while tea connoisseur, Julie Reynolds, enlightened us about the teas we were sampling. This alternating between poems and tea is ideal for patrons and poets.

Julie Reynolds serving tea and smiles.

Many thanks to the Golden Flower T'ai Chi Center for allowing Bob, Kate, and me to read our poems. And a special thanks to the many fine people I met yesterday who, hopefully, will begin to chronicle their own life experiences through haiku.

Curtis, Kate, and Bob

waking. . .
the bar's green bracelet
stuck to my face

-Bob Moyer


bright Venus
two hawks settle
deep in the pine

-Kate MacQueen
The Heron's Nest, October 2001


lunar eclipse —
sipping moonshine
from a sake cup

-Curtis Dunlap
Frogpond Volume XXX:3 (October 2007)


I fondly call Bob Moyer "Mr. Winston-Salem". Every time I visit Bob, I leave Winston-Salem with a deeper appreciation for this fine town's arts, culture, and history. Brother Bob is a walking Winston-Salem encyclopedia. And true to Bob form, just when you think it couldn't get any better, well, it gets better.

Below is a photo of Ms Mona Wu standing beside one of her many beautiful works of art. The picture is a haiga entitled The Shy Orchid. Due to size limitations on this web page, the photo I took doesn't do this magnificent work of art justice. I encourage you to visit monawu.com or stop by the Artworks Gallery at 564 North Trade Street. You'll be very pleased you did.

The lovely artist Mona Wu

And finally, I've put together a little slideshow of images taken yesterday. Enjoy!

Peggy Heinrich - Three Questions

Peggy Heinrich is our Haiku - Three Questions guest this week. She writes:

"I discovered haiku in the 1970’s when a copy of Dragonfly fell into my hands. Reading it led me to try a few haiku and they were published by Tombo (Lorraine Ellis Harr). Her useful comments and her list of Haiku Isn’ts inflamed my interest in improving my grasp of the form. Since that time, I’ve been published in most haiku journals, both in this country and internationally, and have won many awards. Also, some twenty-five years ago, I served several years as Treasurer for the Haiku Society of America."

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I like the peaceful place I inhabit while writing haiku. I enjoy the luxury of playing with haiku’s few words to create a powerful image where small becomes big. I like the way three short lines can express a complex thought. I even like the negative space that surrounds each haiku.


2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

Tanka, because it allows me to express a personal observation. Longer poems in free verse, where I can call up many details and write until I surprise myself. Sestina, one of the forms in which the rules lead to exciting discoveries.


3. What I consider my top three.

fresh snow on the walk —
passing a child's bootprints
heading the other way


World Haiku Association Anthology 2001; Dragonfly,12/74 (Gustave Keyser Award); A Patch of Grass mini-chapbook of 24 haiku, High/Coo Press, Battle Ground, IN, 1984; Haiga-Haiku, limited edition, 8 haiku by P. Heinrich, 8 etchings by Barbara Gray, produced by the artist, 1982; Also: London Art/Poetry Exhibit Dec '77 and Glasgow Exhibit, Jan '78 (with Barbara Gray's etchings).



December sunset
putting aside her journal
to peel an orange

Harold G. Henderson Award, 3rd prize, 1994; Frogpond, Winter 1994; Timepieces 1996 day 12/28; republished : moonset, June 2007



end of summer
the shape of his feet
in his empty sneakers

Harold G.Henderson Award 2000, Hon. Men.; Reprinted: A Glimpse of Red, Red Moon Anthology, 2001 [Editor, Jim Kacian, Red Moon Press, Winchester VA]; WHA Anthology 2001 (web)

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Next week, Hortensia Anderson.

rhyme-rengay

Richard Straw and I composed what we like to call a rhyme-rengay (or, ren-rhyme-gay). This poem entitled Sundown Lights was published recently in Sketchbook. Writing this type of rengay was a little challenging but it was a lot of fun, too.

