Today's poem I can't forget the me mory when I met a poet (LGBT) who was a Quaker and talked to him in a poetry writing course of ARVON. Although there're Quakers in Japan, I didn't have any knowledge on the religion. I was amazed by Quaker's thought on equality, peace, simplicity, etc. I suppose that this experience triggers my reading of Basil Bunting and consideration on spirituality between the West and Japan. It is not possible to comprehend the whole epic poem, however, I want little by little. A poet Don Share's essay can help my understanding ( http://donshare.blogspot.com/2008/05/short-notes-on-longish-poem.html ). And next time I will upload a poem on the Shakers. http://www.brigflatts.org/index.html Briggflatts by Basil Bunting I Brag, sweet tenor bull, descant on Rawthey’s madrigal, each pebble its part for the fells’ late spring. Dance tiptoe, bull, black against may. Ridiculous and lovely chase hurdling shadows morning into noon. May on ...
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Today's poem It takes a longer time for me to grasp the whole scene of the free verse on his recollection with an unfamiliar title: an Italian dance. The elegiac poem is a sort of Q&A style: the first stanza is question; and the second is answer thereto. I am surprised that the poem has been read by children. Once imagining a typical rural inn with a bar at the first floor and an accommodation at the second in Spain, it is able to illustrate such revelry in the bar. Repetitional lines "Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? / Do you remember an Inn?" have a hypnotic effect. After the second refrain of the lines, the wild carousal comes to a climax. In the second stanza, at last, it is revealed that it is his lost, nostalgic reminiscence with an inscrutable woman Miranda. Next I would like to choose and read one poem of his famous Cautionary Tales for Children . Tarantella by Hilaire Belloc Do you remember an Inn, ...
Today's poem Through ten-year reading of English poetry with Rōshi , I can recently understand a bit Christian poems. Of course, for me, there are a ton of unknown, inaccessible matters and metaphors on Christianity. I am neither an atheist nor a pantheist. Perhaps, might be called an agnostic. I can't define myself who believes a religion. Christ, O unnameable spirit! In this viewpoint, Hadewijch's "Oneness" is different from my religious meanings. You who want ... by Hadewijch, translated by Jane Hirshfield You who want knowledge, seek the Oneness within. There you will find the clear mirror already waiting. https://historyofphilosophy.net/beguine-mystics
The Prix de Lausanne and Poetry Since I encountered a photographic collection BALLET (1945) by Alexey Brodovitch and actually watched a ballet The Nutcracker ( Балет–феерия ) at the Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Ukraine, I have loved ballets as an audience. One month ago, I accidentally had a chance for watching The Prix de Lausanne 2019 on a TV programme. Hearing bright explanations by a Japanese ballet dancer Kosuke Yamamoto who had belonged to the Birmingham Royal Ballet, I enjoyed so much, though completely a dilettante. The competition mainly composed of two sections: a classic ballet and a contemporary dance. In the former, Mackenzie Brown (USA) and João Vitor Da Silva (Brazil) attracted me. Both the young ballerinas were distinctive with different characteristics. https://www.prixdelausanne.org/winners/mackenzie-brown/ https://www.prixdelausanne.org/winners/joao-vitor-da-silva/ In the latter, Yoon Jung Seo (South Korea) and Gabriel Figueredo (Braz...
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...
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