[ARTS]: Big and Little Poetry--free verse, any verse.

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  • Kokuu
    Treeleaf Priest
    • Nov 2012
    • 6845

    #76
    after reviewing Gary Snyder's famous book The Back Country, I have concluded this four part collection, ground breaking book about Zen Revelation, is not about sitting. truly, it is not about Zen at all. This book is about Gary Snyder.
    Do you think you can write poetry without including parts of yourself?

    I have not read The Back Country and am curious to take a look now as I love much of Gary Snyder's work.

    Gasho
    Kokuu
    -sattoday/lah-
    Last edited by Kokuu; 02-08-2020, 01:26 PM.

    Comment

    • Kokuu
      Treeleaf Priest
      • Nov 2012
      • 6845

      #77
      Thank you for your elaboration, Tai Shi!

      I think it could be said of Jack Kerouac also that his book The Dharma Bums was filled with just as much (if not more) being a bum than it does the dharma!

      The Back Country was published in 1967 and Snyder had been in Japan on and off since 1955, when he formally requested to become the student of Rinzai teacher Miura Isshu at Shokoku-ji in Kyoto and sat several sesshin. So his understanding of the precepts should have been pretty well established by then as he took Jukai and was given the dharma name Chofu, "Listen to the Wind". But The Back Country contains poems stretching back many years so I guess not all will be Zen influenced.

      Gassho
      Kokuu
      -sattoday/lah-

      Comment

      • Onka
        Member
        • May 2019
        • 1575

        #78
        Respectfully may I ask why this thread, as entertaining as it is is in this section of the forums?
        Gassho
        Onka
        st
        穏 On (Calm)
        火 Ka (Fires)
        They/She.

        Comment

        • Jundo
          Treeleaf Founder and Priest
          • Apr 2006
          • 40396

          #79
          Originally posted by Onka
          Respectfully may I ask why this thread, as entertaining as it is is in this section of the forums?
          Gassho
          Onka
          st
          I have moved you'all to the funky art section.

          Gassho, J

          STLah
          ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

          Comment

          • Tai Shi
            Member
            • Oct 2014
            • 3420

            #80
            Onka, Jundo, I respectfully agree; this thread IS about Poetry, and posting of Poetry!! About people who might not have a voice anywhere else even on this forum. I am going to delete my posts, which I thought might be interesting, and offer an apology to the people I care about most-- Folks who might not post anywhere else, and I ask Kokuu, who is like me in so many ways, who I care about deeply, to do the same. It's also about sitting, and talking about sitting which is what we are about in this our Sagha where we would not have a place anywhere else, where Jundo has made a home for us, where (most people) folks are welcome who say they can learn a different way, in poetry, or anything to become a part of something bigger than than themselves, a place where they can sit, and learn compassion even in and especially in all walks of life.
            Tai Shi
            sat
            Gassho
            Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

            Comment

            • Tai Shi
              Member
              • Oct 2014
              • 3420

              #81
              Thank you dear Kate, dear And Anna, dear Onka, and my friend Kokuu, and everyone who loves Buddhist poetry of all types, for everyone in our Sangha who makes poetry of sensitivity, of beauty, and of Shikantaza. Kokuu, do look elsewhere for a beautiful revision about you my friend, a truly heartfelt poem about our beauty as friends. Way, Way too much from me, If you can, think of some of these posts combined from me together, and my love of our Treeleaf Zendo.
              Tai Shi
              sat
              Gassho
              Last edited by Tai Shi; 02-10-2020, 10:35 AM. Reason: love
              Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

              Comment

              • Tai Shi
                Member
                • Oct 2014
                • 3420

