High Coup Journal

High Coup Journal - December 2011 Issue

2011-12-25T06:49:00.002-05:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

S.M. Abeles (international man of mystery)

Maureen Kingston (Wayne, NB)

Rose Kowaliw (Swanzey, NH)

Leo Kulinski, Jr. (Litchfield, CT)

Darcy McMurtery (Seattle, WA)

Tom Rault (Laxviken, Sweden)

Taylor Smietanski (Oxford, OH)

Henry Visotski (Brooklyn, NY)

Chuck Von Nordheim (Dayton, OH)

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Editor's Note:

Winter and presents:

everything is late this year,

just like this issue.

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Rose Kowaliw

The Perfect Christmas Tree

Trudging through the snow

Winds blowing, twenty below

Picked the closest tree

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Taylor Smietanski

No Shave November

Is the way I like to roll

Time for a razor

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Maureen Kingston

her Louboutin heels

at the New Year’s Eve party

ice pick his resolve

special of the day--

beef gravy over French fries

the truck stop madam

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Henry Visotski

Bare knuckle boxing:

Not good, particularly

When you’re uninsured

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Chuck Von Nordheim

brown leaf and green lawn

poke through the first snow’s white crust--

winter hesitates

peppermint slobber

makes your nephew’s face sticky--

merry Christmas hug

precipitation’s

possible forms shapes all plans--

won’t go if it snows

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Leo Kulinski, Jr.

Ducks are on the pond

Thoreau signals for the curve

Dice K. wheels, deals, strike

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S.M. Abeles

Drinking in stillness

A cure for mental illness

Or the next best thing

For once it appears

it was the sun, not me, that

had one too many

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Darcy McMurtery

Home Depot

Waiting in line with

a shovel, rope, bag of lime.

I forgot my bag.

New Math

You call me "my one."

I know there are other girls.

Some things don't add up.

Incarcerated

in the jury waiting room.

Where's my orange jump suit?

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Tom Rault

As I lose my hair

my patience is growing thin

in the barber shop.

It knows no malice,

it knows no pity either:

the crow wants to eat.

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December 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: S.M. Abeles

That bastard autumn,

destroyer of low necklines,

slayer of bare legs

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Next month, stay tuned for

experiments with Haikubes...

send in your stuff, too!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

High Coup Journal - November 2011 Issue

2011-11-01T20:56:00.000-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Robin Burke (Terre Haute, IN)

Mrs. Copeland’s First Grade Class (Terre Haute, IN)

Rose Kowaliw (Swanzey, NH)

Bob Lucky (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

Dennis Maulsby (Ames, IA)

Tom Rault (Laxviken, Sweden)

Sherry Steiner (Housatonic, MA)

Eli Van Sickel (Normal, IL)

Chuck Von Nordheim (Dayton, OH)

Anthony Ward (Durham, England)

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Editor's Note:

Hear the powerless

crying out for warmth and aid

in Connecticut.

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Robin Burke

falling

colorful dead leaves

silently murder my grass

mulching makes me smile

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Mrs. Copeland’s First Grade Class

We saw a turkey

so colorful and chunky

he was so funky

On a spooky night

I once saw a haunted house

I ran for my mom

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Eli Van Sickel

I check my Facebook
to reassure myself of
my safety, I think

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Bob Lucky

bad weather forecast

the morning newspaper lies

bleeding in the rain

Friday at the beach

the bikini-clad tourists

are the attraction

the TV blasting

both my parents sound asleep

in their new twin beds

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Rose Kowaliw

Two Strikes...

Dinner was a bust

Forgot his wallet, again

No more web dating

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Tom Rault

This doormat will not

talk, otherwise it could tell

some dirty stories.

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Chuck Von Nordheim

wind-blown leaves dance past
lawns decked with campaign slogans—
gray days and choices

fall sunlight tints days
amber as an old photo—
memories seem new

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Sherry Steiner

a shocking secret
a forgiven yesterday
a silk robe nine bucks

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Henry Visotski

who owes favors where,

ass and elephant debate.

meanwhile, the sun sets

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Dennis Maulsby

Arms and legs entwined.

