And, speaking of inspiration and collaboration, we are once again pleased to be able to bring you a haiga created specifically for Upstate Dim Sum by Ion Codrescu. The joining of a guest poet’s words with the visual poems of this artist is another example of what this journal has been about from the beginning.
Most of us who are engaged in writing haiku (if not most poets of any kind) have, to some degree, a sense of the spiritual quality of this writing. In our deepest moments of spontaneity, the words seem to come through us rather than from us. Some even feel that this is a defining characteristic of haiku. Among his peers, perhaps no one is more strongly identified with this approach to the genre than our current guest poet, vincent tripi. In his poems and his commentary on haiku and the haiku community he has emphasized the sense that this poetry exists in a sacred space and that its readers and writers are joined in something that transcends nationality and modern culture by partaking of a more ancient and familial connection.
“Haiku enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing who we really are.”
– tribe~ Meditations of a haiku poet by vincent trippi
over the pond-lilies
dragonflies mating
to forgive
spring again
the loon call
held by the lake
just rabbits
and crows
to pick blueberries
August evening
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