Up the Mtn , again! #111

fluttering leaves

bending boughs      swaying

trunks leaning

aerated essence

waters fraternal twin

Up the Mtn, again #123

pouring

stale pee bottled urine

repel that black bear

Up the Mtn, Again! #118

burried treasure

couscous n' salmon

bear engorging (my) poop

#4 Unifying Intersectional Discord within Haiku Idioms

Discovering Dharmic & Abrahamic Divinity coetaneously in Nature

Many in the western academic and literary world and in society in general are subtly influenced by conservative Abrahamic views. This influence suppresses and subverts whatever is deemed divergent, in regards to philosophical, literary, and poetic ways of thinking and writing. Rajiv Malhotra speaks to these conflicted and subversive influences in many theological and even some academic circles in the A-W world. “Whoever is not for Jesus will be assumed to be against him and on the side of the Devil. For such believers, a mutually respectful engagement with dharma is tantamount to dealing with the Devil. It would be sinful to engage on any terms other than the clear intent to convert.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv. “Being Different.” iBooks.).

All of this is in opposition to most Hindus, Buddhists, and many First Nations and Native American Peoples who more pluralistically accept Jesus as one of several divine incarnations, but not as God's exclusive divine incarnation. So I wonder, do christian or Abrahamic haiku poets likewise feel conflicted in regards to accepting the possibility that nature might be a place where they can discern divinity that might be independent of their Abrahamic God? Do we need to do so in order to write haiku on a higher level, one that transcends our religious and spiritual beliefs, if only momentarily? Does doing so or even discussing the possibility threaten our/their religious beliefs? Can the christian God coexist as an equal with the plethora of deities that may also exist in nature? These are complex, controversial, and nuanced issues. They're also issues that each of us has to come to terms with individually. Sadly, many of us deal with these issues by dismissing their relevance, much like we do with other intersectionally complex issues of oppression. Do we have to perceive spiritual or religious divinity in nature at all, to write haiku on a higher level?

I don't have definitive answers to these questions, although I'm aware of and open to ideas that may seem divergent from my own. 

Still I'm attempting to brooch these issues in broader and more generalized terms by initiating a dialogue. It is the West's continued reappropriation of kigo for mukigo that is watering down the depth and aesthetic integrity of Saigyo’s Wakka, Basho's Hokku and Sokan & Shiki's Haiku, as they continue to be re-translated and thus gentrified into English. This loss of natural aesthetic integrity was accelerated by a catalyst. This catalyst is the Anglo-West's egocentric segregation of man apart from nature. This is exacerbated by the west’s own Abrahamic/Greek division, one that continues its internal struggle to synthesize a uniform Abrahamic /Greek conceptualization and interaction with nature; as opposed to coexisting with, or even embracing a more Dharmic perspective that views nature as divine in and of itself, irrespective of the presence of any deity. The west's discord is aggravated by the many A-W poets who are unaware of their detachment or resistance to concepts they may repressively perceive as divergent, because they independently (of god) personify nature as divine. This concept of nature’s divinity speaks to the essence of haiku. This essence is personified in the poetry of poets like Saigyo, Basho, Issa, Sokan, Shiki, Buson, etc. Even A-W and Persian poets like Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Rumi, and later Wright all acknowledged nature’s divinity in their own way. To write haiku, or of haiku we too must come to some spiritual complacency in regards to natures divine essence or at least its secular wonderment, otherwise haiku's essence will continue to be distorted and corrupted. 

Often without realizing it A-W's and Westernized-Easterners are frequently shackled with this contradiction between Abrahamic and Dharmic spiritual and religious perceptions of divinity in regards to its application and meaning in ehi. This intellectual and spiritual contradiction, this discord spills over into how all of us conceptualize and apply Dharmic based terms like shizen, koto, zoka, and even kigo, in relation to our perceptions of the role nature plays in our lives and in haiku. 

So, how can A-W poets indoctrinated into this self conflicted culture of secularism (Greek based academic evolutionism), synthesized with non-secular (abrahamic based creationism) thought become open to writing in a more passive voice, a less peremptory manner? How can A-W poets write in a manner that they can be receptive participants in collaboratively creating haiku with nature, as opposed to writing apart from nature? I choose to believe you can continue to honor and not betray your Abrahamic spiritual ideals while simultaneously embracing others as equals, that have different ways of being. This is after all what those “Manifested” by the 'Destiny" of the A-W empire have done while being colonized and gentrified by us. Still many of us that were raised to believe it's our way (senryu) or the highway, or perceive their way of being, thinking, or believing, as being superior to all others will have great difficulty, poetically speaking to nature as if it were independent of God, yet still divine. 

To paraphrase Rajiv Malhotra "No amount of human commonality can resolve the conflicts caused by the non-negotiable and proprietary grand narratives of Abrahamic historicism". I hope Malhotra is wrong. If he is not, then how can we expect Abrahamic writers, scholars, readers, etc to find commonality amongst themselves, never mind with a Dharmic art form like haiku?  

This issue of haiku/senryu is an intersectionally conflicted one. It is a literary issue intersected by class, cultural, race, ethnicity, linguistics, religion, spirituality, and conceptions of nature/naturalism that are unique to haiku. 

"...The epistemology of modern science is not the intuitive perception of ... essence or form of things ... it is a technical, formative epistemology ... that tortures so-called nature to force nature itself to answer". (Ban'ya Natsuichi in his online essay, "Technique Used in Modern Japanese Haiku: Vocabulary and Structure".)

Still I would suggest that one of Japan's Cultural contributions to the literary world is haiku's methodology, it's unique hermeneutic poetic aesthetic, Haiku's teleological perspective unifies natural threads that in turn transcend the Judeo-Christian God or humanities self absorbed mukigo like ways, while speaking to our innate embodied (shizen) connection to unifying our integral (zoka) relationship with nature. 