                #82
                Hi Kokuu and all; I find it most beautiful that Gary Snyder was given the name "Listen to the Wind" most beautiful for Gary Snyder's Dharma, and so beautiful that he was able to ""Listen to the Wind"" MOST beautiful as he spoke at a reading in Colorado while I was actually working on my thesis Autumn Inventories. I met him briefly as he walked out of the auditorium at U.N.C. and he knew my mentor, Dr Bill Hotchkiss, from Sierra College in Rocklin, California, the college where my father worked for 24 yeas as tenured faculty, and where I began my study of English Literature. Our meeting was about 30 seconds, and there is no reason he might remember me. May I suggest another Gary Snyder volume you might not own, and which I purchased in Denver about the time I graduated with my MFA, 1990, Left Out in the Rain, those poems as yet at that time randomly brought together and very good of course. I am certain that you, if you do not have this book, would enjoy it. I did go on after Sierra to finish my BA at Grinnell College, MA and EDS degrees at the University of Iowa, then taught composition, literature and creative writing at Central Community College; there I published my first poetry, and in 1985 left with Marjorie who continued her career with the government. I entered the MFA in 1986, and lost my TA in 1987 at which time I hit bottom and got sober with the 12 steps. The year between 1987 and 1988 I took a lighter load of one, then two classes at C.S.U. in my MFA program. I returned to part-time teaching at Front Range Community College, and full-time study in 1989, took my comprehensives, and in 1990 completed and defended my thesis. In 1991, I began full-time teaching in Illinois not far from Chicago. By that time my spirituality truly began and I read Zen Mind, Beginner Mind, and Peace is Every Step, but I was not sitting or meditating. In 1993/1994 Marjorie and I returned to teaching but we found living 90 miles from Chicago did not shield us from the daily murder or drug bust, and we were concerned that bringing up a 3-yr-old girl was not wise there, and besides in 1993 I failed to "get tenure, and we moved to South Dakota where we remained, and built our little home in Hartford, nine miles west of Sioux Falls. My wife has worked for the government more than 30 years and retired four years ago, and visited our daughter who lived four years in Japan, Chiba, and Date, Hokkaido. I taught part-time until 2001 at which time, because of my disabilities, I could no longer teach. I was never again "let go" from a teaching position. from 2006 to 2007 I taught developmental English part-time, temporary. My wife and I decided especially when I was 58 that I could no longer work even part time, and I retired permanently. I had worked part-time in clerk positions and been on disability since 2001, and it was just time to admit utter defeat. I had published more than 60 poems in little magazines and college journals, and in August 2009 I self-published my book Winter from Spring, in 2011, I nearly died three times, began to truly seek "something" in earnest, and about five years ago joined Treeleaf where one year latter Jundo allowed me to go through Jukau and I was given the Dharma name Tai Shi, calm poetry. About one year before coming to Treeleaf, I self-published another book, Meditations on Gratitude, and at one time both books were available through Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. I believe Meditations on Gratitude is still available. My time at Treeleaf, my friendships here, and my admiration of Doyu have all inspired me to self-publish again, one more book by 2023, and I've collected much of my work in one file already. Now I must edit, add and detract poems, and design a cover. My deadline seems "do able" because I must also save the money for publication.
                Tai Shi
                sat
                Gassho
                Last edited by Tai Shi; 02-11-2020, 04:08 PM.
                Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                Comment

                • Kokuu
                  Treeleaf Priest
                  • Nov 2012
                  • 6845

                  #83
                  May I suggest another Gary Snyder volume you might not own, and which I purchased in Denver about the time I graduated with my MFA, 1990, Left Out in the Rain, those poems as yet at that time randomly brought together and very good of course
                  Thank you Tai Shi! I have The Gary Snyder Reader which contains poems from a number of his works so will check out the ones from there and definitely think about getting the full volume.

                  I hope you can make your deadline for the next volume of your writing.

