Montage #33,
presented by Allan Burns,
is now up
on The Haiku Foundation website.
Montage #33 (“Three Poets of the UK”) features haiku by John Crook, Caroline Gourlay, and John Barlow.
ancient stone circle the flow of a robin’s song — John Crook
bark of a pheasant
sinking into silence
winter afternoon
— Caroline Gourlay
something startles the rabbit field… mackerel sky — John Barlow
{ 14 comments }
← Previous Comments
“Were it a book, this body of haiku is already right up there with any single-volume collection. It is one editor’s selection of poets and poems, and a personal, reasoned arrangement, to boot.” Paul MacNeil
Yes, I agree entirely. I came to the ‘montages’ comparatively recently, and am still reading them and thoroughly enjoying. It’s interesting to me that Allan selects and places side by side haiku that have something in common, sometimes an image, sometimes a mood, but are quite different. There is no other way to do this than a ‘personal’ way, however reasoned.
Just to mention two from here, John Crook’s:
ebb tide
the shell I keep reaching for
carried further away
and Caroline Gourley’s:
turning for home
in the lull before dusk
blackberries
Both have great appeal for me. On a literal level, I’ve experienced both, so they have the strong visceral pull of memories of childhood. (my childhood was divided between a beachfront home and one in a bush town where blackberries grew rampantly and untouched along some parts of the river)
The mood of ‘ebb-tide’ , with the shell that escapes one’s grasp and the sense of a strong undertow gains a haunting kind of unresolved immediacy. There is the will to get the shell, and a pull that is stronger than the will taking it further and further out of reach.
‘blackberries’
to me is sheer temptation. That warm, Autumn lull before dusk, luscious ripe blackberries. .. who could resist lingering there in the sensual, delaying going home, even if one was supposed to be home by dark and there might be ‘consequences’?
Both haiku show the effects of nature’s ‘pull’… in my reading, the first experience has tones of strong anxiety, of effort against a strong force of nature, in the second, the sensual allure predominates.
lorin
ancient stone circle
the flow
of a robin’s song
– John Crook
There’s something about the idea of the stone circle and a robin’s egg that seems to bring to mind some essence of eternity in it… the flow…and the song… Any comments?
Louis, I was not referring to you, although your comments did bring to my mind some situations where there seemed to me to be (in some instances mind you) such a rush to invention that the very foundations had been lost somewhere. It may just be my own peculiar way of appreciating haiku but when a haiku attracts me there seem to be so many depths to explore. Just the other night I was thinking about John Crook’s
high tide
oystercatchers follow
the curve of the bay
Knowing that he had been battling cancer for longer than is easy it seemed to me a good idea to really think about what he was saying here. Seeing the oystercatchers follow the curve…seemed to me to be a lesson in dealing with profound difficulty..follow the curve. I sort of dwell in a good haiku. I’m not against the things Scott does…I love it. He is able to use the words that bring you to something that really grips the mind and demands you try to plumb the depths of the words. Chris Gordon does the same thing. I don’t usually write in their forms (although I have tried it a time or two with a certain enjoyment when I find that the words demand it to arrive at what is necessary.) These haijin have perfected something they felt a great need for. That is not what I mean about running after something new…
Forgive me if it felt as if I was talking about you…I haven’t really had the pleasure of reading your work so I certainly would not comment on your work at all.
I am finding that blogs and email and electronic communications can be clumsy. Often something is missing, or maybe people do not read such things or write such things as carefully as maybe they could with pen and paper. I am sure, based on his response, that Allan Burns did not take my suggestion about “unusual” work as coming from negativity. And yet I am not certain what Merrill Ann Gonzales was referring to when she writes about “new for new sake” but I am afraid she believes this is what I am promoting when I ask for something “unusual”. I am talking about writing which is related in some way to writing which Scott Metz refers to in the latest Modern Haiku, and which I have found in a couple of places. (I do not want to name other names of publications because it will be seen maybe as promotion). I think it would be interesting to have a Montage which shows the best or most interesting of this work. It sounds like Allan is considering this, and I wish to say thank you for pointing me to other Montages which show work which might be considered a little off the “center”, which I believe would make it eccentric. Maybe my own being eccentric leads me to want to see more, and to see comments about it. I am wondering though if I am alone about this, or if others agree.
← Previous Comments