{"id":3868,"date":"2005-05-27T19:26:20","date_gmt":"2005-05-27T23:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/05\/27\/yu-chang-all-poetics-are-loca"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:57:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:57:41","slug":"yu-chang-all-poetics-are-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/05\/27\/yu-chang-all-poetics-are-local\/","title":{"rendered":"yu chang: all poetics are local"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2008\/08\/yu_changpaddle_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9844\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2008\/08\/yu_changpaddle_2-267x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"60\" height=\"68\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"> <strong><em>W<\/em><\/strong>hen it comes to crafting excellent haiku, all poetics are local.  No one knows that better than Yu Chang, whose work demonstrates the in-person, in-the-moment, concreteness that is the essence of fine haiku.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">Another kind of  &#8220;localness&#8221; was especially serendipitous for me:  last year, I learned that the Yu Chang <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">whose haiku I &#8216;ve been admiring for years spends much of his time less than a mile <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">from my home, as a professor of electrical engineering at Union College. He and I <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">share Schenectady, New York, as our adopted City.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">It was also inspiring to learn that Yu &#8212; like myself &#8212; started writing haiku in his 50&#8217;s.  Unlike myself, however, he was winning international haiku contests within a year of penning his first haiku.  Maybe Yu&#8217;s haiku muse will make a detour to my neighborhood once in a while, and help me learn, from his example, the art and craft of the haijin. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">Everyone who knows Yu comments on his sense of humor and his modesty.  Both can be seen in his haiku (where he allows the reader to take his place experiencing the haiku moment) and in his frequent expressions of gratitude for the generosity and<span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\"> encouragement of his friends at the online <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/haiku.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp\/~shiki\/\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">Shiki <\/span><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/haiku.cc.ehime-u.ac.jp\/~shiki\/\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">Internet Haiku Salon<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"> <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2008\/08\/streetsigns.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9849\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/files\/2008\/08\/streetsigns.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"55\" height=\"51\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"> Yu&#8217;s haiku have won numerous awards, and his poetry appears in the journals and anthologies to which all English-language haiku poets aspire: <em>Acorn<\/em>, <em>Frogpond<\/em>,<span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\"><em> Hermitage<\/em>, <em>Modern Haiku<\/em>, <em>The Heron&#8217;s Nest<\/em>, and <em>Tundra<\/em>. At present, he is active<\/span> as a founding member of the Route 9 Haiku Group, which publishes the biannual journal, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/homepage.mac.com\/gnach\/upds%20folder\/upds\/\"><em><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">Upstate Dim Sum<\/span><\/em><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">.  The Route 9ers are Yu, Hilary Tann, and our honored guests John Stevenson and Tom Clausen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">You can learn much more about Yu Chang as a haiku poet in an <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahapoetry.com\/PP0601..htm\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">AHAPoetry profile<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">, written in 2001.  I&#8217;m sure Yu will groan when he sees this sentence, but I agree with the Profile&#8217;s author, Ty Hadman, that &#8220;Yu Chang is one of the poets currently writing haiku that are not only being appreciated today but will also be added to that treasure chest of haiku classics in English to be preserved for future generations.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">Choosing introductory haiku from Yu&#8217;s entire body of work is too difficult, so I will limit the <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">source today to the first collection that I found of his work, which was in <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1893959031\/qid=1117126083\/sr=1-1\/ref=sr_1_1\/104-1569557-1267912?v=glance&amp;s=books\"><em><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">A New Resonance<\/span><\/em><\/a><em><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">: <\/span><\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\"><em>Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku<\/em> (Ed. by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts, Red <\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\">Moon Press, 1999):<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">warm rain<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">the spring moon returns<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">to the rusty can<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">starry night&#8211;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">biting into a melon<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">full of seeds<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">parting her pink robe<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">&#8211;daybreak<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">pebbled beach&#8211;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">how carefully she chooses<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">her words<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/media-cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/ethicalesq\/NewRes.jpg\" alt=\"NewRes\" \/> <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>Yu Chang<\/strong><\/span>, from <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1893959031\/qid=1117126083\/sr=1-1\/ref=sr_1_1\/104-1569557-1267912?v=glance&amp;s=books\"><em><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;color: #000000;font-size: x-small\">A New Resonance<\/span><\/em><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: x-small\"> (1999).<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: xx-small\">&#8220;warm rain&#8221; first appeared in <em>Frogpond<\/em> XXI:1<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: xx-small\">&#8220;pebbled beach&#8221; first appeared in <em>Acorn<\/em> 2<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif;font-size: xx-small\">&#8220;starry night&#8221; won a Museum of Haiku Literature Award 1998<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\">I&#8217;m honored and pleased to have Yu Chang as an Honored Guest. You can<span style=\"font-size: x-small\"> count on <\/span><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">his visiting<em> f\/k\/a<\/em> often.   Click for the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/stories\/storyReader$3883\">yu chang archive<\/a> page. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman,Times,Serif\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.redmoonpress.com\/catalog\/images\/changseeds.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"67\" \/> <strong><em>Follow-up (December 2009<\/em><\/strong>): The first collection of Yu Chang&#8217;s poems has finally been published.\u00a0 See &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.redmoonpress.com\/catalog\/product_info.php?cPath=25&amp;products_id=114&amp;osCsid=625256f160db6dfe569b1476ea1882ef\"><em>seeds: haiku by Yu Chang<\/em><\/a>&#8221; (Redmoon Press, 2009, 72 pages)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to crafting excellent haiku, all poetics are local. No one knows that better than Yu Chang, whose work demonstrates the in-person, in-the-moment, concreteness that is the essence of fine haiku. Another kind of &#8220;localness&#8221; was especially serendipitous for me: last year, I learned that the Yu Chang whose haiku I &#8216;ve been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926,2927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006","category-schenectady-synecdoche"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-10o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13199,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/13199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}