Ken Craft

718 posts

A Second Trove of Literary Trivia

poetry

markson

I’ve finished David Markson’s Reader’s Block, yes, but no–I’m not done sharing some of the neat trivia found in this unusual “novel.” Here are more, all taken directly from his 1996 book:

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Yeats once asked Hardy how he coped with the endless copies of his books sent to him with requests for inscriptions. Hardy led Yeats to a back closet. Piled from floor to ceiling.

Emily Dickinson told Thomas Wentworth Higginson that she had not read Whitman. But had heard that he was disgraceful.

Why is the red wheelbarrow beside the white chickens rather than vice versa?

C.P. Cavafy lived with his mother until he was thirty-six.

Tennyson said that scissors was the one word in the English language he could not rhyme.

Men never do evil so completely and so cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Said Pascal.

Napoleon told Goethe he had read The Sorrows of Young Werther seven times.

Anne Hathaway was twenty-six when she told Shakespeare she was pregnant. Shakespeare was eighteen.

Kafka laughed repeatedly when he was reading his own work.

Valéry to Gide: Do you know anything more boring than the Iliad?

An audience of fully three thousand gave Akhmatova a standing ovation after a reading in Moscow in 1944. About which Stalin, hearing of it: Who organized this response?

The books Shelley had with him when he drowned were a Keats and a Sophocles.

At Walden, Thoreau was borrowing land owned by Emerson. And was no more than a ten-minute stroll from Concord.

Philip Larkin: Who’s Jorge Luis Borges?

That man writes really too sloppily, said Joyce of D.H. Lawrence.

Oscar Wilde said that Henry James composed novels as if it were a painful duty.

Edith Wharton’s family owned the Chemical Bank of New York. Wharton lived with an entourage virtually like royalty.

Twenty-five hundred years of Western philosophy is but a series of footnotes to Plato, Whitehead said.

Jonathan Swift left his money to found a hospital for the insane. And died mad.

Wilkie Collins maintained two households simultaneously. Both with mistresses.

Stendhal was an officer with Napoleon’s armies in the retreat from Moscow in 1812.

In Act II of Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare allows Hector to mention Aristotle. Who will not be born until some nine hundred years after the fact.

Jack Kerouac lived with his mother for most of the last twenty years of his life.

Stephen Crane was the catcher on his Syracuse University baseball team.

Henry Fielding is buried in Portugal.

Reader's Block by David Markson

The Six Stages of First-Time Authorship

poetry poetry readings publishing

book sales

PROLOGUE: I wrote this way back in the late spring of 2016, after my first book released. For some reason, I decided against publishing it because it cut too close to the bone. Today, with two books to my credit, I better appreciate the humor in it. If you can’t laugh at yourself and the crazy pursuit of poetry writing, what can you laugh at? Ha-ha. Enjoy. Especially if you’re a poet or a would-be poet. A reader of poetry, you say? A little insight for you. And hopefully a chuckle or two.

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Everything happens in stages. I learned this in the Self-Help aisle. I couldn’t help myself. And now I’ve discovered it is true of first-time authors who publish first books. Not just via my own lens, but by studying other authors of first-time books. And though I call it “The Six Stages of First-Time Authorship,” I might as well call it “The Sick Stages of First-Time Authorship.”

Admittedly, results are skewed. Mostly, I examine first-time poetry books, meaning it’s a special subset of authors whose works, in 99.7% of all cases, never see the light of a bookstore bookshelf. Instead, the books sit on a dark, unchecked (except by the author–every day) shelf of Amazon. A dot all-is-not-calm bookstore.

Stage One: Euphoria

Holy Toledo Ohio, my book is out! And no, Ma, it’s not from some cheesy vanity publisher. It’s the merit system. Go-o-od stuff. Told you so, doubters! Confucius would be proud! Must tell everyone I know! No, no. That’s too obvious. Must tell everyone I don’t know, too! How do I spread the word without seeming to spread the word? Show me the way. I’m there. I’m a worker bee. I’ll do the social media scene, even. I’ll send you a copy if you write me a review. What’s more, I have this feeling that some big reviewer from some major paper is going to stumble upon this book (God works in mysterious ways–and, part-time, for me!) and decide to write it up. The darkest of dark horses, this book! It’s only a question of who (The New York Times Book Review?), where (page 37? I’ll take it!), when (give it three weeks, tops!), and how (Kismet)! Woot!

