To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Saturday, March 13, 2010

In Preparation for a Visit to Mount Aso & a Round of Renshi

From March 17 through 20 I will be in Kumamoto, Japan, engaging in a renshi-writing collaboration with Japanese poets Shuntaro Tanikawa, Hiromi Ito, Yasuhiro Yotsumoto, Wakako Kaku, and the American translator Jeffrey Angles. This will be followed by a series of readings and lectures:

On March 22 a reading for the Japan International Poetry Society, at the Heartpia Kyoto, Conference Room #3, in Kyoto; on March 26, a talk and group discussion at Josai International University, Tokyo; and on March 27 a reading with Ryuta Imafuku and Keijiro Suga at Meiji University, also in Tokyo.


During my time away, postings on Poems and Poetics will continue without interruption, as follows:

March 13 Christine Wertheim: The Infestation of Bodies by Tongues (Part One)
March 17 Jerome Rothenberg: Metamorphoses & Other Stories
March 20 Reconfiguring Romanticism (39): Jeffrey C. Robinson, Two Poems with Notes after Wordsworth and Keats
March 24 Haroldo de Campos: from Galáxias, 2 poems & an author’s note
March 28 Rose Drachler, Two Poems with Numbers & Letters

The following is a variation on a poem for the first round of renshi and an open tribute to the masters of the game:

soon to be with you
on Aso
not Death Mountain
in the other poem

beneath which looms the shadow
of a visionary fish


(j.r.)

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