Why is kigo essential to traditional haiku, structurally and thematically? Because! "By including Kigo in haiku, the rhythm of the earth's revolution is incorporated within haiku".  (Robert D. Wilson's excerpt from his interview with Kai Hasegawa from his online essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"). So this is why kigo and to a lesser extent kireji are the definitive characteristics of traditional haiku. "Kigo usage in Japan was a given before ...  the Gregorian calendar". (Robert D. Wilson from his online essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"). Kigo is an issue I've also addressed in my book, JIKU. I also agree with Wilson when he states "Again a restructuring of the Japanese vocabulary and its poetic perception/interpretation of nature; a side effect of the self-imposed colonization of cultural memory". (Robert D. Wilson from his online essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"). 

Again this is what Gandhi referred to as “stripping people of their collective notion of self … (via 

the) “systematic destruction of their relationship with nature” This “self-imposed” colonization of cultural memory continues today. Haiku's colonization takes the form of a 5-7- 5 shelled format. This colonized shell is then filled with muki as its primary ingredient. This is how colonization systematically re- appropriates how the world perceives the essence of hokku/haiku. This redefining of kigo as an optional accessory rather than essential ingredient in haiku, is the result of A-W perspectives. A-W perspectives usually feel comfortable linguistically rather than spiritually assimilating haiku. They linguistically do so by counting syllables and employing short-long-short lines, akin to counting rhyme schemes, lines, meter, and syllable stressing in a sonnet. Yet many A-W's feel religious or spiritual discomfort accepting nature as the essentially divine subject of their poetry, equal to, or god forbid more divine then their Christian  God. After all nature is the "other" subject, one in which they/we have a maladaptive relationship, distorted by our historicists linear way of seeing the world.    

#3 Unifying Intersectional Discord within English Haiku idioms

Distinguishing Haiku from Senryu 

I would suggest there is an insidious and subtle reason for the distortion in the artistic authenticity 

and natural aesthetic quality of haiku. This distortion is being intensified today, and is the result of 

humanities modern and technological progression apart from nature.  

Traditional or classical Haiku is distorted when it’s confused with senryu. Often even well 

intentioned poets, critics, publishers, and the media erroneously identify senryu as haiku. This is how 

haiku's unique natural aesthetic is re-appropriated, and in a sense is gentrified by the A-W World.

Senryu that reference nature with human or manmade themes at the forefront, themes 

which are not created or included as saijiki simply do not qualify as traditional/classical haiku. What is 

saijiki? Saijiki is a list of kidai/seasonal topics, and kigo/seasonal words. Several regions, countries, and 

organizations around the world have even created their own culturally and geographically specific saijiki. 

These saijiki are usually derived from or are seasonally aligned with Japanese Saijiki.  On the other hand 

there is nothing wrong with non-traditional haiku that does not derive its kigo from saijiki. Still 

there is a distinct difference between traditional/classical haiku, non-traditional haiku, and senryu.

Again when writing traditional/classical haiku Kidai/kigo are applied to the season one is 

writing of. Japan's traditional/classical perception and categorization of seasons into a book of saijiki 

differs from our A-W concept of seasons. This difference is where cultural and ethnic misconceptions of 

how we perceive nature begins. It is our failure as haijin, to clearly define what is and isn't haiku, that 

contributes to the public’s confusion, and ennui in regards to how haiku is defined. This has created a 

haiku identity crisis in the A-W world, since it isn’t being definitively self defined in A-W terms. So the 

A-W world treats traditional haiku as a divergent literary art form. An art form which acquires limited 

tangible or artistic value in A-W society. This is where, how, and why ehi like haiku struggle in A-W 

society. It is also part of why senryu is beginning to thrive, often under a guise indistinguishable from  

haiku. 

The primary distinction between senryu and traditional haiku can be discerned in how 

haiku references nature as defined by kigo/kidai drawn from saijiki as its subject. So what does it mean to 

have nature as the subject of a haiku? Well when writing traditional haiku nature is defined as anything 

that is identifiable or listed as kigo/kidai. Saijiki does include some references to humanity or manmade 

objects. Again this is where confusion can creep in. Since saijiki include references to humanity and 

manmade objects, this does not give us free reign to begin speaking of manmade issues if they are not 

included in saijiki. Although if we take the time to create our own saijiki, and list manmade issues under a 

specific season then the poem can be called traditional haiku. Writing haiku derived from a list of saijiki 

or kigo/kidai can simultaneously limit and expand the subject matter available to a haiku poet. Kigo/kidai 

allow us to indirectly speak of nature without necessarily directly referencing nature, its plants, animals, 

etc; to do so we have to use seasonal references/kigo or topics/kidai when speaking of humanity or 

manmade objects. 

Still when writing haiku outside of the geographic area of Japan I believe it is acceptable to 

improvise if you will. If you are going to improvise then I think the kigo or kidai you use must reference 

nature from the locale you are writing of. It is also perfectly acceptable to create your own book of 

saijiki for your own geography, culture, ethnicity, etc as well. Again I want to reiterate there is nothing 

wrong with writing senryu, or non-traditional haiku not derived from saijiki. I’m just trying to create a 

clear framework for future distinctions between them. 

                                 Speaking of nature, and our interactive sources of discord 

"The future direction of haiga is uncertain ... since it depends on the future of 

haiku itself. ... powerful influences ... lead potential poets away from nature ... 

away from extraordinary awareness of the seasons ... away from the 

observation of minute but flavorful moments of daily life. Instead of the 

traditional cycles of rural life ... there is now a pervading focus on urban 

existence with its stress on products and possessions. Japanese like 

Americans are ... deluged with mass entertainment ... we can only hope that 

both haiku poetry and haiga will continue to serve as a counterweight to the 

pressures of the modern world."