Man♂…woman♀, so united,

yet so far apart.

Shouting men place bets.

On a red dirt patch of ground

cricket sumos fight.

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Anthony Ward

Reflection

searching for myself

while finding my reflection

right where I left it

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November 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Tom Rault

If I bump my head

once more on that attic beam

I will saw it off.

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One upcoming month

to squeeze in more nasty storms

and nasty haiku.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

2012 Pushcart Prize Nominations

2011-10-20T10:10:00.001-04:00

We at High Coup Journal and Drafty Attic Press would like to announce our 2012 nominations for the Pushcart Prize:

Toby Bielawski, Five Kinds of Fences

Dariel Suarez

Annie Perconti

Michael Morris

Sara Bickley

Bob Lucky

We wish these authors the best of luck in the competition.

Five Questions for a First-Grade Teacher: Jayme Copeland

2011-10-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

This iteration of Five Questions comes with an appeal from an educator in my hometown, Terre Haute, IN. High Coup Journal publishes the tiniest of poems, so we're also committed to helping out the tiniest of students. Thus we encourage you to donate to first-grade teacher Jayme Copeland's DonorsChoose project to supply her classroom with important literacy materials in a high-poverty school district. Anyway, let's see what she has to say...

1. They say that "everything I ever needed to know, I learned in kindergarten." Why, then, do you teach first grade?

Teaching first grade is amazing, and I love every minute of it. I feel like I am laying the foundation for everything they are going to learn from this point on. I love seeing the looks on my students faces when they read for the first time-- there is nothing like it.

2. How much of a difference is the reading level of a kid going into first grade and a kid finishing 1st grade, usually?

At the beginning of the school year, some students come in still not knowing all of their letters and sounds, while some come in reading basic sight words and others reading small chapter books. I try to focus in on what each student needs, so hopefully by the end of the year students are able to know all letters and sounds and are able to read most first grade sight words. Meanwhile, other students are beginning to read books on their own, and for my friends already reading chapter books, we work on fluency and comprehension.

3. Why, then, is your fundraising project so important?

In these tough economic times, budgets are being cut and we don’t have money for extra supplies. One item I have on my list is a Toobaloo. Toobaloos look like a phone, and students read into them and can hear themselves read. This makes it easier for them to self-correct, which in turn will help them become more fluent readers. To purchase a set of these on my own would be very expensive.

I also have supplies listed that will help my students become better writers. They have such great stories, but until they can read and write they cannot express themselves on paper. I spend a lot of money on simple supplies for my students-- that it makes it difficult to purchase bigger items. DonorsChoose.org gives me the opportunity to put my wish list up and then generous donors help my wish list become a reality. My students and I are very grateful for the donations we receive from DonorsChoose!

4. A lot of picture books are written in poetic form. Do you have any favorite picture books you use with your students?

I have two favorite books that I love sharing with my students every year. The Polar Express, written by Chris Van Allsburg, and Where the Wild Things Are, written by Maurice Sendak. Both books really bring out the kid in me, and for my students they let their imaginations soar.

5. Do you think you might get your kids to write a few haiku? It's just 5/7/5 syllables... maybe there's a budding poet in the room!

My students have a poetry center that they go to each week, and we practice poetry a lot. I have never tried haiku with my students, but I think with a little guidance and a lot of practice they would be able to write a haiku... or at least give it a good shot!

JAYME COPELAND graduated from Indiana State University with a B.S. in Elementary Education. She has been teaching for seven years and has been teaching first grade for the last four years. She enjoys the opportunity to mentor future teachers from Indiana State University and also enjoys being involved with Student Council. She and her students love Friday afternoons because they are able to show off their creative side by singing, dancing, or sharing their artwork.

