summer string
broken sign
amid the garden debris
Forget-M
as if I’d become
some wizened elder
under the sunhat
unruly silver curls
remarry! I’d
want some old man
farting in my bed?
---
simply friends
walking through the woods
discover
in this green canopy
filtered light is intimate
binoculars
passed back and forth
observation hut
watching gannets court
amidst lovers' graffiti
jut of rocks
overlooking the river
we feel it
the thrill of that
very first whale
too hot
to climb a mountain
slippery moss
along the scenic trail
the back of his shoes
---
is this enough?
I watch him stand
in a tidepool
watching a heron
watching for fish
vows exchanged
under a tall spruce
so many years
in the boreal forest
a private altar
***
Maxianne Berger, poet and literary translator, is active in both the French and the English haiku and tanka communities in Montreal and beyond. Her writing meanders between the minimalism of Japanese forms and the unpremeditated outcomes of OuLiPo-style constraints. She is among those featured in Language Matters: Interviews with 22 Quebec Poets (Souaid & Farkas, eds; Signature, 2013). She has co-edited three anthologies -- one of haiku, in English, and two of tanka, in French, and now co-edits Cirrus: tankas de nos jours. After two books of lyric poetry, her most recent book is a dual-language tanka collection, un renard roux / a red fox (petits nuages, 2014).
Truck :: n. a self-propelled vehicle for carrying goods
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Monday, June 1, 2015
Editor's Note on Truck, June 2015
June is a fine month for outdoor adventure, and I asked my Truck loaders to submit something that fit the rather loose topic of "playing outside." This has had fine and diverse results: playful haiku; meditative essays; an interview with artist Lewis Mark Grimes about the images he makes by physically and digitally arranging the naturally-shed feathers of endangered birds. (A careful reader may spot quite a few birds in this issue. This month's editor owns three pairs of binoculars and, while she did not consciously intend these natural selections, does not apologize.)
Truck has also driven the reader to Scotland with James Johnston, a musician, currently touring the US with the Scottish tribal percussion-and-bagpipe band Albannach; an autodidact historian of Scotland and its centuries of convoluted politics; and, under the nom de hike Gentle James of the Glens, a trail guide and fixture in Scottish conservation and hillwalking circles. ("Hillwalking" is a Scottish euphemism for "everything but the most technically difficult mountain climbs; you probably won't need to bring oxygen.") The essay is a joyous travelogue, a man-meets-motorbike romance, and the reader's senses will send them flying down the highways on a vintage Triumph alongside Johnston.
I hope that in between reading the contributions piled in the back of the June Truck, the reader will go outside, even for a few breaths of coming rain, and enjoy the fleeting pleasures of dandelions -- and perhaps hear the murmur of grown-ups, sipping gin and tonic as they sit on the porch talking about grown-up things and watching distant storm clouds roll closer.
Gwyn McVay
June 2015
Truck has also driven the reader to Scotland with James Johnston, a musician, currently touring the US with the Scottish tribal percussion-and-bagpipe band Albannach; an autodidact historian of Scotland and its centuries of convoluted politics; and, under the nom de hike Gentle James of the Glens, a trail guide and fixture in Scottish conservation and hillwalking circles. ("Hillwalking" is a Scottish euphemism for "everything but the most technically difficult mountain climbs; you probably won't need to bring oxygen.") The essay is a joyous travelogue, a man-meets-motorbike romance, and the reader's senses will send them flying down the highways on a vintage Triumph alongside Johnston.
I hope that in between reading the contributions piled in the back of the June Truck, the reader will go outside, even for a few breaths of coming rain, and enjoy the fleeting pleasures of dandelions -- and perhaps hear the murmur of grown-ups, sipping gin and tonic as they sit on the porch talking about grown-up things and watching distant storm clouds roll closer.
Gwyn McVay
June 2015
Truck June 2015: Five Haiku by Joel Dias-Porter
Summer sun
A yellow-jacket
In the blue Kool-Aid
Spring sprinkle
The gutters fill with
Cherry blossoms
The gardener
switches her radio
to Al Green
Flotsam
Strewn about the beach
Tourists
New afro
A day In the life of
Dandelions
***
Joel Dias-Porter was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. From 1994-1999 he competed in the National Poetry Slam, and was the 1998 and '99 Haiku Slam Champion. Places his poems have been published include POETRY, Ploughshares, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Callaloo, Antioch Review, Red Brick Review, Beltway Quarterly and the anthologies Best American Poetry 2014, Gathering Ground, Break Beat Poets, Red Reads First, Love Poetry Out Loud, Meow: Spoken Word from the Black Cat, Short Fuse, Role Call, Def Poetry Jam, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Slam (The Book), Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapallooza, Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, Spoken Word Revolution, Catch a Fire, and The Black Rooster Social Inn. Performances include the Today Show, the documentary SlamNation on BET, and in the feature film Slam. A Cave Canem fellow and the father of a young son, Dias-Porter has a CD of jazz and poetry on Black Magi Music, titled LibationSong.
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