Stage Two: Happiness

I’ve sent copies to every relative I know (one, “Aunt Irene,” I made up). And friends (some “acquaintances,” really, but whatever). They, in turn, will suggest this book to people THEY know. And on Goodreads, many of my friends (whom I’ve never met) have marked it as “To Read.” YES! All of these “To Reads” will soon convert to 5-star reviews once they’ve read it, I’m sure. OK, OK. I’ll be a big boy about a few 4-star reviews because that’s how I am. Magnanimous. Give it a week. Or two tops. The book is only 72 pages, after all. So that’s around 32 reviews right there. In the bank! Right out of the gate! And everyone knows reviews beget reviews like Biblical people begat Biblical babies. Can you say “catalyst”? Can you say “momentum”? Can you say “royalties”? Ka-ching!

Stage Three: Reasonable Hope

I’ve been checking those Amazon sales stats every few hours and hey, not bad, especially in the category of POETRY>CONTEMPORARY>REGIONAL>LIVING(MARGINALLY)WHITE MALES>STAGE 3. (Surely it can’t just be the 3 out of 87 people at the office who said they bought it after I group e-mailed the entire company. Twice.) And all 32 of those “To-Reads” on Damn-Good-Reads? I got one review out of them so far. But it’s just the beginning, I’m sure. Almost sure. Even tsunamis start somewhere. As is true with them, a little lift would do me good…

Stage Four: Reality

Holy sinking Amazon jungle mud! I’ve never seen sales stats sink so fast. By the day, even! And the number of “To Reads” on Goodreads has held steady. OK, to be honest, it’s down one. And the number of reviews has held steady, too: one (Cue Three Dog Night: “ONE is the loneliest number that you’ll ever see…”). And the number of “Currently Readings” is steady, too (Zero Mostel would understand). I sent reviewer copies weeks ago and followed up with “Did you get it…?” e-mails just like I’m supposed to. Marketing Man! That’s me. The guy listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”! Is this all there is? Doesn’t a man get rewarded for his hard work (marketing) and brilliant ideas (writing)? Or is that a Horatio Alger myth or something?

Stage Five: Despair

Well, THAT was fun (not). Back in Stage Two some party crasher said the only money poets make is at readings where, if they’re lucky, two people might buy their books. Might. “Yeah,” I thought. “But my book is different because it’s by ME and, last I checked, I’m special.” Or so I thought. (OK, I don’t want to think. Too much. Because it’s getting me down. And yes, the Buddha would be very disappointed in me. Too much self. Just a hyphen away from -ish, he’d say. Or something clever like that, damn him.)

Stage Six: Enlightenment

All this time dreaming. All this time beating the hollow drum. A couple of months lost! A couple of months I could’ve been writing! You know: Book Two. As in “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” As in “Do it again, only better.” It’s what writers do. And the second time around (one hopes), no more stages. Just back on the saddle and writing again. It’s all that matters. Writing. Every day. In the words of another poet — one of Biblical proportions — “All the rest is vanity, a striving after wind….”

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Nota Bene: After Book Two, I’ve learned. I started writing right away. I am no longer a self-deluded man. Of course, every poem hungers readers just like you hunger for chocolate chip cookies, but reality is a good teacher and writing is a good habit and joyful challenges are the stuff of our workaday lives. On to #3!

Random Thoughts, Encroaching Christmas Edition

opinion poetry

pinesnow

Random Thoughts, December 9th Edition:

When it comes to Homer, there are Iliad people and there are Odyssey people. I am an Odyssey man, myself. The journey towards over the swords. The cagey man over the ragey man. The ship’s keel over the hero’s heel.
Shopping? You say you’re done with your shopping? Must mean I best get started.
Poets I like to read in essay-mode: Robert Hass, Tony Hoagland, Jane Hirshfield.
Holiday meditation (oxymoron alert!) recommendation: Chinese and Japanese poetry. Read, reread, repeat.
Is there a word for the sound of snow landing on snow in a windless snowfall? That word is a poem.
Ditty of the Day by Arthur Guiterman:

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust in on the shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself!