                  Gassho
                  Kokuu
                  -sattoday-

                  Comment

                  • Tai Shi
                    Member
                    • Oct 2014
                    • 3420

                    #84
                    Age of Compassion

                    My sixteenth year
                    Wrote dear first poems
                    Still collected in
                    Black volume written
                    In 1968 incomplete
                    Blue fountain
                    Pen to childish
                    Love blue, invisible
                    Her father as heart
                    Pounded in violation
                    Precept entreating
                    Safe love, without
                    Guarded between
                    Fingers touching
                    I attended colleges
                    Not sought in money
                    Intoxicants gone
                    Even for our own
                    Life, relived anger
                    Last promise
                    Love, gave no
                    Love for five years
                    Strong drink, then
                    January 7, 1980
                    Young woman
                    Teacher of right
                    Speech, right behavior
                    Talking on paper
                    Walked in groups
                    Together Rhetoric
                    One Oh One teaching
                    With Precepts Love
                    Eternal compassion
                    Pearl whose shining
                    Eyes no one had seen
                    Right behavior, drink
                    Intoxicant teaching
                    Lifted glory to my glory
                    Eyes, I fell, lifted
                    Finally readings, Zen
                    Buddhism, rejoiced
                    2018/2019/2020
                    Final Precept place,
                    Young woman
                    I with her become old
                    Original writing in black
                    Volume, Love compassion
                    Child conceived in marriage,
                    Shokai corrects me, dignity
                    I bowed Taishi, Oh Sangha
                    Our Temple all our world beckons.
                    Taishi
                    sat/lah
                    Gassho
                    Last edited by Tai Shi; 08-05-2020, 09:19 AM. Reason: complete revision
                    Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                    Comment

                    • Tai Shi
                      Member
                      • Oct 2014
                      • 3420

                      #85
                      I have purchased two volumes of poetry to Learn of Wind, my right speech, oh dear friend Kokuu, before your ordination, together after in Ango, still friends as we exchange our bodies as in Plato, not as lovers and our children fruit of Buddha vine, we cannot violate friendship with moving now stilled tongue, I've purchased two volumes of Gary Snyder, like Andy, stone face, Kokuu, we know loyalty because of you I've come to know The Wind.

                      Sleeping in our house
                      Which paid diamond like taxes
                      Our compassion downed.

                      For Kokuu
                      my friend
                      Taishi
                      Gassho
                      sat/lah
                      Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                      Comment

                      • Kokuu
                        Treeleaf Priest
                        • Nov 2012
                        • 6845

                        #86
                        Thank you, Tai Shi!

                        You write so well!

                        Which volumes of Gary Snyder have you bought?


                        speaking prayers
                        into the night sky
                        pilgrim moon


                        Deep bows, my friend
                        Kokuu
                        -sattoday/lah-

                        Comment

                        • Heiso
                          Member
                          • Jan 2019
                          • 834

                          #87
                          I somehow missed this thread - such beautiful work. Tai Shi - I'm glad to hear you will be publishing more of your work,

                          Gassho,

                          Heiso

                          StLah

                          Comment

                          • Tai Shi
                            Member
                            • Oct 2014
                            • 3420

