Periplum #12: Tito Andres Ramos
Periplum is a section that is devoted to 20th and 21st century haiku from around the world
Periplum #12: Meet Tito Andres Ramos
BY Tom Painting
I first met Tito Andres Ramos during the 2005-2006 school year when he was an exchange student from Santa Cruz, Bolivia studying at School of the Arts, in Rochester NY where I taught creative writing. Already proficient in English, Tito signed up for my senior poetry class. It was the unit on haiku that really caught Tito’s attention.
In his own words Tito says:
“It was at School of the Arts that my haiku journey began. Once introduced to haiku I felt like I just had to write. I felt creativity inside of me and haiku was the way I could let it out. Once I started writing haiku I couldn’t stop.
For me, haiku is a way of seeing things; it is little sparkles of life in the small and daily things that we often miss. Haiku are small drops of love from God. Haiku is life itself; it is the tiny beat in daily things.
These days haiku is like a little room of peace in my busy day. When I go there it feels just right.”
Tito returned to Santa Cruz, Bolivia in the summer of 2006. Today, at twenty-one years of age he is studying business management and works for a marketing company. Please take a moment to enjoy this selection of haiku written by Tito. Tito composes his haiku in English and then translates into Spanish.
birthday rain
little drops zigzag
down my window
lluvia de cumpleanos
pequenas goats
zigzaggueando en la ventana
open grave
the mud sticks
to my boots
hojas muertas
bajo la nieve
luna de invierno
winter night
a blurry moon
illuminates the clouds
noche de invierno
la luna
ilumina las nubes
fallen leaves
a warm afternoon
in old Hiroshima
hojas caidas
una calida tarde
en la vieja Hiroshima
summer sunset
my sand castle
crumbling
atardecer de verano
mi castillo de arena
despedazandose
a wave
erases my footprints
summer sunset
una ola
borra mis huellas
atardecer de verano
sunny winter day
my packed suitcase
under the bed
dia soleado de invierno
mi maleta empacada
bojo mi cama
cold morning
her wedding ring
forgotten on my table
manana fria
su anillo de bodas
olvidado en mi mesa
rainy morning
the first light
covered by clouds
manana lluviosa
la prima luz
cubierto por nubes
cold morning
her body heat
on my empty bed
manana fria
su calor corporal
en mi cama vacia
winter moon
two pair of footprints
toward the sea
noche de invierno
dos pares de huellas
se dirijen al mar
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
• Periplum: Introduction
• Periplum #1: Keiji Minato
• Periplum #2: Petar Tchouhov
• Periplum #3: Masahiro Koike
• Periplum #4: Fay Aoyagi
• Periplum #5: Jean-Pierre Colleu
• Periplum #6: Casimiro de Brito
• Periplum #7: Saša Važić
• Periplum #8: Ami Tanaka
• Periplum #9: Chie Aiko
• Periplum #10: Slavko Sedlar
• Periplum #11: Umberto Senegal
This Post Has 3 Comments
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Lately, I’ve been writing and uploading in my blog haiku in three languages, Tagalog, a Philippine language, Spanish, and English. Could you Tom maybe give me his email address? A Chilean friend looks at my Spanish poems but Tito is of course much better for he writes good haiku now and will get better.
Tom, you can truly see your fine hand in setting the spark on fire with this young man. His haiku are open and welcoming…setting the place and then letting you in on just how it is. I hope he allows his haiku to grow and mature with his life.
Wow. This is everything that is good and true about haiku.
Again, simply: wow.