I.
LETTERS FROM BILL WEST
Bill West, based in Chicago, has published his
poems in many Indian poetry journals. He
and I have appeared together in magazines such as Poet, Canopy, Metverse Muse, Azami,
Spin etc. He
has published several books including The Heians, Ghost Tales of Old Japan
, Kaimami (Scenes Observed While Peeping through a Screen), American Summer Suite, and Sacred Numbers.
1.
666 West Irving Park Road 1-2
Chicago, Illinois 60613-3125, USA
April 24, 2001
Dear Professor Singh,
Thanks for your letter of April 10th, which
has just arrived. Please don’t hurry to
review The Heians. It’s very kind of
you to take the time and trouble to review it at all. I hesitate to ask a poet to take time from
his own work, and I’ve decided not to
write prose in my late years. I really,
therefore, shouldn’t ask it of others.
I’m sure Iftikhar had your Japanese association in mind, when he asked
me to send The Heians to you. I thank you for your help, while pleading
with you to concentrate on writing your own poetry without allowing yourself to
be distracted by other work. All of our
lines are too short. Leave it those who don’t write creative work to write the
reviews.
The letter I enclosed about the data surrounding The Heians is one I prepared for all the
potential reviewers, so be careful how you use it. I should have put a warning in it, but I
assumed reviewers would see the letter for what it is.
I have no reason to think that my name will do anyone
any good at The Mainichi Daily, where
I’ve published only once or twice. The
editors don’t write back at all, and I don’t see the paper. I do seem to appear
from time-to-time in The Asahi Evening
News, but David McMurray, the haiku editor sends puzzling cursory
telegraphic-style notes at times, which I take to mean, he’d like some more
haiku. Sometimes he includes a copy of
the issue with my haiku and sometimes not.
In general, his notes seem to coincide with the four seasons. Again,
unless he sends me a copy, I don’t see my haiku in published form, because I
don’t see the paper, and I’m not on-line, because I’m a mechanical moron and
computer illiterate. I’m enclosing a
copy of the 1998 and updated 1999 “List of Haiku Publications” put out by the
American Haiku Society. It has not been
corrected since. I thought I sent you a copy, when we last corresponded. It has some notes of mine, including my
warning to myself against your nemesis from NZ, Tony Chad. I recently sent the
list to Dr. Angelee Deodhar, who had sent me a copy of her Pail in Hand collection of haiku which are excellent. Perhaps she’ll be perverse enough to ignore
my caveat and send her book to the boorish xenophobic of New Zealand, in which
case maybe we’ll (or she’ll) get further evidence of his churlishness.
What a noticer of trivia you must be to have become
aware of my absence from Metverse Muse.
Dr. H. Tulsi and I didn’t quarrel. When she sent me notice my subscription was
due several years ago, I sent her a twenty dollar bill. She wrote back to say that, although the
letter was or looked untampered with, my twenty dollars wasn’t in it. I then sent a second twenty dollar bill, and
she wrote back that she hadn’t received that either. I sent her a brief note, saying that I was absolutely
sure I had enclosed the second twenty dollars, and that I couldn’t chance
sending her more money, and that was our last communication. I suppose I should have sent a check the
second time, but I didn’t. What I miss
most are the photographs of the poets, though why I should care about how other
poets look, shows a certain superficiality on my part. I think it’s because the first anthology of
poetry I owned was Palgrave’s Golden
Treasury, which, in those days, had little portraits of many of the poets,
my favorite being the portrait of the spectacularly ugly Robert Herrick, whose
lyrics are so delicate and lovely and charming.
Love,
Bill
2.
May 22, 2001
Dear Professor Singh,
Thank you very much for your May 4th
letter, the copy of your review of my The
Heians, and your cautionary notice of Tony Chad’s ascendance to the
editorship of Spin, arrived today. Do
you know, if his other magazine Winterspin
continues and if he’s also editor of it? I don’t have any New Zealand outlets
for my poems. Patricia Prime must, I
hope, mean well, even if her memory is short.
Your review of The
Heians is superb. Thank very much for writing it, and for doing all the
research into Japanese art and history you’ve clearly undertaken to write
it. Thanks too for your remark about my
dealings with H. Tulsi. I’ll thinkover whether I want to resume relations
with Metverse
Muse. Concerning your own dealings
with that magazine, I’d suggest that, if you’d really like to have your poems
published in it, send Dr. T. some of your more rhythmic free-verse and let her
decide whether she regards it as metrical.
Don’t speak of it, of course, as free verse. I haven’t seen the magazine for quite a
while, but my memory is that she interprets “metrical” rather freely. Do you ever thyme? If so, send her some poems that have some
rhymes. I know that she has published
haiku in her magazine in the past, so ship her some of yours.
