Montage #35
Montage #35,
presented by Allan Burns,
is now up
on The Haiku Foundation website.
Montage #35 (“The Europeans”) features haiku by Max Verhart, Dietmar Tauchner, and Dimitar Anakiev.
red light district a sparrow collects nest material — Max Verhart
just before dawn— the snowplow clears my nightmare — Dietmar Tauchner
Spring evening— the wheel of a troop carrier crushes a lizard — Dimitar Anakiev
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Typo: I don’t know how little Jurica’s age of 8 year sold got turned into a smiley face! I hope the gaggle of geese gave the child a bit of a smile though given what she must have endured.
During the Yugoslavian war I was receiving a small publication called “Azami” from Japan that featured pages from many of the poets going through that war. I don’t know if it was the pervasive death that was going on in my own life, or if it was the stark revelations of these poets but they made a profound impression on my life. These pages were filled with the human cries of the heart…the US poet, Robert Henry Poulin with his
go!
follow till it drops —
the clang of the bell
after his wife died of cancer, or the steady contributions from the former Yugoslavia:
The sun merges with the lake.
She and I
Silent.
Stanisa Stankovic-Maki
Yugoslavia
We have been fiends
day and night – me and
cricket in the flowerpot.
Dragan J. Ristic – Yugoslavia
soulof my mother
flower into a fragrance
of blossoming limes
Nikola Nilic
I love you all
but I have only
one little heart!
Filip Stojanovsky (8 yrs. old)
a small child
snuggles tightly
to the old woman
Ivana Bertic (age 14) Croatia
a gaggle of geese
on the playground mowing
the spring grass
Jurica Rozic (age 8) Croatia
Crying of a child …
Themorning dew on the young
stinging nettle.
Marinko Spanovic
on the black gnarls
yellow willow rods
the stream’s guardians
Kristina Siranovic (age 12) Croatia
A strict teacher crying.
The children went off
to war.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
At the pets’ clinic
dog and cat are saddly
watching each other.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
A stone lion.
The bravest little boy
pulls its tail.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
Watch hand
was pressed by years
and fell to the floor.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
The whole day
batle in my room –
shadows and light.
Zoren Doderovic – Yugoslavia
On a small piece of bread
a frozen sparrow
is swinging.
Zoran Raonic – Yugoslavia
Tired goose
searching for its lost flock
on the dark sky.
Zoren Doderovic – Yugoslavia
Poison Ivy,
an only covering for
the trembling hornbeam tree.
Zoran Raonic – Yugoslavia
Raven is screaming
damning the intruder.
Tank in the field.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
An insect on my shoe.
What a sudden new
friendship!
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
Each month these cries of war and suffering intermingled in my own grief – the loss of my brother, son, step daughter, and finally going through the dying of my husband and the loss of my own health.
The haiku that has lingered in the back of my mind from that war is this one:
Beaten all over dog
is whining: it is so hard
to be human friend.
Zivko Prodanovic – Croatia
and this one:
stepping upon the ice
crackling
all the valley
Dimitar Anakiev
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And for anyone interested I have an extra copy of
“KNOTS: The Anthology of Southeastern European Haiku Poetry”. It is quite an extensive collection on this subject.
Postscript:
As William Blake said: where man is not,nature is barren.
Great selection this week.
I’ve been a fan of Dimitar’s work since I read the digital version of At the Tombstone which is available on here. (What a wonderful book, by the way. The images are just as wonderful as the poems. Also, I thought it was quite an achievement that these translations keep to 5,7,5 with such an effotless feeling).
Tauchner’s work (and Verhart’s too) is also splendid. And David, I agree, it is quite exasperating that he can write so brilliantly in a second language!
I’m first drawn to Tauchner’’s haiku. There is something almost traditional in their mingling of nature and human nature, but they’re fresh in their urban sensibility and not-easily-summarized emotion.
One striking thing: the different stances these poems seem to take to the natural world. The ecstasy of physical love; rescue from a nightmare–not by snow, but a snowplow; the obsessive pursuit of evanescent animal tracks; the vague fear and irony of pondering a possible future "water war" while sipping a
beer.
Wonderful but a little exasperating that someone for whom English is not his first language can write such good haiku in English!
Photo of Dietmar from HNA 2005