High Coup Journal - October 2011 Issue

2011-10-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Art Bupkis (Gainesville, FL)

Courtney Davis (Freehold, NJ)

Amanda Hillenburg (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada)

Rose Kowaliw (Swanzey, NH)

Chuck Von Nordheim (Dayton, OH)

Annie Perconti (Louisville, KY)

Amelia Ritner (Hinsdale, MA)

John Tustin (New Hyde Park, NY)

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Editor's Note:

Snow, a white pillow

waits to smother leaves as red

as an infant's cheeks.

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Courtney Davis

It’s Rosh Hashana

wishing you a very sweet

and healthy new year

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John Tustin

All your dark dark hair

On my pillow. Like curtains

Smothering sorrow

You packed up and left

Watching me disintegrate

And now I am dust

Fill my emptiness

With your liquid compassion

Flood me with your love

Your face in the sun

Your face in the light of moon

I will take them both

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Art Bupkis

(Mr. Bupkis prefaced his submission with the following explanation: "Well, Yankees, you may be 'anal' about 5/7/5, citing 'English', but these ain't in English, they're in Cracker... Cracker is terse: 3/5/3.")

on that pine

that damn crow’s landed

cock the gun

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Rose Kowaliw

Worst Bridesmaid Gown

Hot pink, puffy sleeves

with matching shoes in satin.

Big pink marshmallow.

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Amanda Hillenburg

#firstworldproblems

Protests nationwide?

But a celeb did something

Report that instead.

Children are starving

Who cares? Facebook changed my feed.

brb raging

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Annie Perconti

Slipping hips into

belts hung low, laced with language

she's ready to flow.

He's an eye-drifter--

Slipping low into places

the world cannot know.

Thoughts form like stitches.

The machinist of the mind

connects truth with lies.

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Amelia Ritner

The cold morning air

Tea in hand, cat at my feet

The winter begins.

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Chuck Von Nordheim

spectral fog shimmers

above lamp-lit wet blacktop--

autumn’s grey tint grows

helmeted ranks break

through butcher paper banners--

homecoming heralds

drive past corn stubble

see leaves rage yellow and red--

autumn’s last warm day

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October 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: John Tustin

Like riding lightning

I love you differently

But I love you both

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Best of luck to all

coming up with new ideas

for haiku and life.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Editorial: Silly Words, Serious Words

2011-09-07T22:24:00.000-04:00

This editorial is part two in our continuing battle over the nature of the haiku. Read part one here.

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BRIAN MORTON:

I cut my teeth as a student-translator working on short, humorous, lewd poems by Catullus, and long, bombastic, epic poetry by Virgil. I remember adults worrying whether the stray, horndog, jibes of an ancient Roman should really count as literature, yet decades later it has far more meaning to me than the Virgil does, although I won’t insult him either. High minded satire has always managed to sneak into the artistic canon, but there is something about low-class buffoonery, even when honed to precision, that has always been suspicious... And well, High Coup Journal could certainly be accused of low-class buffoonery...

Japan has a long tradition of poetry in the form of short terse poems or stanzas. The renga for example dates back to the 700s, and at first glance might be mistaken for a collection of haiku. It begins with a tight stanza with a 5-7-5 syllable structure. But the heart of renga is to be collaborative poetry. One poet begins with a 5-7-5 verse and then the next add a 7-7 verse, and the next adds another 5-7-5 and so on, riffing and changing as they go. The point wasn’t maximum impact in a minimum of syllables, but kicking off a process of taking turns and exploring, of coping with change. By the 1600s, perhaps earlier, we get hokku or “starting verses,” the initial verses of a renga, start being used alone by themselves. Here focused impact does seem to be a large part of the point and appeal. Or we get haibun (poetry and prose together) and haiga (poetry and painting together), where the laconic poems, typically in hokku form, comment on the more flowing prose or painting around them.

