Category: Poetry (Page 9 of 11)

Of This World by Joseph Stroud

of this worldJohn came back from a short vacation and put a book of poetry on the desk for me to look at. It was Of This World by Joseph Stroud and oh what a stunning book of poetry this is! From his very brief poems to several amazing sustained contemplative poems, each deeply moving selection is a treat for one’s spirit. Each one begs to be read again—to savor, to examine.
The poem “Provenance”, selected for a Pushcart prize, was written after his father died. It speaks of grief and redemption:

‘I want to tell you the story of that winter
in Madrid where I lived in a room
with no windows, where I lived
with the death of my father, carrying it
everywhere through the streets…..”

In another poem he speaks of the time when he and his two brothers had come together to scatter his father’s ashes:

“A sudden wind
and the ashes gust back over us,
dusting our faces and clothes,
a faint smell and taste of my father in my own body….”

Can you imagine! How deep does one have to go to feel the power of this poem?
The entire volume is filled—as I said—with the most amazing poetry. It begs to be read slowly, letting the words and emotions wash over you once and then once again.

-Yvonne

See John’s blog on Of This World

New poems by Joseph Stroud

of this worldOf This World by Joseph Stroud

Copper Canyon Press (2009)

A great pleasure derived from reading is the post-reading experience of sharing good books with other readers. Often while reading a book, and for almost any reason, a person will pop into your mind as someone who would enjoy these words and ideas. Usually, when someone shares a book with you to read–it’s okay, good, likable, etc.–but occasionally it is a spot-on experience and a bulls-eye suggestion. A friend shared Stroud’s world with me and a fine gift at the right time it was.

Joseph Stroud understands the value of taking your time in writing poetry, having published just four books in a forty-year writing career.

“I must say that I was dumb founded. I don’t recall when a poet unknown to me has struck me so deeply. Like all of the best poets, Stroud makes the earth again consolable.” -Jim Harrison

Slowly this summer I chewed on this collection, trying to get all the taste, pleasure and wisdom from these poems. Surprised by how well this long collection kept going and going, continuously getting stronger, I was even more astonished by the breadth and power of the final poems: “Provenance,” “Rooms” and “By the River of Babylon.”

Thanks to my reading pal Dave for sharing this gem with me. I hope to re-read these poems often and for many years to come. It’s a collection to keep in your library for a lifetime.

Yvonne’s blog on Of This World

The Late Poems of Meng Chiao

late poems of meng chiaoThe Late Poems of Meng Chiao

Princeton (1996)

Translated by David Hinton

Meng Chiao (751-814) wrote most of these experimental poems between 807-814. Late Poems is a radical and major work of deep introspection. Even though it was written over a thousand years ago, many of these poems read fresh and contemporary: Meng Chiao’s “symbolic expressions express what conventional language cannot articulate…which affront him new depths of insight into the objective world.” Meng wrote in desperate times, and his late poems are a powerful extension of TuFu.

Meng’s poems are longer than many of my other favorite Chinese poets. However, I found some lines beautiful, mind-pausing, relaxing and descriptively objective, prompting much contemplation.

“And when white clouds have no master,

They just drift off, idle thoughts carefree.”

*     *     *

“And once weeds close you in,

they’ll never open up again.”

Companions for the Journey: A Series

Companions for the Journey is a series showcasing inspirational work by well-known writers in a small-book format designed to be carried along your journey through life.

I have enjoyed reading these books and blogged about some of them in this series before. This spring three new titles were issued and I found all three to be enjoyable.

breaking the willow#18 Breaking the Willow: Poems of Parting, Exile and Separation & Reunion

Breaking the Willow is an anthology of Chinese poets named for the custom to break a willow twig and present it to a departing friend. Many poems of sorrow and loss are mirrored as the reader reflects. There are many beautiful one-liners in this little jewel:

“Glorious moon hanging in mid-sky, but who looks?”

between the floating mist#19 Between the Floating Mist: Poems of Ryōkan (1758-1831)

This selection of Ryōkan’s poetry is followed by an exchange of poetry in sequence between Teishin and Ryōkan. I found the following exchange an adequate representation:

.

Teishin

Distant waves

seem to come,

seem to go . . .

