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Haiku
Treasure Trove |
Bruce Ross
Orono, ME, USA
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Haiku
Treasure Trove is a feature designed to present a variety: relatively unknown
haiku or haiku poets, and excellent haiku and related poetry, whether by known
or unknown authors, which has not been widely read or even seen by others than
the author and perhaps, a few close friends or family members. We also wish to
create a stronger bridge between haiku poets and non-haiku poets, as well as
those poets who write in several genres, haiku being just one of the forms of
their interest.
Bruce
Ross, haiku poet, editor and author edited the well-known Haiku Moment: An
Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku;
he has worked in the development of Western haibun through his book and magazine
publications as well as his own poems, some of which may be found in various
issues of World Haiku Review.. Last year, Bruce gave an online seminar on the
art of haibun writing: The
World Haiku Club Haibun Workshop and Double Haibun Contest. The winning
haibun from the contest with his comments are in Volume
2, Issue 2.
A
participant in WHC's Oku-no-Hosomichi (Basho Journey) and WHF2002 held in Japan
during September 2002, Bruce could often be seen jotting in his notebook,
recording his thoughts and haiku along the way. In this issue is his haibun
commemorating his visit to "Ryushaku-ji";
his haibun, "Ungan-ji"
can be found in Volume 2, Issue 3, November 2002. We are pleased to present his
series written during the trek from Tokyo to Akita, "Basho Journey Haiku.
Basho Journey Haiku
Preface:
taxi pick-up
under the autumn stars
no one stands here
Tokyo night
hiragana reflected in
a skyscraper window
first breakfast
too many strange things
in my bento box
overcast day
a salaried man watches
morning traffic
Nikko
the mist rises from
an unknown mountain
all night rain
lying next to me
shadow of my face
cold drizzles
as if part of the rice paddy
squatting crows
much too pitted
to recognize at first
old roadside Kannon
Uganji
on each needle of the old pine
a drop of rain
hollyhocks
in turn the grasshopper’s antennae
up and down
Matsushima
even the dried-out bonsai
have their beauty
Matsushima
so far out to sea
seaweed planting poles
Matsushima
even through the rain
Matsushima
morning rain
a bamboo fence to hold in
a bamboo grove
mist-filled dusk . . .
through Ryushaku-ji’s stillness
a lone cricket’s voice
autumn sunlight
a stink bug walks its shadow
on the tatami
Mogami River
a heron as still as the rock
it stands on
autumn wind
open blue sky through
the dragonfly’s wings
too ugly
for any but this doorstep
malformed pumpkin
Haguro-san
again the dragonfly hovers over
the same pond weeds
Gassan
how lonely the little pond
in cloud mist
Yudanosan
for lichen-covered Ametaresu
blue autumn sky
Sea of Japan
the stone Buddha’s face all but
worn away
dry autumn leaves
an old man sits down
to write his haiku
autumn light
in old paper boxes
drying beans
autumn light
sparkling more as it rises
the dragonfly’s wings
Soto gravestone
fallen to the offering stand
lichen-covered bark
autumn wind
joined as one or alone
floating dragonflies
old autumn graveyard . . .
grave after grave Buddha’s face
worn away
harvested rice field
from somewhere in its middle
a simple cricket
night flight
until the bright moon
and its halo
Coda:
early autumn clouds
the red pine needles
on the skylight
Bruce
Ross has edited Haiku
Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku (1993) and Journey
to the Interior, American Versions of Haibun (1998). He has published three
collections of original haiku, thousands of wet stones (1988), among
floating duckweed (1994), and Silence: Collected Haiku (1997). He
also authored How to Haiku, A Student's Guide to Haiku and Related Forms (2001)
and is co-editor of the journal "Contemporary Haibun" A past president
of the Haiku Society of America, his haiku, senryu, haibun, collaborative renga,
haiga, reviews, translations, and articles have appeared in haiku journals
worldwide. Holding a Ph.D. in English (poetics, critical theory), Dr. Ross has
taught humanities and writing including haiku and haibun, at various
colleges and universities, and lectured internationally. He has published in
poetics, literary theory, mythology, world religion, and the arts in the
scholarly journals of the U.S.A., the Netherlands, and Great Britain. He
has recently returned from Alberta, Canada to live in Orono, Maine.