                            #88
                            Poetry

                            Seen bows to you all! Earthly universal thought is sought by all, and only a few friends outside Treeleaf Zendo know only a tiny part of my life so invested in these threads in my daily sitting Shikantaza lately as I have dealt with pain, and first medication that actually gave dome relief Remicade, then Cimzia, then Cosyntix, next now perhaps one that will last the duration, one only recently approved for my bone disease of Ankylosing Spondylitis Simponi, more than $4000 per shot, per four weeks. Now it remains to see if my insurance company will approve home use for medication injection sub q every four weeks, so more than $50,000 a year, and if not approved an infusion every six weeks at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls. Now for my dearest poetry-- Kokuu, the two books of essays by Gary Snyder, Chofu, Listen to the Wind, The Practice of the Wild, with new preface by the author, then A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds. For me My Book changed from Portraits of Their Lives, a book I may complete as my fourth and final book for I am 68, and this book For Patty Brown... entirely and only my writing, no one in or out of this Sangha, Treeleaf Zendo will be included, and as I now edit the rough draft over and over, and over... the writing, and cover are mine. To answer your question Kokuu, the complaint of much contemporary and modern poetry by critics, and the public is that it is largely inaccessible, and the public cannot understand. In Snyder's, Chofu's, work there exists a mix, and I refer you to "The Bath" as for some public readers too personal, though accessible, so how should the poet proceed? The poem is such that Jundo would not allow it to be published here and from The Back Country, admittedly early work by the poet, "Rip Rap," of which any subculture member would recognize as substance abuse. So where does a poet draw the line? Does the poet write for the public or for the self? Does the poet include such incidence as suicide, mental illness, and death as are in my first book, in several libraries, and which made valiant showing of sales, or my second book which included mental illness, much physical pain, and suicide, both books in the Grinnell College Library, one of the finest colleges in the US, or the second book receiving high praise from Professor Emeritus Bill Tremblay, the founder of the MFA creative writing program at Colorado State University. Who is right? Those who would censure all personal writing, so where would we be without Eliot, Pound, Lowell, Plath, Ted Hughes, Richard Wright, the whole cannon of modernists, HD, Marian More, contemporizing like Rita Dove, Gallway Kinnell? And, Chofu, Gary Snyder. I venture to say the criticism of modern and contemporary writers is accurate, and much of what these writers give us is for the educated, the studied, and those willing to look, and look again. And call me an elitist, but the average American has never heard of Basho, or the 5, 7, 5 schemes of the Anglicized Haiku. No, most poetry is not of the light-hearted, Would you have British leave out Keats who writes poetry, "As natural as the leaves on the trees."? Or seeking "The Good, THE TRUE, and the Beautiful?" So where does any writing become non-personal, even especially Shakespeare, and Andrew Marvel, and I venture to say even Milton, Pope, and Dryden?

                            Tai Shi
                            calm poetry
                            sat/ lah
                            Gassho
                            Last edited by Tai Shi; 03-09-2020, 02:12 PM.
                            Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                            Comment

                            • Tai Shi
                              Member
                              • Oct 2014
                              • 3420

                              #89
                              Poetry

                              Thank goodness my biological medication fairly new on the market Simponi has been approved for home use at more money than I am given in one year by my wife. This biological related to Enbrel which I took successfully for more than 10 years and this may allow me lol to continue to write about my pain and arthritis ha ha. Lol I pick up my first dose at the hospital in the morning. Now to speak about more pressing matters Coronavirus which we as poets might consider writing about. Truly I believe in many ways poetry shows the state of humankind all human nature may be explored by the poet all good men and women. Consider Pablo Neruda and great poets writing all manner of topics and we as Buddhist poets must consider Compassion and Equanimity As each and all benefit from endeavor to control the spread of disease. Consider Denise Levertov great poets are not restricted in writing. I’ve decided to take a short break from writing to support friends an family as they deal with more pressing things.
                              Tai Shi
                              sat/ lah
                              Gassho


                              Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
                              Last edited by Tai Shi; 03-11-2020, 08:36 PM.
                              Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

                              Comment

                              • Tai Shi
                                Member
                                • Oct 2014
                                • 3420

                                #90
                                The pharmacy is mailing my Simponi pen should be here in the morning then the less I leave the house for an AA meeting only.

                                Keep distance
                                Six feet or more
                                Avoiding corona virus
                                Never avoiding
                                Those we love

                                This year washing
                                Washing I apply
                                Lotion, clean smell
                                Softens safety
                                Make sure to wash
                                Hands 20 seconds
                                Always, 20 seconds
                                Each time, then
                                Touch only ones
                                We live close
                                Every time we
                                Bump

                                Elbows, shower
                                Stay home
                                So much
                                Stay home watch
                                Movies at home
                                Popcorn and drinks
                                Not alcohol that
                                Used instead of wash
                                Wash your hands
                                Feel safe,

                                Tai Shi
                                sat/ lah
                                Gassho


                                Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
                                Last edited by Tai Shi; 03-17-2020, 01:12 AM.
                                Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆

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