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When I saw the title, I said to myself, "This is going to be hot.
Literally!" I am no prude. I love erotic verse. And the haiku
genre can occasionally lend itself well to the humor, innuendo,
ambiguity, and imagery requisite to erotic literary expression.
I made myself a cappuccino, sat down on a comfortable chair, and
opened the book, expecting to be transported into a world where
pleasure and dreams coexist.
So much for wishful thinking! A few minutes into the book painted a
different picture. Suddenly, it seemed, I was in a public restroom
reading what gangbangers and prepubescent boys had scribbled on
commode walls. A few moments later, I was reading poetry that was
okay, but not memorable; the kind of verse a first year high school
student would write in English class. And even later, and I was glad
for the later, I read good poetry, the poetry I thought Sato's anthology,
Erotic Haiku, would showcase. Reading the book, I felt like Lewis Carroll's
Alice, falling headlong into a rabbit hole, not knowing where I was going,
if I would land, and when I would land; a dali-scape of words, an uneven
literary offering with more downs than ups.
The UGLY:
blow job
she kneels
in Prada
— ai li
entering
thru a gap
in her panties
— Mike Taylor
she screams
another's name
during her orgasm
— William Simms
the alarm clock
interrupts his
urgent thrust
— Carmen Lively
If I alter their spacing, I see still see no resemblance
to haiku, let alone poetry:
blow job she kneels in Prada
entering thru a gap in her panties
she screams another's name during her orgasm
the alarm clock interrupts his urgent thrust
And liberally interspersed with the book's poetry and non-poetry are
crude, childish drawings . . .
The artwork in the book looks
like something seen on restroom
walls. Emi Suzuki's artwork
is worse than second rate. They are
juvenile and an insult to the
reader's sensibilities.
Erotic art can be beautiful,
sensual, and appealing. Things
Suzuki's illustrations for the
anthology are lacking.
The GOOD:
There are some good poems in the book; poems that are ephemeral,
memorable, and fresh.
Take, for instance:
your kiss on my cloud mountain moonrise
— Marlene Mountain
darkened bedroom
moonlight through the window
silvers her breasts
— Joanne Morcom
a moth thumps against the lampshade tasting myself on your tongue
— Christ Gordon
deep into her
the smell
of apricot
— Jim Kacian
bright moon . . .
the black satin of her body
on the parquet-floor
— Serge Tome
while we wait
to do it again,
the rains of spring
— Michael McClintock
Beautiful poems, everyone of them. They have metre, flow, and leave
room for interpretation.
The BAD:
And equally, there are poems in the book that fall short: half poems,
made up poems, snippets of this or that. Not good poetry. And far
from memorable.
his undoing just three of her buttons
— Caroline Gourlay
deserted beach —
a bikini top
rolls in on a wave
— Michael Dylan Welch
after
lovemaking
rhubarb
tarts
— Lee Gurga
in a letter . . .
you tell me
how you like it
— Leza Lowitz
Sato's anthology, Erotic Haiku, is an uneven book. And poorly thought
out. Even the title, Erotic Haiku. The book is a conglomeration of
haiku, senryu, and whatever. Why haiku and senryu are thought
interchangeable in some English Japanese short form poetry circles
bewilders me. And why by a well known Japanese translator, is even
more shocking. A senryu is a senryu and a haiku is a haiku. This is
historical fact. (ref.: Makoto Ueda's Light Verse From the Floating
World, R.H. Blyth's Senryu: Japanese Satirical Verses) And it is a
genre that is still popular in Japan today.
A while back I interviewed Hiro Sato for Simply Haiku. Here is what he
said about Haiku:
A haiku is that which the person who wrote it presents as a haiku. I am
not being facile or facetious in putting it that way. My good friend
Eliot Weinberger, who is a translator of Spanish poetry and an editor,
says the same thing. In American Poetry Since1950: Innovators &
Outsiders (Marsilio, 1993), he defines "poetry" as "that which its own
author considers to be poetry."
In the back of Erotic Haiku in the book's Afterward, Sato says, "So to
define haiku in English, you must say "it is that which the person who
wrote it calls haiku."
That kind of pronouncement opens up the floodgates to "anything goes."
Reminds me of the story about the emperor who wore no clothing.
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