Ryōkan

Clear and bright

your words and understanding.

mountain tasting#20 Mountain tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Teneda (1882-1940)

Santoka Teneda is a “new Haiku movement” poet representing the Zen qualities of simplicity, solitude and impermanence conveyed in a modern setting through haiku. Teneda walked around pre-WWII Japan, living simply and writing sensitive poems. I enjoyed this collection the most of the three. I end this blog with two favorite haiku.

(For fun) #137

Nonchalantly urinating

by the road,

soaking the young weeds.

(For thought) # 346

The sound of waves–

and distant, nonclose:

how much of my life remains.

I also wrote an entry a while back on another volume in the Companion Series. Click here to read about Lotus Moon: Japanese poet, Rengetsu (1791-1875), was the illegitimate offspring of a high-ranking Samurai and a young geisha . . . Keeping few possessions she likened herself to a “drifting cloud.”

Classical Chinese Poetry

classical chinese poetryClassical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology

Translated and edited by David Hinton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2008

Before Thanksgiving I began a leisurely read of this “all-star” poetry collection which spans 2700 years (1500 B.C.E. to 1200 C.E.). The anthology of nearly 500 poems “focuses on a relatively small number of poets and provides selections that are large enough to recreate each poet as a fully realized and unique voice” (jacket).

Gradually absorbing the earliest to the latest, developing insight on poets influencing poets, understanding their distinctive voices helped me to put my previous readings of Chinese poetry into a more organized perspective.

Allowing myself to linger over these poems opens the doors of internal perception and conscious reflection, a process of slowing down the pace of life and perhaps even learning to be more present with the world around me.

Ezra Pound’s translations of Chinese poetry helped to break away from formalist rhetoric. In addition, he influenced and published expatriates in Paris during the 1920s. The use of “concrete language and imagistic clarity” can easily be seen in Pound’s publication of Hemingway’s In Our Time: It’s not what you write that’s important; It’s what you leave out (xix).

Reading a larger volume on a measured daily basis allows you to live with your reading experience, to become absorbed and allow the meaning of the text to ease into your life.

Awaiting Greg Miller’s Latest Collection of Poetry, Watch

For those of you who don’t know him, Greg Miller is a professor at Millsaps and a poet who has several publications under his belt. His latest book of poems, Watch, is coming out in October and I am really looking forward to it! Dr. Miller’s past publications include: Iron Wheel, Rib Cage and Mississippi Sudan… go by Lemuria and check out his work so that you can look forward to Watch as much as I am!

Greg Miller's Watch

“Time after time, in poem after poem in this book, the brave colors of the creatures of this God-given world are celebrated as they survive, sometimes barely survive, or not, as the light turns: a flower awakening; an oak tree splitting in a storm; a loon diving; a tom turkey strutting; a rock lizard flecked with rocklike black and gray; human beings—a saint in a painting about who she was and what she suffered; Dinka refugees in a church, sharing a meal, and dancing; the fragments in a field of a long-gone culture, left there to teach us what they were. These beautiful attentive poems keep watch.”<David Ferry>

“In Watch we see Greg Miller at the top of his powers, inspired by the world of art and the world of nature, by moments of pain and moments of joy, by relationships and by solitude. These poems are rich and varied and haunting. They are, to use Eudora Welty’s words, ‘made by the imagination for the imagination.’”<Suzanne Marrs, author of Eudora Welty: A Biography>

“Greg Miller has the rare ability to make his devotional energies seem felt and available to all of us, in poems that are unlike anyone else’s in their intelligence and passionate meditation and mediation of the Christian myth. He’s a latter-day, wised-up Adam who, despite his exile from the garden, can’t suppress his desire to praise. He sees the natural world with a clear, joyous eye and achieves his own sense of supernatural abundance from the purged accuracy of his descriptions.”<Tom Sleigh>

In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison

harrisonbeachIn Search of Small Gods

by Jim Harrison

Cooper Canyon (2009)

*     *     *

For the last fifty days or so, I’ve been reading Jim’s new poetry book as slowly as I can. I finished last week but I still feel unable to express my thoughts about this beautiful collection of poems.

Small Gods is in-search-of-small-godsmostly about the present; however, this collection of poems urges readers to look back and reflect on their place in time in order to gain a new understanding about their short time remaining.

