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A Hundred Gourds 4:3 released

Outside my window is the first rainbow of my Melbourne winter, which begins today. Those in the Northern Hemisphere will soon be welcoming summer. Wherever you are in the world, the 15th issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure.

www.ahundredgourds.com

AHG 4.3 Feature

'Between Basho and Ban'ya (bypassing Barthes): A New Brand of Haiku?' by Charles Trumbull

AHG is delighted to publish Charles Trumbull's witty and thought-provoking enquiry into a "hybrid" type of haiku which has become quite prevalent. This very enjoyable essay was first delivered as a presentation at the 4th Cradle of American Haiku Festival, in 2014.

Mike Montrueil, AHG's Haibun Editor, provides an informative introduction to the context of Dr. Trumbull's presentation, honouring the history of the Festival and allowing readers a sense of place.

Expositions

Mike Montrueil also interviews Ray Rasmussen on the subject of his thoughts about and his extensive involvement in haibun, Michael Dylan Welch, in an entertaining manner, shows us how Japanese sound units differ from English syllables and Beverley George reviews Cynthia Rowe's new book.

A Hundred Gourds is still looking for a suitable editor for our Expositions section. Please direct any enquiries regarding the Expositions section and submit reviews, essays or commentaries for 2015 issues of AHG to me, Lorin, until further notice.

Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 4.4 (the September 2015 issue) is June 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the December 2015 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors' guidelines.

Please take the time to read the AHG submissions page, including the editors' individual comments, and ensure that your submission complies with all requirements.

Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds

Quote from: Chris Patchel on April 30, 2015, 10:06:41 AM
Thanks Lorin. A first-person reading of that verse just didn't occur to me.

So you read it as the skein of clouds being both halfway across the world and halfway across the moon, Chris?  8)

Here's the true story of my beginnings in haiku, the first time I actually took any notice of it, back in 2004.

Carla Sari, a Melbourne poet, read out a haiku by someone else and a haiku of her own at a workshop. Her own:

back from the war
the tap he couldn't fix
still dripping
 
- Carla Sari
2nd Prize, Jack Stamm Contest, 2003

http://members.optusnet.com.au/paperwasp/jackstamm2003.html

I didn't know about the contest or the publication, both in a print anthology and on the paper wasp website I thought the haiku was being offered for work-shopping c & c. What I said:

"Ya can't have that! It reads as if it's the tap that's back from the war. It needs rephrasing!"   :-[

That's when I was told, patiently & kindly, that person is often implied in haiku rather than stated.

Later, after reading many, I realised this was the case and that this 'haiku convention' seems to be an adaptation of the tendency (or perceived tendency ... I am definitely no expert on either the Japanese language or Japanese culture) of Japanese people not to use person much (especially 1st person) in their everyday speech.

(ps, just in case: USA Eng. 'faucet' = Eng. 'tap')

- Lorin

My typos! I need a new keyboard!

One corrected sentence:

The view of the moon & skeins of cloud (or even birds, as in the original) is very real to me from a first person narrative point of view, as sunrise from that perspective is, also. Has no-one seen the moon or the sun and clouds (or night-flying birds) from a plane?

::)

...and to clarify how I read this verse:

(I am)halfway across the world
a skein of clouds (is) halfway
across the moon

– Michael Henry Lee

A Hundred Gourds 4:2 released


The seasons roll around. Today, the first of March, Australia and New Zealand welcome our first day of Autumn whilst those of you in the Northern Hemisphere are anticipating Spring's arrival. Wherever you are in the world, the 14th issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure.

www.ahundredgourds.com


AHG 4.2 Feature –The Seabeck Haiku Getaway: an interview with Michael Dylan Welch


Aubrie Cox, our haiga editor, was on the spot for the annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway,  which is held in the beautiful, historical mill town of Seabeck in Washington, USA, close to the Canadian border.  Aubrie has conducted an in- depth interview on the subject of this enviable retreat with the founder and organiser, Michael Dylan Welch.   