We hope you enjoy Sundown Lights:


Curtis Dunlap and Richard Straw

Sundown Lights

intermittent shade
in the windmill blades
desert sun

faded billboard cowboy
a hitchhiker's new friend

wind-blown sombrero—
the drifter pockets
his tattered beret

waving toward a bus
la madre y el bebé
and honey mesquite*

squeaking wheels silenced
by an air brake hush

lush saguaro
and a nectar-feeding bat
taillights disappear


*The Spanish phrase means "the mother and the baby."

Sketchbook - Vol. 3, No. 9 (September 30, 2008)

Free verse poem published at TCSM

The Christian Science Monitor publishes free verse and haiku. And while I don't write poetry for money, they pay $40 for free verse, $20 for haiku. TCSM is also friendly to non 5-7-5 haiku.

My free verse poem entitled Wheel Jammin' was published today.

TCSM retains exclusive rights for 90 days (I signed a contract); rights revert back to the poet after that time.

Tributes to William J. Higginson

The Australian Haiku Society has created a Tributes to William J. Higginson website.

As stated at the bottom of the page, you may send one haiku per poet to secretary@haikuoz.org by October 27, 2008.

Bill Higginson has died

Fellow Poets,

It is with a heavy heart that I make this blog post. Bill Higginson passed away today. I received the following email from Penny Harter a short while ago:

Dear Curtis,

Bill had been in the ICU since Monday early morning, and he was weakening some each day. And sadly, just after we were making plans today for Bill to go to hospice care within the hospital (his decision), his heart went crazy, suddenly beating up in the high 190s / 200s, he glazed over, his rapid labored breathing slowed dramatically to the last few breaths, and his heart beat on, slowing down, for about ten minutes until he died peacefully at 3:45 p.m. today. His daughter Beth and I were holding his hands and singing Amazing Grace to him.

He'd awakened early this morning saying he was "composed" and ready to stop fighting, then asked the nurses to call to tell Beth and me he wanted to speak to us. We came in early and though his voice was sometimes labored, we had an animated conversation much of the morning. He made it clear he wanted a straight DNR after all (no intubation, etc.), and then we talked about how he wanted to be remembered (memorial celebrations at Tenri in NYC and here in NJ in the spring), as well as personal things. And then I guess he was ready and just let go.

He knew we agreed with his decision, and though Beth and I cried, we affirmed that decision and said that though we'd miss him terribly, it was time. He'd been through enough. He will be cremated, and the only service anytime soon will be a family graveside ceremony in about two weeks or so. I have Beth with me and family coming tomorrow. I'll be going down to my daughter Nancy's for about a week to recover a bit from the strain of recent weeks, leaving on Tuesday or so. Then I'll start dealing with things here.

Bill and I both have been most grateful for all the cards and e-mails of support we've received over the past weeks. Bless you all! I won't be checking e-mail much while at my daughter's, but may do so once in a while. I'm not ready for engaging in much personal correspondence yet.

Love,
Penny


On a personal note, I'm honored to have met Bill at Haiku North America 2007. He and Penny have inspired and nurtured me through their poems and many books. (Practically every serious haiku poet has a copy of the The Haiku Handbook, right?) We have lost a friend and pioneer in English language haiku and Japanese poetic forms. Please join me in expressing our sincere condolences to Penny, family, and friends of William J. Higginson.

Due to this very sad news, the weekly Haiku - Three Questions post will be postponed until next week.

Mike Farley - Three Questions

Mike Farley writes from Red Lodge, Montana, where he lives with his wife Shirlee on a hay and cattle ranch. He is 68 and has six grown children and fifteen grandkids. Mike's poetry is rich with the images of the mountains, plains, weather and animals with which he is daily surrounded.

He was introduced to haiku in 2002 by fellow haijin and long-time friend Darrell Byrd, and although he has contributed his work to many online haiku lists, he has not yet been published in print.

Mike's favorite haiku poets are those who have inspired him over the years, including Naia, Cindy Tebo, Tom Clausen, George Swede, Timothy Russell, Earl Keener and Johannes Manjrekar.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I write haiku for the sheer pleasure of it. I absolutely love reading good haiku and I've saved quite a long list of my favorites from other poets. Writing my own haiku, however, really good ones, is not easy for me. Juxtaposition and the images that can (and should) spring unspoken from between the lines is the key to the whole thing (for me anyway). It's so hard to do and so delightful when it happens.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I enjoy almost all forms of poetry, but haiku is my favorite and the only form I've seriously attempted to write myself.