Poetry ideas are pack animals. I see many, write them down, and pick which one to muse upon. Then it’s forest silence for long stretches. Ideas go ghostly.
Most contemplative season? I vote autumn, which puts man’s mind to the great mystery of life–his own approaching winter.
“Stopping By Woods on Snowy Evening” may be kids’ stuff, but it’s many a poet’s guilty pleasure committed to memory, too.
Speaking of, why do we use the term “committed to” as if memory is an asylum?
A fully-trimmed Christmas tree is a glorious thing–if someone else trims it, takes it down, and vacuums the last needle (found along about April).
“the season ’tis, my lovely lambs,” (e.e. cummings)
“With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stone” (W.B. Yeats)
“Not the silent, deflected sound of snow / but that direct, cold ping running down the gutters of my spirit” (K.R. Craft)
But I flatter myself.
Because no one else will.
Collectors can make money on e-Bay, especially this time of year, if their collected nostalgia is in mint, never-used condition, but I collect compliments and kind words. Neither has a market, other than the bazaar of my mind, and it is bizarre, indeed.
Definition of an “Old Soul”: I prefer medieval and Renaissance Christmas music to modern fare. Apologies to Mariah Carey (all she wants for Christmas is whoever is listening to the song).
I just read this week that the word “whom” is dead. The “whom” is dead! Long live the “who”!
Cindy Lou Who?
There’s something to be said for the Grinch and Scrooge. Both Christ and the Buddha would say it, too.
Give the gift of experience over stuff, yourself over stuff, your generosity over stuff.
Go forth this Saturday and be a collector of moments. (Hint: It’s not in any store and it doesn’t have a web address.)

Three Reading Mysteries of Life

poetry reading poetry teaching poetry

three

Three reading mysteries of life:

Kids love to be read to and mostly love reading–until around ages 11 or 12, when interest in reading plummets for most of them. What gives? Why? Is it the “adult” poking forward, elbowing the “child” into the background? Is it the oncoming angst of adolescence? Is it their teachers who turn every poem, story, and novel into an analytical punching bag vs. a piece of writing to be enjoyed and experienced? Is it everyone’s favorite straw man (or android): technology, in all its wily, Siren-call forms? A mystery, when you consider the unique benefits of reading for enjoyment.
Kids love poetry; adults do not. For little kids, poetry comes in the form of children’s books. The good Doctor Seuss, for instance. Goodnight, Moon. The Runaway Bunny. Even, on a basic level, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, which still enjoy deep roots in the rich earth of our memories. The New York Times poetry editor, David Orr, thinks it’s all about sound. This theory tells us that poets who are conscious of sound devices over all might be on to something. Nevertheless, a mystery, when you consider the beauty and economy of poetry, a genre that can touch truths like no other.
General readers label all poetry as inscrutable. Which brings us to the question of accessible vs. inscrutable poetry. Which type of poem is most attractive to the lay reader who has become an adolescent and given up nursery rhymes by large white waterfowl trying to stay clear of pillows? I would guess accessible. Too bad “accessible” is equated with “easy” by the Guardians of Poetry Doomed (they’re out there!). Easy poetry is often deemed lousy poetry by high school English teachers and college professors who have tortured poems and tied cement blocks to the ankles of the genre, forcing it overboard, but most readers who have moved on to novels, thank you, and “nonfiction” (if there is such a thing anymore), you’re welcome, really want no part of the inscrutable stuff that so delights the theoretical, tweed jacket crowd. A mystery, when you consider poetry is a genre worth saving, not guarding.

For Authors, Goodreads’ “Giveaway” Program Becomes a Misnomer

Goodreads Lost Sherpa of Happiness poetry The Indifferent World

Sherpa

News Flash: Four days remain for Goodreads members to sign up for a free copy of my new book, Lost Sherpa of Happiness. If you do the Goodreads thing, you can sign up for a lightning bolt’s chance here.

I’ve spoken to the GR’s Giveaway program before on these pages and have decidedly ambivalent feelings about it. For publicity purposes, I signed on three different times for my first book, The Indifferent World, and dutifully sent books out to the lucky winners.

Unlucky me, however. Not one of the winners bothered to review the book, and as the losers do not buy books once they fail to win the freebie (at least in my experience), it’s a net loss for the author–in this case, the cost of three books plus postage.

The news flash I trumpeted above will be my swan song with the Goodreads Giveaway program. As of January, they will be turning to pay-to-play, charging authors $120 to use the program. Of course, to the big publishers, this is nothing. But to small independent presses like Future Cycle Press (which accepted my first manuscript) and Kelsay Books (which accepted my second), it’s a bigger deal.

The small presses cannot afford marketing, so it’s all on the author. Can I afford $120 to play in the Amazon-owned Goodreads Giveaway program? I don’t think so. I’d have to sell an awful lot of books to justify the cost. Meantime, the rich (although that word doesn’t quite capture the dimensions of Amazon’s wealth) get richer. And Amazon adds to its growing reputation as an author-unfriendly bull in a china shop.