Through this beautiful poetry, it is apparent the time Jim spent reflecting on his own mortality and one cannot help but indulge in reflecting on his own mortal state. However, this is not to say the vibrant spirit of this great writer is not alive in this collection.

I find “Another Old Mariachi” and “Tomorrow” to be two of my favorites. “Eleven Dawns with Su Tung-p’o” has encouraged me to revisit this great Chinese poet soon. selected-poems-of-su-tung-po

To all Jim’s fiction fans: Don’t skip this little jewel of prose poetry. It’s a beautiful side to this great American writer.

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

Translated by Red Pine

Copper Canyon Press (2000)

About five years ago during some troubles, a friend visited while he was reading The Collected Songs. Before he left, he gave me his copy with the inscription: “For John, who could use this book.” And I have: reading, rereading and rereading again.

China’s monk-poet, Han Shan “Cold Mountain” wrote these poems 1200 years ago on rocks, trees and mountain walls. From a secluded simple life in his cave, Cold Mountain wrote simple unpretentious poetry. His poems esteemed for their spiritual honesty, poignancy and humor were written for everyone not just the educated elite. When Cold Mountain disappeared into the cliffs, his poems were collected and preserved.

Red Pine’s (Bill Porter) translation of Cold Mountain’s work enhances the reader’s experience, adding interpretive depth. Red Pine leads the reader to self-exploration through Cold’s insightful gift.

This beautiful collection will be my life-long companion to revisit again and again, enhancing my days. My life has been touched by this book and is different today as a result. A life enhanced by a fine gift from one understanding reader to another. This blog is my thanks to a friend.

Han Shan and Shih-te

Read more about Cold Mountain in a previous post of mine.

Buddhist China in Picture and Poem

Where the World Does Not Follow: Buddhist China in Picture and Poem

Translated by Mike O’Connor / Photography by Steven R. Johnson

Wisdom Publications: Boston (2002)

*     *     *

O’Connor’s translation of ancient poems, alongside Johnson’s breathtaking photography, bring these ancient words to the present. Zen and Taoist poetry coupled with timeless images make for this wonderful book, which I slowly read; when I finished, I started over.

Reading clearly translated timeless poetry is relaxing and yields satisfaction. This anthology, associated with photography, stands out: Old words giving old truths, a modern translation with interpretive meaning for all time, with the association of the modern art form of photos. All mix together for a moving reading experience.

I enjoy rereading Chinese poetry, presented in different ways, which give alternate understanding and renewed depth. Blending art forms give another insight into the mind.

For instance: From “On Hearing a Bell” by Chiao-Jan:

“When the bell sounded

It was my mind”

Opposite page: a photo of the of the entrance of cold mountain’s home

On the next page a poem from “A Thousand Clouds, Ten Thousand Streams” by Han Shan:

“No dust can gather

Happy,

Clinging to nothing.”

Opposite page: a photo of cold mountain’s cave looking out

These examples especially moved me. This book being beautiful, is full of touching reading moments. Words from old with photos from the present add to each readers time with place, resonating in our hearts of an age gone by.

Sunday November 9, 2008, I close with a touching excerpt from a Jen Fan Poem.

“No wine I know

Can melt

This night.”

I love Mary Oliver

by Kelly Pickerill

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets.  Her poetry seems simple at first read–using unadorned language she paints pictures of the natural world without much pomp or frivolity–but her poems have a way of getting under the skin, leaving the reader with a feeling of reconnection to a world that, in this age of SUVs, TVs, day planners, and Wall Street, can begin to look like another planet if we’re not careful.

Influenced by Whitman and Thoreau, Mary Oliver’s world is peopled with forests and herons, dogs and wetlands.  Her poetry speaks to the part of us that craves communion with nature and a deeper understanding of our human selves.

One of my favorite poems, from Why I Wake Early:

“Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?”

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

Oliver’s newest collection, Evidence, begins with a short poem, “Yellow,” that simply yet profoundly contrasts human convention with the natural order of things:

There is the heaven we enter
through institutional grace
and there are the yellow finches bathing and singing
in the lowly puddle.

Page 9 of 11

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén