Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
4/14/14
Finding forever in the middle of the night: an interview with #poet Gary Hotham
April is National Poetry Month. In years past I have highlighted favorite poets like Charles Simic and Jane Hirshfield. This time I am focusing on Gary Hotham. My copy of his book “Breath Marks” is well-worn and highlighted.
What is it that makes his poetry special? First off, it’s tiny. His poems are compact little gems. Hotham is mostly known in haiku circles. There’s no room for error in his modern works of art. And yet somehow he manages to pack his poems with an expansive sense of eternity.
Saturday night rain, puzzle pieces, flower petals, sea shells, footprints and stars in one pile and waves, beaches, shadows and wind in another pile.
Daily life’s ordinary things are found in bits and pieces and contrasted with wide-open skies. Maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but the essence of things revealed in his poems show how deeply he knows what he is doing.
Q: When you have time for yourself, what do you spend most of your time thinking about?
A: I might like to think otherwise but probably most of my time is spent thinking about myself. It would be interesting to have an accurate measure for the topics of our thoughts. I'm sure God knows. Does Big Data? I suspect Google and Yahoo have a good handle on our thought topics also - especially the ones the advertisers pay good money for! Those money makers.
Q: What compels you to write?
A: The wonder or wonders of life. And the words that go with them. I suspect that many times it is putting words down or putting words together that the wonders emerge although we might think that the wonders cause or bring out the words. Chicken or egg first kind of riddle.
Q: What do you hope readers might get from your poems?
A: A vision for a vast universe along with a sense of their place or a reason for their place in it. It is the wonder of why did God create such an overwhelming place for our senses and then why me or why us for such a small place in it. It is a brain rattler. One hopes to recover by looking at one's feet. But then there is question of why there is earth for our feet and why the toes and why the ankle bone is connected to...
T.S. Eliot said there would be days like that:
"Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . ."
Q. Who are your favorite poets?
A: There are many, many poets I like to read. Too many. And the great thing about poetry is that the lines are written by the good poets so that one can read them more than once. This is just a partial list of some of the dead poets I have enjoyed over the many years and still enjoy: William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Lorine Niedecker, William Stafford, E.E. Cummings, Philip Booth, Cid Corman, Frank Samperi, Ted Enslin, George Oppen... There are many others still alive. And there are dead and living ones who I don't really enjoy but read anyway.
And then there is a whole host of dead and living haiku writers who I greatly appreciate. That list would become very long. Somebody is now going to comment that I have no standards! But there is a great richness in the number of poets and their poetry that reminds me of the old comic book scene of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his piles of money: I see that scene a reader surrounded by many books of poetry to choose from and for which an earthly lifetime would not exhaust. This image won't work well as e-book readers become more and more the norm.
Although Hotham doesn’t go out of his way to observe National Poetry Month – he is a poet year-round after all — he does have a tip for anyone who is interested in the big topics explored in his little poems.
“I do think T.S. Eliot has the voice to go for such themes and his 'Four Quartets' is a good example. Certainly for a Jew or a Christian the Psalms are excellent examples of those themes.”
What is it that makes his poetry special? First off, it’s tiny. His poems are compact little gems. Hotham is mostly known in haiku circles. There’s no room for error in his modern works of art. And yet somehow he manages to pack his poems with an expansive sense of eternity.
wind spins
---
half a dozen footprints
the wave didn't spoil
Saturday night rain, puzzle pieces, flower petals, sea shells, footprints and stars in one pile and waves, beaches, shadows and wind in another pile.
Daily life’s ordinary things are found in bits and pieces and contrasted with wide-open skies. Maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but the essence of things revealed in his poems show how deeply he knows what he is doing.
Q: When you have time for yourself, what do you spend most of your time thinking about?
A: I might like to think otherwise but probably most of my time is spent thinking about myself. It would be interesting to have an accurate measure for the topics of our thoughts. I'm sure God knows. Does Big Data? I suspect Google and Yahoo have a good handle on our thought topics also - especially the ones the advertisers pay good money for! Those money makers.
Q: What compels you to write?
A: The wonder or wonders of life. And the words that go with them. I suspect that many times it is putting words down or putting words together that the wonders emerge although we might think that the wonders cause or bring out the words. Chicken or egg first kind of riddle.
Q: What do you hope readers might get from your poems?
A: A vision for a vast universe along with a sense of their place or a reason for their place in it. It is the wonder of why did God create such an overwhelming place for our senses and then why me or why us for such a small place in it. It is a brain rattler. One hopes to recover by looking at one's feet. But then there is question of why there is earth for our feet and why the toes and why the ankle bone is connected to...
T.S. Eliot said there would be days like that:
"Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . ."
Q. Who are your favorite poets?
A: There are many, many poets I like to read. Too many. And the great thing about poetry is that the lines are written by the good poets so that one can read them more than once. This is just a partial list of some of the dead poets I have enjoyed over the many years and still enjoy: William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Lorine Niedecker, William Stafford, E.E. Cummings, Philip Booth, Cid Corman, Frank Samperi, Ted Enslin, George Oppen... There are many others still alive. And there are dead and living ones who I don't really enjoy but read anyway.
And then there is a whole host of dead and living haiku writers who I greatly appreciate. That list would become very long. Somebody is now going to comment that I have no standards! But there is a great richness in the number of poets and their poetry that reminds me of the old comic book scene of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his piles of money: I see that scene a reader surrounded by many books of poetry to choose from and for which an earthly lifetime would not exhaust. This image won't work well as e-book readers become more and more the norm.
Although Hotham doesn’t go out of his way to observe National Poetry Month – he is a poet year-round after all — he does have a tip for anyone who is interested in the big topics explored in his little poems.
“I do think T.S. Eliot has the voice to go for such themes and his 'Four Quartets' is a good example. Certainly for a Jew or a Christian the Psalms are excellent examples of those themes.”
12/9/13
Interview with #poet Jane Hirshfield
The following is from an interview that I conducted with her in 2006. The first topic we discussed was the three-year period Hirshfield spent in a Zen monastery where she was instructed to do nothing but practice Zen. This meant poetry would have to leave her life for a while. But the hiatus only created a deeper connection to poetry within her.
Gene: How did that [break from writing poems] affect you?
Jane: My feeling at the time was that I would never be much of a poet if I didn’t learn a great deal more about how to be a human being… It’s very difficult to say how anything affects you… But I think that it affected everything because so much of Zen practice is about learning to pay attention to not only the inner world, but also the outer world… Learning to give your full attention is at the very heart of Zen practice and also, it is at the very heart of poetry.
Gene: In your book of essays, “Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry,” you wrote that “any good artist’s work is to find the right balance between independence born of willing solitude and the ability to speak for others.” Who is it that you mean to speak for?
Jane: I don’t make any presumptions about that. Basically, whenever I am writing, I am always working out something, which I need to understand more fully or experience in a more multidimensional way… You don’t write poems because you have an answer. You write poems because life has presented you with a question and the poem is the only way to address that question. So I suppose the others that I speak for are anybody who is made the same way that I am.
Gene: In your poem “Mathematics” you ask, “Does the poem enlarge the world, or only your idea of the world?” Would you expand on that?
Jane: That was an actual question, which was asked of me in a question and answer session… It struck me as one of the most interesting things that anybody has ever said to me. So it became the seed of this poem in which I answer how can you tell them apart… Is there a knowable world besides the world we know? How could you separate that within our consciousness? I could say yes or no to either. I could say yes of course a poem enlarges the world. But then somebody could say which world? It’s truly metaphysical.
Gene: Where does your desire to write come from?
Jane: I was born as one of those people always hungering to live more deeply. This is also why I read other people’s poems. This is not just about my own writing. It’s about what poetry can do for any of us.
Gene: Which is?
Jane: Magnify and clarify our existence and allow us to travel through an expanded world.
11/21/13
Have you considered “the implications of unseen frogs”?
If haiku were just a calming, traditional Eastern art for one to sit with for 10 minutes, how would it be different than a cup of tea?