Then in the 1890s, Masaoka Shiki decides that it is time to “modernize” this poetic tradition. He coins the term haiku (an abbreviation of haikai no ku, or verse of haikai) as a replacement for the older term hokku, partly as an admission that most of these poems are not written to be the beginning of a collaboration. But, he also codifies how he thinks haiku ought to be. He thinks their essence is “cutting” (kiru), a juxtaposition between 2 words ideas or images with a strong “cutting word” (kireji) both connecting and separating them. Things like the 5-7-5 structure, or the traditional seasonality reference, were secondary for him, part of the definition, but not really key to the essence. He worried that far too much trite and hackneyed crap poetry was being written and published, and used the phrase tsukinami (literally, “monthly”) for this terrible phenomena, a reference both to monthly feminine flows, and to monthly magazines and poetry readings he loathed. If we let Shiki guide our understanding of haiku in English, then it would probably be fair to say that a key feature of haiku is that they not be published in monthly magazines or presented at monthly poetry readings. Shiki himself had no patience for silly hokku or haiku, advocating instead the shasei style, which thinks of haiku as sort of nature sketches in words.

But Shiki and his contemporary allies don’t really get to define haiku in English-- even though he coined the term-- because most of what we think of as haiku today in English wasn’t haiku in his sense: it only gets called haiku retroactively. Basho, Buson, and Issa all wrote before Shiki’s change of nomenclature, and all three would have called their works hokku and would have disagreed with Shiki about what was central to the poems. Heck, Buddhism (of several different styles) was a key feature of each of these three masters (and much of the earlier renga-hokku-haiku tradition), but it was something that Shiki felt haiku needed to gain distance from, as not in keeping with Japan’s modernization.

So when we acculturate this notion of haiku to a new century or a new language or continent what needs to remain the same and what can change? Must we keep Shiki’s definition even when it doesn’t fit many of the classics we look to? Do we keep the 5-7-5 structure? The centrality of cut? The seasonality reference? The invitation to longer collaboration? The link between man and nature? The ideological struggles between Zen Buddhism and Pureland Buddhism? Maybe we should build in Shiki's contempt for earlier Japanese poetry in the style or his preference for shasei-style... Nawh, poetry always adapts to the needs of the time and the society, while trying also to remain rooted in its own tradition. So what are the parts of the rengu-hokku -haibun-haiku-etc. tradition that can still meaningfully speak to Americans on the edge of the 21th century? Is the shasei style understanding that haiku is about "recording the essence of a moment keenly perceived, in which nature is linked to human nature" something that can still speak to 21st century Americans? SURE! Lots of that kind of haiku is still written and still read and still has power and meaning, and still seems to draw from its roots in Japanese poetry. If anything, there is enough of that for it to seem overdone, it has plenty of venues.

So the bigger question is this: does silly, flippant stuff with minimal emphasis on season or man-nature themes genuinely draw from the Japanese poetry tradition of the renga-hokku-haibun-haiku line? YES! It is the heart of the poetic style called haikai no renga (unorthodox or comic renga, often abbreviated haikai), staunchly defended by Basho as being part of the poetic spirit (fuga) in the 1600s, and had plenty of practitioners in later decades as well. For Basho, comic playfulness was essential for holding the right balance between being involved in the world and yet also in some sense detached from it. Portraying the life of commoners, beggars, traveler, farmers, herbalists, was part of seeing the world with eyes searching for beauty, rather than seeking beauty in formalness and abstractions.

We have classics in the tradition, like Basho

now then, let's go out

to enjoy the snow... until

I slip and fall! [1688]

even while chopping

the dried herbs

she’s day-dreaming

That last one is from Yaba, one of Bassho's students in a round of renga from 1693 on Street Hawkers. It has no seasonal reference, no connection between man and nature, no Buddhism on display. Yet it records a precise moment via terse words, it explores the emotional depth of the moment, and does so partly via its flippant humor.

or again Basho (1685)

His go strategy

comes to him

two days later

Good Lord, change the reference to Mario Kart and that one could easily have come straight out of the High Coup Journal!

