“Collected Haiku and Senryu” (Volume 1, 2007)
Thursday, December 13th, 2007..
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still grave stones remain still grave stone remains still grave stones—..
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all those folded clothes must have been a thankless task— I had a brother too!..
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“Take the Joanna Margeret Paul film Gravestones, for example. A gravestone dwarfs the mountains. The screen fills with grey and seems to expand. Then I imagine the gravestone is hurled at me, becoming light. On its way to my eye, the gravestone folds down (origami light) and becomes image. Then it goes into my mind, becoming pulses of energy and floats to the back of my head. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I forget the image. Then a new gravestone appears on the screen and it happens all over again. Gravestones gather in my mind.
“When the film ends all the gravestones vanish from my thoughts, and I feel clear and very calm, as if I had just meditated. As I sit there I realise that I am very aware of something. It is a poem. I had not written a poem in years. I used to write a little bit, but eventually gave up. Why did I give up? I didn’t feel like my work was “worth” anything. Poetry (back then) made me feel very small. It was a very large thing, very close to me and yet indistinguishable from any ground. When I tried to think of a poem it was like looking into a black hole. Alternatively, if I tried to look out there for one, I found nothing but blinding light. Now I see grey. Then a poem comes to me. I did not “write” it. Rather, it simply appeared, as if from nowhere, said by no-one. It was as if the images had traversed the murky space between my conscious and unconscious mind. They went somewhere and then they returned, with news—” (Dick Whyte, A Place for Shadows, MA Thesis)
“Still grave stones” was first published in Simply Haiku (Summer 2009, Vol. 7, #2). “All those folded clothes” has never been published. Read more.
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