3. Of the many haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three?

I've gone through the several hundred I've written over the years, and tentatively ear-marked 50 or so I was really pleased with thinking that I would then pare down that group to "my three favorites". I'm delighted and surprised to report that it was impossible to do. There are many that I found to be my favorites, but here are three that are close to my heart and which I feel "do what they're supposed to do" as haiku.



lupine
a darker blue
in the hoofprints



uprooted iris
the muddy puppy
wags its body



spring snow
the warm spot where
the dental nurse leans



And here are my three favorite senyru . . .



blues
remembering
when I used to smoke




Jack Daniels
just a splash
at the river's edge



rustling leaves
just a glimpse
of her thigh

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Peggy Heinrich will be our Haiku - Three Questions guest next week.

A quick update and news

Between work, school, and an unforeseen hard drive crash, the last two weeks have been a busy time for me. For my technical poet pals out there let me say briefly that PCLinuxOS came to my rescue. I was able to run the Live CD GNOME version on my laptop (it found and configured all of my devices!). When it came time to save my work, I used Google Docs or a flash drive. Pretty cool, eh?...to continue using a computer with a slew of applications minus a hard drive? When the new hard drive arrived, I set aside a partition for PCLinuxOS. I'm currently dual booting PCLinxOS and XP.

Okay, that's enough of my nerdy side. :)

I received an email this week from Adelaide B. Shaw. She invites you to visit her White Petals blog. You may recall that Adelaide was our guest for a round of Haiku - Three Questions on June 29th. Please note that she's enabled a nice feature that will allow you to "follow" her post. Look for the feature on the right-side of her blog (you may have to scroll down a little).

Dave Russo over at the North Carolina Haiku Society Blog has some exciting news about Lenard D. Moore, poet and President of the Haiku Society of America. Congratulations Lenard!

It's stew season in Mayodan! Here's a slice of small town Americana for you (perhaps the pictures will inspire a poem):



I had two bowls of Brunswick stew for breakfast this morning, topped with several drops of Texas Pete.


I've been playing with my digital camera. The video quality is poor (a camcorder upgrade is in the works) but you'll get the idea for what may become my next side project.





I'll be back later today with the weekly Haiku - Three Questions post. I'm off to get another bowl of stew!

Stephen Addiss - Three Questions

Stephen Addiss is the author of many books on East Asian art and culture, including A Haiku Menagerie, Haiku Garden, Haiku People, Haiku Landscapes, Haiku Humor, Haiga: Takebe Socho and the Haiku-Painting Tradition, The Art of Zen, and Zen Sourcebook. A painter and calligrapher whose works have been frequently exhibited and published, he teaches at the University of Richmond and co-edits South by Southeast: Haiku and Haiku Arts Journal.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I had been composing them occasionally for some years, but what got me fully involved was translating haiku for various book and catalogue projects relating to Japanese art. When I was in college more than 50 years ago, a poetry teacher named Edwin Honig told us that the great ages of poetry in English were also great ages of translation, and I believe that working tenaciously to get the meaning, sound, and rhythm across in another language, no matter how ultimately impossible, is a great way to develop one's own poetic sensibility and skills. My own haiku are the source and also the result of focusing my attention.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I used to enjoy and write sonnets, and now I occasionally work on tanka and linked verse, but aside from haiku my major interest has been free verse.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits)


    birthday snow—
stepping into holes
    left by the postman


South by Southeast 7/1, A Glimpse of Red, Frogpond 23/2



  the fisherman
nets
  a fisherman


HSA Newsletter 12/1



  old pond paved over
into a parking lot—
  one frog still singing


Daily Yomiuri 2/5/96, Mainichi Shinbun, Haiku People

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Next week, Mike Farley.