I argued against this move in the Goodreads Feedback group, and was somewhat amazed at the number of posters who praised the move by Goodreads. You are a business, one poster lectured in browbeat mode, as if authors from Dan Brown to Ken Craft were the same animal worthy of the same broad brush.

Uh, no. Not all authors are the same.

Nothing in life’s for free! the pro-paying posters chirped. Plus this should weed out the dreck we freebie hunters have to swim through–all those self-published books and that other stuff.

I guess I fall under the category of “other stuff,” as all published-on-demand (POD) books– even if they undergo the process of being read and accepted by small independent presses–follow the same model as self-published ones if they use a publishing outfit like Amazon’s CreateSpace. It’s all one to those who argue in favor of payment for services.

Of course, I would argue that readers who post reviews on Goodreads (many of them not only beautifully but professionally done, all of them for free) should be paid if we’re following the same logic.

After all, do these free reviews drive sales and feed Amazon’s insatiable money machine? Rhetorical question. Amazon has buttons under every book on Goodreads, each leading to the Mother Ship sales juggernaut.

Different, though, the naysayers cry. What’s good for the golden goose (Amazon) is not good for the old gray gander (every day readers’ reviewers). Meantime, ironically enough, most small presses who cannot get precious shelf space in bookstores must sell on the Mother Ship’s web site. That’s right: Amazon dot all-is-not-calm.

Anyway, to come full circle, there’s a free book if you want to enter and take your chances by December 10th, midnight eastern standard time.

After that? I hope you’ll buy a book and strike a blow for the little guy (publisher AND poet). If you like poetry or feel the call to reconnect with the genre, it’s better than Dan Brown, I think you’ll find.

But then, I’m a little biased. Just a little.

Try Non-GMO, Organic, Locavore Poetry!

poetry poetry books publishing reading poetry

gift

Recently I read a sad statistic. The average print-on-demand book (the typical publishing model for poets who do not self-publish and who do not have the name recognition of the big boppers) sells only 35-40 copies. Why? Because that number happens to match the average number of friends and family members in the POD poet’s circle.

This is why so many poets are ambitious about their readings. There are better chances at augmenting sales–however minutely–by barnstorming the reading circuit.

As any poet will tell you, reading crowds can be as small as zero (try reading to THAT) and, even when there are numbers, there are not always buyers, especially at affairs with open mics where most of the audience consists of others waiting to read their poems.

Here’s the thing, though. Many POD poets I’ve read are talented, indeed. The trouble is, POD publishers do not engage in any marketing on behalf of these writers. It is totally up to the poet, who really doesn’t have the means to reach the masses. No book editor at a major paper or magazine or e-zine is about to review their collection. No podcast by The New York Times will come within a statute mile of discussing it, either. Meanwhile, the few readers (discounting other poets) who DO read poetry are out buying the usual suspects–poets published by major publishers with an ample marketing budget.

To use a food metaphor in this era of foodies, the little companies-that-could have little chance against the giant food corporations (read: Big Food) because the grocery store is stacked in favor of… Big Food.

But wait. In recent years, Davids of the food world have successfully made inroads on the seemingly-impregnable Goliaths called Big Food. Under the banners of “non-GMO” and “organic,” they’ve charged more money for a quality product that consumers have been willing to pay for and consume.

Why does the equivalent not happen in poetry book sales, then? Most readers would argue they cannot part with the $12-$18 your typical paperback, POD collection of poetry costs–not for an unknown name who might have little talent.

The operative word? “Might.”

But what if your non-GMO, organic poet is pretty damn good? You need not roll the dice to find out by buying the book on a hope. You need only search the internet with the poet’s name. Chances are good that some of the poet’s work is published by on-line ‘zines in addition to paper ones unavailable on the web. OR, go to the poet’s web page (this much most DO have), where sample poems are almost always waiting to be sampled via links created for your convenience (think of the free food stations shoppers gobble up on Friday nights at Whole Foods).

Look. Readers are good people willing to put their money into something they believe in–the arts. All it takes for this paradigm shift, from always BIG guys to sometimes LITTLE guys, is a little research and, most importantly, a casting off of assumptions.

Meaning: You can’t assume that the only poets worth reading are familiar names published by familiar publishers. That’s like saying Nestlé, Kraft, PepsiCo, Unilever, Kellogg, and General Mills are the only food and beverage companies worth buying because they are the only ones supplying quality foods and beverages.

