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Today a podcast full of sound and fury, hopefully signifying something….
I’m Patricia and today I’ll be bringing you the haiku pea podcast in the company of Brad Bennett and Bruce H Feingold. Brad is back on the podcast to give us a workshop on Euphony. I’ve heard a version of this talk before and it really helped me to clarify some ideas in my head about musicality in my verses, I hope it does the same for you.
Bruce is visiting with us for the first time. We’ll get to know a little bit about him and hear a reading from his latest book, arrthymia.
I have some renku for you and I’d like to talk to you about some of the mailings I’ve been doing recently.
Now Brad of course is taking care of the sound in this week’s podcast and I’m doing the fury. I was really mad with myself for a few mistakes I made in the last podcast, so I have a few apologies to make, but more of my fury in a minute.
First though let’s do Euphony, let’s hear Brad’s workshop.
If you enjoyed what Brad had to say and you would like to read his books, a turn in the river and a drop of pond, please contact Brad at his email address bgalaxy@verizon.net and ask for details about how to purchase his book.
Brad thank you.
Don’t forget that the haiku foundation has a digital library. Do check it out because you might be able to find some of the books mentioned by Brad in his talk. If you’d like to see the slides Brad was using you can go to our youtube channel, and see Brad give his talk, complete with slides.
Now for some fury. As I said, I was really cross with myself because in the last podcast, the one on humorous haiku, I mis-read Hifsa Ashraf’s verse, and completely left out the verses by Lekha Desai Morrison and Robert Quezada. My apologies to you all, your verses are in the shownotes for that episode and the Spring Journal and today I’d like to read your verses so we don’t miss out on your gems:
old family photo…
grandma and I
with toothless smiles
Hifsa Ashraf
a haiku with humour
I fail
grim world drags on
Lekha Desai Morrison
best barbecue ever
my search ends
marry me
Robert Quezada
I’m so sorry, I hope this makes up for my epic fail.
Next up some more verse. This time in the guise of a renku. For the first time we are attempting 36 verses and we’re are close to completion. Thanks so much to the lovely poets who have joined me on this journey, it’s been a pleasure working with you so far.
Golden leaves drifting
evening breeze
golden leaves drifting
under streetlights
s zeilenga
night creatures
explore their new world
Bisshie
through crumbling soil
ink caps and dead man’s fingers
mushrooming
Kim Russell
dry, yellow cornstalks-
black feathers watch over
Riham El Ashry
harvested fields
rinsed in moonlight
their cycle complete
Lorraine A Padden
autumn snow –
muffled sounds of morning
s zeilenga
sunlight
falling on fresh snow . . .
the tips of orange leaves
s zeilenga
a frosty fox
licks the day into shape
Kim Russell
white dappling
the grey afternoon
flurry
Lorraine A Padden
head down
following a stranger’s footprints
Bisshie
snowflakes swirl…
a unique journey began
by chance
Riham El -Ashry
ideas in motion
the wind in the trees
Lorraine A Padden
early blossom
yesterday’s icicles break
the silence
Kim Russell
waxing moon
the rhythm of a slow thaw
s zeilenga
pink daphnes
pushing off frozen crystals–
scent of change
Riham El-Ashry
the removal men trample the garden –
still treasure emerges
Bisshie
impacted earth
erupts with purple promise
crocuses
Kim Russell
the unceasing intention
of buds
Lorraine A Padden
shining wind
the luster
of robin’s egg blue
Lorraine A Padden
pastel skies
reflecting in the birdbath
s zeilenga
a child shrieks
blue tits swarm
from the privet hedge
Bisshie
amidst new leaves
the sound of church bells
s zeilenga
a woodpecker
pecks at an old trunk
conga drummer
Riham El-Ashry
syncopation
to the day’s longer beat
Kim Russell
becoming night
in the muddy hiking boots
damp socks
Bisshie
the slanted green
of early morning light
Lorraine a Padden
higher terrains
hold eternal snow
thawing rhythm
Riham El-Ashry
rocky trail home–
the wild raspberries not quite ripe
Scott Zeilenga
distant shadow
the sea of tranquillity
a pregnant pause
Kim Russell
in a field canal
a frog jumps onto the moon
Riham El-Ashry
summer night
crickets chirp
endlessly
Riham El-Ashry
sultry afternoon
rain steaming the sidewalk
Lorraine A Padden
Those of you who are on my mailing list may have noticed that I’m trying to send something to you every week. Thank you so much for all the replies that you send me. I do appreciate it.
A few weeks ago I asked a question that Oliver Porter sent me, “How has your relationship with haiku changed over time and practice?” It was a question I had not thought about before and I’m still thinking… It seems that many of you started to write haiku for similar reasons to me, essentially as a distraction, as a tool for good mental health and a way to counteract stress.
Thinking about it again I just wanted to add that even though I write every day, I also write fewer haiku but I hope the end result is that I edit them into much better verses than when I set out to learn haiku.
What became clear to me is that our little poems are a fantastic tool for well-being. In a more recent mailing I asked whether you thought so too and what exercises you used to bring haiku into your everyday life.
Again, I have to thank you, some of you have come up with a great idea for me. To keep my languages in tip top shape during the lockdowns, I can read haiku in their original language and translate them. I’ve started already, thank you. Certainly my German lessons are much more palatable.
Now a reminder for you that it’s No Ego time. I’m accepting email submission of haiku and senryu on any topic you like but without the use of I/my/we/our/us in your verse until the 20th March. Looking forward to reading them.
Hifsa sent me an interesting take on the use of I or me in her poetry. She said that she often uses ‘I & me’ in haiku but that doesn’t mean she’s talking about herself. She sees it as a feelings of empathy that she has for others.” Interesting Hifsa, thank you.
Now to close out the podcast today a reading from arrythmia from Bruce H Feingold. For those of you who are not familiar with Bruce and his work let me tell you a little bit about him, although you’ll hear more about him in a minute directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Bruce has been a psychologist for forty years in the San Francisco Bay area. He believes that haiku is an art of the heart which taps our intelligence, creativity and openness. His haiku have been published world-wide and have won numerous awards including the 2018 Haiku Canada Betty Drevnoik Award, the Haiku Poets of Northern California Chime Award, First Place, 2012 HPNC International Senryu Contest, First Prize, and the Individual Poem Touchstone Shortlist, 2011. His haiku have been chosen four times for the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku. He has a few books under his belt and you can email him at bhfein@aol.com if you would like to buy any of them, A New Moon (2004), Sunrise on the Lodge (2010), old enough (2016) and arrhythmia (2020) all published by Red Moon Press. Bruce is the Vice-President of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, is on the Board of Director of the Haiku Foundation and chairs the Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards.
Here are some of Bruce’s haiku that I really enjoyed from Bruce’s book, New Moon
great gusts of wind sweep
through Yosemite Valley –
autumn leaves falling
Bruce H Feingold, New Moon
My goodness, I really hope you enjoyed this podcast as much as I did putting it together for you.
A quick reminder about submissions for No Ego, deadline 20th March. And next time on the podcast I shall be reading your submissions on exaggerated perspective. I hope to be joined by Chris Peys, shane m pruett and Richard Tice, if all goes well. Until then, keep writing…
If there’s anything missing from the shownotes, just email me and I’ll put them right.. Ciao