Judging by my experience, you won’t hear from the Mainichi Daily, even if they
publish your poems. Ikkoku used to send his poets copies of the haiku
columns of M.D. in which their poems
appeared. You probably will hear from
David McMurray, but, if you’re like me, you won’t know what he’s saying to you,
because his notes are so vague and telegraphic.
He likes 3-5-3 syllables haiku, but I just send him what I’ve got. He also seems to like season words, but,
again, I send what I can. At any rate, when he sends me something in the mail,
I take it as an invitation to send him more haiku for the next season, if I’ve
got some. He’s published some of mine
that appeared in Azami earlier, so he
surely knows that you’re a well-known haikuist.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a copy of Srinivas’ Poet, although I stopped subscribing to
it quite sometime ago, so I sent them a poem. Perhaps, your review of my The Heians reminded them or inspired them to contact me. Thank you for that in this letter full of
thank yous.
Don’t feel bad
about not knowing much about the nature of the haiku and tanka. Nobody does, I
think, although there are some that are sure they do. The British Haiku Society spent two years in
trying to come up with a definition of the haiku and had at last to give it up,
although I believe they issued some guidelines, which I’ve never seen.
Do you write tankas?
I’m enclosing a copy of the new Tanka Society of America’s membership
application. The society has no magazine
for poems but publishes a newsletter with some essays about tanka. You don’t have to be an American to join, but
it’s probably not worth your bother. I
send it just as general information to you.
If you do write tankas, you could submit some to Ms Laura Maffei, Editor
& Founder, American Tanka, P.O. Box 120 – 024, Staten Island, N.Y.
10312, USA. Most of the tankas in it
don’t follow the 5-7-5-7-7 form.
Very gratefully yours, love,
Bill
I’m enclosing 80 cents in American stamps—enough to
pay for a letter weight reply from an American magazine, self-stick stamps.
3.
July 6, 2001
Dear R.K.,
Thank you very much for your June 20th
letter and the copy of your review of my The
Heians as it appeared in the June Poet.
It’s very kind of you to take so much trouble on my behalf.
I’m glad to hear you’ll have poems in the Asahi haiku in English column. I’m
amazed to hear you had a long letter from David McMurray, who writes in
telegraphic style to me. He must be your
admirer. The Mainichi people seem to expect haikuists to find their poems in
the newspaper. They don’t write to us—or at least to me. It’s hard to deal with
them,when we don’t know if they publish our poems. Who’s going to subscribe to
the Mainichi just to see if they
publish us occasionally
Michael Dylan
Welch brought out the first issue of Tundra,
two years ago and none since. He has my subscription money, but I get no Tundras.
Enjoy the summer!
Love,
Bill
4.
April 29, 2002
Dear R.K.,
Our friend Iftikhar Hussain Rizvi has suggested that I
send you a copy of my The Sparrow
With the Slit Tongue and Beautiful Oiwa: Tales of Old Japan to
you. I’m also enclosing a copy of my letter about the book’s background.
It may be that Iftikhar intends to ask you to review
it. I’m very grateful to you for your generous and excellent review of my The Heians, but, please don’t feel you
need to take time out from your own important poetry writing to review another
book of mine. As you know, I’m not
writing any prose as a matter of policy,
so I have no right to ask others to do so.
I enjoyed your haiku about the maid’s leaving an oily
smell behind her in David McMurray’s haiku column. Do you still correspond with
him? He published a haiku of mine in
January, I think, but I don’t hear from him much. I always read your poems, of
course, when I see them in magazines.
Love,
Bill
II.
A LETTER FROM KAZUYOSI IKEDA
Kazuyousi Ikeda has been appearing in
various Indian poetry magazines.
President of International Earth Environment University and Professor Emeritus
of Osaka University, he is based in Osaka.
A few Indian scholars have published books on his poetry.
16 July 2001
Dear Dr. R.K. Singh,
Thank you very much for your kind letter dated 26 June
2001. I am deeply impressed by your
great interest in Japanese art forms. I
am exceedingly happy that I have such a bosom friend as you loving and admiring
Japanese culture. Again and again I
thank you very very much for your
writing on my poetry, responding to the request of the editor of Samvedana. As said in my previous
letter, your recommending essay was amazingly excellent; I found that it arose
from your keen interest and profound penetration in Japanese art.
I am very sorry that I could not fulfill your request stated
in your letter: I do not regularly read Asahi
Shumbun, and it is impossible to get newspapers published previously (say
22 June 2001) from any newspaper shop. So, I regret that I cannot send you a
copy (clipping) of the page carrying haiku and comments on them.
I heartily congratulate you on your success with your haiku
and tanka, being published in Haiku
Harvest and The Tanka Journal etc. I
greatly admire your energetic activities in the field of Japanese art,
especially poetry.
