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a
dragonfly and facts
 Author:
John Sandbach Binding: Paperback
(pp: 80) ISBN: 978-8182531536 Availability: In Stock
(Ships within 1 to 2
days) Publisher: Cyberwit.net Pub. Date:
2009 Condition: New
Description:
The first century of English-language haiku has
created a strong foundation with great variety.
Though there have been a number of
individualistic bursts of influential
experimentation, English-language haiku has,
however, come to a point of stagnation a state
of orthodoxy, where molds and the clichés are
expected and, it seems, desired. Expectations
regarding form and content have atrophied, with
narrow definitions of nature and reality,
emphasizing hyper-literalism and objectivity. In
affect, many techniques and topics such as
subjectivity and the imagination, as well as
many other methodologies, have become
marginalized and devalued. The result is
English-language haiku that are mostly formulaic
and homogenous, more nostalgic than visionary.
Though grounded with great love and affection
for both the haiku traditions of Japan and the
West, John Sandbach's haiku represent a clear
break and, hopefully, a new, influential, and
open beginning in English-language haiku
composition that welcomes and values all
methodologies, aesthetics and topics, seeing
infinite possibilities and equality in every
path.
Breaking away from what has become the
traditional standards in English haiku, Sandbach
creates new, fresh and exciting directions and
possibilities for composition, expanding the
English-language haiku poet's toolbox. His work
plays with a wide range of subject matter: the
metaphysical, astrology, fantasy, the surreal
and the absurd, the mythological, fairy tales,
alchemy, the imagination, the unusual and the
strange, the subconscious, dreams,
transformation, and the mythopoeic, as well as
the natural world (the wild) and seasonal
changes. As Ban'ya Natsuishi has noted before
about Sanbach's work (Step Into Sky), his haiku
are "spacious and cosmic." His work is also
fearless, unafraid of delving deep within the
heart/mind/spirit, or the the vast outer reaches
of our universe, and therefore ourselves. Once
there, he finds connections and moments, images
and words, and brings them back to us through
the beauty, simplicity and evanescence of haiku
poems. He does not simply embrace Western
poetry, poetics, art, literature, philosophy and
religion, but not unlike Japanese gendai haiku
poets of the 20th century attempts to elevate
and spiritualize them by fusing the East and the
West (as well as the North and South) together
like an alchemist. John Sandbach's haiku
challenge, surprise and delight, and exemplify
the wisdom of Bash : "Haiku is for freedom."
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Is It The Moon?
 Author:
John Sandbach Binding: Paperback
(pp: 103) ISBN: 978-81-8253-143-7 Availability: In Stock
(Ships within 1 to 2
days) Publisher: Cyberwit.net Pub. Date:
2009 Condition: New
Description:
"Is It The Moon" is my third book of
haiku. I have now been writing haiku seriously for
8 years, and I have found that, as in most things,
one of the best ways to learn is by doing.
Some
artists are narrower in their stylistic
vocabulary, and others are wider. There is no
judgment in this: Michaelangelo was very narrow,
but his art is cosmic. Picasso, on the other hand,
traveled many roads and sampled many styles. I am
of Picasso’s clan – I’m willing to try
anything.
Ever
since I started writing haiku I have attempted to
come up with a definition of what, for me,
constitutes a haiku. At last I read an article by
Casimiro de Brito, a Portugese haiku poet, who
said that the only thing a haiku needs to be is
poetic – and, of course, short. For me, this
beautiful, simple statement says it all.
There
are times I have become so frustrated with writing
haiku that I have stopped for months, but I feel
now that this frustration has evaporated. I no
longer wish for a bigger space in which to say
more, for what is left unsaid says just as much as
what is said!
If
you want these haiku explained, then you are not
yet on the haiku wavelength. I’m not adverse to
imaginative interpretations – they can enrich
the enjoyment of haiku – the best of them are
usually haiku themselves! Try to enjoy what you
don’t understand as least as much as what you do
understand!
One
of the great beauties of haiku is that it doesn’t
provide the writer with the room that would be
needed to explain him/herself. I have never asked
a tree to explain itself – not because I think I
wouldn’t get an answer, but because I think a
tree must be better at being itself than it is at
engaging in self-justification.
Writing
and reading haiku has had a profound on my view of
writing: I buy fewer books, for so much literature
now strikes me as too wordy. An example of someone
who I have grown to appreciate more and more is
the Egyptian mystic Edmund Jabes, because even
though he doesn’t write haiku as such, he is, in
spirit, a haiku poet.
All
good writing is full of haiku. You might think it
strange that, given my love of short poems I keep
by my bed a copy of Edmund Spenser’s 800 page
poem "The Faerie Queene," but this
Elizabethan epic is a land teeming with haiku!
More
than anything, I hope you enjoy this book. I’ve
worked long and hard in my alchemical kitchen,
using only the freshest and best organic
ingredients so that I might serve you these
tidbits. May you receive them as both delight and
nourishment!
John
Sandbach
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Is
It The Moon?
190
Haiku by John Sandbach
In 2001 Happa-no-Kofu Press in
Tokyo
published a Japanese/English bi-lingual edition of
“Step Into Sky,” 100 of John Sandbach’s
haiku. (http://www.happano.org/)
In 2002
Hikoo Press of
Kansas City
published his “
Wrinkled
Sea
,” a collection of 120 haiku.
(Hikoo Press,
946 West 42nd Street
,
Kansas City
,
MO
,
64111
,
USA
)
Now
Cyberwit.net is delighted to offer you this
present collection of 190 haiku, “Is It The
Moon?”
As to
the question “Is It The Moon?” we are not sure
of the answer.
It may be the moon, or it may be only a
pearl of the celestial oyster.
Possibly it could be a glowing white
doorway into another world, or maybe an alabaster
pill which you need to take right now, with a
large glass of water.
Whatever it is, it is likely to continually
transform, depending on your imagination.
Whatever
you come to see it as, we hope you enjoy the
little worlds contained within these pages.
For more
about John Sandbach, you may go to www.johnsandbach.com,
and for more of his haiku you can visit www.johnsandbach.blogspot.com.
Blessings to all of you!
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