Heartbroken

A heartbreak is contagious. Been sleepless at its onset since I received this news in my mail as John Martone’s (Santoka) response to my Nov 15 submission for otata’s #49 issue:

“Dear Friends,

At the end of this month, otata will publish ebooks from David Miller and Romano Zeraschi. Suffering from an onset of heartbreak, otata will be unable to issue her 48th number. She extends her regrets to all who have contributed over the past four years. The email account will go on hiatus as well. In the spirit of Santoka’s last verse, please check the website in the future, in the (perhaps unlikely) event of a return.” — JM

I am really heartbroken having found in John’s “otata” my dream of a poetry journal. My first appearance in June of 2016 started a monthly run until last month with #48 October 2019. Two highlights kept me going though each submission just bounced me higher and higher—these two were both published for Christmas: “post perspective (on that night)” in #26, February 2018 and “reconfiguring if that night will come again” in #36 December 2018.

The first gained me this pennant:

Alegria,

It’s a masterwork.
The most splendid piece in 24 issues.
— John

https://jornales.wordpress.com/…/post-perspectives-on-that…/

The second this thrilling note:

You again?
You again!
(How otherwise?)

The Christmas poem reminds me of Dylan Thomas.
John

https://jornales.wordpress.com/…/reconfiguring-if-that…/xxxx

and a third:

Dear Imperial Joy,

This morning you conjure Dan Raphael but are a species all your own. I especially love that eel, that sky, that whale; the archaic imponderables of the second poem.

You are not losing your grip, you’re freeing the world.

#31, August 27, 2018
John

To Mary Margaret, “nothing but fine rain” (reflection on an ‘angel’s passing’)

It must be the constant grey sky, the moist air, the tearful silence of still leaves, and the passing away of a niece, Mary Margaret, at 29 years old, invalid most of her growing up years from an undetected source of her seizures–an angel to us all–that midly paralyzed me with a meltdown. Being old, I saw through my life as in a screen: what did really matter and what matters most. I believe she had the perfect answer with her illness having shorn her of the false sun sparks that I could be guilty of racing to catch. The weeks following her death lead me to an overdue clarity of the truths I failed to recognize, hence, left untended. I hope that with my thinning bones, I could still carry a metaphorical watering can to bring them back to life. Would that these three haiku were enough for now…

 

fall twilight

on her grave nothing

but fine rain

 ***

on her tomb

tiny hands sweep

leavings of sparrows 

***

candle drippings

on her epitaph-

a broken word

summaries (a sequence)

earth’s raiment showing
legs

if coquetry
a verb dandelion fur

thigh-high mist the graveyard sea wind-lisps

vexed with what to wed
air

brain murmur definitely scarred

denied
the monkey tree’s appeals

page 10

in a hyena’s lock jaw all the why’s

page 11

shattered ear possibly the gist of all paralysis

page  12

bones #18 November 15, 2019  (a journal of contemporary haiku) 

 

My signature tanka “how you heave up…”

 

how you heave up

to the height of my eyes

pull up this darkness

and serve me tender dawn

O Sea, I want to know

 

cattails January 2016***Editor’s choice

 

Whoever might say that tanka isn’t “poetic”, hasn’t read this one by Alegria Imperial from Canada. As an Editor’s Choice, I selected it because Alegria’s words build from line 1 to a crescendo in line 5. This is comparable to the technique an experienced singer uses from a slow quiet start to a grand finale at song’s end. Alegria’s tanka is filled with yūgen, a Japanese word pertaining to a profound awareness of the universe, which evokes feelings that are inexplicably deep and too mysterious for words.

