#139 / 2010 Summer: Peace Camp Workshop 2

#139

Peace Camp Coffeehouse

Poetry Workshop Poems

by the Beatlicks Pamela Hirst and Joe Speer

 representing “Beatlick News”

Poetry & Arts Newsletter

June 12-16, 2010

Las Cruces, NM

MONDAY: 

Daily theme: Peace Begins With Me

Poets are Crazy” by James C. Floyd, the Jefferson Street Poet

Poets are crazy.

They attempt to reach past the thin veil of this reality

and touch with their pencils

that core of beauty that is the essence of everything.

They always fail yet they try again and again

like a moth in its efforts to reach the flame.

Upon an ocean of facts, amid waves of impossibilities they float

imprisoned inside transparent bubbles of dreams.

And it’s so hard for poets to make it among sane people.

They are always wondering when everyone else is satisfied,

always frightened while others feel secure.

And the only scars they have to show for the wounds

that cause them so much pain are their poems.

Poets are always laughing when others cry

and crying when others laugh.

Each poem that causes them to die is a breath of life

and each breath of life kills them.

Poets know no language they can call upon

to make what they feel understood, yet

people call them great and immortalize them

for their inability to communicate.

All poets are crazy because they know

that as a result of the fame and success they achieve

they have failed to accomplish anything.

And when someone says to them,

“I understood that poem,” they say to themselves

“How could you understand that poem?

It wasn’t written for you to understand it, but yourself.”

Then you would know how much I love you

though we have never met before this, and

that will make you cry for me as I bleed for you.

For only in a mixture of my blood and your tears

will there ever be found understanding.

So that makes poets crazy people who walk on broken glass

to keep from stepping on the flowers.

In their efforts to find something that will fill them

as it empties them. Poets are crazy!

Monday:

Daily theme: Peace Begins With Me

"Just a Little Bullet," by Tom Pacheco

Just a little bullet

just a little bullet

waiting for a trigger

and a finger that will pull it

Just a little bullet out to make its way

Just a little bullet on a holiday.

It started as a rock on the edge of a cliff

they extracted the lead on the graveyard shift

melted and molded so round and smooth

stuffed inside a shell case, factory approved

Sold in a gun store in New Orleans

displayed in the window like jelly beans.

Purchased by a man who bought out the store

and put it on a freighter to a foreign shore

Just a little bullet

just a little bullet

waiting for a trigger

and a finger that will pull it

Just a little bullet out to make its way

Just a little bullet on a holiday.

TUESDAY:

Daily theme: Honoring Diversity Nurtures Peace

“Observations” by Luvuyo Mkangelwa, Cape Town, South Africa

Children play with dolls & toys

others play in mud and dust,

A boy buys sweets & chips,

another begs at subways

A man commands,

another complies

Someone walks, someone rides,

someone drives,

others float as others fly

Some live in cans,

others in mansions

We only breathe the same air,

live in the same planet

& die the same way.

TUESDAY:

Daily theme: Honoring Diversity Nurtures Peace

Essay by:

Neal Whitman, Pacific Grove, CA

Three Japanese Haiku Masters and One American

i. Basho (1644-1694)

        

          Matsuo Basho is considered the grandfather of haiku. His born name was Matsuo Kinsaku, but took on the name Basho when disciples built a hut for him with a basho (banana) plant in the yard. He actually made a living of poetry as he traveled around and taught others. Wherever he stayed, other poets came to study with him, and they, in turn, passed on his teaching to others. In his day, Basho was a master of a linked poem known as haiku-no-renga and specialized in its first verse, hokku, which at the turn of the 20th century we began to call haiku. He also popularized haibun, the combination of haiku with prose, often in the form of a travel diary.        

 When my wife, Elaine, and I went on our 30th wedding anniversary Highway 1 North road trip from our home in Pacific Grove, California, to Bandon, Oregon, I brought a book by Basho Elaine bought for me, Narrow Road to the Interior. Reading it each evening inspired me to think about the dual meaning of  what it means "to make it home."

wherever we are

we promise to make it home

Basho in hand

ii. Buson (1716-1783)

          Yosa Buson, who studied both painting and poetry, was greatly influenced by Basho, but added what we could call a "painterly" quality to his verse. Thus, he has been dubbed "Poet of the Eye." Among his accomplishments was mastering haiga, a combination of haiku with a visual image ("ga" means painting). Today many haiga aspirants begin first with a picture or photograph and then write a haiku to go along with it. But, to truly follow in Buson's footsteps would be to write haiku and then find or create the image.

          Inspired by his example, Elaine and I walked through the Pacific Grove Farmers Market and I jotted down sights, sounds, smells in my little haiku notebook. I picked up and touched fruit and vegetables; I took in the experience and invited myself to have an emotional experience of the autumn season. When we got home, I wrote a haiku and then Elaine composed a still life photograph of what we had bought at the market. Our experiment was published as a Workshop Feature in the Winter 2009 Haigaonline [www.haigaonline.com].

          Now, here is a haiku I wrote last winter during a break in a period of extreme weather.

   a lull in the drenching

   the ivy greener than green…

    lush-Buson-ish

iii. Issa (1763-1828)

          Our third Japanese master, Kobayashi Nobuyuki, took on the pen name, Issa, which means "Cup of tea." He experienced many tragedies in his upbringing and family life, which could have lead to bitterness. His mother died when he was two. Four of his own daughters and one son all died before the age of one. Instead, he used his inner eye to look with empathy for all living creatures, including the mosquito and even those ever-popular fleas and flies. His haiku does not sentimentalize the "low," but instead offers a shared encouragement. Issa is "one" with common people and finds dignity in all walks of life.