(Published by Marsh Art Gallery and the University of Richmond, in association with the University of 

Hawaii Press. From the book entitled Haiga: Takebe Socho and The Haiku-Painting Tradition: Haiga and 

Japanese Art)      

Humanities discord, our dysfunction and/or maladaptive behavior in regards to the way we 

interact with and perceive nature, have two sources. Though before I address these sources, I'll 

speak to what I mean when I refer to “our natural interactions with nature”. When I speak of our 

interactions with nature I’m speaking of our comfort level, in regards to when we live or spend time in a 

forest or anywhere in nature for extended periods. I speak of existing and then thriving in a setting where 

nature, her elements and the others living beings that coexist within it dictate to you, rather than you 

imposing upon them. I speak of putting on a pack and living in a tent/shelter where there is no bathroom, 

running water or electricity. Or living in a small cabin where protecting your food source from ants, mice, 

and bears is as much a concern as stocking your wood stove or fireplace; where stoking that wood stove 

or fireplace is not just for heat, but as a cooking and self defense source. To live in nature where dusk, 

dawn, and the whims of the weather dictates what you do, rather then a job. This is what I mean when I 

refer to "our natural interactions with nature”, especially in regards to our dysfunctional and/or 

maladaptive interactions being the sources of our natural discord. 

These sources of discord with nature have brought to the forefront a "distinctly" A-W form of 

pastiche haiku. This form of poetry uses haiku's "cicada shell" if you will, its 5-7-5 or short-long-short 

format. This form of poetry is then used to fill the inside of the cicada with mukigo instead of kigo 

to create haiku's fraternal twin, senryu.  

At least two of the sources of our discord are Abrahamic (Anglo-Western) maladaption and 

Dharmic (Eastern) dysfunctionality, in regards to how most of us associate and interact with nature today. 

Generally speaking, Dharmic origins have a preponderance of views that speak to nature as being seen as 

divine in and of itself. While Abrahamic or A-W views maladaptively characterize humanity as 

patriarchal, as imposing our interests upon nature, it treats nature as a resource for man, to tame or impose 

Abrahamic order upon. 

Think for a moment of the American painter John Gast, and his symbolic painting “American 

Progress”. It acts as a sort of crude haiga. The symbology of the A-W world accompanied by text 

that epitomized western domination. 

Here is an excerpt from the text of the "Manifest Destiny" which often accompanied Gast's 

painting."To control North America ... as god's chosen people ... to spread civilization, free market 

capitalism, and Christianity ... to enlighten the world ... bringing light into the darkness".

These words and Gast's painting would come to personify the symbology of America’s westward 

expansion or its “Manifest Destiny”. This manifest destiny was rooted in the belief that America was 

there for the Christian man to tame, and take ownership of. North America was there for man to mold into 

what he (not she) believed would best reflect Christian values. Never mind that this westward expansion 

or manifest destiny required the annihilation of most, and the colonization of the remaining non Christian 

Native communities that were already thriving where they wanted to expand. This colonization required 

once again in Gandhi’s words, “the systematic destruction of their ... relationship with nature. Stripping 

people of their collective notion of self … a prelude to ... the process of colonization ... (which) goes on 

today under the name of 'development' wherein success is measured by the criteria of Westernization."

The Black Ships that would posture within range of Japan’s coastline were merely another 

example of this expansion of America’s A-W Manifest Destiny, only played out in Asia. Again my point 

is not to vilify our A-W society, but to make my literary point by critiquing it. Japan and China too 

were/are empires, which do much the same in Asia. This has been the legacy of many of humanities more 

aggressive and intersecting imperial societies. I’m just addressing how the world’s present Abrahamic A-

W society is influencing my literary art form, ehi/haiku today. 

So as I’ve illustrated, this Abrahamic viewpoint sees nature as a place apart from God, as an 

untamed godless place where man was banished to, from the garden of eden. This historicist perspective 

immediately imposes a maladaptive Abrahamic view of nature upon those of us indoctrinated into this A-W way of faith, thinking, believing, and creating. No matter whether we identify as A-W or not, if we're born and raised in the western world, or are in the eastern world and are heavily influenced by the west (few aren't), we must then contemplate simultaneously being open to a multiplicity of religious or spiritual ways or possibilities. Ways of thinking, being, or even believing, and creating, to write aligned with haiku's Dharmic artistic aesthetic. For those of us born and raised in a Dharmic based eastern world we have to continually work at not manifesting the naturally maladaptive world’s dominant A-W concepts of nature that can create dysfunctional tendencies in the way we interact, with nature. Being able to not just coexist but thrive within the intersectionality of divergent ways of being, with and in nature is something Basho, Saigyo, Issa, Buson, and Taneda did not face on the level we do today.( More recently poets like Thoreau Emerson, Whitman, and Wright poignantly addressed these issues of nature, via transcendentalism and ethnic nationalism. Still though, these more modern A-W poets (especially Robert Wright) wrote more senryu rather then haiku poems. In comparison to haiku, the others wrote more so in a verse, prose, or haibun style in regards to transcendentalism. They also wrote more so of imposing upon nature, rather than of equally being of or a part of nature. 

Still regardless of the reason, on some level most all humans on the planet suffer from some level of discord in regards to their interactions with nature. In the end much like social justice issues, the symptoms, causes, and solutions/treatments for the continued decline of haiku are intersectional. Again these intersectional causes and symptoms result in large part from A-W and self colonization, as well as Abrahamic-maladaptiveness and Dharmic dysfunctionality in regards to our interactions with nature. As a 

result of our natural western tendencies to impose upon haiku, mukigo is being manifested as the gentrified tool used to supplant haiku. So once mukigo is substituted for kigo a poem ceases to be a haiku, 

and is assimilated into a senryu. This assimilation occurs regardless of whether kigo or nature is 

referenced in conjunction with non saijiki manmade subjects in a senryu. Again I'm not making an argument for or against senryu or haiku. I am instead speaking to what I perceive as the how and why of haiku's proxy gentrification by today's A-W interpretation of titular haiku, which in reality is actually senryu.     

