Olive Senior will be the feature at Tree tomorrow evening at 8 p.m. at Art’s Court.
This week’s Tree will have the second free pre-Tree workshop session with Guy Simser. He’s pictured here taking questions after the last workshop.
He’s looking at giving a context for how tanka developed in North America in the 30s thru 60s, an orientation to the influence of Sanford Goldstein and showing examples and principles to writing in the tanka tradition.
Here are some recommended classic works. Salad Anniversary sold 11 million copies in Japan. Akiko Yosano was a ground-breaking feminist at the time of Manchurian wars and her poems still stand out as remarkable and vivid. (Goldstein was one her translators.) Hers are not the poems of the stereotypical receding asian female. For example,
Spring is short
what is there that has eternal life
I said and
made his hands seek out
my powerful breasts
[trans. Janine Beichman]
Kaleidoscope by Shuji Terayama also was a work with great impact on how tanka is practiced. In this case the poet was 18 at the time of publication but with a precocious intelligence that led him to writing plays. UbuWeb describes him: “Poet, playright, theatre director, filmmaker, essayist, agitator and lover of all things anarchistic, chaotic, and truthful, TERAYAMA SHUJI (1936-1983) is one of Japan’s most revered and respected artists.”
The open mic portion had several readers and a solid set. The suggestion was made that one could also read not only your own work but a favorite poem of another to share.
It was an all-open mic Tree but by chance, the Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara was able to stop in and start us off. David Starkey is pictured here doing a book signing on the 13th. His poems are anecdotal, humourous poems.
Last session’s Tree had A few things you should know about the Weasel (Biblioasis, 2010)