 

—UHTS cattailstanka editor an’ya, USA

 

 

“angelus bells” and “being there”: finding a treasure

 

I’ve been browsing through my files and found this treasure that I have forgotten, buried as it is in my daily-writing years. I’ve slowed down a bit, especially on haiku, feeling like I’m skidding into a meltdown. I seem more productive with my mainstream/innovative/contemporary poems more accepted by only a couple of editors these days. But I’m amazed no end when I find my old works especially when it has been picked up and reviewed as Kathy Uyen Nguyen did to my haiku and haibun at her blog Origami Lotus Stone seven years ago. And my heart sinks…Thank you again, so much Kathy!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

August Blog Bash, Day 22 – Alegria Imperial @gwhisp

Welcome to the Debut of the August Blog Bash 2012!

I am very much excited and honored to be hosting this new feature series… and it is a great way to end the summer!  This Blog Bash is an impressive talent showcase of poets, artists, and writers/authors from all walks of life.  For each day of this month, one individual will be featured here on this blog, at Origami Lotus Stones, my Twitter (hashtag will be #augblogbash), my Facebook community page, and on my blog page on Writing Our Way Home.  Please be patient while I post on all platforms.

**Please note that all authors/artists have given me permission to post their work on the following platforms/sites I have just mentioned.  Please do not plagiarize, modify, reproduce, or distribute any work without permission from the original authors/artists.  Thank you!** If you are interested in participating in this Blog Bash, feel free to check out the details here.

*******************************************

Today’s Feature:  Alegria Imperial

This gorgeous haiku presents a new perspective of church bells tolling with words in minimalistic form.  Through this haiku, the reader can feel the heartbeat of every bell toll as well as his/her own heart beating along with the bells themselves.  I also love the fact that this haiku leaves a subtle touch of the “just enough” sensation for the reader to put his/her imagination into the haiku itself.  For instance, perhaps it’s a pair of newlyweds who’s just swapped vows.  However, notice that these are “angelus bells.”  Imperial was very precise with this choice of words.  It denotes something worthy of praise–like an angelic praise that is continuous and prolonged (“pealing”), which really does turn one’s pulse up a notch!  I also like the word play here too.  “Pealing” should not be confused with “peeling.”  If the angelus bells are “peeling / in heartbeats,” I would be perhaps thinking about peeling off flower petals such as bell flowers or bleeding hearts (and maybe sticking a flower behind my ear), which would make a wonderful transition between bells and flowers!

I am very excited to say that this is the first haibun presented through this August Blog Bash series!  This haibun presents a powerful experience of just simply paying attention to what’s around you and just “being there” in the moment.  There are so many lovely words and phrases here such as “the way the leaves sway and retract” and “the constancy of flowers.”  The stream-of-consciousness style in this haibun is steady and soothing like the river itself.  The delightful thing is that you realize that everything ends in the river when the haibun ended with a “river” haiku.  Both prose and haiku complement one another well.  I love how the prose ended with a floating “when,” which leads cleverly into “shifting tides” (wonderful syntax here), so that there seem to be no break (in the flow) between prose or haiku, even though visually, the reader can see the prose and the haiku separately on the page.  This haibun is very lyrical and meditative in composition and tone. Gorgeous work, Alegria!  Thank you so much for sharing and being one of the contributors!  And many, many thanks for your patience and understanding with what I’m going through now. (NB:  Text arrangement on MS PowerPoint by Kathy Uyen Nguyen.  Please note that text/graphics will be in this format.)

To check out more of Alegria’s work, you can click on the following link(s): Jornales (blog) Filipineses (blog) @gwhisp(Twitter) Please do promote this new feature on Facebook, Twitter, etc.!  Thanks so much for all the support!  And look, my blog now has buttons (see below) to make your life easier!  Come back tomorrow for a new artist/author feature!

 

being there

…it is the rhythm that’s constant it seems and not the stillness—the way the wind pulls and withdraws and the way the leaves sway and retract or how the clouds gather into masses and then dissipate into air or is it merely the eye that misses the jagged movements and edges and catches merely that moment when the rhythm shows and reassures us as in the constancy of flowers even as petals begin to brown and curl in the edges and fall, stripping the branches of their name because all we recall is their being there as in moments we have flowed into still flow into like on our early morning walks when

shifting tides–

the river unloading burdens

for us to decode

 

LYNX XXVII:I February 2012

My haiku awards

Had been trying to put them all together and finally succeeded, I think. Here they are before I lose them…happy to share!