Up the Mtn, again #104

Springs morning hue

Bright green fern leaves

Sunrise paints

#2 Unifying Intersectional Discord within English Haiku Idioms

The systematic cultural reappropriation & suppression of people’s collective notions of self, nature, & haiku 

Haiku, it's "a cicada shell of its former incarnation, verging on extinction in the area of 

world credibility as a serious literary genre". (Robert D. Wilson's online essay "The Colonization 

of Japanese Haiku" on the Simply Haiku Journal website).

So why are English Haiku Idioms (ehi) and more specifically hokku/haiku in particular suffering 

from literary gentrification, while teetering on the verge of extinction? Well some publishers, scholars, 

critics, poets, and Mr. Wilson suggest it's due to "the effects and depth of the colonization of the Japanese 

language and cultural memory via its adoption of the German-based university system; a colonization that 

would, in time, water down the depth and aesthetic integrity of hokku". (Donald Keene, "Dawn in the 

West").

“Gandhi understood this ... the systematic and complete elimination or suppression of the native 

... language ... of one people by another. Even though the people in question might be given material 

benefits through education ... if there is systematic destruction of their ... relationship with nature. 

Stripping people of their collective notion of self is a prelude to ... the process of colonization ... 

(which) goes on today under the name of 'development' wherein success is measured by the criteria of 

Westernization. ... Gandhi fought against this form of colonization as much as against its material and 

political manifestations … Although he was not against Christianity.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv. 

“Being Different.”iBooks.)

Neither Gandhi nor Malhotra were referencing Japanese Poetry, still their thoughts in regards 

to colonization and its effects on native language, material benefits via western education, and our 

relationship to nature are all relevant to this discussion. Gandhi and Malhotra did so not in opposition to 

Abrahamic religions, but as a part of an effort to constructively critique them, alongside their own 

Dharmic religions. They did so in large part to prompt discussions with other interested parties. I am 

using their words to do much the same with haiku. In doing so I'm not suggesting that Japan has had its 

language eliminated; still it's hard to deny it hasn't been suppressed in regards to its adaptation in the 

literate Western World. 

Much like Chinese Characters this suppression is most evident in regards to the decline of young 

Japanese, Chinese, and Korean’s ability to remember the stroke order of their character based writing 

systems. These systematic collateral casualties of the A-W world occur as advancements in smartphone 

technology erodes and suppresses as Gandhi put it "peoples collective notion of self", their "ethnic and 

cultural identity". Yes I am aware you can input characters with keystrokes, and even awkwardly do so 

with finger strokes. Still this process of finger stroking is prohibitively cumbersome, and restricts the ease 

of use that is supposed to personify the smartphone experience. Thus instead of going thru numerous 

impedimentary steps to finger stroke in their characters in the correct order, most give in to convenience 

and dictate or type in their characters. This subtle, seemingly inconsequential change in behavior, 

inputting characters via a keyboard or vocally, rather than finger stroking characters into a text is an 

example of what Rajiv Malhotra was referring to when he stated "Cultural appropriation gives a false 

impression of equalization.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv. “Being Different.” iBooks.). This cultural 

appropriation is also evident in how english mukigo/senryu is becoming indistinguishable from 

kigo/haiku.

This is also an example of how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean peoples receive "material benefit"

only at the cost of the "suppression of their native language" (Gandhi). Take this logic a step further and it 

becomes intersectionally apparent that the smartphone maker Samsung might be characterized as having 

been gentrified and or self colonized too. I suggest that Samsung has been gentrified and or self colonized 

in regards to how it’s been assimilated into the global financial market (“developmental success”). As a 

result Samsung financially thrives (”material gain”), in exchange for contributing to the intersectional 

suppression of their “native language” (Korean/Hangul). This intersectional suppression of their "native 

language" becomes deceptively apparent, in regards to how Samsung coerces it's native smartphone users 

to suppress their culturally unique way of stroke ordered character driven writing, in lieu of the A-W's 

iPhone keyboard driven writing model.

It may not seem that the suppression of this culturally unique native language on smartphones 

relates to haiku, but I maintain they correlate intersectionally. They correlate in regards to the systemic 

intersectional suppression of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Peoples "collective notion of self". This 

notion of  self is subtly suppressed when character based writing is culturally appropriated for keyboard 

based writing on smartphones; much the same occurs when mukigo/senryu is appropriated in place of 

kigo/haiku. These forms of A-W reappropriation, and native language suppression intersectionally 

correlate to cause discord; discord in how people culturally identify with their unique collective notion of 

self. This reappropriation and suppression also creates discord for everyone, intellectually and literally. 

Whether or not the A-W world is doing so intentionally is irrelevant to this discussion. The fact that all of 

these issues (colonization, gentrification, the systemic suppression and or reappropriation of native 

language, the collective notions of self, cultural identity, and our relationships with nature) intersect and 

correlate with one another is what needs to be understood by writers and readers alike, in order to rectify 

the discord in regards to haiku today. 

Still the issue of Japan's colonization whether self imposed by itself or externally imposed by the 

A-W world, is only one of the intersecting root causes behind the discord and decline of ehi (sedoka, 

kataota, katauta, renga, choka, wakka, tanka, hokku, haiku, haiga, poekuagery, etc) like haiku. In Wilson's 

essay he briefly touched on the fact that haiku began its decline during the Meiji Era, prior to the arrival 

of the black ships. In this essay I’ll take this hypothesis several steps further. 

#1 Unifying intersectional discord within english haiku idioms

Unifying intersectional discord within english haiku idioms

How we conceptualize the world dictates how we contextualize nature, our past, our present, and our future. Our literary frame of reference conceptually, dictates how we contextualize English haiku idioms (ehi). We will most likely never come to a uniform consensus as to what defines haiku, although we can become unified in acknowledging some of its key components like kigo and kireji. These key components can act as the common threads that unify and personify haiku, all without dictating a uniform definition of haiku.         