If you want to argue that High Coup publishes "unorthodox" haiku, no one will disagree. If you want to argue that they aren't really haiku at all, properly speaking, I will point to Basho who was actually DEIFIED by the Shinto bureaucracy, and let you battle with verse and fisticuffs against his shade.

If you want to argue that comic rengu existed but that hokku or rengu are not real haiku, and haiku should not be primarily comic, then you cut off your tradition with your own sword and deserve your humorless fate. A common version of this argument is to argue that the comic stuff focusing on human foibles is "really" "senryu" not "haiku" as the Haiku Society of America does. This is a terrible misunderstanding. "Senryu" just means "poetry in the style of Senryu Karai" a particular 18th century Japanese poet. Just because something is in the style of Senryu does not mean it isn't ALSO haiku. Further, humorous poetry in the Japanese tradition is certainly going strong even before Senryu, as my Basho examples show. This would be as bass-ackwards as arguing that any humorous poetry in sonnet form should be called a "Shakespeare" and not counted as a sonnet at all, and that we must make a rigorous distinction between "Shakespeares" and "Sonnets" although of course admitting that Shakespeare himself wrote in both styles. Tommyrot! This is the spirit of overweening academia seeking to choke out what is living and vibrant in the traditions we have been handed by the multi-faceted humans that wrote before us. In Japan, as in Rome or England, the great poets have worked with both silliness and seriousness.

If you argue, that the English notion of haiku refers to the orthodox haiku only, rather than drawing from the broader Japanese tradition, then you are simply misunderstanding the situation on the ground in American education, and who gets to decide the usage of terms in the US, as well as the body of 20th century haiku in English. We have no Academie Francaise to delineate normative meanings apart from usage, and you have already lost the battle on usage. Americans regularly use the American term haiku to refer to both serious haiku and silly haiku, and frequently admire BOTH.

Our society often disrespects humor and silliness, especially in high culture side of our society such as academia or the fine arts. No one in showbiz doubts that comedy is as lucrative as seriousness, but real critical commentary on comedy is much rarer than for more serious artistic forms, and comedians and comedy writers rarely come to those professions through academic theatre or writing programs. Even in philosophy, as I’ve argued elsewhere, silliness is one of the most underrated of virtues. One reason is that silliness often subverts existing systems of authority, especially when authority is based more on hard work in the past (and thus credentials), than on ardent love of the topic (amateurism). Thus, silliness can seem especially threatening to those who value professionalism. So it makes sense that organizations who were fighting for respect for haiku, and for respect for themselves as professional poets, might want to distance themselves from the sillier side of the tradition, which might seem frivolous, low class or even (gasp) unprofessional. Nonetheless, silliness is a classic strategy for creativity and coping, helping us to maintain creative tension between genuine engagement with the minutia of life, and detachment from our preconceptions about daily life. In poetry, silliness of spirit is part of the balance between observation of life and insightful commentary that helps give our poetry depth.

Haiku in English today simply includes plenty of examples of both orthodox haiku focusing on exploring the poetic spirit through sketches of keenly perceived moments typically of human-nature interactions, and unorthodox haiku focusing on exploring the poetic spirit through wry wit typically commenting on common life and pop culture. Both of these American poetic forms are exploring the poetic spirit, and both are firmly rooted in the Japanese tradition of renga-hokku-haibun-haiga-senryu-haikai-haiku. And in English we frequently use the English term haiku as a short hand for the whole glorious multiplex tradition.

Dr. BRIAN MORTON is a homemaker and ex-philosopher, currently involved with the Terre Haute Street Poets. His poetry has appeared in Subterranean, and a few other poetry mags long ago. His academic work on poetry has appeared in Literae: A Newsletter of Literature and Translation and the University of Idaho colloquium series.