Readers of poetry are the only ones who can break the monopoly on readers held by Big Bopper Poetry Presses. You don’t know what you’re missing until you look into some POD poetry books that have been vetted and accepted by a small press publisher or even published by the author herself.

Bottom line: Do a little research and reading on the web. Go panning for gold. Then support some up-and-coming poets for readers on your holiday gift list. The recipients may just feel like they are on the cusp of something penny-stock big as opposed to chasing yesterday’s hot blue chipper.

Nota Bene: I considered posting links to POD poets’ books here by way of recommendations, but then I realized doing so was sure to offend someone whose book I left out. Therefore, I leave the search to poetry readers who otherwise would only buy books–as gifts or for themselves–with names like Mary Oliver and Billy Collins on them. Enjoy your samples!

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Unlike major publishing houses, small, independent publishers have no marketing budget to speak of, so they depend upon word-of-mouth enthusiasm among their readers. Help keep the word-of-mouth momentum rolling for Lost Sherpa of Happiness by visiting Amazon for a copy of this grassroots favorite today.

War & Peace in 14 Lines

poetry reading poetry

brian turner

Sometimes I don’t pull books off the shelf to read in the conventional sense. Sometimes I pull them to simply read a page or two, an essay, a single poem. This past weekend, the one we designate to gratitude, I happened to pull Brian Turner’s 2005 book of poems, Here, Bullet.

Opening the book randomly, my eyes fell on page 47 to the poem, “Curfew.” Reading it, I found a study in contrasts–if Tolstoy will forgive me, the stark difference between war and peace.

But the contrast doesn’t work unless you live in a war zone. As Turner served as an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq, he could see more clearly what folks back home could not. Blinded by peacetime, it’s more difficult to see the beauty in a policeman enjoying the sun, a child helping his mother hang clothes, the faithful going to prayer. See what I mean:

Curfew by Brian Turner
The wrong is not in the religion,
The wrong is in us. — Saier T.

A dusk, bats fly out by the hundreds.
Water snakes glide in the ponding basins
behind the rubbled palaces. The mosques
call their faithful in, welcoming
the moonlight as prayer.

Today, policemen sunbathed on traffic islands
and children helped their mothers
string clothes to the line, a slight breeze
filling them with heat.

There were no bombs, no panic in the streets.
Sgt. Gutierrez didn’t comfort an injured man
who cupped pieces of his friend’s brain
in his hands; instead, today,
white birds rose from the Tigris.

The poem’s effectiveness derives from the shocking imagery of stanza three–specifically the idea of a man holding pieces of his friend’s brain in his hand. Also bombs, panic in the streets–the stuff war zones are made of.

Then, with his reader dismayed, Turner turns back to a peaceful image: “instead, today, / white birds rose from the Tigris.” The transition word “instead” followed by another two-syllable word, “today” (each in rhythm with the other, each slowed by a comma) work perfectly before the idyllic image of white birds rising from the river.

This is what normal looks like. This is what most people fail to observe while normal plays out around them in peacetime. But there’s no taking it for granted in countries torn by war. By contrast, the beauty and the stillness and the ordinariness of what life is supposed to be practically leap out at the observer–in this case the observer, the recorder, the poet.

I closed the book and gave thanks for both poem and peace. And I vowed again to observe the little things that are so immense: dusk, bats, white birds rising for the heavens. War, after all, can visit any country….

The Yellow Bus of Marketing

marketing poetry poetry

bus

Polishing, polishing, polishing. Revision’s the thing. The best part of writing poetry, too. But what happens when you put your little children on the big yellow bus?

It’s tough, let me tell you, watching ten new poems–your babies, noses pressed to the window–as the bus pulls away.

The schools are far away. The poems will be gone for many months. Half a year or more. Heck. They may grow an inch or so while they’re absent. And it’s no mail home allowed. No calls. No texts or e-mails.

As the saying goes: Absence makes the heart get to work. None of this growing fonder stuff. Whip cracking. New brood. And fast. Before the hollow feeling takes root.

No writer should grow overly attached to his writing. What if they come back rejected–kicked out of school?

What if. You’ll be busy if and when that day comes. Waving a new bunch off, fondly but not sentimentally.

A bit cold-hearted, this marketing bit. Part of the game. Your personal public education, so to speak. The yellow bus of marketing that leaves you in its exhaust.