             I've written this essay in response to Mr. Wilson's essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"      

 (simply haiku journal.com) My purpose in doing so is to engage the haiku community worldwide in a discussion. A discussion that speaks to haiku's past, present, and future. A discussion that focuses in on some of the intersecting issues brought forth in Mr. Wilson's essay. These intersectional issues are presently hampering haiku. I will put forth solutions that might contribute to rectifying these issues. I will also speak to what has caused the decline in the quality and misconception of what defines traditional/classical haiku today. Most significantly, I will speak to what the process of elevating the quality of haiku written today might look like.

Non-linear and intersectional issues concerning haiku

I will focus on five of the many issues that I believe are hampering haiku today. The first issue 

is one also addressed in Mr. Wilson's essay. This issue is the colonization which enables the Anglo-West’s (A-W) titular reappropriation of haiku, which has somewhat gentrified haiku as an art form. The second issue is our dysfunctional and or maladaptive perception of nature. The third issue is the inability of many to differentiate senryu from haiku. The fourth and key issue stems from our sociocultural discomfort in acknowledging the essential role kigo plays in defining nature in traditional haiku. Accepting, acknowledging, and literally coexisting with, rather than merely tolerating the essence of haiku goes beyond the three F's of western sociocultural studies, folklore, food, & fashion. The fifth and final issue pertains to the sub vocal reading of haiku, at least initially.

I believe Mr. Wilson's essay conveys a well thought out overview of how and why haiku has been 

declining since the Meiji Era. I concur entirely with the factors and issues Mr Wilson put forth in regards 

to haiku's decline. His work prompted me to delve deeper into these five intersectional issues I've 

addressed in this essay.

Up the Mtn, Again! #114

still

center of the storm

Ah! Tranquil breeze

Up the Mtn, Again! #106

day break

boughs   sunlit splattered

summer reigns

A recent renga excerpt

About birds!

Oscillating music

Hummingbirds   sing!

Transparent Revelations (Up the Mtn #24)

Off a Pine Needle

hangs bulbous water droplets

bulging to splatter

"Countdown" (Portlandia Series #5)

Trane Tracks

counting down

Giant breaths

"Giant Steps" Porttlandia Senryu Series #4

Trane

notes filling space

Giant breadth

Portlandia Senryu Series #3

diffuse sunbeams

translucent   curtained windows

light transcendence

Portlandia Senryu Series #2

bulging concrete

gnarled roots   writhing

weeping willows

A reinterpretive translation of Basho's Frog Pond

placid waters

a frogs ascension

SPLASH      ripe ripples

Another JIKU excerpt

blooming

eternal ...

brush clovers

Portland 2015 (Portlandia Senryu Series #1)

February

Pink Cherries ...

Spring Blossoms

Another Jiku excerpt

Haiku personify an idiom that epitomizes extreme linguistic efficiency ... An efficiency of conveying sensory observations ... Observations presented in such a way that they seem to momentarily pause the arch of time ... These pauses can be experienced as emotionally charged sensory connections to nature ...  Connections that create visceral spaces where we can catch a glimpse at our relationship to nature and time ... A relationship that reveals the thematic nature of our seasons ... Nature with her cyclical seasons that much like haiku idioms personify unity while transcending uniformity.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e337mirjvlgilzn/AABCUqjhTr2uKgUCTz-GMo_Za?dl=0

Or

JIKU http://www.blurb.com/b/5735598-j-i-k-u

JIKU Excerpt

Have you ever blown soap bubbles through a plastic ring? You know that moment when you touch a soap bubble with your fingertip and it disappears ... That’s an ephemeral moment ... a moment of tactile and sensory lucidity ... when your mind and body are momentarily unified and seem paused within the arch of time ... As if caught up in a moment of walking meditation ... that’s when we're more open to lucid discerning when our sensory conduits are peeked to being receptive ... to other visceral ways of hearing ... seeing ... and knowing ...  Ideally haiku hold within them a gateway to one of those other intangible ways of peeking sharing and knowing ... I hope in this book there is at least one poem that does so for each reader.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e337mirjvlgilzn/AABCUqjhTr2uKgUCTz-GMo_Za?dl=0

Or

JIKU http://www.blurb.com/b/5735598-j-i-k-u

Loving Nature

dormant damaged

unmanifested latency

Love's nascency

PDX Series #6 "Ambivalent Duplicity"

Abstruse   obtuse

pied-a-terre

dissimulation

gentrification

Obtrusive   solipsism

Softly our lingering summer love chills

heart angst seeping

liquid salt blobs   smeared dry

tear tracks dissipating

loves ebbing backflow

flowing - ceasing - emotions abate

Rapedseed

              rapedseed

husks swept about by brooms

sprawled   naked   grains

From my hovel in the Pacific Northwest #89, The last in the UP the Mtn Series

Nature's Lush Life    

Coltrane's visceral score 

pulsing   sultry   snow 

Ylem notes   manifestations

divine composition  

Haiku is

monistic

divine hermaneneutics

teleological

sacred sounds

koans stoke meditative prayers

chanting temple gongs

Sylvan

seasonal trope

asian hermaneneutics

Nature's tapas

From my Hovel in the Willamette National Forest #74

White Tailed Deer

white booties bounding   -   BANG!!!

white tailed Venison

From my Hovel in the Willamette National Forest

"NATURE" 

transcending isms

where divinity resides

calm   still   solitude 

A edited re-post

Fall's Leafs - Fall's Colour

summered greens - autumned yellows

fall leaves - fall colors

Blooming 

eternal

Brush Clovers

My Fuyo

Hibiscus

wilt as I wither

ponder      western shores

From my hovel in the Willamette National Forest #78

sunlit temporal paint

spray painting shadows

on a spatial canvas

Pacific Northwest Forest

Up the Cascade Mountains

waxing & waning

years teeming   flowing with time

rivers   fjords   oceans

In celebration of the first (unoffical) day of Autumn

autumn leaves

bursting      blazing      ripe

red leaves

Ephemera Hanabi

cityscapes (man made)

(ethereal) shooting stars

(ephemeral) cherry blossoms   -   yielding

Softly Our lingering summer CHILLS!