Expositions Section

Due to the unexpected departure of Matthew Paul as Expositions editor last year, A Hundred Gourds will be looking for a suitable editor for our Expositions section in 2015. Please direct any inquiries regarding the Expositions section and submit reviews, essays or commentaries for 2015 issues of AHG to me, Lorin, until further notice.
In this issue, Michael Dylan Welch explores the use of haiku in David Patneaude's young-adult novel, Thin Wood Walls, Jim Sullivan comments on two 'bee' haiku and Cynthia Rowe and Ray Rasmussen review recently published haiku books.


Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 4.3 (the June 2015 issue) is March 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the September 2015 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors' guidelines.

Please take the time to read the AHG submissions page, including the editors' individual comments, and ensure that your submission complies with all requirements.

Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds

A Hundred Gourds 3:4 released

The 12th issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure.

www.ahundredgourds.com


In Memoriam

It was with great sadness in April this year that we read the police confirmation that Martin Lucas, haiku poet and editor and publisher of the British haiku journal, Presence, had drowned. Martin's articulate insight into what makes good haiku is irreplaceable. It is fitting that Matthew Paul who, with Stuart Quine and Ian Storr, will be continuing Presence has written an insightful personal appreciation of Martin and his work for this issue of A Hundred Gourds.


Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 4.1 (the December 2014 issue) is September 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the March 2015 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors' guidelines.

Please take the time to read the AHG submissions page and ensure that your submission complies.

Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds

Paul, Philip et al,
                         Returning to this today, I'm reminded how specific English probably is compared with Asian languages, perhaps especially in relation to object and to time. I have nothing but admiration for the efforts of translators of poetry who labour in attempt to give us some idea of what the original poem might be like.

How differently might this haiku be read with the seemingly unimportant swapping or omission of the definite article for the indefinite?

戦死者が青き数学より出たり
sennsisha ga aoki suugaku yori detari

war dead
exit out of a blue mathematics

to

war dead exit out of the blue mathematics

?


The Japanese might actually be more like:


war dead exit out of blue mathematics

?

If in the Japanese there are no articles or similar indicators, just "out of blue" , then it'd be up to the reader to infer collective ('blue mathematics'), indefinite ('a blue mathematics' ... one of several or many instances of blue mathematics) or definite/ specific ('the blue mathematics') which also allows the 'out of the blue' colloquialism to come into play.

Only the author himself could tell us, I suspect.

- Lorin

Quote from: Peter Yovu on August 29, 2014, 04:19:07 PM
In her book Centering, first published in 1964,  M.C. Richards included a two word poem:

POEM

      Hands


                                  birds.

In the book there was a greater distance between the words. The space is, of course, integral. Interesting that she titled it "POEM". Just to be sure.

Can two words be considered a haiku? Can one, or three?  I think it is possible to be clever and feelingful at the same time— why not?

The MC Richards poem above is both I would say.

POEM    Hands     birds

What does it mean if we erect a sign 'POEM' above anything, whether that be a couple of typed, printed or painted EL nouns or a red ribbon on top of a pile of bones we've scavenged from a beach?

What does this piece do for me? It reminds me that recently I noticed that my always impatient (& not gay) son has developed a new-to-me affectation, fluttering his hand in an overtly camp way above something he wants me to take my hand off so he can put his on it (a computer mouse, in this case). Speech, it seemed to me, might be becoming redundant in some quarters.

Does the fact that I can make a connection between the words mean it's a poem, despite authorial insistence? (leaving out the 'what is a haiku?' question altogether )

Other people might think of pegging out the washing with their hands, etc. etc. Does this mean it's a memory prompt? An old-fashioned psychological 'free association' test? (especially if there were a list of these)

A second thing that comes to my mind is a prompt for a creative writing class:

"In 300 words or less write a story in which these two words have a meaningful connection:

                                        hands                        birds                                                "


If we speak of two words being clever and full of feeling, do we attribute the cleverness and state of feeling to the composer of the two words or to the reader who makes a connection between them...any connection? If reader, which reader? The one who comes up with the most inventive or imaginative or most surreal connection?  Or are the two words, placed in a space, to be judged more or less successful a poem according to how many different stories result from the prompt?