Turn your back, live your gathering life, read, and write.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The Lovely Vice of Rhetorical Devices

poetry

tools

With the Thanksgiving weekend coming to a close (seems like an ordinary Sunday to ME, anyway), let us give thanks for rhetorical devices. Have you ever stopped to think of your favorite? Have you ever wondered which one you use the most? Have you ever realized that these devices are often the lifeblood of what you write and read?

In case you haven’t guessed, I have a special place in my heart (the right aorta, I think it is) for anaphora. In his reference book, A Poet’s Glossary, Edward Hirsch tells us it comes from the Greek for “a carrying up or back” and goes on to define it as “the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of a series of phrases, lines, or sentences.” He goes on to say, “The words accumulate mysterious power and resonance through repetition.”

Emilia Phillips, writing an article called “Repeat After Me” in Ploughshares’ Week in Review newsletter, finds a bit of science in anaphora’s magic, too. She writes, “In her Poetry Foundation article ‘Adventures in Anaphora,’ poet and creative writing educator Rebecca Hazelton writes, ‘Humans are pattern-seeking animals, pre-tuned to the music of language. We are pleased when we hear patterns in language, perking our ears in recognition, and can be both vexed and delighted when those patterns are broken.’”

Admit it. You love a pattern. You probably picked one out as a gift on a shirt or dress over this endless Black Friday shopping weekend.

Think of that pattern as language. Think of it as sound. Think of it as a refrain you begin to subconsciously hum. Something like “And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep” — a case where the repetition extends beyond the beginning but seems not only reasonable but just right.

So…what rhetorical device are YOU thankful for?

A Japanese Cure for the Thanksgiving Hangover

poetry reading poetry

zengarden

Long, long ago a singer named Maureen McGovern sang “The Morning After,” which included the simple line: “There’s got to be a morning after.” On the day after Thanksgiving, the words resonate particularly. One crazy holiday behind us, one to go (and, as they said of the Wicked Witch of the West, “she’s much worse than her sister!”).

But seriously, the antidote is a few Japanese poems from Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, is all. Note how they provide balance and restore order. See how the yin and yang of eastern life can level the playing field of three-too-many football games on television yesterday. Notice how peace fills the vacuum of political arguments that might have over-salted the turkey and lumpy gravy:

The guests arrived early! The turkey took longer than expected to reach 170 degrees Fahrenheit! We ran out of cheese and crackers!

Autumn has come
To the lonely cottage,
Buried in dense hop vines,
Which no one visits.
— The Monk Eikei

My uncle, after one wine too many, decided to share the joy by accidentally knocking his glass of pinot noir over ,where it ran a red river across the white tablecloth and onto my lap!

A strange old man
Stops me,
Looking out of my deep mirror.
— Hitomaro

Aunt Winnie went on and on and on, sucking the bandwidth out of the dining room with the beautiful sound of her own voice. You had all you could do to get “pass the butter, please,” in edgewise!

The colored leaves
Have hidden the paths
On the autumn mountain.
How can I find my girl,
Wandering on ways I do not know?
— Hitomaro

The kids left the table immediately after they finished eating. They retired to the den where the television was tuned to the “seasonal channel.” As they had been out partying the night before, they fell asleep on the furniture.

If only the world
Would always remain this way,
Some fishermen
Drawing a little rowboat
Up the river bank.
— The Shögun Minamoto No Sanetomo

The dishes took a goodly hour and a half to wash. The dryer rejected half of the dishes as “not passing quality control.” Just when I thought I’d reached the end of the dirty-dish-conga line, someone would bring in a forgotten bowl or tureen from the dining room. “Here you go,” they’d say, as if doing me a favor.

All during a night
Of anxiety I wait.
At last the dawn comes
Thought the cracks of the shutters,
Heartless as night.
— The Monk Shun-E

One of our guests got violently ill after everyone else had left. She had to stay over so as to remain near the bathroom, where she could noro- her -virus to her stomach’s desire. This morning, she will leave. Question is, despite all the Lysol we can muster, will she leave the virus, too, as a parting thanks?

The deer on pine mountain,
Where there are no falling leaves,
Knows the coming of autumn
Only by the sound of his own voice.

— Önakatomi No Yoshinobu

Ahh. So calming, these little snippets of life long ago. Let us give thanks to Rexroth for rendering them in English, and to the Japanese poets for rendering them with the future Thanksgiving-addled in mind!

One Hundred Poems from the Japanese Kenneth Rexroth