GALATEA RESURRECTS, #1 (A Poetry Review)

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, Ed. by JEAN VENGUA & MARK YOUNG

YVONNE HORTILLO reviews

THE FIRST HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, Edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young
(Meritage Press, 2005)

Spaces and the things they occupy:
Reading "The First Hay(na)ku Anthology"

Sometimes when there's so much going on in one's mind, there is a tendency to be brief and curt but well-meaning in one's speech.

You
and I
should get together.

Maybe
we will
fall in love.
(Tom Beckett, "Dear Reader,")

Being succinct takes courage -- one's skill in communication is tested by conveying entire messages and landmark life stories in ten nanoseconds or less. This skill is handy in busy offices, big cities and harvest season. One has to be skilled in counting time and picking details.

my mother tells
me i
suffer

because i'm not
plain like
her ...

she can hide
from evil
but

i can't i
try i
really

try but i
see my
neighbor

watching me story
of my
life.
(Nicholas Downing, "because")

All great stories are the result of great obssessions -- like the form hay(na)ku by Eileen Tabios. To celebrate the 2003 Philippine Independence Day, she decided to use a passing fixation on counting and her recent reading of Jack Kerouac's opinion on American haiku to invent the Pinoy Haiku. She announced it on her Winepoetics blog and many poets responded.

Fellow poet Vince Gotera wanted to bring out that a Filipina had invented the "one-two-three" word tercet form; he suggested that instead of alluding to the haiku, the form be renamed to reference the very Filipino expression, "hay, naku" used to convey elation, dismay, and other contexts. Tabios agreed.

The form has attracted poets around the world, with the majority of contributors to The First Hay(na)ku Anthology being non-Filipino. In any event, all use the form to grasp that elusive entity called Poetry.

Nothing
adds up.
Love isn't math.
(Dan Waber, untitled)

*****

Yvonne Hortillo is an editorial assistant for The Associated Press. She has never owned a business card in her life. She has crossed the Chicago River countless times, and is fated to cross it untold times more. She adores truth in all forms.

posted by na @ 12:24 AM