heart angst seeping

tear tracks dissipating

liquified salted blobs smeared dry 

loves ebbing backflow 

flowing ... ceasing ... emotions ... abate

PDX #8 "Portlandia's Acromatopsia" (another example of Poekuagery)

haiku: social plutocrats

verse: in an acromatic miasma

haiku: gentrifying foot soldiers

verse: entitled foodies

haiku: social darwinism

verse: abject excuses   -   absolve all of responsibility for social malfeasance

haiku/tanka: moiety   -   race   -   class   -   ism's

verse:  subtly racialized   -   a playground with a nuanced achromatic aesthetic   -   Portlandia

haiku/tanka: my new home (phratry)

verse: an illusion of financial independence whether LGBT, coloureds, or B&W 

Down from the Mountain

re-creating breath

authentic essence

urban process

A tanka (Mt hovel)

mt hovel

solitudes amenity

mountain hovel

focused contemplation

mt hovel

musical mendicant?

enticingly crisp(y) sounds

playing in the snow

hanging blossoms

inquiring   a fanned facade

faning ignorance

My entry to a recent online contest for SanDisk.

In 45 words or less this is what I came up with to accompany the image they providied below

(Photography by David Black, of Arches National Park)

From my hovel in the Willamette National Forest #95

snow showers

white powder    clumps on a branch

pruning a bare bough

wind swirled in a rush   topples

now moored   aground   a snow mound

Posted with Blogsy

A Spring Renga, begun in March of 2014

"White Chrysanthemums"

Before the white chrysanthemum

The scissors hesitate

a moment  (Buson)

rustling ears flinch in suprise

a squirrel I, ease each other's fear  (Richard Heby)

picking strength

with  the white blossoms

bird chirps  (Willie Bongcaron)

petals soft, silky - offered

a momentary pleasure  (Mary Kathryn)

the flower awaits

a life soon forever changed

a new begining  (Eve Penman)

bygone moonlight moves beyond

drooping petals   whimsical frowns  (Bukusai Ashagawa

  (Paul Douglas Lovell)

From my hovel in the Willamette Forest

Know the centered way

avoid distractions

understand - balance 

An excerpt from the recently published 4th edition of my poetry book, entitled, JIKU.

Epilogue: Reflecting on how the artistic experiences of artists like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Henry David Thoreau relates to and influences my own artistic process and personal frames of referencing my artistic identity or "who I am as an artist and more significantly as a human being".

In 1984 James Baldwin was asked by Jordan Elgrably of the Paris Review why he left the United States ... While reading this interview I thought ... Baldwin left New York for Paris in 1948 ... due to the racism he was experiencing ... racism I still deal with today in 2013 in more insidious and covert ways ... These are excerpts from his response to this question that still resonated with me today in November of 2013 ... as a Black ... Caribbean ... and Native American Man ... one who identifies as an artist amongst other things.

"Looking for a place to live ... for a job. You begin to doubt your judgment, you

begin to doubt everything ... You've been beaten and its deliberate. The whole 

society has decided to make you nothing. And they don't even know their doing

it. ... Given the condition in this country to be a black writer was impossible ... My 

father ...He said I was contesting the white man's definitions which was quite 

right. But I had also learned from my father what he thought of the white man's 

definition." 

                      (Jordan Elgrably, Paris Review interview with James Baldwin, 1948)

I was brought up in two independent and distinctly different families ... one (working class) in the deep south and the other (bourgeois) from the northeast I was heavily ... am still heavily influenced by both ... Though it was my maternal family from the northeast that was especially adept at visibly ... boldly ... flamboyantly ... overtly ... contesting the "white man's" definition of black folk ... My parents lived a life that also challenged how even the majority of the black community thought we should live ... One quick example was the fact that my mother was the primary bread winner for most of our lives ... my father was her partner ... advocate ... and supporter in her artistic endeavors ... This is a large part of why I've always felt comfortable defying what not just as Baldwin puts it "the white man’s definition" was ... but also how black folks too still attempt to dictate to me in regards to how I should live ... how I should identify ... define ... and who or what I should or shouldn’t align myself with ... Today I have $2 to my name ... and hearing Baldwin's words sub vocally ringing in my ear and in my heart ...  inspires and assures me that the path I'm following with my life is the right one for me ... I've never been happier or more fulfilled with purpose ... intellectual and spiritual purpose ... even though I am couch surfing ... technically homeless ... Sometimes in life it is worth it to take a financial leap of faith ... As an artists it is akin to a small business person attempting to start up a business on savings ... and credit cards ... without investors or loans ... Paying for say studio space instead of a place to live ... besides your car ... Only as artists there is very little if any social status involved ... You put yourself out there ... or spend a focused amount of time creating a work of art knowing there probably won't be any financial gain ... at least not for years to come if you’re really really lucky ... And you have to then survive until or as you're supporting yourself and promoting your work ... James Baldwin's plight seemed to parallel my own over 65 years later ... Here is James Baldwin again responding in the same Paris Review interview.

"I was broke. I got to Paris with $40 in my pocket ... It was a matter of getting out

of America  ... I didn't know what was going to happen to me in France but I knew what was going to happen to me in New York ... I still had to deal with the streets and the authorities ... I knew what it meant to be white and I knew what it meant to be a nigger, and I knew what would happen to me. My luck was running out. I was going to go to jail, I was going to kill somebody or be killed. ... When I arrived in Paris I didn't know a word of french. I moved from one hotel to another not knowing what was going to happen to me ... I got sick and to my surprise I wasn't thrown out ... An old old lady a great matriarch nursed me back to health ... she had to climb 5 flights of stairs every morning to make sure I was kept alive." 

      

                     (1948 Jordan Elgrably, Paris Review interview with James Baldwin)

Yes I too have been emotionally and financially nursed by friends ... acquaintances ... and complete strangers ... It's an ironic ... a humbling ... and reaffirming  experience ... that of humanity acting in an empathetic loving way ... one that transcends race ... class ... ethnicity ... and culture ... caring for their fellow man ... But! These are experiences that are extremely rare exceptions rather than the rule ... though they always seem to occur at my lowest points in life ... Like the hand of God lifting me … so that the light of Buddha might lead me out of a forest of intellectual ... artistic ... and spiritual despair.  

