Upstate Dim Sum 2004/II

Upstate Dim Sum - A Biannual Anthology of Haiku and Senryu

During the past six months we have been contacted twice by poets who plan to start their own haiku groups. We always offer our best wishes and any advice that is requested at such times. If their experience is half as good as ours has been, it will be well worth their time and effort. In particular, we take this opportunity to extend our best wishes to “Skipping Stones” as they begin what we hope will be a long and fruitful collaboration.

This issue’s guest poet, Michael McClintock, has been a haiku innovator for many years. His work appears in all three editions of “The Haiku Anthology” and his earliest published haiku date from the 1960s, when he was still in his teens. Barbara Ungar’s 1978 Stanford Honors Essay in Humanities, “Haiku in English,” concluded with a chapter on the fulfillment of English-language haiku’s potential. This chapter dealt primarily with McClintock’s haiku and his seminal efforts toward the creation of an effective English-language haibun (a combination of haiku poetry and prose).

After years of absence from the haiku community, Michael McClintock made a vigorous return to the forefront about six years ago. Recently he has focused much of his energy on English-language tanka. He is an editor of “The Tanka Anthology ” (Red Moon Press, 2003), for which he wrote an informative introduction, and has succeeded Michael Dylan Welch this year as president of the Tanka Society of America. In addition to the haiku on his guest pages, we are pleased to offer you a sample of Michael McClintock’s tanka:

Guest Poet: Michael McClintock

an old photograph

when you opened

a few

freshly molded

in clay –

the coolness

of my parents

my letter

were right to call me

young and happy

were you surprised

an idiot

of all the things I own

my heart

tonight I think of them

that is the saddest

fell out?

with deep fondness

(The Tanka Anthology)

(Tanka Splendor)

(Blithe Spirit)

Michael McClintock

John Stevenson

Sample poems from this issue

headwind –

drifting back

from the loons

in the car singing

until I 'm passed

and seen . . .

community theatre –

the audience

is nervous

French Open

a couch potato

pumps his fist