Coinciding with UNESCO's World
Poetry Day project, is the activation of WHCpoetrybridge, a WHC mailing list and
outreach. The WHCpoetrybridge list opened on February 14, 2002 and is off to a
great start with poetry, discussion and exciting events. With its basis in
haiku, WHCpoetrybridge aims to span haiku and non-haiku communities, fostering
dialogue, friendship, support and enjoyment of international poetry. Initiating
WHCpoetrybridge, Director and Editor John E. Carley joined with Susumu Takiguchi
and Debi Bender in a joint selection and presentation of haiku which will
represent WHC in its international contemporary poetic production.
Following the very successful Autumn
Festival WHC/ProArt/Japan2001 haiku event in September, WHC was invited to
make a second presentation. On March 2, 2002, John Carley chaired the Spring
WHC/ProArt London Event where this bridge was the presentation theme.
A Word from
Director and Editor, John E. Carley:
WHCpoetrybridge is the place where
poets of the World Haiku Club examine the nexus between oriental and occidental
verse forms. The Bridge is a new mailing list group so, other than the sequence
'The Curlew's Song', the selection below is drawn from external sources. All
poems appear with the authors' permission.
The selections featured in future
issues of World Haiku Review will be drawn directly from the list. Many of the
poets below already contribute to The Bridge. WHCpoetrybridge
is open to poets of all backgrounds.
Thank you, we hope you enjoy these
poems. john e c
| Joe Warner: |
|
Traces
tears on rice paper
where you wept
folded in my hand
a quiet note
|
| Terrie Relf: |
|
Alyssum - a
fibonacci
she
leads
him through
copse of trees
he closes his eyes
sweet alyssum , eucalyptus
she lifts her arms, spins in circles, sings with joy--renewed
|
| Terrie Relf: |
|
Touch
- a fibonacci
I
feel
your touch
at the nape
of my neck, caress
my breast with your hand, with your breath,
with your mouth while my hand reaches for you in the dream
|
| Christina
Fletcher: |
|
For A C Graham (in
memoriam)
The scented hollow in my hands
once held the flower of a lotus.
Grief
in the sweep of green willow.
The empty sickness;
tasting iron in my saliva.
Nine years have passed.
Our tongues are severed.
The moss of tree bark
masks your direction.
You cannot return
with migrant geese.
Your voice is in the oxide
of a tangled ribbon
blown as leaves
through city veins.
I touch your mind
through your translations.
Wei T'ai
does not console me.
How can I drink wine with Chuang-Tzu?
|
| Lucy Aron: |
|
dogged - a tetractys
you
and I
twenty years
finding the light
in the tangled night of our desire
|
| M. A.
Griffiths: |
|
Apples
Five apples, red and green,
Swelling with summer sweetness,
Because the crown was plucked.
Because the crown was plucked,
Five apples, green and red,
Swelling with summer sweetness.
Swelling with summer sweetness,
Because the crown was plucked,
Five apples, red and green.
|
| Andrew Hull: |
|
Only Difference
I lie here.
You lie here with me.
Only difference is,
I lie on my back,
You lie through your teeth
|
| Christine
Bousfield: |
|
Brother - a sequence
Brother
Small boy in short trousers, a summer afternoon;
...your report tells Dad you're not top of the
class.
Dad
Expects the best of you, the eldest,
...his father's birthright in workers' education.
Birthright
We used to play tin can squat in our fifties' terrace
...with the gas light at the bottom,
At the bottom
Kept fancy mice in our ash-pit to stuff in pockets,
...exchanged Irn Bru bottles for a chinchilla.
Chinchilla
Our short-haired dutch once bit their way out
...of a paper bag on the bus: we laughed.
Bit their way out
We built a breeding box
...in anticipation of increase;
In anticipation
Put matches to your miniature engine,
...watched it steam round silver tracks;
Silver tracks
Mixed iron filings with copper sulphate
...because we longed for blue flowers.
Blue flowers
At eleven you set fire to a ring of Meths
...with me in the middle
Fire
And passed me a bright red OXO tin
...of Ripraps about to go off.
Passed
I ring Saudi, tell you he's dead. You say they need you
...at work. I shout down the phone.
In the end you came;
and cried
in the bar afterwards.
|
| Ian Andrews: |
|
Red Name
Emily I like.
Or Emma.
Molly, Milly, Nicky
or is it Nikki?
Well I guess
it doesn't matter.
Jessica, Jess,
Hannah, Anna, ....
She wasn't big enough
for a name -
even a small name;
a red name.
|
| Chris
Ziesler: |
|
blown away - a
tetractys
one,
two, a-
one, two, three.
my happy feet
dance away the night under stars of jazz.
|
| Phyllis
DeBlanche: |
|
Two 'Bobbins'
Climbing upward to love, I flirt
and get hurt
fall
..back
down one rung
curse the ladder whose praise I sung
Across my dreams he weaves his strands
each night hands
me
his
..heart again
as if there'd been no other men
|
| John Carley,
Paul Conneally, Joe Warner, Gary Blankenship: |
|
The Curlew's Song
- a sequence
if the curlew sings
why should I lament?
this bare rag of fleece
fades with the snow, so
why should I lament
if the curlew sings?
jec
wading birds
an old man eating cockles
with a plastic fork
..
pc
cormorant dives deep
below salty peaks
while I hold my breath
time passes slowly
below salty peaks
cormorants dive deep
jw
wings spread to dry
rain pebbles beach and rock
gulls hunker down gray
gb
|
| |
To join WHCpoetrybridge
visit the homepage at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCpoetrybridge/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WHCpoetrybridge/join
or visit WHC's
mailing list links page at:
http://www.netpro.ne.jp/~aminet/pages/mailinglists.html
For further information please
contact the facilitators John E. Carley john@villarana.freeserve.co.uk
Denis Garrison haikuharvest@yahoo.com
or Joe Warner joe.warner@btinternet.com