          When I read Issa, I think of the Roman slave, Terence, who was freed by his owner and became a successful playwright. Today he is best known for one line of dialogue: "I am human being, so nothing human is alien to me." Here I try to look through the eyes of Issa:

young man and his dog

both sleeping in the city park

 loose change

iv. Gary Snyder (1930 - )

          Early 20th century poets were inspired by translations of  Japanese poetry as they aimed to write concise poetry that favored precision of imagery over sentiment. But, even as I read and admire what has become known as Imagist poetry, I turn to Beat Poetry to find the first true connection to the "aha" Zen-like experiential verse that is the essence of haiku. Gary Snyder was one of the first American poets to climb that mountain – literally – as he describes in Mountains and Rivers Without End, a compilation of 39 prose/poetry pieces he wrote between 1956 and 1996.  Snyder began climbing the high snow peaks of the Pacific Northwest when he was thirteen years old. During visits he made to Japan in the 1950s, he wrote that he had never lost his sense of belonging to North America: "I kept nourishing the images and practices that kept me connected to a sense of the ancient (Japanese) landscape."

          In 2004, Snyder was awarded the Masoka Shiki International Haiku Grand Prize. In a 2007 interview with John Festiner, author of Can Poetry Save the Earth? (2009), Snyder said, "More than any other literary tradition on earth, haiku has been the language of the natural world… it's an exercise in mind-focus that everyone shares."

          Jack Kerouac, in his Beat Generation novel, Dharma Bums (1958) uses mountain climbing as an opportunity for philosophy and poetry. Here he portrays Gary Snyder in the character, Japhy Ryder: "Look over there," sang Japhy, "yellow aspens. Just put me the mind of haiku… Walking in the country you could just understand the perfect gems of haiku the Oriental poets had written…" In 1998, Elaine and I built a cabin in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, opposite the Honeycomb Cliffs –– our perch a perfect place for exploration.

          autumn dusk ––

  the wind in the aspens

  mistaken for rain

TUESDAY:

Daily theme: Honoring Diversity Nurtures Peace

Poetry from Nagasaki Students

               

We made these Haikus to appeal to the world to stop all the weapons and make a claim for peace. In Nagasaki we feel it's our responsibility to send out anti-nuclear appeals continually. The A-bomb horrors are still with our parents and grandparents. We know the reality of nuclear war-fare, and understand the hatred and antagonism that might provoke it. The world has changed since the end of WWII, when people were thrown into pain and war by over-zealous leaders.

                Now governments must listen to opinion and reason. The pain and sorrow of nuclear destruction and the after-effects should never again be felt anywhere on earth. No country should consider creating such weapons, and those that already possess them should co-operate for disarmament. Please listen to our voice!

Destroy or disappear

Everything, in an instant

Give me back my father and mother!

by Hisako Nakagama

Life or Nuclear Test,

Which is

More important ?

by Eri Kawagishi

Victim's heart

Is still hurt

Deeply

by Yuya Shirakawa

 Since that terrible day

We hope for

Eternal peace

by Yuka Kaneko

We live

Very happily

Don't kill us

by Manami Hirota

War is

Regret-full

Please stop

by Saori Sakaguch

WEDNESDAY:

Daily theme: Greed Undermines Peace

Greed

by Rich Huffstutler

Happiness is obtained not by getting more,

but by being thankful,

and taking care of that which you have,

be it a possession, your character,

or your relationship to others.

To constantly want more,

is to live in greed,

and the desires that spring from greed.

To always be seeking a new want,

a new taste,

a new desire;

never being fulfilled,

only wanting

Is to walk in blindness of eyes,

and deafness of hearing.

To see only through the greed,

and to feel it's aching.

Is to live in darkness of shadows,

to walk in darkness of heart,

and heaviness of life;

to live in a dungeon of greed,

that feeds the longing of lust and desire.

Let greed lead your life,

and it will be your god,

and every day you will taste its rewards,

for every day you will sacrifice to it.

THURSDAY:

Gratitude Promotes Peace

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE by: James Whitcomb Riley

 

To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;

The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;

The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

 

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,

An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;

An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,

We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun

A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,

An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--

An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,

His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,

An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!

An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,

An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;

But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,

An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;

An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,

She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!

An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,

They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,

An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

 

THURSDAY:

Gratitude Promotes Peace

LITTLE ORPHANT ANN, continued

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,

An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!

An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,

An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--

You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,

An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,

An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,

Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out 

  

FRIDAY:

Daily theme: Listen, Forgive, and Make Peace

“Listening” by Robert Bly

My father could hear a little animal step,

or a moth in the dark against the screen,

and every far sound called the listening out

into places where the rest of us had never been.

More spoke to him from the soft wild night

than came to our porch for us on the wind

we would watch him look up and his face go keen

till the walls of the world flared, widened.

My father heard so much that we still stand

inviting the quiet by turning the face,

waiting for a time when something in the night

will touch us too from that other place.

Forgiveness:

Quotes:

“If we really want to love, we must learn to forgive.” Mother Teresa

“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus Christ

Peace:

Quotes from famous people:

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

                John F. Kennedy

"There was never a good war or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin

"In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons."

                 Herodotus

"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another."

                Winston Churchill

FRIDAY:

Daily theme: Listen, Forgive, and Make Peace

Quotes, continued

"I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."

                Cicero.

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime"

                Ernest Hemingway

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"

                George Orwell

"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."

-              Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous"

                George Bernard Shaw

                Our patriotism should be of a wide and noble kind which recognizes justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which leads our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbors."

                Lord Baden-Powell