Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Gabriel Rosenstock April 6th, 2008

Would you like to disappear? Haiku can show you the way!

‘How painful it is to see people all wrapped up in themselves,’ commented Ryokan. Well, it’s unwrapping time, for all of us now, time to let go. How? Let’s see!

Haiku is an ardent, inspired and inspiring engagement with everyday life, an intercourse with nature-centred events, mainly, events that are happening around us all the time but which we perceive more keenly on the haiku path. Read true haiku with reverence, write true haiku - do it right and you can disappear, happily, now — and over and over again in the course of your life.

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There’s a professor in Chicago who has been studying happiness. What is happiness? It’s all about flow, maintains Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life: ‘The metaphor of ‘flow’ is one that many people have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives …’

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Catechism… Sometimes it appears that the cat knows more than we do, learning from experience, fitting into the world, and disappearing from it, more gracefully than we can:

      the cat
            walks into the autumn wind -
                  extended whiskers

      Fusei
      (Version: GR)

/ Photo by fazen /

from darkness             and back into the dark                   the affairs of the cat!                   Issa                   (Version: GR)

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• Other Voices , Poetry
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Elizabeth Reninger March 30th, 2008

Not surprisingly, the poetry of the Taoist tradition is steeped in Taoism’s core values: a close observation and deep honoring of the rhythms of the natural world; a delight in simplicity, play and paradox; and a child-like wonder which has discovered the human form to be the meeting-place of Heaven and Earth.

The poems offered by Taoist practitioners ~ hermits, yogis, priests, farmers, wandering rascals ~ tend to be short rather than long. They often begin with an image from the natural world, encountered “nakedly” and relayed to us ~ the reader ~ in a way that preserves the freshness and spontaneity of that ordinary magical moment. There is ease and simplicity, which allows for great subtlety, and a kind of intimacy difficult to describe.

In The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters, Tony Barnstone and Chang Ping have given us an English translation of three classic Chinese works on the art of poetry Continue Reading »

• Books , Other Voices , Poetry
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Ivan M. Granger March 30th, 2008

As you read these blog articles, make a point of checking the author’s name at the beginning of the post. You’ll start to see some new names. I will be slowly be bringing other voices to the Poetry Chaikhana Blog. I don’t feel this blog should reflect only my particular point of view and interests. I see this blog as being an opportunity to invite other writers, poets, and spiritual practitioners to share their own insight, interests, wisdom, and creativity.

So check back, and check the author’s name…

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