Sadly Baldwin's experience is still relevant some 65 years later … in what is almost 2014 ... Baldwin as do I ... struggle with these sadly timeless issues ... I like Baldwin and many artists of colour … Women … or any oppressed person have and can often find or reaffirm our artistic and human worth overseas (not that you can't do so in the states)... For me it was in Asia… while for many others in my family it was in Europe or the Caribbean ... It is sad that many of us have to look outside of our country for true artistic and financial recognition and compensation as artists and people ... as opposed to being labeled a "Black Artist" or a "black" person here in the states ... Interestingly enough when Thoreau, Whitman, or Emerson  brooch issues of race they're often characterized as "artists" with "social conscious" or "Abolitionists" ... but let Baldwin ... Morrison ... Angelou ... Belafonte ... or Poitier do so and they are classified as "Black" artists perseverating on ethnic issues.

The following is my paraphrasing of James Baldwin's "Notes From A Native Son" ... I believe it hits the mark in articulating the draw that traveling overseas has had and to a lesser extent still has for all oppressed people in much of the America's ... from Marshall Taylor ... America's first World Champion up until today ... in December of 2013.

"... Europe's black possessions remained-and to a lesser extent still do remain-in Europe's colonies, at which removed they represented no threat whatever to European identity ... If they posed any problem at all for the European conscience, it was a problem which remained comfortingly abstract: in effect, the black man, as a man, did not exist for Europe. But in America, even as a slave, he was an inescapable part of the general social fabric and no White American could escape having a negative attitude toward the Black Man.... And so, the white washing of white americas deep rooted racist past as historically being of the past is not the same thing as ceasing to unconsciously or otherwise allowing that negative attitude to continue playing itself out more covertly and subtly in dismissive, implausible, and deniable ways even today."            

                            (Paraphrased from James Baldwin's, Notes From A Native Son)

As I said earlier I like many other athletes and artists of colour have left my homeland and traveled for an extensive period of time overseas, and have gained much acceptance not just as an artist but as a human being overseas. 

From W.E. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Marshal Taylor, Josephine Baker, Quincy Jones, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Jack Johnson,  Paul Roberson, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Nelson Vails, my grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, my mother, and me. This is not a uniquely "Black Thing" it's a universally "human thing". These types of experiences free people of all races, ethnicities, gender, class, and less frequently sexual preference to reassess their existence. They allow us to temporally transcend the identity both we and our former socioeconomic environment developed for us temporally, spatially, emotionally, especially spiritually, and intellectually back in the states. It is why this year (2013) Tina Turner's relinquishing as opposed to renouncing her US Citizenship for a Swedish one so intrigues me. 

Identity is one of the key components in the creation of human society, minorities and those oppressed cannot escape it. In my personal experience identity permeates every aspect of the lives of everyone, especially oppressed minorities worldwide. Even if you can mitigate some of the racial oppression you experience as my parents were able to do for me via class privilege, one’s race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality still affect the development of your identity.

Identifying as an athlete and an artist has empowered me to transcend the negative connotations that white american society continues to place on my blackness. It's allowed me to flip it around and claim my blackness as my own, as a positive attribute. Just as other oppressed people find their own way to do the same. Some of us become doctors, thieves, lawyers, gang bangers, soldiers, con-men, parents, or inmates, etc. All can be ways of redefining ourselves and our identities on our own terms. 

Whether speaking to issues of identity from within the specific and demonstrative vocabulary of academia, or as a writer or artist like Robert Wright, James Baldwin ... Walt Whitman .., Miles Davis ... or Henry David Thoreau ... Issues of identity ... whether racial or otherwise  in some form or another are addressed in all our artistic work regardless of how we identify racially or otherwise ... All our experiences as human beings serve as building blocks upon one another to further everyone's understanding of themselves as black white or otherwise, but most significantly as human beings. 

Having said that I've made it a habit to frequently take leave from actively participating in society ... Most recently ... as I'm writing this I've found a precarious alternative ... a place of solace in the woods, much like Thoreau did ... A place where this poor man might find some solitude ... sometime to write and contemplate ... I see this as an attempt to extend a time of concentrated artistic focus. 

I think it would shock most folks to discover how many people get off the public buses of Oregon and Washington State with backpacks on ... and walk off into the brush on the side of the road ... living as squatters in nature's labeled woods ... Living on land labeled BLM Lands ... labeled state and federal forest lands ... beyond the social footprint of civilized society. Oh and not all of them are poor, destitute, or mentally impaired, at least I think I'm not any of those things?

Paraphrased from Thoreau's "Walden"  

"I went ... faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my countrymen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make any place for me, so I had nothing to lose in creating my own place in society. ... The wise have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the rich and the poor."

All of which inspired me to finally create for the sake of creating, rather than splitting my time between creating ... marketing ... and studying (in academia) others who are now and have created in the past ... I've spent enough time doing so ... I've also reached a point in my life ... a point of maturity as a human being and as an artist that draws me to for a time ... focus solely on my art ... to focus on my work ... on my path ... I am now artistically honed to a razors edge ... like when an athlete has trained all their life for an Olympic performance ... and so I know I am at my artistic height ... if not a crucial developmental artistic juncture ... If I don't focus on artistically performing now I will have wasted a lifetime of artistic discerning ... learning ... and practice ... If I don't refine and sharpen my craft I'll become artistically dull for a time... and miss an opportunity to reach or create at my artistic zenith.

