Haiku artist's book

Last fall I used haiku from No more moon poems to create a one-of-a-kind artist's book. To learn more and to see more photos, check out my new post on the blue bluer books blog: http://bluebluerbooks.blogspot.com/2012/02/5-haiku.html.

the rock wall

the rock wall
ripples
like a running wolf

Alan Watts on haiku

Don Wentworth over at Issa's Untidy Hut recently shared this, and I had to pass it along, too. A lecture by Alan Watts about haiku (and zen):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XxCGFSxDTo&feature=player_embedded#!


I'm still only 15 minutes into it myself, but it's outstanding. (It's 43 minutes total...) Enjoy!

doubts

doubts
each painful as the sun
slightly empty



-----------------
(today's haiku composed of lines chosen at random from poems by Frank O'Hara. Selected from In Memory of My Feelings.)

at the diner

Inspiration these days has been coming more from Frank O'Hara and visual artists than in haiku form, so a little sketch today. This one is inspired by a Jasper Johns print in the wonderful book In Memory of My Feelings (New York: MoMA, 2005)


at the diner
in a booth,
mint green,
the painters'
animated
talk

in the shallow bowl
of the spoon
just a smudge
of black

above the fishing hole

above the fishing hole
two bobbers bob
in winter branches

in the half-tone

in the half-tone
between my voice
and the high note
it's straining to hit

every
aging
desire

What falls out

What falls out
of the Pop Art book?

An index card,
blank,
but bigger than usual.

Feb. 1

In a recent book review over on his blog Another Lost Shark, Australian poet Graham Nunn made the comment that he has "had a real 'haiku-headspace' of late." I imagine haiku poets reading that will have an idea of what he means -- and I wish I could say the same for myself recently. For months this blog kept me in that headspace as I stuck to the daily routine of posting. A missed post here and there broke the routine, though, which turned into more frequent missed posts and finally a month-long (or so) absence. With the routine broken, so has the spell been.

The 'haiku-headspace' does often feel to me like a kind of spell or enchantment. While you're in it, the things of the outside world are imbued with an extra significance that inspires a need to describe them, to capture them as best you can in words -- plain words, but words that hopefully glow in the same way that the plain things that inspired them do.

So I'll be working my way back into it, getting back into the routine of daily posts. Not always haiku but other short poems, too, and simple observations/experiments. We'll see what comes about.

First, some words in honor of haiku writer's block...:



smell of gasoline
or a solvent
some chemical
I don't know

raucous chorus of hundreds
robins chickadees sparrows wrens and others
unknown

soft fur already
of star magnolia buds
not recognizing
warm January

and the words that fail
utterly
to touch
any of it