Introduction to The Lily & The Aster

Now that you have gotten a look at the poetry inside the book and a look at the trailer, how about we take a step back and look at the prose that introduces the book. Here is your chance to get a look at the Introduction to The Lily & The Aster:

Introduction -

Why haiku? The answer is simple: haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that is amazing in that it can be used to portray the unseen, to point out an irony or to colorfully depict a scene usually in just 17 syllables or in just three lines with 5-7-5 syllables.

Haiku is always about more than what is given on the page. It captures a feeling, a moment, an attitude towards nature, towards life, towards being. At its best, haiku transcends the words on the page and communicates something elusive.

Poet Sonia Sanchez had the following to say about the beauty and power of haiku:  

“This haiku, this tough form disguised in beauty and insight is like the blues, for they both offer no solutions, only a pronouncement, a formal declaration—acceptance of pain and humor, beauty and non-beauty, death and rebirth, surprise and life. Always life.”

If you pay close attention to the silence, the pauses in each haiku, there may be an “aha moment.” That is yours to claim.

As in life, so it is in love. Love has its cycles of death and of rebirth. Love has its seasons—seasons of longing, of passion, of maturity and of loss. In nature we see symmetry to life and love. Some of the haiku and other poetry here are a reflection on life and on love as seen in nature.

I chose haiku because they are a powerful and concise way to express an emotion, an idea. Although haiku is a rigid form with specific rules, haiku is also flexible, with rules that can be adapted. For instance, even the great Japanese haiku masters wrote and published haiku that were a syllable or two more or less than 17. And like so many of my predecessors, I reinvent the form to tell a story with long and short haiku.

 

You will find short poems as well as short essays here in addition to the haiku. The short poems vary in subject matter from love, to nature, to politics.

It is always interesting for me to learn more about a writer, especially a poet, once I have read his or her or work. In that spirit, I am also including a few short essays composed from journals I kept while spending an extended period of time in Romania, Spain and Ghana. I would like to share these with you because my travels have so fundamentally shaped who I am and how I see the world. They have had an impact on my poetry in more ways than one. The stories I tell are too short to publish as a stand-alone book, so I thought it a fitting little surprise to include them here.

Matsuo Basho & his haiku

Matsuo Basho is a master haiku poet. His influence spans Japan and throughout the world. Basho is so well-renowned perhaps because of his work’s accessibility. I read a great number of his haiku in preparation for writing The Lily & The Aster. I admire that he is able to capture such beauty and power in one simple image. Oh, the magic one can create in just 17 syllables. Sample Matsuo Basho’s most poignant work - haiku - translated from Japanese:


Spring:
A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist
~

Coolness of the melons
flecked with mud
in the morning dew
~

Awake at night--
the sound of the water jar
cracking in the cold
~

Chilling autumn rains
curtain Mount Fuji, then make it
more beautiful to see

~

Crossing long fields,
frozen in its saddle,
my shadow creeps by

Chapter 2 - Confessions of Joy - SNEAK PEEK at New Book

Here's your chance to get a look inside my new book of poetry, The Lily & The Aster, including a look at haiku and short poems:

Chapter 2: Confessions of Joy
1.
Each drumbeat
is a winged bird sent
off towards heaven.
2.
Nothing beats
playing a djembe
with the thunder.
3.
Dancing
breathing life
like the night air.
4.
Your song,
like one long exhale
thrown skyward.
5.
Your music journeyed
to a place unknown
to words.
6.
Your song
A confession
of joy.
7.
Your dance
transforming your beauty into
a butterfly.
8.
He is the Miles Davis of the djembe
Full of flourish and experiment
Classic but not derivative
Mastermind of the stage
His feats incongruous to the scale of his fame
His shortcomings lauded beside his accomplishments
And yet he is a perpetual enigma,
When he picks up that drum
His genius demonstrated in the spectrum of rhythm in his repertoire
Children respond instinctively
Elders swept into the beat
Dancers ensnared by the rhythms
All to create a cacophony of happy faces
Clamoring for more
9.
We listened to our music
and reveled in the sound.
We didn't take it for granted.
Music was a matter of fact.
It just was.
10.
So I'll seek rest and I'll listen
to the peaceful noise of gentle
rainfall and the threatening
tumble of thunder and be calmed
by the whistling whir of the
radio, the low thump and cradle
of easy blues music while I lay
fingertips pressed over closed
eyelids releasing the day's
unease.

On Book Editing

The process of editing can be trying. If one is working with the right people; however, it does not have to be. I have two separate editors to help me through the process: a general editor and a line editor; each is tasked with differing yet consonant agendas. I think I am working with the right people because working with an editor has opened my eyes to the potential of my own work.

Both of my editors have easy-going personalities and both are knowledgeable and well-read. This makes working with them quite pleasurable and always a learning experience. They play quite different roles, however. While on the one hand, my editor is responsible for the overall flow of content, as well as matters of style; on the other hand, my line editor is responsible for grammar, punctuation and spelling. Ultimately, each is tasked with making the text stronger and more cohesive.

They work in different yet complementary ways. Whereas my editor encouraged me to look at the big picture, to stand back and connect each part of the story scene by scene, or poem by poem, to ask how the unifying theme flows through every paragraph or every poem; my line editor has a knack or an eye for detail. She asks how things could be changed on a micro level for a smoother flow, a more fluid read. She works to dissect the text and rebuild it sentence by sentence.

I liked working with the two of them because each was methodical with his/her comments and served as a good listener, a sounding board when I needed it. It helps that I have worked with this editorial team on a previous project, so they know how to communicate with me.

Working with the two of them has been such a pleasure. It has opened me up to the possibilities of my own work. Working with my editor, in particular, has helped me appreciate the richness of my work, that there are alternate interpretations, multiple layers or shades of meaning to my poetry. Rather than having my ego busted, I get an ego boost by working with my editor.

To conclude, I think that I am working with the right people because they are well-qualified for their roles and because they have helped me understand that book production does not have to be painful. At its best, it can be quite inspiring.