Richard Wright - Haiku Poet

Did you know that well-known novelist, Richard Wright, who gave us Bigger Thomas in Native Son, is also a prolific haiku poet? Having written more than 4000 haiku and having published 817 haiku, Wright made a tremendous contribution to the genre during his lifetime. I do not doubt that Wright seems capable such poetic prowess given the plethora of artistic works he produced, but the clumsy, foolhardy nature of Bigger Thomas does not lend itself to poetry.

In his book, Haiku: This Other World, the best and most complete volume of haiku that I've read this year, Wright takes notes during his time in exile in France. He spends a year and a half observing his natural surroundings and putting that work into haiku form. What results is a stunning account of “This Other World.” The book is the most complete compilation of his haiku poetry, featuring 817 of his haiku poems.

Written at the end of Wright’s life, in exile and on the heels of the death of his mother Ella, his daughter Julia observed that his obsession with haiku was something of an effort “to spin these poems of light out of gathering darkness.”

What is special about Richard Wright’s haiku is that he has a neat way of turning a phrase and he has a way of making each haiku his own, of reflecting his particular viewpoint. At first glance, I wondered what the big deal was about a few short poems written about nature. As I got into the poetry, I discovered something provocative, artistic and playful about Wright’s haiku. His poetry had a particular magic about it and it captured something elusive. I also noticed that the pauses between each haiku were heavy – full of thought and reflection. This is typical of good haiku.

When reading Wright’s haiku, I found my own voice. I saw in Wright a great challenger, a sparring partner, of sorts. As soon as I came across one of Wright’s haiku that was perplexing or jarring, I tried to come up with something better written on the same topic. I tried to spin a phrase in an interesting manner, careful not to mimic Wright but inspired to write something better. For instance, I wrote the following:

The fog lifted its

Cold, wet feet to climb out of
The bay and up the hill.

Inspired by the following haiku by Wright:

My cold and damp feet
Feel as distant as the moon
On this autumn night.

Moreover, I wrote:

Every year the geese

Journey south and return with
Loud stories of pilgrimage.

Inspired by Wright’s:

High above the ship
On which immigrants sail,
Are departing geese.

To conclude, Richard Wright’s haiku poetry has been an inspiration for my entire book. His witty and imaginative haiku have truly brought out the best in me. You can find more of his haiku at the following link: http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/wright.html & you can find more of my haiku in my book due out April 2012.

Marking An Anniversary

You're in luck! I have a surprise in store. From the archives, the poetry reading I gave to launch Contemplating Eve, my first book of poetry, at Rainy Faye Bookstore. Find out why it took ten years to put this book together. Find out how Toni Morrison's Sula inspired the book of poetry. Today happens to be the one year anniversary of the launch of the book.  Here's your chance to learn more about Contemplating Eve  and to sample some of the poetry inside:

Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to the book launch for Contemplating Eve. I am so happy to be here. This afternoon I plan to share with you a little bit about Contemplating Eve, about me and I would like to read some poetry.

First, I was inspired to publish the 70 poems and roughly 30 pieces of artwork contained in the book last November.  At that time, I realized that over the course of 10 years I had compiled a great deal of work from visual arts, photography and poetry classes taken undergrad. I thought it might be a great project to integrate the art with the poetry. The anthology has indeed turned out to be a feast for the senses. I am proud to present it to you today. Some of the artwork from the book is exhibited here in the bookstore.

So let me tell you a little bit about myself. I have a BA in English from Brown University and a MA in International Economics and Development from Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies.  I published my first work of poetry, “Oda al girasol” or “Ode to the Sunflower” in a national Spanish-language literary magazine at the age of 17 and in my high school’s literary journal “The Odyssey” that same year.

Since publishing my work initially, I have taken visual arts, photography and poetry classes at the Rhode Island School of Design (aka RISD) and at Brown University. This book represents the culmination of work done during my undergraduate years and since then.

A point of inspiration for these collected works is a quotation from Toni Morrison’s Sula. Here, close to the end of the novel, Sula, the protagonist , thinks of her best friend Nel as she watches Nel walk out of her life for the last time. Sula, despite the mistakes that she has made with Nel, laments a time when they were close knit friends. And I quote:

“So she will walk down that road, her back so straight in that old green coat, the strap of her handbag pushed back all the way to the elbow, thinking how much I have cost her and never remember the days when we were two throats and one eye and had no price.” End quote.

Here Sula describes a friendship that has endured since childhood, one where she felt a close bond and from which she received spiritual renewal. In the novel love is an all-important escape from the visceral realities of 1940s America and an escape from the gnawing loneliness that can scratch at your insides.

