haiku

friday feast: a taste of Issa’s haiku and a favorite childhood treat

~ jama ~ 46 Comments

 

Ohayoo gozaimasu! Good Morning!

Please help yourself to a nice warm cup of Genmaicha (green tea with brown rice) and a piece of chi chi dango mochi. I remember many a time when my mother made a pot of Genmaicha after a good meal — a soothing way to cleanse the palate and set the stage for some lively ‘talk story.’

A couple of weeks ago, I searched Lee and Low’s website for books I hadn’t yet read and found the perfect picture book to share for Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. Cool Melons — Turn to Frogs!: The Life and Poems of Issa by Matthew Gollub and Kazuko G. Stone was first published in 1998, so many of you are probably already familiar with it. How did I miss it? I’m so glad I finally read it, as now it’s one of my favorite haiku picture books ever.

Issa wrote this haiku when he was just six years old.

I love how every aspect of this book embodies the essence of haiku — its complex simplicity, beauty, elegance, and ability to open the eyes, refresh the mind, and inspire contemplation.

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friday feast: celebrating fall with yummy haiku + leetle baked pumpkins

~ jama ~ 45 Comments

It’s here, it’s here! My favorite season of the year!

Happy Autumn, Cutie Pies!

To celebrate, I’m sharing four haiku from that delectable harvest of foodie goodness, Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico!: Americas’ Sproutings by Pat Mora and Rafael López (Lee & Low, 2007).

This mouth-watering collection features fourteen familiar foods native to the Americas (corn, blueberries, chiles, tomatoes, pecans, pumpkins). With choice sensory details, touches of whimsy, and a generous sprinkling of joy, Ms. Mora captures their very essence, illuminating how these foods have enriched our lives for centuries (hello, chocolate!). 🙂

Each of the haiku is paired with a sidebar brimming with fascinating tidbits about the food’s origin, history, cultural significance and/or current uses.

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friday feast: one bowl by penny harter

~ jama ~ 53 Comments
via Space Answers

I’m happy to share another beautiful haibun written by Penny Harter today, the title poem from One Bowl, Penny’s first eBook, which won a 2011 Snapshot Press eChapbook Award.

In a recent interview at Female First, Penny said that One Bowl is a kind of sequel to Recycling Starlight (Mountains and Rivers Press, 2010), poems she’d written in the first 18 months following the death of her husband, renowned haiku scholar William J. Higginson. Penny feels the poems in One Bowl are “less raw and more contemplative, showing that time does heal.”

“One Bowl” took my breath away when I first read it — its unadorned language so pure and luminous, its message especially appropriate for this season of material excess. Knowing that this was written by a poet well acquainted with grief (Penny also lost both parents in the same year), I was also reminded that a loved one, one single person, can be a person’s entire universe. I like how she blends the temporal and the celestial, creating ever spiraling associations with the human heart at its core.

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through the poetic lens of jone rush macculloch

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#17 in the Poetry Potluck Series, celebrating National Poetry Month 2011.


Jone shows off one of her cool photos.

I’m very happy to tell you that today we have a special feast of poems and photos courtesy of Ms. Mac herself, Jone Rush MacCulloch!

I “met” Jone through Sunday Kicks at 7-Imp, and got to know her better through her Poetry Friday posts. She initially sent me one poem for the potluck, but after I saw the lovely photos and haiku from her new book, I persuaded her to let me share several of those with you, too.

Jone: I have always written poetry and loved poetry. I am a big believer of writing down at least three observations daily. Naomi Shihab Nye calls it building up a savings account of ideas. I love short poetry forms. I like the challenge of choosing the words to create an emotion or scene in a minimal way. Haiku and the shadorma (the form of this poem) are some of my favorites.

My grandmother was left handed as am I. When I was a teen, she offered to teach me how to tat, but I was too cool for that. It is one of my regrets. Luckily, I have some of her tatting.


Sadie Rush MacCulloch’s tatting, tatting shuttle and notebook.

grandmother’s
tatting shuttle flies
between threads
intricate
story knots about her life
I hold one to read

Copyright © 2011 Jone Rush MacCulloch. All rights reserved.

Though Jone regrets not learning to tat from her grandmother, she did inherit another part of her legacy, that of teaching. Jone’s grandmother taught well into her 80’s, and Jone has been teaching for 37 years so far.

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