What about this one-worder? (it might've been George who wrote it, I'm not sure)

                                                                   core

There's no doubt this one was clever, in context. The context was Cor van den Heuval's

                                                                tundra

known as a 'concrete ku', taking into account its placement on a white page.  The 'core' ku, as well as punning on the name of the author of 'tundra' seemed to be expressing the position of minimalism: only the core is essential, all else is excess baggage.

But is this so?

That said, I can appreciate the wit of some extremely minimalist ku, and there's the example of a one-worder by LeRoy Gorman in the forthcoming issue of A Hundred Gourds.

- Lorin

I'm wondering whether this idea of single words being images might be something that's crossed over from languages like Chinese, where words aren't made of letters in an alphabet but from abstracted visual images or 'ideograms'?

"Pound gives a brief account of it in his book The ABC of Reading (1934).[1] He explains his understanding of the way Chinese characters were formed, with the example of the character 'East' (東) being essentially a superposition of the characters for 'tree' (木) and 'sun' (日); that is, a picture of the sun tangled in a tree's branches, suggesting a sunrise (which occurs in the East). He then suggests how, with such a system where concepts are built up from concrete instances, the (abstract) concept of 'red' might be presented by putting together the (concrete) pictures of:

ROSE    CHERRY
IRON RUST    FLAMINGO

This was a key idea in the development of Imagism. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound%27s_Ideogrammic_Method

Japanese:

"Kanji (漢字?) are used to write most content words of native Japanese or (historically) Chinese origin, including:

most nouns, such as 川 (kawa, "river") and 学校 (gakkō, "school")
. . .
Most kanji have more than one possible pronunciation (or "reading"), and some common kanji have many. Unusual or nonstandard readings may be glossed using furigana. Kanji compounds are sometimes given arbitrary readings for stylistic purposes. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system

What happens though when we juxtapose two EL words, made from letters, not visual images of things? Don's

envelope       silence

is interesting, not as a completed haiku but as sketch/ draft for a haiku ... perhaps for his now famous

nagasaki . . .
in her belly, the sound
of unopened mail

?

- Lorin

Quote from: Field Notes on August 25, 2014, 11:00:06 AM
Dear Allen, Lorin, Paul, Philip, Richard, Sandra,

Your discussion reveals that the theoretical underpinnings of English-language haiku are evolving as vigorously as haiku themselves.

I'm interested to learn about your views on two-word haiku. In 1984, CURVD H&Z published bifids, my collection of such ku, and, in 1986, Wind Chimes Press published, The Space Between, an anthology of two-word ku by Eric Amann, LeRoy Gorman and me. 

Here are seven of mine from these works.  I hope one or two will kick-start a discussion. The first four were included in Thomas Lynch's PhD thesis, An original relation to the universe: Emersonian poetics of immanence and contemporary American haiku (University of Oregon, 1989).


firefly      violin               

fever              ants

stars              crickets

mist              semen

eyelid      cloud

snowflakes      bricks

Hiroshima      Phoenix


Of particular interest to me is how large the space, or gap, between images can become before reader interest plummets into a yawning abyss.

Cheers,

George

George, I recall this of yours from early on in my reading of haiku:


stars              crickets

Wherever I came across it, it wasn't presented along with other 'pairs' and, for me, it works better presented alone or with  dissimilar compositions.

