Many years ago, my older brother got me listening to the Grateful Dead, a San Francisco-based jam band with a certain reputation and a following with an equally certain reputation. The music was good and fun and like most newly minted teenagers, I was seeking a sense of identity, to be a part of a larger community, and — in Kerouac’s words — “girls, visions, everything.”
The band and its following delivered on all that and more.
At age 15, I and a couple of my peers bummed a ride with my brother’s friend down to the now legendary Englishtown, NJ, outdoor concert. Even though I immediately became separated from my friends and our driver, I felt at home in that crowd. These were my people, for good or ill.
This past weekend, Dead & Company, the continuation of the band with but two surviving members of the original lineup, had their farewell shows in San Francisco’s Oracle Park. I caught the Friday show with some childhood friends, and it was fun. It wasn’t the Grateful Dead, but the spirit was there, John Mayer is awesome even if he ain’t Jerry, and what a way to wrap up almost 60 years of fun. In San Francisco, too, how very fitting.
Not to spend too much time on this, but there is a direct line from that concert in September 1977 to my first haiku postcard in March 2012. In San Francisco. How very fitting.
The choices we make define the trajectories of our lives. Let us celebrate the good ones.
Here are the haiku and recipient choices I made last week.
haiku 20230710 » Edgewater, CO USA
roadside stand
the sound of gravel
under my tires
haiku 20230711 » Sanford, NC USA
summer evening stroll
air conditioning units
whirring on and off
haiku 20230712 » Oakland, CA USA
parking garage
tires screeching
at the slightest touch
haiku 20230713 » Edgewater, CO USA
coming attractions
we eat all the popcorn
before the feature
haiku 20230714 » Las Cruces, NM USA
one more dead show
we sit in the sun and toast
our own survival
haiku 20230715 » Nicolaus, CA 95659
how do the cedars
manage in this heat?
dogs panting in the shade
haiku 20230716 » Northfield, MA USA
blue and gray twilight
first the planets
then the stars
That’s all seven! See you next week! And remember…
I want to send you a card
It’s kinda weird you read my Substack but haven’t requested a card yet. I don’t get it. Please ask! It’s free. I ask nothing in return, aside from your good graces or maybe a cup of coffee if you’re so inclined.
Buy haiku books
I heartily recommend all the books below. I get no commission, no nothing if you buy through my links. (Amazon Associates gave me the boot because I didn’t move enough merchandise. Oh well.)
The Haiku Anthology (Third Edition), Edited by Cor van den Heuvel
Want to know what modern English-language haiku really looks like? What it is capable of? Here is your answer, and a must for every haiku poet’s bookshelf. When I first started writing haiku, this volume served me very well. Many of the haiku within have remained with me throughout the years, and I have been privileged to now count some of the contributors as colleagues and friends. Buy it here.
Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku, Natalie Goldberg
Many writers will immediately recognize Goldberg from her forever bestselling Writing Down the Bones. As it happens, she has been writing haiku for her entire adult life, and has much to teach us. In Three Simple Lines, she intertwines memoir, history, and travelogue in a magnificent way as she journeys through Japan, chasing down the ghosts of Bashō and Buson, among others. She also draws much needed attention to women haiku poets, who were too often overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Buy it here.
Mountain Tasting - Haiku and Journals of Santoka … (tr. John Stevens)
I found Santoka challenging at first. Much of his haiku feels incomplete to me or dashed off. But he grew on me. Soon I felt like a companion on his journey, bouncing from inn to inn, begging for alms by day, pounding the sake at night. Buy it here.
The Essential Haiku - Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa
Essential is right! Edited by Robert Hass, a great poet in his own right. Hass includes great essays on the history and evolution, as well as other writings by the poets themselves. A true master class in haiku! Buy it here.
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, Matsuo Bashō (tr. Sam Hamill)
Haiku poets have a tradition of wandering the countryside, and Bashō set the example! Buy it here.
Selected Poems, Masaoka Shiki (tr. Burton Watson)
I wrote a whole post about Shiki. Haiku might not exist today without his influence and renewal of the form. Buy it here.
Issa's Best: A Translator's Selection of Master Haiku, Issa Kobayashi (tr. David G. Lanoue)
Issa is probably the most beloved of the classic poets. His humility and joy in the face of unbearable loss and poverty endear him to haiku lovers everywhere. Lanoue seems to have made translating Issa his life’s work, and I love his versions. Buy it here.