Pat Nolan and Keith Abbott have been writing
various Japanese forms for years now with other poets, and from
the 1980s they have been composing haikai no renga via the mail
or email. They call their compositions variously renku, haikai,
kasen, linked verse, or renga. Their primary sources of information
and education in the field of Japanese linked poetry are Earl
Miner’s two seminal works, The Monkey’s Straw
Raincoat (Princeton University Press, 1981) and Japanese
Linked Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1970) as well
as Hiroaki Sato’s One Hundred Frogs (Weatherhill,
1983). A renku entitled All Ears was recently published
in an anthology, Saints of Hysteria: A Half-century of Collaborative
American Poetry from Soft Skull Press (2007). The All Ears
poets were Pat Nolan, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl and Keith Abbott.
Pat, Maureen and Keith are widely published writers in other genres,
and with Michael have been writing linked verse since the mid-eighties.
Their collaborations have been published in various literary magazines
not usually associated with haikai or Japanese prosody; they include
Hanging Loose (NYC), Jack’s Magazine (LA), and Exquisite
Corpse (New Orleans). They’ve dubbed their group by various
names, including The Totem Pole School (in honor of Keith’s
Northwest origins), but the Miner School Of Haikai Poets is the
latest moniker.
Early on, Pat and Keith corresponded with Earl
Miner up until his passing in 2003. They have written quite a
few renku together; most recently they completed Poetry For
Sale, after Basho and Kikaku’s kasen of a similar name
(cf. Miner’s version in The Monkey’s Straw Raincoat).
Poetry For Sale was the kasen they read and explicated
at Jim Wilson’s store, Many Rivers Books & Tea, on May
9th of 2008.
As part of the process of writing haikai no renga
and to be fair and equitable, the “Renku Master” honors
rotate. Each renku can start with either the master’s original
hokku or another poet’s work, the guest hokku poems were
by Kikaku, Buson, Basho, Kerouac, etc in the past. They prefer
to double the stanzas because it places emphasis on the “linking”
and compensates for the fact that Western schooled poetry readers
are not in the habit of reading the last link with the next link
as a single unit. The renkushi also assigns the succession of
poets beforehand and indicates which stanzas will be the flower
or moon stanzas. Usually they comply with the haikai rules as
laid out in Miner’s Japanese Linked Poetry. Seasonal
considerations can be slipshod and/or whimsical. Changing pronouns
is permitted as those variations allow a shift of emphasis in
the following link that occurs naturally in Japanese renku. Repetitions
of nouns/situations are generally avoided. And the three-part
renku compositional structure of jo-ha-kyû is acknowledged
though often not given much adherence. Mainly the poets of The
Miner School of Haikai engage in writing this kind of collaborative
poetry for the sheer joy of the form and its challenges, which
can be likened to a jazz improvisation or shooting an independent
film with a savvy crew. The poets work for a synthesis of poetic
disciplines rather than a rote repetition of another culture’s
unique prosody. For example, for their method of composing haikai
the Miner School adopted the doubling of stanzas that Professor
Miner used for illustrative purposes; in English this practice
ensures the links are read in sequence and sometimes inspires
more creative and allusive qualities. A completed kasen using
this scheme will then consists of thirty-five 31-syllable tanka-like
poems and one 17-syllable hokku. The haikai poets are encouraged
to attempt 17-syllable or 14-syllable stanzas though that is not
always possible.
In 1993, while the then Totem Pole School were
engaged in writing All Ears, Pat suggested that they
add commentary explaining how and why they linked to the previous
stanza, and on the completed kasen as a whole. As it turns out,
it was a popular suggestion. The writers enjoy learning what is
going on in each other’s heads or lives at the moment of
writing links. The exercise was primarily for their edification
and enjoyment, but now such observations function as an integral
part of their haikai composition.
