Today's poem My inquisitive interest has been space in line for a long time. Each time I attend a workshop, I have asked about the meaning of individual space in a poem. I remember that white space is critical as well as black space as a comment of a poet and tutor in the workshop of A Casa dos Poetas in Portugal. In this viewpoint, I choose the poem. An American poet Linda Gregerson has written poems in a sinuous tercet form that is a formal vehicle for her. Every stanza is a left-justified block with an indented line called a “pivot line” by her. Of course, the meaning of space is varied depending on poets and poems. I like her poems based on her thoroughgoing research. Eyes Like Leeks by Linda Gregerson It had almost nothing to do with sex. The boy i...
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Today's poem Derek Walcott is a highly literary poet. I have sympathy with his poems on the sea that can be imagined with a bit similar geography to that in Japan: surrounded by water. The Sea is History by Derek Walcott Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that grey vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History. First, there was the heaving oil, heavy as chaos; then, like a light at the end of a tunnel, the lantern of a caravel, and that was Genesis. Then there were the packed cries, the shit, the moaning: Exodus. Bone soldered by coral to bone, mosaics mantled by the benediction of the shark's shadow, that was the Ark of the Covenant. Then came from the plucked wires of sunlight on the sea floor the plangent harps of the Babylonian bondage, as the white cowries clustered like manacles on the drowned women, and those were the ivory bracelets of t...
Today's poem My poem 'The Lilac' is for the last month in the 2019 calendar published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House. What a shame - terrible gender gap in Japan. (Also please see pp. 139-140 in the following report of the World Economic Forum, in particular, economy and politics.) http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2018.pdf As long as not changed, I will write such a poem again and again for the future, for the next generation. https://bit.ly/2Xy64FZ
T oday's poem I feel that Ezra Pound had a genius for poetry. I want to pursue why his translation (from Old English) attracts me, want to read his more translation of The Exeter Book . As in many explanations, indeed, much alliteration. The Seafarer by Ezra Pound (from the Anglo-Saxon version) May I for my own self song's truth reckon, Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft. Bitter breast-cares have I abided, Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted, My feet were by frost benumbed. Chill its chains are; chafing sighs Hew my heart round and hunger begot Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not That he on dry land loveliest liveth, List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched ou...
Craftsmanship - Beautiful-bound Books at Bookshop POST in Tokyo We went to a distinct bookshop POST at a cul-de-sac in Ebisu, Tokyo last week, met again Dutch artists Scheltens & Abbenes. Their exhibition was held there at the second time. First, our encounter with them had been at NYC and we had been surprised by their artworks with proficient technique. Also this time there were some new findings in their photos. https://vimeo.com/44672734 (Their bilingual catalog) Apparently, therein, lay both the variety and its own particular style of selection. The bookshop has adopted, sold visual books on mainly including fine art, graphic design, photography with a unique concept that it showcases only one publisher’s publication at a time according to its website. Once entering the shop (or gallery), soon I felt an owner or curator of the shop might have deep knowledge for publishing books. Plenty of books with high quality were curated, introduced and orderly...
Today's poem The Petrarchan sonnet might relate to a battle field somewhere, finely draws one scene of the nature by using metaphors. In the octet, animals' motions in moments bring a surprise with pithy expressions. In the sextet, first, just a turn, and the third line represents the beauty of nature. Deadly silence in the last line. Range-finding by Robert Frost The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest Before it stained a single human breast. The stricken flower bent double and so hung, And still the bird revisited her young. A butterfly its fall had dispossessed A moment sought in air his flower of rest, Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung. On the bare upland pasture there had spread O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread And straining cables wet with silver dew. A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, But finding nothing, sullenly with...