I read your review on Bill West’s book The Heians. Your review stimulated me into immense interest. The tanka of the Japanese court poets in the
Heian period (9th – 12th centuries) are the important
subjects of my literary researches. The form of tanka is 5-7-5-7-7 syllable
metre. But in the end of the Heian period (12th century) the form of
poetry 7-5, 7-5, 7-5, 7-5 syllable metre also appeared and flourished. But soon it decayed. Researching into this poetry form, I revived
it late in the 20th century.
This is nothing but the seven-and-five-syllable metre (Sitigotyo in
Japanese) which I am now using not only in my Japanese poetry but also in my English
poetry. You and other poets in the world
now read my Sitigotyo poems.
For the above reason, I eagerly wanted to read The Heians, especially owing to your
excellent, inspiring review. So, I
ordered the book by sending Mr. West $15.
I am now waiting the reaching of the book. At the same time I knew that Mr. West had
published, besides The Heians, the
books: Ghost Tales of Old Japan ; Kaimami (Scenes Observed While Peeping
through a Screen); American Summer
Suite; Sacred Numbers. I ordered
all his books from him. I am much
interested in their being written with his calligraphy and including
illustrations and photographs.
Though they have not yet reached me, I can read these
splendid books because you wrote the review of The Heians in the journal POET and directed my attention to
it. My thanks to you is boundlessly
large.
Again and again thanking you very much for your great favour
and kindness, and ardently hoping for your continued brilliant success in
literary success, I am
Sincerely yours,
Kazuyosi Ikeda
Address: Nisi-7-7-11 Aomadani, Minoo-si, Osaka 562-0023,
Japan
III.
A LETTER FROM FEDERICO C. PERALTA
Feddie is a haiku poet from the
Philippines. Our haiku have appeared in many haiku journals the world over. His
first letter arrived with some of his haiku.
1.
18 Tanguile Street, Phase
VI,
Pleasant Hill Subdivision,
San Jose del Monte 3023,
Bulacan, Philippines
16 February, 2000
Dear Ram Krishna,
Isang mainit na kumusta sa iyo mula sa Philipinas. A warm hello to you from the Philippines.
I came across your haiku in a Yugoslavia haiku magazine and
caught my interest. But to my surprise when in another letter I discovered that
you were one of the poets featured in the book given to me by Catherine Nair, a
dear friend from New Zealand.
I am glad that I finally am able to write this letter which I
have been longing to do so to convey this message of admiration to you.
I enjoy reading your haiku, and I cannot but wish I could
have some more of your fine poetry.
There is an intense craving inside me which is difficult to
explain. So, I typed some of my own
haiku in the 17-syllabic sentence pattern to exchange with more of your poems.
I will cherish and treasure them.
I am FREDERICO C. PERALTA. I was born on March 19, 1954. I am
married. I have two children. The eldest is a boy, and the youngest is a girl.
I am not gainfully employed in any commercial entities but in our house. It is
my wife who earns the living for us as a nursing attendant in a veternas medical center receiving a meager salary
which is, more often than not, insufficient to make both ends meet. But love makes us survive.
I lost my sight more than a decade ago due to retinitis
pigmentosa. It is an incurable eye
disease which eventually leads to blindness.
Even modern medicine has not yet discovered a cure for it. I inherited this visual malady from my
grandparents. But I am thankful to God
for helping me realize that the light within is brighter than the light
without. The loss of sight does not mean
loss of insight in life. Life is
beautiful seeing through the eyes of God in the light of truth.
I collect books of poems, both haiku and non-haiku. I like the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore,
Kahlil Gibran, Matsuo Basho, Pablo Neruda and Jose Rizal, our national
hero. Aside from poetry books, I also
collect stamps and recorded music, jazz, classical and non-classical.
I look forward to hearing from you soon. Not merely to swap
poems but friendly notes and thoughts as well.
Haiku is a path that will lead mankind to universal understanding. Happy haikuing. Mabuhay.
Affectionately,
Frederico C. Peralta (Feddie)
Touching each other, we explode in ecstasy. Sound of pre-dawn
rain.
Blue suburban sky. Solitary bird twittering in circled
flight.
Beautiful morning. The narra tree ejaculating in the wind.
A night of no moon. The spark of love in your eyes leads me
to your arms.
Sunday morning sun.
The wings of dragonflies shimmering through the mist.
Wistful afternoon. Through the mist of memory, your image
takes shape.
Quivering branches. A rain of white blossoms lights the
deepening dusk.
Summertime rapture. Birds and butterflies darting between
tall bamboos.
Nature symphony. Sunlight dancing on the top of trees and
houses.
Hard afternoon rain. Cold lonely night ahead awaits my empty
arms.
Cool summer night breeze. The Halebopp comet evokes a cosmic
romance.
Hot afternoon tea. The scent of jasmine wafts through the
door left open.
The summer wind blows. A slingshot stone plummets on the
neighbor’s rooftop.
--Frederico C. Peralta
