Montage

Montage #35

montagelogo

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

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. 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.

  2. 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
    ********************************************************
    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.

  4. 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!

  5. 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

Comments are closed.

Back To Top