conversations…a tanka duet
1.
we do try
to strain storm dregs
untying
old selves on a wire mesh
in bus conversations
2.
leaf orange boy
leaning on his elbow
point by point
on Confucius with dad
knee-high in fall
posted at Tanka Poets in Site (facebook)
more throwback tanka…another ‘duet’
again
the sea unloads
its burdens
still i cling
to you
in the wind
a wailing dove
you won’t see
as i bend a shadow
beyond yours
Alegria Imperial, Multiverses, Spring 2012
another throwback post…a tanka ‘duet’ at LYNX journal
as the moon
transforms in sunlight
we shift roles
you into a clown, i
a hummingbird
in my palm
the fortune teller
traces lines
one slides off my destiny
away from yours
LYNX XXVII:I February 2012
a throwback post…3 tanka at GUSTS Winter 2013
should I
consider my missteps
to understand…
how the Milky Way ended
with me in this pond?
like layers
of sunlight among weeds
our words
thrive on silence…until gushing
we burst into flowers
the twisted twig
of an old cedar leans
Westward
as if the wind senses
my every longing
GUSTS Fall/Winter 2013 (Tanka Canada)
through lattices/what glues raindrops (two tanka)
1.
through lattices
this condensation
of phrases
the glimpses we veil
in silence
2.
what glues
raindrops to foggy
windows?
consider my hand
slipping away
LYNX February 2013
sae foam (my tanka last year at Eucalypt)
sea foam
withdraws from the shore . . .
unspoken
these longings
that return to their birth
Eucalypt 12 May 2012
a tanka journal
Qualicum Beach
‘as wind skitters’ (my tanka adjudged ‘excellent’ in the 7th International Tanka Festival Competition)
My tanka adjudged ‘excellent’ among others well-known in the tanka sphere:
as wind skitters
through dry sedge
this thought
of shredded feathers
persistent
dry grass at English Bay, West End, Vancouver, BC
…at The 7th International Tanka Festival Competition, 2012 by Japan Tanka Poets’ Society, with 589 entries from all over the world that passed through the four judges: Jane Reichhold (U. S. A.), Beverley George (Australia), Yasuhiro Kawamura (Japan), and Aya Yuhki (Japan). Another tanka was adjudged ‘fine’.
CONGRATULATIONS to many friends in the terrific harvest!!!
‘on pointed toes’, ‘haze’ (my two tanka in LYNX Oct 2012)
1
on pointed toes
like ripples, why not?
if floating
the way we do in void
we find what matters
2
haze
like the opaqueness we dread
a crust
the guise soft hearts
take on to survive
LYNX October 2012
again/the sea unloads… (one of two of my tanka at Multiverses 1:1)
again
the sea unloads
its burdens
still i cling
to you
(photo by Ramond Ramos, the South China Sea in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte, The Philippines)
A haiku moment in Vancouver (report of a poetry reading by VHG)
first reading—
in the lamplight
oak leaves in rain – Angela J. Naccarato
The two-year old Vancouver Haiku Group (VHG) held its first poetry reading, Under the Cherry Tree: An Evening of Haiku, Free Verse and Music, on May 31 at Chapters on Robson Street.
Opening number were by teacher Brenda Larsen’s grade four and five students, Juliana Nunes and Matthew Zhao, of Panorama Heights Elementary School in Coquitlam, BC, reading their own poems and selected poems of their classmates. The third floor reading room display of cherry blossom sprigs made out of crepe paper and wooden twigs, as well as origami cranes with haiku written on the wings, were also their handiwork.
Next, Angela J. Naccarato, facilitator for the VHG, read Amelia Fielden’s tanka from an online series titled Sakura Sakura. Amelia is a professional translator of Japanese literature, as well as an enthusiastic writer of tanka in English. Tanka is a traditional Japanese form of poetry and dates back to the 7th century. Nik Stimpson, a university student, accompanied Angela’s reading on the clarinet. For the second part of the program, Angela read a series of haiku, a tribute to her trip to the British Isles, accompanied by James Mullin on a Javanese gamelan. Angela and James emceed and coordinated the reading.
Still on the cherry blossom theme, Jessica Tremblay, read her Best BC Poem from the 2008 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational (VCBF HI):
late for work—
cherry petals
in my hair
She followed this up with a delightful presentation of selected frames from her Old Pond comics about a frog trying to learn haiku–a take-off on Basho’s classic haiku. Basho is one of the four great masters of Japanese haiku.
cherry blossoms, Sakura Park, Claremont St., New York City (photo by Eleanor Angeles)
Alegria Imperial also read her winning and first-published haiku from the 2007 VCBF HI, her other winning and published haiku, some of her published tanka along with a haibun, a literary composition that combines prose and haiku.
VCBF Haiku Invitational winning haiku by Canadian poets through the years and other works
Vicki McCullough, who has won several VCBF HI awards, and coordinator of the BC region for Haiku Canada, also known as pacifi-kana, first read a selection of her own haiku. She then followed it up with other cherry blossom haiku from across the HI years such as those of Haiku Canada members Alice Frampton, elehna de sousa, Naomi Beth Wakan and Susan Constable—and a few more favourites showing the international diversity of VCBF HI submissions. She concluded with a six blossom-themed tanka by Haiku Canada Review editor LeRoy Gorman, from his new collection, fast enough to leave this world.
Brenda began her reading with the background story of her haiku inspired by the cherry tree in the backyard of the Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver’s Marpole area, the former home of Canadian author Joy Kogawa. To conclude her reading, Brenda read more haiku followed by a touching free verse.
Other highlights
Another highlight of the evening was Rachel Enomoto’s reading in Japanese and English the works of Japanese women haiku poets from the 18th to the 20th century. Following Rachel was James Mullin, who said he learned humility through writing haiku, a genre of writing that appears to be so simple, yet offers such complexity within its structure and form. He read from his collection of free verse and recited his most memorable haiku, inspired by a VHG gingko walk through the heritage memorial park in Burnaby, east of Vancouver.
Guest poet Ruona Asplund read poems from her three published books of Nature poetry, and for a musical break, Nik performed a Quebecois piece, Isabeau s’y promene and Mozart’s Sonatina No. 1. To end the program, songwriter Jared Korb sang and played on his acoustic guitar.
From the audience, Hadley Meikle took advantage of the open mike to read poetry from bits and pieces of her journal.
Chapters employee Cameron Russell helped facilitate the event, displayed a selection of haiku books, graciously supplied water and glasses, and took pictures of the event. His photos can be viewed at the Chapters Robson facebook page.
Up soon, a second poetry reading
VHG meets every third Sunday of the month at the Britannia Community Services Centre on Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Discussed in the meetings are basics in writing haiku and members’ haiku written with a prompt, which they workshop. Facilitator Angela J. Naccarato has also introduced intuitive exercises that aim at tapping the subconscious. The group has had three gingko walks, at Strathcona Gardens in Vancouver, the Chinese Buddhist Temple in Richmond and the Heritage Cemetery in Burnaby.
Already, VHG’s second poetry reading has been scheduled in partnership with Britannia at its annual summer event, Artful Sundays, held at the centre’s premises for four consecutive Sundays from Aug. 12 to Sept. 12. VHG members will present their poems at the performer’s tent on Aug. 26. They will also conduct haiku writing and crane origami making workshops.
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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