To scale this novel’s jagged topography is to recognize that the spiritual bond of love and friendship has lifelong existential implications.

In Sula, Morrison asks critical existential questions about freedom and power. Are they solely physical? Are they spiritual in nature?

In Contemplating Eve, I posit that freedom and power are importantly spiritual. The power of love in its abundance or in its absence can shape an emotional landscape and form a lasting spiritual foundation. In Contemplating Eve, the reader takes a journey through profiles in grace, love, laughter and barren circumstance. Ultimately, love is freedom, and love, as a spiritual foundation, conquers all. And now an introduction to the poetry that’s inside the book.

*The first poem is, Love, p  41. Have you ever been in love? I mean really been in love? The type of love where care and responsibility march hand-in-hand. This poem is about that joy that you felt when you knew that this is what you were looking for:

Love is…

constant

Love is…

knowing

Love is…

That we cannot hold each other more dearly

Love is…

Joy

Love is…

My joy

Love is…

Your joy

Love is…

Never letting go

You see my parents taught me how to love.

I had forgotten entirely what mattered--

But, then there is you.

And, now there is you.

*The next poem is “Climb” p 122. This poem is about that tenderness that a child can open up for you. A tenderness that may be you didn’t know you had, but one that is profound nonetheless:

Climb into this tender loving place, which are

my arms. Lay your head next to my

heart and hear it beat.

Be lulled, be warmed

soothingly to sleep.

Climb up my bosom and the side of my face,

through my tight tendrils and arrive

dreaming.

Think of my gentle whisper, my soft touch.

Know that as I envelop your lithe frame

that I hold you closely,

dearly to my soul.

 *Next is “Mama/Abuela” p 164. Do you have a mother or grandmother with a steely nature—a larger than life figure who seems as if she could take on the world? This poem is about that woman who has worked hard for her retired days and has known the fight.

70 years of living

of breathing, of pushing through, reaching in

and pulling out the soul, the strength to move on

to journey the darkened caves of despair and

brilliant summits of emotion.

You’ve grown roots,

thick and tangled,

deep.

You are not as they imagine you,

a dried rose,

lifeless, preserved or clung to

like an old photo,

looked on with fleeting nostalgia…

You live

mature,

established,

arrived,

splendid,

in soul and in strength,

an end and an essence.

Woman of many facets and many faces:

happy, silly giddy,

fierce, tough, stubborn,

of easy defiant grace.

Carrier of worry,

burden,

patience,

hope and vision.

Backbone.

Woman of silvered hair

bronzed creased skin

weakening flesh and congealing soul,

you are my comfort,

my beacon,

Mama/Abuela.

Next is “Yawns and Laughter” p 17. Ever tried laugh therapy? I have not, but I think I know why it works. Do you remember being a child and crying & laughing with such ease and frequency? And you would cry. Oh, how you would cry. But because your friend was laughing (at heaven knows what) you started laughing. Hysterically. For minutes on end. Until the tears dried up. Me too, this poem is about those moments. That is, when they happen today:

Yawns and laughter are contagious
child-like laughter
the clapping up of spirits
I can feel your eyes graze my face
as you search me from one side to another
now your silence
evidence of an active inner life
shameless
when I look at you I know
just how ephemeral sadness is
and although you are now gone
even still
your spirit abides in me
go softly, go gently

Finally is “Self-love”. I think that self-love is about self-discipline. It’s a journey. And I found that you need a whole lot of it to get through tough times. This poem is about the dawn of my understanding of that fact.

Self-love is like the sweet juice of a passion fruit:

indulgent and rich. Oh, the joy inside. The richness

within. To accept one’s faults and find the quality

of mind to move on requires such grace. Oh, to get

on with it. To get on with life. The rugged tough-

guy win-the-battle good-stuff. That’s what I want.

I want Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. I want that

cocksure inward spirit that very simply scorns the

enemy and coddles the friend. A victory without

comes from a victory within. Slay my demons, I will.

All in good time. All in good time.

And, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed getting your first taste of Contemplating Eve. Enjoy the book and the refreshments.  Don’t forget to check out the Facebook Fan page for Contemplating Eve.  Thanks.

So, why haiku?

At its best, haiku is an amazing form of poetry that uses simple imagery to communicate something elusive in few words. My new book, currently in production, includes haiku about love, nature and politics. While the book is composed of more than 150 haiku, there will be roughly 20 short poems also included in the book.


Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, whose subject matter is typically nature, but which can vary from war, to religion, to love and whose structure is usually three lines composed of 5-7-5 syllables, respectively. Although the work of traditional haiku poets like Basho, Buscon and Issa adhered to the rules of structure, the rules have eased more recently. American haiku poets usually write haiku with 17 or fewer syllables or, simply, short-long-short in the three line structure. The brevity of the poetic form allows for many pauses and plenty of opportunity to digest the written material.


Richard Wright is a well-known modern writer who has made a tremendous contribution to the tradition. His 817 published haiku are substantial, particularly for Wright, who was a novelist by trade. In HAIKU: This Other World, we find him as an exile in France observing the natural world around him. I imagine his haiku writing must have been soothing, even meditative for him not far, at that point, from the end of his life. I recently finished his volume of haiku and plan to write more about what it is I admired about his work. It is Wright's haiku, in particular, that inspired me to get started on my own work to contribute to the tradition.


Writing haiku was certainly meditative for me. The practice of finding some small kernel of meaning and bearing it out in a short poem (or haiku) was somehow very satisfying. The form's flexibility in terms of content also makes haiku appealing as a form, as well. When writing, I can choose to write objectively, remaining neutral and keeping my opinions out of the poem as was common among traditional Japanese haiku poets, or I can write a subjective haiku, making my perspective of what may be going on in a poem obvious. Either approach makes for interesting writing material.


Additionally, haiku's subject matter has evolved to include not just nature haiku, but haiku about love, war, religion and politics. While it might seem that this is a tremendous break with tradition, in fact, in recent years, it has been discovered that many traditional haiku poets wrote haiku on many different subject matter. Interestingly, many of the masters of love haiku were women.


In sum, I chose haiku as the main form of poetry to employ in my new book because of the way the form has evolved over the years in structure and in content, but also because of the strength of the tradition. In addition, writing them is meditative and stretches the imagination. I hope that reading them will have the same effect.

New Projects

I have spent the past few months reading, writing and travelling. Most importantly, I have been working on a new project--a new book. You have already sampled some of the poetry from the book in my blog, Fragments & Other Short Poems... This will be my best book yet. The Lily & The Aster is a book of short poems and haiku. And the much anticipated first chapter concerning love promises to be a memorable one.

Regarding process, reading other poets has again proven crucial as a source of inspiration and to informing my style. I have been reading poets as diverse as Sonia Sanchez and Kay Ryan, Rita Dove and Nikki Giovanni. I have also been reading well-known haiku poets Matsuo Basho and Richard Wright. Their writings have had an unquestionable impact on what I choose to write and how I choose to write it.

In terms of my travels, I was inspired creatively by a performance by the George Weldon Johnson Trio, a musical group in Philadelphia. The jazz trio, consisting of a xylophone, a bass and a guitar, inspired more than words. Performing numbers by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and others, I was reminded of my passion for jazz. I was inspired to write several haiku the day of the performance, which may find their way into my new book.

Expect April 2012 release.

Poetry Reading from A Dawn Run Hot with Morning

15 Day Hiatus

I will be away from my computer and unable to maintain this blog for the next two weeks due to vacation plans. In that time, I encourage you to take another look at some past favorite blogs:

-A Primer: Book Cover Design & Book Marketing

-Understanding & Selecting a Price Point

-Conversations with the Editor/Xavier Martin

-Africa as Muse...REVISED

-We Write, We Draw & the Journey to Becoming

Fragments & Other Short Poems...

So I'll seek rest and 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 over
closed eyelids, releasing the
day's unease.

----------

Now we see the slender scope of our
two-party system. Like a waddling toddler,
it risks its own demise on an unwieldy pair of legs,
two pillars, each one as unstable as the other.

---------------

The tree is a root perched upward
toward the heavens. It seeks nourishment
from a rich and fertile sky.
The sun's rays and the cloud's rain foster
new beginnings. And new ends bud
with life. Sturdy and rooted, it grows;
it presses forth, pressing forward, in step
with time, ever upward, ever deeper
into the sky.

-----------------

like the precocious bud she blossoms
blushing pinks and reds she blooms
tickled by warm fingertips and sunlight
she smiles, blistering with youth

-----------------

our love drowned in three rivers and
one ocean; the pools of water that
divided us

technological miracles could not
salvage the debris of a love gone
under

----------------

I am moved by his efforts, for he knows
me; I am not just a vague sketch lining the
outskirts of his consciousness, but rather
a course of being he knows by heart...

-----------------

This city's old bones have a life all their own....

-----------------

midnight's children
dance under moonlight
dreaming of dawn

-----------------

a Kumasi woman
head heavy with water-filled urn
stands statuesque at the foot of the river