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Beneath Cherry Blossoms - The Lilliput Review Blog

Sunday, 22 July 2007

Albert Huffstickler and Cid Corman


 

You will be reading a lot of the work of Albert Huffstickler in coming postings - before he died in 2002, Huff had become my favorite "unknown" poet of the small press and remains so 5 years later.  Huff simply cut to the heart of things and in the longer form especially was wrenchingly lyrical.  Though I believe he was being overly generous, he once told me he learned to master the short poem working on things to send to Lilliput.   He certainly mastered the resonance I look for in short works.  A homepage of his work and tributes to him may be found by clicking the "Small Press Links" in the right hand column of this page.  There are some fine poems to be found there.

From LR #105, here's one from Huff and a poem by another premier poet who is gone, Cid Corman:

 

 

Something random

in the morning air.

Something not

to be named.

Something that starts

where music ends.

Albert Huffstickler

 

 

Finding the poetry

living in it.

 Cid Corman

 

 


 

 


Posted by donw714 at 10:38 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Monday, 30 July 2007 12:56 EDT

Saturday, 21 July 2007



 

This morning's Writer's Almanac features a poem by Percy Shelley well worth repeating:

 

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? —

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another,
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother,
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

Lilliput Review #104 was a broadside issue by the poet John Elsberg, entitled "Small Exchange."  Here is a little gem from that ten poem collection:

 

And O,

how he loved his tenderness

when he touched her

John Elsberg

 

 


 

 


Posted by donw714 at 08:26 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007 09:26 EDT

Friday, 20 July 2007

Weather-Beaten Trees ...


 

Generally, I plan to be posting a new entry once a week, more frequently when time allows.   Currently, I'm reading a recent translation of Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, Verse by Adelaide Crapsey and a selection of the art and poetry of d.a.levy entitled The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle.

I first ran across the work of Adelaide Crapsey in one of those inexpensive anthologies of poetry produced by Dover Publications entitled Imagist Poetry.   I have since discovered that she was the inventor of the cinquain, a form I often see in poems sent to Lilliput.  The Imagist movement was greatly influenced by one of the first waves of interest in all things Eastern in the West, and the cinquain as a form owes much to the East in its striking imagery and precise condensation.  Though not a cinquain, the following is my favorite poem by Adelaide.

On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees

Is it as plainly in our living shown,

By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown?

Adelaide Crapsey

 

From Lilliput #103, April 1999, two poems:

 

One Breath

One of your breaths contains

          all the air

               a Mayfly breathes

          in its life 

Antler

 

Poetry is that

conversation we could not

otherwise have had.

Cid Corman 

 


 

 


Posted by donw714 at 06:44 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007 09:25 EDT

Thursday, 19 July 2007

d.a.levy


 

If you want to know what the ugly underbelly of the 60's was truly like during this 40th anniversary celebration of "the Summer of Love," check out d.a.levy and the mimeograph revolution, edited by Larry Smith and Ingrid Swanberg.  The city of Cleveland's betrayal of its would-be poetic savior, d.a.levy, makes Peter's denials of Christ in the garden look like small potatoes, indeed.  A compilation of biographical articles, interviews and analysis, along with a generous selections of the poetry, collages and concrete work of levy, this volume is one of the saddest, most gut-skewering stories ever to be told in the small press (that, god only knows, has had more than its fair share).   For more info on saint levy, check out the "Small Press Links" in the right hand column of this page.

I've always believed that wisdom can come in small packages as well as large.  From Lilliput Review #102, January 1999, the following:

 

 

Fact of Life

Nails

driven into green wood

will loosen

and back out.

Graham Duncan

 



Posted by donw714 at 09:15 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Monday, 30 July 2007 13:01 EDT

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

The Big Picture


 

Today's poems open up issue #101, originally published in January 1999.   They speak to some larger issues ...

 

the circle so large

the curve imperceptible

we think we're moving

straight ahead

Julius Karl Schauer

 

Alpha Centauri

Light years separate us now,

Once horse and human!

Lynx Quicksilver

 

best,

Don



Posted by donw714 at 16:11 EDT | Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink
Updated: Monday, 30 July 2007 13:02 EDT

Tuesday, 17 July 2007

Welcome


 

Welcome to the new Lilliput Review blog, Beneath Cherry Blossoms.  I will regularly be posting poems from past issues to highlight what goes on in Lilliput and letting folks know what's new and what's forthcoming.

Right now, issues #157  and #158 are in the final stages of preparation and will be mailed out to subscribers during the month of August.  In addition, #17 in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series, Missed Appointment by Gary Hotham, will be published next month.  More info will be forthcoming.

From issue #100, a broadside featuring the work of the late poet Cid Corman, the following poem:

 

After all

 

this meaning

would be a

 

farce.  Accept

 

this moment

beyond all

 

measurement   

    - Cid Corman 


 

 


Posted by donw714 at 15:16 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:49 EDT

Issa


 

Beneath cherry blossoms, 
there are no strangers.

                                           - Issa

 



Posted by donw714 at 09:23 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:49 EDT

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