Column087 — May/June 2008
A Trip from One End of the Poetry
Continuum to the Other
Small Press Review,
Volume 40, Numbers 5/6, May/June 2008
INRUE. By Guy Beining
2008; 28 pp; Pa; Prygian Press,
58-09 205th Street,
Bayside NY 11264. $5.
moonset, Volume 3, Issue 1, Autumn/Winter 2007
Edited by an’ya
2/yr, 48 pp; the natal * light press, Box 3627,
La Pine OR 97738-0088. $23/yr, $13/copy.
Guy Beining’s poems have long occupied the most otherstream end of the contemporary poetry continuum. The ones in his recent collection, Inrue, are no exception.
INRUE 1.
inrue intro, ie. introversion
& a rueful fit meet
in a poster.
pupil to pupal,
locked in by polyps;
crowded by nature that
once surrounded one.
poplin, poppies, &
popping up pansies,
all claiming some ground.
it is a waste to
call the trash collector.
we have headed toward all this
with blinding dispassion.
In the first of the poems in Inrue, the extreme stream-of-consciousness flow of sound-alikes, the short free-verse lines, vivid imagery, surrealism, and the feel of “a dark climb up/ joints of mountainside,” as Beining’s “Inrue 7″ has it, are characteristic of all the poems here. By the eighth poem, the left margin starts being ignored, and underlining and cursive typography begin, so the poems become visually as well as verbally unconventional. More important, in my view, they turn infraverbal with “in rue 15″ (note the intentional space in the title), which features a little poem-within-a-poem consisting of “preDIGest,” “garDENias,” and “solDIEred.” Reread the last–I bet you didn’t at first see the sun (“sol”) die red. Reread the three together reflectingly enough and you’ll find it a brilliant summary of life, and of a day. The book is peppered with similarly effective inventions.
Now to the end opposite where Beining’s poems are on the poetry continuum to:
autumn wind–
buttoning the flannel shirt
on a scarecrow
driveway puddle
the squirrel hops
a bit of sunset
These two haiku are from moonset, a twice-yearly newspaper “Dedicated to the Poetic and Visual Studies of Japanese Art Forms,” mainly haiku, tanka and similar kinds of poems, it would seem from this issue. The first by Claudette Russell, the second by Michael Ketchek. Both seem first-rate, to me: moonset is no hobbyist rag! Now, it is true that Claudette Russell uses a blankety-blank dangling participle, something I’m always criticizing conventional composers of haiku for. I’d prefer: “autumn wind;/ someone small buttons/ the scarecrow’s flannel shirt.” But the whimsy and insight into the buttoner’s character make the haiku, as is, effective, for me, in spite of the dangling participle.
The haiku by Ketchek is a gem. I can suggest no changes (except a semi-colon after the first line because I like punctuation–but that is definitely just me). What makes this a superior haiku are its comparisons. The main one is the minutiae of a mere driveway (of a single house) with the colossal occurence of a sunset, which is also an item in the driveway. I like the squirrel’s going somewhere, despite an obstacle, in parallel with the day’s going somewhere. There’s also the utilitarian unNature of the driveway contrasted with puddle, squirrel, sunset. Plus the eternal-seeming stillness of the puddle in contrast with the quick squirrel and the slow sunset. In a driveway in which movements in an entirely different world will be carried out. In short, a wry observation with depth, which, finally, is what the best haiku are.
I greatly approve of the presentation of the first eight haiku in moonset, incidentally. Each is conventionally printed but with a hand-penned version nearby, as well as an illustration by a second artist. Photographs of the poet and illustrator involved accompany the poem, as do bios of each, the whole taking up a half-page (a page being about 8.5 inches by 11 inches). I think haiku often significantly improved when accompanied. Or given a setting.
Two more poems worth comment from moonset are:
street corner preacher
his shoe laces
double-knotted
city cemetery
flowers and umbrellas
open to rain
The first, by Tony A. Thompson, is a senryu, or poem resembling a haiku but without a reference to nature, and usually intended to be humorous. The winner of a contest the magazine runs for the form, it made me laugh, I’m not sure why: the idea of preaching as a form of athletic contest? The wanting to make sure of things on the part of the preacher, who shouldn’t worry if God’s on his side? I dunno. But it’s more than just amusing.
The other is by Dawn Bruce. This one interests me because, as is, I don’t like it: the juxtapositioning of flowers and, implicitly, spring to graves may be the worst cliche in all of haiku. But the image of “flowers and umbrellas/ open to rain,” grabs me. I’d chuck the first line. Or change it to something like, “busy city street;”.
Top finish this installment of my column, here are two more samples from moonset, the first by Ed Baker, the second by John Martone:
yellow orchid
taking me
entirely
daughter waters father weeds their silence
It’d be hard for either to be more simple, or more full. Are they about the same thing? As Mr. Never-Satisfied, though, I have to say I’d prefer Martone’s poem as . . . I was going to say I would prefer it in three tiers. I was going to say the confusion of the father weeding silence failed to advance the haiku. But now I like the idea of father and daughter tending a second garden of theirs, their silence. . . .