Lynne Rees - Three Questions

Lynne Rees is a poet, novelist and short fiction writer who turned to haiku writing in 2006. Her work has been published in a number of anthologies and print and on-line journals, she's currently the haibun editor at Simply Haiku, and will be joint editor of The Biennial British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology in 2009. Lynne's website is www.lynnerees.co.uk and selected published haiku and haibun can be found at http://anopenfield.blogspot.com/. She lives in Antibes, in the South of France.

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1. Why do you write haiku?

Most of the time I feel as if I'm 'trying' to write haiku. Some succeed, but most of them don't because they don't feel fresh enough, or they don't surprise me in any way so I doubt they'll matter to anyone else. But I love the process of 'making' them whatever the result, the feeling that I'm learning something about observation, sincerity, language and form.

2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

I published a collection of free-verse before starting to write haiku, and I still write the occasional free verse poem, but mostly I write haibun now, though I've also written some tanka, and experimented at length with rengay with the poet Harriot West, an experience we both felt we learned a lot from.

3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits)

I've chosen the following three (two of which dip into senryu territory) because I can still feel the truth of them now, some time after their making. They're also all connected in some way to Wales, where I was born, and my family, so of course that adds to why I feel fondly about them



sunlit garden
when did my father grow
an old man's neck?


Frogpond – Fall 2006





all this green forgiving the rain


http://tinywords.com/haiku/2008/03/13/





newborn
he stretches his legs into
all this space


Blithe Spirit 16/3


www.lynnerees.co.uk
http://applehousepoetryworkshop.blogspot.com/
http://anopenfield.blogspot.com/

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Stephen Addiss will be our Haiku - Three Questions guest next week.

bottle rockets new website

This just in from Stanford M. Forrester:

bottle rockets press has a new website: www.bottlerocketspress.com! The new site is very user-friendly and now it is much easier to order books and magazines on-line. (Please no longer use the old URL.) The website will also feature a bookstore where you can find new, used and rare haiku and haiku-related books. The new e-mail is: editor@bottlerocketspress.com. Come visit the new website & help us celebrate our 10th year in print!

bottle rockets press
P.O. Box 189
Windsor, CT 06095

WHC-German Autumn Issue 2008

Angelika Wienert would like to invite everyone to visit the WHC-German Autumn Issue 2008

You'll find 50 haiku and senryu in German and English.

37 haiku poets from all parts of Germany, from Austria and Switzerland German haiku poets who live in the U.S.A., in Yemen and Japan.

Here are a couple of poems from the autumn issue:

verlassener Hof –

rot leuchten die Äpfel

im Gras

abandoned farm –

red apples glowing

in the grass

(Silvia Kempen)

vor sechzig Jahren...

in die Buche gekerbt

ein Name, ein Kreuz

sixty years ago...

carved in the beech tree

a name, a cross

(Helga Stania)

 Happy reading!

Curtis

Merrill Ann Gonzales - Three Questions

Merrill Ann Gonzales is our Haiku - Three Questions guest this week. She writes:

"My parents met in Grand Central Art School and Art Student's League studying under Arshele Gorky. My great grandmother taught art in Maine and I was married to the fine artist the late John L. Gonzales. I've worked in oil, watercolor, pen and ink, sumie, and have contributed drawings and cover designs for poetry magazines for more years than I care to remember (although I love remembering the editors!). I've published poetry, haiku, tanka, haiga and I've explored tanga. I created snowbird press on groundhog day in the snowy year of 2004/5.

"As you can see, art and poetry have almost been like breathing and waking and sleeping to me. It isn't something I do, it's something I exist in. It's my way of being part of the human race...where people are truly human."

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1. Why do you write haiku?

I can't really say I write haiku, sometimes I think the haiku writes me. A haiku comes up from the deep as I'm doing other things and tells me something. Many times it will come while I'm drawing or painting and will enlighten the experience I'm trying to capture.


2. What other poetic forms do you enjoy?

Haiga and tanga are extremely gratifying to me. It's as if my whole being, emotional and physical, is joined as the two (the verse and the drawing) come together. I also write tanka. When I was a child I learned so much from ancient Chinese drawings and the mystery they revealed. I think Ikkoku Santo helped to explore some of those mysteries with new light.

I've had a renku and a renga published in the past, but the artistry of the poets I was working with, Alan Summers and John Stevenson, deserve all the credit for their merits. It was an extreme honor to have written with such accomplished poets. And I have also written western poetry in free verse which has been published over the years.


3. Of the many wonderful haiku you've written, what do you consider to be your top three? (Please provide original publication credits.)



ocean breezes —
an awareness comes
in a thousand voices


originally published in REEDS: Contemporary Haiga 2005




new moon —
the path emerges
from darkness


originally published in HSA 2007 MEMBERS' ANTHOLOGY




stone in my pocket —
the brook cuts deeper
into the mountain


originally published as 2006 Harold G. Henderson Award Honorable Mention
in FROGPOND



These three haiku were seminal in my life with profound implications for my comprehension of the world I live in.

I would be most honored to be included with so many of the haiku poets who have given me so much throughout the years. As I look down the list of poets I see friend after friend. A spirit of unity that binds and enriches us. Thanks for a new way to join in the spirit of haiku.

In the river flow...I remain...yours, Merrill Ann Gonzales

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Lynne Rees shares her response to three questions with us next week.

Cor van den Heuvel's Baseball Haiku Talk now on video (free)

This just in from Cor van den Heuvel:

Dear HSA Member,

In case you've not heard, my talk and reading from Baseball Haiku given at the Chautauqua Institute in June with Al Pizzarelli and Ed Markowski is now on line as a video at www.fora.tv.

When you get the home page, just click Culture, then click Sports and you will get a Sports features page with the talk as one of the spotlighted features. You can then click on to the video for highlights or for the complete talk and readings.

This is an important website, famous people from all fields are presented giving talks, interviews, or readings in a variety of impressive venues. (fora is the plural of forum). The talks are rated as to how many times they've been played (viewed), so please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested.

The video is now rated fifth among all the sports talks. If we can get it higher this could encourage interest in haiku and hopefully make publishers more receptive to our books.

This is not the same talk as the one I give on the Haiku North America 2007 Winston-Salem video. (That one includes readings by nine of the poets from Baseball Haiku.)

Thanks,
Cor van den Heuvel

Folks, we may all benefit from Cor's request. Please support Cor and the other poets in Baseball Haiku by visiting and watching the video.

The Basho Haiku Challenge

Don Wentworth over at Issa's Untidy Hut has created The Basho Haiku Challenge contest.

Here's a snippet:

"So, here's the deal: for the next four weeks, send along up to 5 haiku to lilliput review at gmail dot com (spelled out to fend off pesky bots) and the best haiku wins the review copy of Basho: The Complete Haiku. Minimally, I will need your name and email to contact you with the results. In the subject line of your email, please put "Basho Haiku Challenge" so I can easily differentiate it from the scads of other things that come my way. The final date for submissions will be October 2nd and the winner will be announced in either the October 9th or October 16th posting. My definition of haiku is about as liberal as you can get: I follow no one particular method, school or theory and there is no seasonal requirement. Your haiku can be 1, 2, or 3 lines (over 5 would be a bit much, folks, but I will keep an open mind for experimenters). The one restriction would be that it be in the spirit of haiku (I've always liked the definition of English haiku as lasting the length of one breath, in and out and pause, but that's just me - and, oh yeah, I'm the judge, but, again, it's the spirit of the thing that counts) and that the haiku be previously unpublished in either paper or electronic form (ok, that's two requirements)."

Please visit Don's blog post for more information.

Have fun and good luck!

BTW, I'm currently reading Basho: The Complete Haiku. I'll post my review of this book soon.

Willow Songs sampling

I've received a couple of request from readers who would like to hear a track from Fleur-de-Lisa's Willow Songs CD.

Fleur-de-Lisa's rendition of the haiku below (first published in Beneath the Willow Tree) can be heard by clicking on this link:

reading Shiki
in the morning dark
a rabbit's death-cry

--Dave Russo

I hope you enjoy this unique way of presenting haiku. There are many more beautiful songs on the CD.