triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY! hosts: Teji Sethi and Kala Ramesh GUEST EDITOR: Michael Dylan Welch
unmelted
in the dead fox’s fur
first snow
Grant Savage Woodnotes #29, Summer 1996
About the poem:
I have a poem, recently published in Modern Haiku, that echoes Grant’s poem: “fallen sparrow— / a dusting of snow / slightly melted.” We need not decide which poem is sadder, but Grant’s poemsuggests that the fox has been dead for a while. The seasonal element of the first snow brings to mind the seasons of life and death. For some reason I imagine the fox’s fur being white, or perhaps it just become white because of the snow.
Note by the Editor
Woodnotes triveni spotlight
by Michael Dylan Welch
From 1989 to 1997, in various capacities, I edited or helped to edit Woodnotes, the quarterly journal of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, and in 1996 I took on the journal independently before replacing it with my new journal Tundra. I lived in the San Francisco area for more than a dozen years and was active with HPNC from its first year in 1989 until I moved north to Seattle in 2002. Working on Woodnotes with such coeditors as vincent tripi, Ebba Story, Christopher Herold, and Paul O. Williams was a fine education in the art of haiku. The following are selections of favourite haiku and senryu from the journal’s 31 issues, with brief commentary. These poems are expressions of wonder, or as Billy Collins once described haiku, they exhibit “existential gratitude.” In return, I am deeply grateful for the thousands of poems published in Woodnotes over the years, and the hundreds of poets who contributed to the journal’s success. * * * * * This month is going to be a treat for our members. _()_ Thank you so much, Michael.
I have been looking through my haiku books and the number of ku without a cut is immense. Having read this poem over and over I think that there is a genuine kire after L2. That is how I read it. Especially comparing it to the one below.
The gull
giving loneliness
sound
by Alexis Rotella
This is a beautiful ku. There is no attempt at even "cosmetic kire". Perhaps it works because of ma and sabi (sublime loneliness).
Perhaps ku without kire have to rely on other ways to stand out.
I suppose what I'm getting at, is that there are a lot of published haiku without kire that seem to be acceptable.
@Kala,@Lakschmi,@Michael,@Robert,@Lorainne,@Reid,@anyone else willing to gab about minimalism in Art, especially WRT “ma”
For me, this thread is serious discourse and gets to the core of so-called minimalism and meaning in contemporary haikai, indeed, in Art generally. Kala has stated her well-reasoned perspective clearly, and I have duly taken note. In some respects, I agree. But then there remains the devastatingly minimalist power of such monuments as the great pyramids, and all they represent as Art. So, I’m at crossroads on this issue.
Here’s an illustration of this ambivalence: a visit to a distinguished art museum last week left me impatient, even annoyed with what I saw—much of it flimsy, hollow, highly politicized clap-trap that gets grant funding now, an…
Such interesting comments from you all. I've found it quite thought provoking.
“Cosmetic kire” —Kala
I’m enjoying this seriously thoughtful thread. We are getting to core questions on the nature and purpose of Art.
Many thanks to Kala for provoking this discussion. Glad to be here.
—Billie
I'm having a huge doubt: unmelted
in the dead fox’s fur first snow
Grant Savage
isn't thios just a sentence, where it is just rearranged to show a cosmetic kire?
first snow unmelted in the dead fox’s fur
You take 'first snow' and add it as L 3.
Many poets are wtriting this way niow, and many contest winning poems are this way/
Can somebody through any light on this?