Book of the Week: A Compendium of Glimpses
Steve Dolphy is an English psychologist who has worked in Vietnam. While there, he learned of haiku, and began writing them, capitalizing on his Vietnam experiences as the main inspiration for this volume. His haiku are marked by keen observation, a lively sense of humour, and the imaginative use of odd connections that make them especially memorable. His A Compendium of Glimpses, self-published in 2015, is our Book of the Week.
lotus lilies
around the upturned tail
of a B-52
after the school play
reprising her role
for the absent parent
Ho Chi Minh’s tomb
the children
test a sentry’s gaze
You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library.
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Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by THF Digital Librarian Garry Eaton, and are used with permission
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This selection of work By Steve Dolphy was magnificent. If you read this Steve bravo !!!!
Men are tortured and killed by modern men million times more than what the ancients did. Doesn’t it prove that instead of getting more and more civilized we are going back more to our savage days! Haiku may be one of the tiniest weapons to fight against it but we haijins are ready to use our weapon if invited to, under any such project.
There is little reason for hope now. The news media are accomplices.
A measure of corrupt media power was their ability, despite the Dublin/Monaghan atrocity, the Miami Show Band, the Littlejohn bros., Bloody Sunday, Omagh, etc., to convince Ireland that the IRA are the terrorists.
Unfortunately Gabriel, I have had to update my statistics, and the news is not good. I did some further research because I though my figure of Iraqi dead 2,000,000 was too high in comparison with the statistics for the other countries. Based on statistics by a number of credible NGOs including Canada based Global Research, the numbers of people who died as a result of unjustified wars across the Middle East and north Africa is far higher than my original estimates. My latest figures cover the period from the First Gulf War in 1991/92 up to the present time, and include all war related deaths, including by bombs, bullets, war related disease, destruction of health, water, sewerage and other infrastructure facilities, sanctions, and hunger.
Here are my updated figures – I dearly wish my estimates are wrong but I fear they are not.
Estimated Fatalities due to wars of aggression in the Middle East and north Africa between 1991 to 2020 = 7,381,808
Note: Accurate numbers of deaths due to wars in the Middle East will always be impossible to achieve due to deliberate efforts of those responsible for those deaths to hide and minimise the number of deaths and due to many other factors. In decades into the future better estimates can be achieved by comparative analysis of past and future census figures, and epidemiology projections as to what the populations of these countries should have been without wars. These are likely to suggest that the fatality figures may be greater that those listed below. Many additional people will die prematurely over the coming years due to war related disease and pollution and destruction of health facilities.
Iraq 3,500,000
Syria 1,500,000
Afghanistan 875,000
Somalia 650,000
Pakistan 325,000
Libya 250,000
Yemen 175,000
Turkey 30,000
Palestine 11,000
Egypt 10,000
Iran 3,000
Lebanon 1,500
Israel 1,270
Saudi Arabia 1,000
Migrants drowned in the Mediterranean 50,000 (from multiple countries)
Terrorists attacks in Western countries 38
Estimated total fatalities: 7,381,808 (Child war fatalities estimate 2,000,000 +)
https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2018/06/19/TheList.pdf
Documented deaths List of 34,361 documented deaths of refugees and migrants due to the restrictive policies of “Fortress Europe” Documentation by UNITED from 01 Jan 1993 to 5 May 2018. Real figure of documented + undocumented deaths is likely in excess of 50,000
Global Research
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-many-millions-have-been-killed-in-americas-post-911-wars/5637903?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
“Altogether, in the three parts of this report, I have estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have killed about 6 million people. Maybe the true number is only 5 million. Or maybe it is 7 million. But I am quite certain that it is several millions.”
Thanks to Edward for this hair-raising update. We must ask ourselves, as a global community of artists and haikuists, can we do more to shape our art so that more ploughshares are made of swords.
For years it has been dangerous to oppose war in Chicago.
The danger here is from the Chicago police. While they never bothered Jewish Voice For Peace during our years with them; they constantly threatened, assaulted, and arrested us when, in ad hoc groups, we carried banners and leafleted against the start of, and prosecution of, the invasions of Iraq, etc.
It is a startling fact that upon becoming Chicago’s Deputy Chief of Police, Jim Keating promptly ended all police crimes against us; but he couldn’t do anything about FBI crime.
How good it is that haiku does not shirk from writing about war, the legacy of war, the possibility of war. An expert, Edward Horgan, gave us these startling figures relating to recent fatalities arising from wars of aggression, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa:
Iraq 2,000,000
Syria 500,000
Afghanistan 200,000
Yemen 150,000
Libya 100,000
Turkey 30,000
Palestine 11,000
Pakistan 10,000
Egypt 10,000
Iran 3,000
Lebanon 1,500
Israel 1,270
Saudi Arabia 1,000
Migrants drowned in the Mediterranean: 50,000 (from multiple countries)