High Coup Journal - September 2011 Issue

2011-09-01T22:34:00.002-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Evan Chow (San Francisco, CA)

Amanda Hillenburg (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada)

Kevin James (Terre Haute, IN)

Rose Kowaliw (Swanzey, NH)

Bob Lucky (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

Geoff Pope (Renton, WA)

Adam Tetelman (Troy, NY)

Chuck Von Nordheim (Dayton, OH)

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Editor's Note:

Hurricane season,

a sloppy kiss from your aunt

who never visits.

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Chuck Von Nordheim

one final brain freeze

caused by cherry flavored ice—

Dairy Queen closes

hurricanes bulldoze

human homes in new places—

make way for sea rise

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Evan Chow

Step on bathroom scale.

Darn! Well, let me get my wrench.

Ah, that’s much better.

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Kevin James

How many times son...

Lock the door to your bedroom...

when you want "me" time

Who's your kid's father?

Maury has your answers now

Only cost? Your pride.

Newton Lied to us

He discovered gravity

by his plumber's pants

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Rose Kowaliw

Forever Young

Wrinkles come with age

sure as hell won’t be for me

not when there's Botox.

Ha Ha Ha

Manhattan rich bitch

wearing last year’s Manolos

what was she thinking?

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Adam Tetelman

The roads are all closed

Danger lurks around each turn

Time for a roadtrip

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Bob Lucky

three days of cold rain –

a flock of sheep stop to drink

from a deep pothole

a night of fireflies –

the internet connection

flickers on and off

the moon lost in clouds –

twisting the hair in my ear

at the long stop light

cold steady drizzle –

watching the dog lick herself

over and over

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Geoff Pope

husband eats his first

Oyster Burger while the wife

(milk)shakes her sweet head

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Amanda Hillenburg

Social media

Great for broadcasting chaos

Without hazard pay

Who needs milk and eggs?

Liquor is more important

Non-perishable!

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September 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Adam Tetelman

Pounding storms hit hard

the students getting hammered

straight through the storm's eye

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Soon, before the next

monster storm destroys us all,

send in your haiku.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

2011-09-01T20:25:00.002-04:00

I'm participating in the 2011 Walk a Mile in Her Shoes in Pittsfield, MA, September 15. And I need your help! Here's a little description of the event:

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes events are political and performance art with public, personal and existential messages. At a Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event there is no distinction between performer and audience. Our mission is to create a unique and powerful public experience that educates individuals and communities about the causes of sexualized violence, provides them with prevention and remediation strategies and empowers them to further develop and implement these knowledges and skills interpersonally and politically.

Or in other words, a bunch of men put on high heels and walk for a mile in solidarity with all of the wonderful women in our lives.

Can I get you to donate today? 100% of the funds I get from your PayPal contributions will go to the organization's fight against sexualized violence. Because that's bad, mmm-kay?

FANCY DONATION TRACKER (9/8, 10:20 AM): Right now you've donated $75 so far... add that to the $90 we've raised at work, and we're up to $165 raised to help fight sexualized violence-- keep the donations coming!

September Placeholder

2011-08-31T23:51:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Just moved yet again (back into the Drafty Attic), so the September issue of High Coup Journal won't be up at a prompt 12:00 AM... but it will be up on the 1st, probably in the evening.

Hope you enjoy (when it shows up)!

--Miller

High Coup Journal - August 2011 Issue

2011-08-01T00:00:00.017-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Brian Barnett (Frankfort, KY)

Sara Bickley (West Carrollton, OH)

Samuel Franklin (Terre Haute, IN)

Annie Perconti (Louisville, KY)

Melissa Reddish (Salisbury, MD)

Morgan Shnier (Tuscon, AZ)

Adam Tetelman (Troy, NY)

Henry Visotski (Brooklyn, NY)

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Editor's Note:

In a balance scale,

cries for heat and cries for snow

wobble to and fro.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Morgan Shnier

i set each alarm

five hundred thirty-five clocks

i'm still late for work

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Adam Tetelman

All chaos breaks loose

Every man for himself

The network is down!