It immediately reminded me of a personal experience in the back paddock of a pub on an out-of-the- way mountain, inland in Far North Queensland. I had not seen so many stars since I wad a kid and the screeching of crickets seemed to be coming from the stars themselves. I lay there on my back (this was in my forties) totally absorbed in this powerful experience. Had I not had this experience, I don't know what I would've made of your ku.

eyelid      cloud

This doesn't take me to a personal experience, but to the famous cloud/ razor/ eye scene in Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou" :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/

This, surely, is no accident, since the technique you're using is an adaptation of the 'montage' technique of film editing first developed by Eisenstein and other Russian film-makers of the early C20.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montage_%28filmmaking%29

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/pudovkin-montage-5-editing-techniques/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_montage_theory

(I don't know how or where ' Emersonian poetics of immanence and contemporary American haiku' and Soviet montage theory meet, but it might make an interesting study for someone.  8) )

Certainly, fruitful analogies have been made between editorial cutting in film and kire/cut in haiku, but I'm with Tom d'E, here:  while it's common to refer to a photograph as an image (visual), a word in itself is not an image for me, though an image (literary image) is made of words, eg all of William Carlos Williams' 'Red Wheelbarrow' poem that follows the introductory 'it all depends upon' comprises one image, Pound's "apparition of (these) faces in a crowd" ('At A Station of the Metro' is an image, as is Yeats' "my coat upon a coat-hanger" ('The Apparitions').

"Of particular interest to me is how large the space, or gap, between images can become before reader interest plummets into a yawning abyss." - George

We are a pattern-seeking animal, from babyhood onwards. We find connections, make sense of things when we need to or want to. I don't think the problem is 'the yawning abyss' but what we as readers want from haiku, what will draw us in to make our bridges across the abyss. If we think of haiku as a very short kind of poetry, then what is it that two words in juxtaposition might often be lacking? What part does the rhythm of language play in our experience of even a very short poem? The sounds? Repetition of some kind? The sense of movement in time? Even wordplay? What draws the reader in, what enchants?

Sometimes, what minimalist ku seem to me to lack is body, a body of sound.

(and that sound may not be quite the same for all English speakers ... tomahtoes/ tomaytoes, gasp/ gahsp etc. )

- Lorin

A Hundred Gourds 3:3 released

The eleventh issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure.

http://www.ahundredgourds.com/


As well as our regular Haiku, Tanka, Renku, Haiga, Haibun and Expositions sections, AHG 3.3 features:


Issa's Humanity and Humour: A Haibun Passage from His Travel Journal Oraga Haru

Everyone loves Issa's haiku for their immediacy and evidence of his seemingly simple humanity, yet we don't always pause long enough to study the context that might expand our appreciation. Ray Rasmussen, one of the four founders of A Hundred Gourds, returns as guest author of this issue's feature, an in-depth study of one of Issa's haibun passages. Ray demonstrates that the time taken to read and reflect more thoroughly brings great rewards.


Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 3.4 (the September 2014 issue) is June 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the December 2014 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors' guidelines.


Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds
----

A Hundred Gourds 3:2 released

The tenth issue of A Hundred Gourds, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry is now online for your reading pleasure. 

http://www.ahundredgourds.com/

As well as our regular Haiku, Tanka, Renku, Haiga, Haibun and Expositions sections, AHG 3.2  features: 


In Memoriam – John E. Carley

John Carley, translator, creator of the zip form of haiku, renku master, author of 'the Little Book of Yotsumonos' and the forthcoming 'The Book of Renku', died on New Year's Eve after a four year battle with mesothelioma. We miss him dearly. As a renku sabaki, John was a superb composer, a generous teacher and an inspiration to so many. AHG renku editor, William Sorlien, provides a fitting retrospective of John's many contributions to haikai.


Haiku Guy: The Guy, the Books, and the Classroom

That haiku guy, David Lanoue, currently President of the HSA, is famous the world around for his dedication to translating Issa's haiku as well as for his novels about haiku and its community. AHG haiga editor, Aubrie Cox, allows readers further insight in her interview with David and also outlines how his novels have been incorporated into the teaching of haiku at college level and in high school years 7 – 12.



Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 3.3 (the June 2014 issue) is March 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the September 2014 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors' guidelines.


Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor,
for the Editorial Team, A Hundred Gourds

------------------------------

I enjoyed reading the interview via the link Mary provided. This has me smiling, and I agree with the spirit of it:

"I'd support a law making every poet write a review as the price for writing a poem." - William Logan

William Logan and the Role of the Poet-Critic
http://www.cprw.com/william-logan-and-the-role-of-the-poet-critic


There are 10 more interviews with 'poet-critics' on Contemporary Poetry Review, should anyone feel like browsing through them. Such interviews are a good idea.

http://www.cprw.com/

Writing a review at all takes focus, concentration, thinking about the poems... *someone else's* poems.  We don't have to be good at it, and probably won't be until we're well-practised at it. Reviews can range from simple appreciations through explications right up to scholarly analyses. Each will appeal to a different readership/audience.  I think we need the variety, and all haiku poets should be encouraged to write a review from time to time. Those more experienced and/or more educated, I believe, should refrain from the urge to take a piece out of the throat of anyone who has attempted a review they disagree with or feel disdain for.

My personal preference, in reading reviews, are for those that allow me something of a preview of a book, some indication that the reviewer has attempted to engage with the actual poems contained within. What I dislike most are those (thankfully, comparatively rare) pieces which make me feel like an eavesdropper, where the intended audience seems to be a few mates whom the reviewer is in dialogue with or wants to impress.

- Lorin

"I do not have the rights to pass on the book without his permission, but for those who want a download, I suggest contacting Colin. "

Sensible advice, Alan.

"If people don't manage to get hold of Colin through the above, or other means, can we review the situation in three or four weeks?  Then there's a case for asking John's family's permission in lieu, having seriously tried to get hold of the collection copyright owner. "

Yes. I think you'll probably find that there's been a breach of contract, or of implied contract, on CSJ's part by his making people's e-books unavailable without proper notice. This is something for each affected author (or literary executor) to look into.

- Lorin

Hi Alan,
             I have contacted Carole. As I understand the situation, you also have the pdf of 'Nothing but the Wind'.

I did read through it on Calemeo (and it explained the batch of postcards John sent me with the Hiroshige print & the ku " if this were the desert/ you would be a camel/ Master Horse!")

It is a great shame that this work, which John had expected to be free to the public for quite some time, has been withdrawn without proper notice. If Gean Tree Press has been dissolved, then there is no reason I can see why the pdf of a book the author intended to be read freely cannot be shared.

- Lorin

Thanks, Steven, you searched far better than I did! 8) And I couldn't remember if it was THE British Library or just a British library. (Our equivalent library up in Canberra is the ANL)

Through perusing the links you gave, I found what there is of NFTG ...not surprisingly, the issues that weren't archived on the site when CSJ changed websites are not archived here either (the 4 2010 issues and 3 of the 2011 issues) but the rest is available to download as pdf files:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20130706220140/http://www.geantreepress.com/Archives.html

Some books, too:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20130706220136/http://www.geantreepress.com/Books.html

(scroll down past the BL web archive ad, and they're there & downloadable except for the topmost two)

Here,I copied the links for anyone who might want them & find it a bit confusing to access:

CSJ
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220245/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/a_seal_snorts_out_the_moon.pdf

CSJ (2)

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220232/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/Basho_Has_Left_The_Building.pdf

Don Baird

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220249/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/L.A._Thru_a_Lens.pdf

Fugiwara Akiko

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220234/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/Pho__to__on.pdf

Jack Galmitz

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220247/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/Letters.pdf

Phil Madden
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220257/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/The_Tea_Way.pdf

Steven Carter
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220254/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/Letters_to_My_Parents.pdf

an'ya
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220225/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/kokoro_arts.pdf

Jack Galmitz (2)

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220239/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/OBJECTS.pdf

Ed Markowski

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive-cy/20130706220241/http://www.geantreepress.com/uploads/Americana.pdf

NFTG

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20130706220140/http://www.geantreepress.com/Archives.html

Thanks for sourcing John's book via Carole. (I don't belong to any of the social media) I'll drop Carole a line. 

- Lorin