Pat has produced, in limited editions of 36,
chapbooks of two of their haikai no renga (All Ears and
Random Rocks), which are shared equally among the four
participating poets. Each of the volumes is hand sewn with Japanese
binding, and silk-screened Japanese endpapers.
Biographies
Pat Nolan has lived most of his adult life along
the Russian River in Northern California. He is an author, translator,
editor, and publisher.
Nolan’s poetry and prose have been published in numerous
magazines including Rolling Stone, The Paris Review, The World,
Big Bridge, Poetry Flash, The American Book Review, and Exquisite
Corpse as well as literary magazines in Europe, Asia, and
Australia. His work has also appeared in various anthologies including
Up Late -- American Poetry Since 1970, Out Of This World,
and Saints Of Hysteria.
The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry
and Poems for The Millennium (Vol. I) include his translations
from the French of Surrealist poet Philippe Soupault.
Nolan was editor and publisher of The End, a ‘70’s
literary magazine. He was also the founder of The Black Bart
Poetry Society, and publisher of its newsletter, Life
Of Crime in the mid ‘80’s. Currently, he designs
and publishes limited edition poetry books.
He is the author of fourteen books of poetry. Fell Swoop Press
of New Orleans issued The Nolan Anthology of Poetry: Volume
II, The Modern Era in 2003. Also in 2003, Empty Head Press
published Thin Wings, a limited edition of Nolan’s
original tanka, followed in 2005 by another tanka selection entitled
Untouched By Rain. In 2006, Re:issue Press reprinted
Fly By Night, Nolan’s 1992 selected poems originally
published by Doris Green Editions. On The Fly Press published
his most recent poetry selection, Later, in a limited
edition in the fall of 2007.
Keith Kumasen Abbott is an associate professor
at Naropa University. Publications include the novels Gush,
Rhino Ritz, Mordecai of Monterey and Racer, short
story collections Harum Scarum, The First Thing Coming,
and The French Girl, numerous books of poetry such as
Erase Words and a memoir of Richard Brautigan Downstream
From Trout Fishing In America. His works appeared recently
in an international anthology Rimbaud Après Rimbaud
and Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writing and Life
for which he chaired a symposium and contributed an essay. Ziji
Productions optioned his story “Spanish Castle”, and
he co-wrote the screenplay. His work is translated into five languages,
notably German and French, including his novel Racer,
short-listed for the Berlinale Film Conference 2007.
He co-translated senryu from The Wine Cask Anthology
with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi, noted Zen brush master and translator.
From 1972 on he studied both Western and Eastern calligraphy in
California and Colorado. He taught a contemplative Naropa brush
calligraphy class for many years; one semester he co-taught with
his Soto Zen Buddhist teacher, Kobun Chino Roshi. Currently he
is a senior student of Xinshi Harrison Tu, a Chinese calligrapher
based in Denver and Shanghai and exhibits occasionally with Tu
in Chinese and Korean group shows. His Zen art and haiga have
appeared in Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines, among others.
Maureen Owen is the author of ten books of poetry;
her title Amelia Earhart won a Before Columbus American
Book Award and her selected poems, American Rush, was
a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A special selection
of poems from her title Erosion's Pull, in collaboration
with the stunning art of Yvonne Jacquette, has been published
by Granary Books, New York City. Her complete collection of Erosion's
Pull was published by Coffee House Press in Spring 2006.
She currently teaches at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. Her
awards include grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance
Arts, Inc. and a Poetry Fellowship from the NEA. Andrei Codrescu
notes, "Her exuberant style and tremendous energy shine in
her strongly feminist works."
Michael Sowl lives in Northeastern Minnesota.
He occasionally paints. Interior and exterior. His hobbies include
reading brochures and walking in far places. He hopes to catch
a rainbow trout before the season closes. He has a cricket someplace
in his house. The Chinese may think this is lucky, but he's not
so sure.
Related articles in this issue of Simply Haiku:
Bamboo
Greeting, a Kasen
Bamboo Greeting, a Kasen, (annotated
version)