At the Haiku North America convention that was held in Seattle, three poets stood out in a way that I did not expect: Richard Gilbert, Eve Luckring and Jim Kacian (THF Founder). They seemed, somehow, against the grain, not like they were trying to stand out. But their art and how they approached it hit me instantly, reminded me of something that should have been obvious.
Their efforts offered me something I didn’t even know I wanted, which was ironic.
I spent the last 25 years going against the grain, being rebellious and experimental with my poetry and yet when I came to haiku, I came reverently, head down. In doing that, I was making the same mistake those crazy beats made when they came to haiku all those years ago.
If haiku were just a calming, traditional Eastern art for one to sit with for 10 minutes, how would it be different than a cup of tea? Going back to the revolution that Gilbert suggests was an alternate evolution in his book, Poems of Consciousness, starting with the same foundation, Basho:
“…Basho in particular remains misinterpreted as a poet oriented toward naive literalism regarding nature and objective-realist description…”
Have you considered whether or not the pond in Basho’s famous old pond ku exists at all in the poem? Have you considered — as Gilbert does in his book — “the implications of unseen frogs”?
At the Haiku North America convention that was held in Seattle, three poets stood out in a way that I did not expect: Richard Gilbert, Eve Luckring and Jim Kacian (THF Founder). They seemed, somehow, against the grain, not like they were trying to stand out. But their art and how they approached it hit me instantly, reminded me of something that should have been obvious.
Their efforts offered me something I didn’t even know I wanted, which was ironic.
I spent the last 25 years going against the grain, being rebellious and experimental with my poetry and yet when I came to haiku, I came reverently, head down. In doing that, I was making the same mistake those crazy beats made when they came to haiku all those years ago.
If haiku were just a calming, traditional Eastern art for one to sit with for 10 minutes, how would it be different than a cup of tea? Going back to the revolution that Gilbert suggests was an alternate evolution in his book, Poems of Consciousness, starting with the same foundation, Basho:
“…Basho in particular remains misinterpreted as a poet oriented toward naive literalism regarding nature and objective-realist description…”
Have you considered whether or not the pond in Basho’s famous old pond ku exists at all in the poem? Have you considered — as Gilbert does in his book — “the implications of unseen frogs”?
11/18/13
On Magazine Submissions, Facebook and Twitter…
On Magazine Submissions, Facebook and Twitter…
While many artists see social media (Facebook and Twitter) as part of their creative process, as part of their conversation while considering their poems, some editors see any digital appearance of a poem as a previous publication. This creates a problem for poets...
I’d love to hear from editors who are considering adopting a policy that does not consider social media posts as a previous publication. I would also love to hear from editors who have already gone this route.
Has it hurt or helped your publication?
Email me at poetgene @ gmail.com
While many artists see social media (Facebook and Twitter) as part of their creative process, as part of their conversation while considering their poems, some editors see any digital appearance of a poem as a previous publication. This creates a problem for poets...
I’d love to hear from editors who are considering adopting a policy that does not consider social media posts as a previous publication. I would also love to hear from editors who have already gone this route.
Has it hurt or helped your publication?
Email me at poetgene @ gmail.com
11/3/13
Issa's Untidy Hut: Picture for a Sunday Afternoon: Ginsberg, McCartne...
Issa's Untidy Hut: Picture for a Sunday Afternoon: Ginsberg, McCartne...: Photo by Adam Jones A little reminder, from friend Rita Cummings , that the faces change, but the message is the same ... ...
10/14/13
9/15/13
9/11/13
9/7/13
Video: Bill Moyers and Naomi Shihab Nye (poems and thoughts on haiku and life)
"Life is short, we must move very slowly."
"Think about a haiku..."
"Think about a haiku..."
9/6/13
5/29/13
"I shall be..." Bill Knott
I shall be the shepherd of your hair. / A dawn made of all the air I ever breathed
~Bill Knott
4/27/13
WCW on 'modern' poetry
'Don't attempt to understand the modern poem -- listen to it'
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
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