A Travel-Worn Satchel: The Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2009

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1. Sorry Louis. I meant Modern Haibun and Tanka Prose (MHTP for short) edited by Jeffrey Woodward. The first issue appeared in July and the second in which nu Utamakura is due to appear will be out in December,

2. Click on my name to access the Modern Haiku website. It’s the oldest continuously publishing haiku journal in English, going back to 1969, and certainly one of the most prestigious.

3. I am not familiar with Modern Haiku and Tanka Prose. I see there is a publication called Modern *Haibun* and Tanka Prose– is that what you refer to?

   Loum

4. My ‘Utamakura’ piece will be in the Dec issue of MHTP. Keats wrote in a letter ‘nothing startles me beyond the moment.’ Also ‘..or if a sparrow come by my window I take part in its existence and peck about the gravel.’

5. My piece called ‘Utamakura’ has been accepted for the Dec issue of Modern Haiku and Tanka Prose. Keats stayed for a couple of nights just down the road from where I live in Surrey from where he wrote in a letter ‘…nothing startles me beyond the moment.’ Also ‘…or if a sparrow come by my window I take part in its existence and peck about the gravel.’

6. Diane Webb, can you give some examples of Keats’
   “very haiku like things”?

   Loum

7. Nice to see you here Diana. Your new piece sounds really interesting, when and where will it appear?

8. The word ‘utamakura’ has come to mean for me, places with poetic associations. In fact I have just had a piece with that title accepted for publication. It is about a place where Keats stayed from where he wrote some very haiku like things in a letter

9. One thing I should perhaps have acknowledged more explicitly earlier (and I suspect someone is bound to point this out eventually) is that my interpretation of utamakura seems to differ somewhat from that of the editors of A Travel-Worn Satchel. But I feel it becomes a very slippery concept if you subjectively try to separate what might be “universally known” from what might not be. For instance, here is a little thought experiment: Does “Sado Island” stop functioning as an utamakura simply because most of us in the West who are now reading Basho have never been there or perhaps have never heard of it before we read Basho? I would say no. So I use the word “utamakura” objectively to refer to all specific place references within haikai literature that add some kind of historical, cultural, and/or topographical resonance to a poem. In my view what makes up for the lack of a “shared experiential world” is the fact that we live in an information age in which the globe is literally at our fingertips. Good readers will come to good poems — and maybe learn something in the process. And if the literature is compelling enough, it will make a place name significant. Who would know of Walden Pond but for Thoreau?

10. I am still reading my collection. It’s been a joy to take one haiku at a time, and then “visit” that place with the feeling the haiku gives. I’m also getting a feeling for the voice of the person somehow. I’m not sure if this is imagination or what but each haiku seems to have a distinct “character”…I’m trying to put my finger on it. But a collection like this , where the place is so well defined for the origin of the haiku is wonderful.

11. As one project of the World Kigo Database, I am trying to keep a list of placenames found in haiku, both from Japan and worldwide.

    Anyone is welcome to list their haiku.
    Click on my name for the LIST.

    utamakura are a very powerful item in such a short form poetry as haiku is !

    Gabi

12. I really enjoyed this collection as well. The range is truly global, including 3 pgs. of haiku from South America, 5 pgs. from Japan, 20 pgs. from Europe, etc. There’s even one from the Gusev Crater on Mars (John Stevenson’s “dust devils on a dead planet”). The book offers many exs. of what I’ve long felt is an underused and underrated technique in ELH: utamakura (i.e., poetic use of specific place names). Some exs. from A Travel-Worn Satchel: Iditarod trail; Wreck Beach; Mt. Rainier; Olympic rainforest; Zigzag River; Athabasca Falls; Niagara Falls; Walden Pond; Fenway Park; Dog Bar Breakwater; Ground Zero; Central Park; Antietam; Blue Ridge; Trail of Tears; Tybee Lighthouse; the Arkansas (River); Bryce Canyon; White Sands Missile Range; Muir Woods; Angel Falls; Shiki’s grave; Everest; Salisbury Plain; the Thames — and there are many, many more. Some are obviously more universally familiar than others; but in the age of Google just about any reference is readily traceable by the mildly curious. I particularly value utamakura when the place adds a truly evocative dimension and the name itself is well-integrated into the sound texture of the poem. Anyway, with this collection and with The Onawa Poems, 1999-2008, ed. by Paul MacNeil (Ship Pond Press, 2009), the E-l utamakura really comes into its own, I think. I will add that, at least based on my own entry, the placement of locations on the maps in A Travel-Worn Satchel can be somewhat approximate. (Pueblo, CO, is not nearly that far south in the state.) But that’s a minor point. The design is beautiful, and the cumulative sense of place conveyed by the haiku arresting.

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