I feel that regardless of my financial success or failure ... the real issue is to continue progressing on my journey and be mindful of the process undertaken while on that journey ... rather than where it might or might not take me in regards to selling "delicately textured artistic baskets" in a subjective and biased capitalist marketplace ... Still at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite ... I'd never say no the Sotheby's or Christies ... in regards to selling my work. ... It took me several decades to let go mentally ... materially ... spiritually ... and socially ...  from the ties that have actively bound me to society ... How long I'll continue down this road I do not know ... I'm just here to be mindful and open to the experience ... After all my role models for this experience are in literature ... of other cultures ... or are characterized in this one as lost in more ways than one ... How do I or do I attempt a reentry into society? I do not know.  

Again this paraphrased excerpt of Thoreau's Walden speaks to this much more articulately. 

"... I too have woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one’s while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which most men praise and consider successful is but one life, one way."

"I believe that this body of work I've woven throughout this book to likewise have a delicate texture. A delicate texture that is at once tangible and intangible all contained within the pages of my book-basket. A book-basket that has much artistic merit yet may still not seem worthwhile to the buyers in our marketplace. So instead of attempting to appeal to a capitalistic profit driven marketplace, I too, have chosen to focus on producing an artistically woven and delicately texture book-basket. My book-basket too is uniquely crafted and delicately woven following its own poetic and visual design. The artistic process of which is transparent enough for all to see. This exposure of its artistic process and the social strands of fabric that compose its individual parts is what may make it so unappealing to the marketplace. After all no one really wants to have to be reminded of or acknowledge the tainted strands of our social fabric exposed for all to see. Social strands of colonialism, sexism, homophobia, classism, oppression, religious persecution, tainted democracy, and corrupted capitalism, all delicately but nonetheless blatantly interwoven into an artistic medium. An artistic medium designed to mitigate the overt presence of these social tinges in our society and in our art." 

                                                            Bukusai Ashagawa

Still for me these social tinged and artistic strands have always been undeniably visible. For me I see the beauty that can and does shine through in spite of our being bound by a delicately textured socially tinged interweaving. It’s just that I'm trying to assist all my brethren, especially some of my elders, my white male brethren in finally acknowledging the presence of the beauty that each of us has to contribute. A beauty that rings true through all of our humanity and is indivisibly interwoven into all our social, spiritual, and artistic endeavors; despite being deeply flawed and undeniably artistically tinged. 

A final note   

The prose writer Richard Wright who passed away in 1960 was an example of someone who came to haiku at the end of his life but did so prolifically. He spoke to oppressive issues, of materialism, greed, poverty, race, mortality, and gender while juxtaposing them to mitigating presence of nature in his haiku's.

Paraphrased in part from Gabor Terebess translation of Richard Wrights Haiku: This Other World

"In roughly 1959 Wright began writing haiku in France while in self-exile. He wrote over 4,000 haiku in the 18 months before he died. He predominately focused on nature. He wrote haiku steeped in the beauty that would act as a culmination of his life's work in prose. In prose he directly addressed issues like materialism, greed, and poverty in regards to how they collectively oppress women and people of colour. Wright then readdresses these social ills in his haiku, with a beauty that provided scope and a universality that transcends race and color without ever denying them". 

(Haiku Poems By Richard Wright from "Haiku: This other World" translated by Gabor Terebess, 1988) 

Wright does so by using nature as a backdrop to illustrate the oppression of women and people of colour ... He humanizes their struggles by juxtaposing nature with their plights ... while addressing and contrasting the relationship between humanity and nature.      

Wright's daughter Julie also spoke of the appeal of short distinct syllable counts ... and how they matched with his need to take short breaths due to the illness that would end his life ... Wright's daughter also spoke of how haiku allowed him to develop an appreciation for nature ... despite previously perceiving it as hostile ... Interestingly enough  Wright's writing of haiku over the last 18 months of his life could be viewed as one extended death poem ... All of which coincided as his daughter noted with his shortness of breath ... which naturally aligned with the concise format of haiku.

Here are some examples of the haiku Wright wrote during the last 18 months of his life.

The dog's violent sneeze

Fails to rouse a single fly

On his mangy back.

Upon crunching snow,

Childless mothers are searching

For cash customers.

In a drizzling rain,

In a flower shop’s doorway,

A girl sells herself

A bloody knife blade

Is being licked by a cat

At hog-killing time.

So it seems even the Hungarian translator of Wrights work is artistically, critically addressing issues of race and color in regards to a haiku, an art form created by other artists of colour. Haiku, an art form that enables an artist who was a spokesman for issues of race to "transcend those issue of race without denying it". (Haiku Poems by Richard Wright from "Haiku: This other World" translated by Gabor Terebess, 1988) 

Wright much like Emerson and Whitman before him believed that the divinity of God could be found in nature. Wright too seems to have discovered a spiritual connection to both nature and Zen Buddhism. Thoreau, Whitman, and Emerson interpreted this spiritually divine connection to nature as a form of transcendentalism. Wright interpreted this spiritual connection to nature as being aligned with African Nationalist Independence ... which he aligned with Eastern spirituality ... Personally I too see the beauty of nature as well ... amongst other things as natural.

Many readers and critics may not make this connection between race and art, and in particular haiku ... even though it's an art form created by yellow people ... now adopted by whites and all others race ... Many readers may likewise interpret all of this as an inappropriate politicizing or aligning of issues of race into a discussion of art ... Yet in western society and especially in America issue of art and race have always been indivisibly intertwined ... They are at the very least unconsciously personified in one another ... Even Thoreau ... Emerson ... and earlier on Whitman ... all spoke out in favor of abolition in their artwork ... and as a part of their artistic process ... Yet still today ... increasingly art and race are characterized as if they exist in isolation of one another. 

In fact issues of race ... gender ... and art have always been intermingled in the West ... As a poet I am merely emulating the numerous examples set by some of America’s greatest poets and artists ... I am in part emulating my white male elders in speaking to these social justice issues in relation to my art and my artistic process.

From my hovel in the Willamette National Forest #88

torrential downpours

trunks swayed by whistling winds

boisterious companions

drooling roof -  rhythmic   rain tricklings

found!      solice  in  solitude