EXCERPTS FROM robert d. wilsons A SOLDIERS BONES His newest book containing 304 hokku in the Tradition of Matsuo Basho ISBN 978-986-89535-9-8 still water . . . before the moon, a marmots dream late night . . . stars waltz past me into mirrors squatting in a day moon . . . locust wings deep morning . . . a drunk peeing moonbeams to the maid . . . a cup of moon laced with stars! new years eve . . . shredding pork into a tea cup moon high noon . . . our screams, mole, fused between worlds still water . . . a dragon inside the hyacinth thick fog . . . a tall boatman fording stars dancing water . . . the echo of church bells beneath the lake sing through me, bamboo, a frogs dream . . . twilight dusk old heron . . . a slower shadow this morning sleep with me, moon, in a vagrants knapsack . . . summer breeze the rope bridge clutching that mountain . . . trembles! the hollow of your stalks, bamboo . . . a hokku stilted legs . . . a trellis for stars and blossoms humid day . . . the cacophony of dancing rats caked in dirt . . . no ones child sowing cornfields frigid night . . . a moth bowing to the moon longing to be a crane . . . heavens river the rice field . . . watching a heron stretch her wings snow geese . . . washing dawn with complaint sunrise . . . a seagull in the whiteness of waiting overcast night . . . the echo of a loons anguish rice planting . . . floating words in the oxen’s wake robert d. wilson Writes Rick Black of Turtle Light Press: It is my sense that something resonates deeply in these poems akin to that of the Japanese masters. It’s clear that robert d. wilson has studied haiku – and, dare I say it, Zen – for a long time, and has a deep knowledge of the tradition. It is necessary sometime to write about what is . . . and what isn’t. Moreover, wilson does this grammatically in his haiku as well as thematically, often leaving lines hanging, thereby extending the drama of the reader and essentially depicting “nothingness,” as in this haiku below: moonless night . . . all that remains of a cicada’s song Writes Haiku Society of America President and re-known scholar David G. Lanoue in the books Forward: Robert D. Wilson is a master wordsmith whose knowledge of haiku tradition runs deep. Even if he had never written a sentence about haiku as a critic and editor, the one-breath poems in this book contain enough echoes of Basho, Buson, Issa and others to attest to his deep and comprehensive understanding. Says translator and poet, Angelee Deodhar of India: Robert D. Wilson is a master craftsman of simplicity and depth, from whom we all have a lot to learn. weaving blankets . . . she sings to me with calloused feet Writes Professor David Landis Barnhill, translator, author, and authority on Matsuo Basho: For Wilson, haiku is not just about opening new worlds, including the imaginary. Indeed, one way to characterize a successful haiku is that it is an opening , and it can serve that function in many different ways, as Wilsons poems show. Perhaps the most important time of reading haiku as rich as Wilsons is when you stop reading, when the haiku reverberate in an undecipherable way. cheshire moon . . . chanting toads dressed in monk skins
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:37:06 +0000
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