{"id":9427,"date":"2008-06-05T11:32:22","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T16:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2008\/06\/05\/ed-markowski-strolls-bashos-road\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:26","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:26","slug":"ed-markowski-strolls-bashos-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2008\/06\/05\/ed-markowski-strolls-bashos-road\/","title":{"rendered":"ed markowski strolls basho’s road<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> A<\/em><\/strong>uthor-poet Norbert Blei<\/a> discovered f\/k\/a<\/em>‘s Honored Guest and Friend Ed Markowski<\/a> at Tinywords.com<\/a><\/em> in 2006, and has admired and sought out Ed’s work ever since. Yesterday, Blei helped to bring Ed Markowski to a broader group of poetry lovers — beyond regular readers of haiku — with an extended posting at his Basho’s Road<\/em><\/a> website (which Blei created to focus on “the small poem and the quiet voice within”). Please see and enjoy Ed Markowski at Basho’s Road<\/em><\/a> (June 4, 2008). [For more on the spirit of Japan’s master haikuist Basho<\/a>, check out his classic book<\/a>, and this commentary<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Blei says this was probably the first of Ed’s poems he ever read:<\/p>\n

\n

dad’s grave . . .
\nall the flowers
\nhe wouldn’t let mother plant<\/p>\n

… by ed markowski – from <\/font>Haiku Harvest<\/font><\/em><\/a> (Fall\/Winter 2005)<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His reaction: “And, that’s it. Right there. He ‘nailed it<\/em>‘ , so to speak. That what we’re after. That’s what Basho’s Road<\/em> is all about.”<\/p>\n

After seeing more Markowski, Blei concluded:<\/p>\n

\n

“He’s got it, I said to myself. The Scene. The eye to see inside. To simply lay the words on the line and let you see\/feel for yourself.<\/p>\n

In my humble estimation, my own small world of small poetry, he’s on his way to haiku master — if not already there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . . Basho’s Road in mind, he seemed a perfect stranger\/poet to meet along the way and share with others.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In addition to showcasing a few of Ed’s poems (you can find several hundred more here at f\/k\/a<\/em>, by starting at his archive page<\/a>), Blei let’s Ed speak. And his words are as pithy and sharp as his poetry. For instance:<\/p>\n

\n

. . . i don’t look for haiku moments, i think it’s more a matter of learning the craft, and placing things within that framework . <\/em>. .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0. . . “i think the ‘haiku moment’ is basically a mirage perpetrated by people who like to think they see the world in some special sort of way, or that they’re tuned into some higher frequency.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I especially enjoyed seeing online Ed’s insistence that this poem “is about raking leaves & nothing else” — despite an admiring critic who read much more into it:<\/p>\n

\n

fog . . .
\ni’ve got to begin
\nsomewhere<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– from <\/em><\/font><\/font><\/font> Roadrunner<\/em><\/font><\/a> Haiku Journal<\/em> (<\/font>Feb. 2006<\/font><\/a>)<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When we first posted Ed’s above poem about “dad’s grave” at f\/k\/a<\/em>, I said:<\/p>\n

\n

While the rest of us sleep, eat, and work, Ed Markowski does all of those, gets in a lot of gardening and ESPN, and \u201cfinds\u201d more haiku and senryu than a dozen other haijin combined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I continue to be amazed by the ability of Ed-da-Prolific to “find” so many quality haiku so quickly (despite his recent decision to cut back, after judging a book contest for HSA last year “burned me out completely”). He’s especially impressive on frantic, short-deadline requests from me, when I want a few poems to go with a topic here at this weblog. Although he pooh-poohed to me Blei’s notion of Ed “being on his way to haiku master,” I reminded him that “master<\/a>” has so many meanings, one is sure to stick.<\/p>\n

If “haiku master” means achieving a high degree of skill and being worthy of teaching others (directly or by example), I am going to embarrass my friend Ed Markowski by agreeing with Norbert Blei, that “he’s on his way to haiku master — if not already there.” [Of course, as I’ve mentioned before to Ed (as to other haijin friends), I hope he’ll stay away from too much<\/em> fooling around with spacing and line dispersion, and from those darn tell-em<\/a>s — and stick to the simple, insightful presentation and juxtaposition of sensory images, which he does so well.]<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Norbert Blei for sharing Ed Markowski with a broad audience of poetry lovers, at his lovely website, Basho’s Road<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author-poet Norbert Blei discovered f\/k\/a‘s Honored Guest and Friend Ed Markowski at Tinywords.com in 2006, and has admired and sought out Ed’s work ever since. Yesterday, Blei helped to bring Ed Markowski to a broader group of poetry lovers — beyond regular readers of haiku — with an extended posting at his Basho’s Road website […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[1852,555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haijin-haikai-news","category-haiku-or-senryu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-2s3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427","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=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12264,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions\/12264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}