Certain doom awaits

This requires sacrifice

Send out the intern

A pair of black pants

A lecture at the chalkboard

A pair of white pants

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Brian Barnett

Bela Lugosi

He does not drink...wine

Make his a shot of morphine

Bela feels no pain

Zombie Apocalypse on Sesame Street

Burt in riot gear

Big Bird slain twice by head-shots

Elmo ate Grover

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Annie Perconti

there is a moment

between inhale and exhale

where all my lies stop.

I already know

that the tongue cannot create

what I hold for you.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Melissa Reddish

He’s the kind of guy

who smirks when I eat a peach.

Yes, you know the one.

The rankest odor

on the face of this green earth:

A goddamn dog fart.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Henry Visotski

Scent of bleach and piss,

Sleeping bum, loud shrew with cell.

Wish I drove to work.

The neighbor’s poodle,

While neutered as a puppy,

Still molests my leg

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sara Bickley

Cappuccino and

cigarettes on the hottest

day so far this year.

Sunburn stops hurting

two days after you get back.

Then it starts peeling.

After this pack I

quit smoking. I will have to

drink even faster.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Samuel Franklin

Summer Storm

Torrential rainfall--

helluva water balloon

fight up in Heaven.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

August 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Sara Bickley

All the girls in their

summer dresses, showing off

their year-round tattoos.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Tryyyyyyy to remeeeeeember

a time in Septeeeeeember when

you sent in haiku!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

New Word Order CONTEST WINNER

2011-07-25T00:02:00.000-04:00

Our contest judge, Darla Crist, has officially chosen Toby Bielawski's Five Kinds of Fences as the New Word Order Publishing Project winner! Here's what Crist had to say about the book:

Meaningful poetry manages to be simultaneously universal and deeply personal, and this difficult goal is certainly accomplished in Five Kinds of Fences. This is a highly imaginative collection of poems, perhaps best described in “A Crown of Safe Spaces,” where the poet writes, “It’s as if I’m in a cabin in my head, with one glass wall/Looking out over a setting that changes whenever my pen/Decides to shift mood or meaning…” And indeed, there are reality shifts in these poems, where the audience is asked to reconsider what constitutes a fence, or what would happen if letters were landscapes. Careful attention to form, language, and metaphor directs the work in this collection, even if “Truth is terrain that cannot be steered.” But truth can be found in “Scrap,” where the speaker is sorting her father’s belongings in the basement: “All of this (interstate rebar, toilet-tank float ball)/All of this (fittings, fan blades, copper spike)/Was for all the things you would have fixed/In your depression-era dreams./Now, with nicked hands I sort and deal --/Called all around/It's just a penny a pound for steel.” And truth can be found in “Rectification of Names”: “Resilience is bread broken and shared,/Jealousy the meat and the wine/And patience a stone herm/Listing towards the spine’s left side. /Souls are a thick mystery, mine and/Yours the same, just your mystery/Is a few inches more strange.” Here’s to truth, and here’s to mystery, two key elements in life, as well as in Five Kinds of Fences.

Here are our runners up:

A World Called Little Jimmy, by Christine Ong Muslim

Postcards from the Less than Important West, by Brent Schaeffer

Randonnées, by Adrienne Drobnes

We want to thank all 36 people who submitted chapbooks-- your interest has inspired us to look into a reprise of the contest in the future! Additionally, thanks to our contest sponsors:

Great People ($5+)

Jamie Lushbaugh

Chris Dolle

Awesome People ($10+)

Taylor Lampton

Brad Walrod

Great Honored Benefactors ($25+)

Tom Carbaugh

Linda Boan

Travis Durbin

Haley Salitros

We couldn't have done it without you. The books will be headed to the printers soon-- stay tuned!