 

grey sky

the gull’s plaintive cries

fade into a wave

 

Fourth Place

Sea to Sky Haiku Canada Weekend contest May 17-19, 2019, Vancouver BC

 

autumn rain

the river carries

the sky

 

2^ndPlace

European Quarterly Kukai, Autumn 2017

 

dream catcher

the shifting colours

of dawn

 

3^rdplace, European Haiku Kukai #12 Winter 2015

 

first tea with her—

cherry blossoms cloud

the skylight

 

Vancouver Sakura Award

2014 Vancouver Cherry Blossoms Festival Haiku Invitational

 

our breaths

suspended between skies—

monarch butterfly

 

honourable mention

2013 Diogen Autumn Contest

 

butterfly

a whispered breeze

to the bamboo

 

12th International kukai ‘butterfly’ 115 haijin, 115 haiku, 27 countries

9th place (tie)

 

first dawn alone–

the widow eats his half

of the orange

 

Per Diem Daily Haiku

“Light and Dark”, December 2014

Per Diem Archiveon the Haiku Foundation Website, and the Haiku App.

First Place, free format category, Shiku kukai Sept 2013

 

pancake steam—

the thin mist on mornings

in a wicker swing

 

Zatsuei, Haiku of Merit

World Haiku Review March 2013

 

mixing bowls—

the shallow echoes

of bells

 

4th place 10th International Kukai 

January 2013

 

twilight rain

the blue heron mid-lake

somehow smaller

 

Commended, Traditional haiku


The Haiku Foundation’s 2012 Haiku Now Contest

Under the Basho 2013

 

winter solstice

the widow tightens

her braids

 

First Place, kigo* category

December 2012 Shiki* kukai (yava)

 

spring song

how it draws the heart

to reflection

 

Alegria Imperial, Vancouver, BC, Canada

3^rdPlace, 1^stBlossom Rain haiku My Photo Challenge, May 2012

 

stretching its neck

as if to measure our sky

turtle

 

Editor’s choice, Sketchbook ‘pond life’ kukai, March-April 2012

Commentary:
Bernard Geitske

“the temptation to philosophize or explore one’s being is very strong”

 

somehow

our shrinking shadows touch—

harvest moon

 

haiku bandit society

September 2011 Dottie Dot Awards

 

words

we’ve left unsaid–

Indian summer

 

First Place, kigo category

July 2011 Shiki kukai

 

cherry blossoms

shedding petals at dusk—

moths in flight

 

Honorable Mention

2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival

Haiku Invitational and first published haiku

 

 

ku at Under the Basho

astray

the pond

I lied to

 

magpie chapter

you can tell whose ‘I’

is ripped

 

let it be

if a mollusk’s pulse

corresponds to a fugue

 

the word “seed”

lodged between

my incisors

 

Under the Basho ku, 2019

UtB-ku 2019 https://underthebasho.com/utb-2019/ku/2633-alegria-imperial.html

summer dusk

summer dusk

a dog sniffs

an empty chair

 

Selected by Dhugal J. Lindsay

The Mainichi, Japan’s National Daily, July 2, 2019

 

inside out (a sequence)

muffled wildness a winnowing sky

coughing out the sphere rogue wind

ashen dust between fingers palm ribs

outlines against the rain bones inside out

eggshell stillness un-swept sun-shreds

conical jaws vs marbles in a skull graveyard issues

empty eyes glued to a rootless ‘O’

dangling words noone follows swollen whiteness

Bones 17 July 15, 2019 (journal of contemporary haiku)

single haiku (not proficient, the song I used to hear, the train creeps away)

not proficient 

with birdsong 

a plane arriving

 

the song I used to hear

swish-swash 

of a bamboo broom

 

the train creeps away

the hours emptying 

the houses

 

bones 17, July 15, 2019 (journal of contemporary haiku)