Five Questions for a Folk Hero: Eli Van Sickel

2011-07-21T00:00:00.055-04:00

We'd like to start off Volume Two's series of community interviews by interviewing a man who straddles the line between fact and fiction, anonymity and pure legend. He's Eli Van Sickel, and he's one of the great heroes of the Terre Haute, Indiana, indie folk scene, and he was published in our first issue. (Yes, Terre Haute, the city that gave to the world Eugene V. Debs and took from the world, by way of the Federal Death Row, Timothy McVeigh.) Let's see what he has to say...

1. How many songs would you say you've written and performed?

I've written about 20-25 songs since I started playing and writing almost 6 years ago. I've performed most of them live.

2. What are some similarities between playing acoustic guitar and writing haiku?

There is a spirituality about it that people tend to forget. It is very open to interpretation and the player/poet has incredible creative freedom, though the rules of the style have to be meticulously followed.

3. You're about to begin your master's in Theater at Illinois State University. Are there any types of theater you would associate with haiku?

Well, Japanese theatre, obviously. I am fascinated/intimidated by Noh plays; it's a very dense, beautiful style of theatre that hasn't changed in centuries. I'm also a huge fan of dramatic/poetic realism, minimalistically staged; that kind of stuff really doesn't hand the audience much on a silver platter, but rather requires them to interpret the work.

4. How will the Legend of Eli Van Sickel read in 20 years?

Hopefully it will say that he is happily married with children, serves as either the artistic director of a non-profit theatre or the chair of a university theatre department, and continues to write and perform music. Also, his books Deaf Theatre In America and The Theatrical Legacy of Clifford Odets are both New York Times Best Sellers. A Tony Award or two would be nice as well.

5. Do you think Terre Haute's diaspora of wayward artists will ever truly be able to come home?

I think Terre Haute is definitely growing as an artists' home. Slowly but surely, it is becoming safer to "let your freak flag fly," as it were, and create. However, many of us (myself included) find that there's only so much that you can do in Terre Haute and so long you can stay here before it's time to take the next step and move on; but I think you'll find that anywhere.

ELI VAN SICKEL is going to send us a bio. For now, check out his music here.

Editorial: 5-7-5 Does Not Make a Haiku

2011-07-07T00:00:00.039-04:00

What's that, you ask? What's that? Why are we printing an editorial almost diametrically opposed to our mission statement?

Well, for starters, we here at High Coup Journal have been spoiling for this fight for a long time. But we also want to foster alternate viewpoints, and so we'd like to start off Volume 2 of the journal with a polite but well-researched explanation of everything that is wrong with our lovely journal. Mr. Boyer has proven to be a great sport about all this, and we encourage responses to this editorial, yea and nay. Do some research of your own and dish it right back, and we'll be happy to print your editorial as well!

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

This editorial is part one in our continuing battle over the nature of the haiku. Read part two here.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

DAVID BOYER:

I would like to start by thanking Mike Miller for this opportunity. I’d also like to thank A. Jarrell Hayes. It was my comment on his post at Reddit that got this whole thing rolling. I clicked on the link he provided to the February issue and made the comment that what I was seeing really wasn’t haiku. I said it was more in line with senryu or zappai*. I don’t mean to lessen anyone’s enjoyment of this journal. I just need to stand up for the haiku tradition.

Haiku is one of the most amazingly powerful verse forms ever invented, but it’s in the unfortunate position of being poorly understood even though everyone thinks they are familiar with it. Part of the blame for this goes to our early education, where the overly simplistic 5-7-5 paradigm was instilled in all of us. I know I stared this way, and wrote 5-7-5 for a long time.

My interest in haiku took off when I bought a copy of The Haiku Anthology. It was a book full of interesting, vibrant poetry that I didn't have to sweat over, as with the T. S. Eliot or E. E. Cummings that I had been reading. When I started to really get into the anthology, it was a revelation. So many moments where my breath was taken away. You know that moment when you're reading a poem and something just clicks, you have an Aha! moment or maybe you get goosebumps? Haiku was able to give me that again and again. I also saw, for the first time, the breadth and depth of haiku. People wrote in 5-7-5, sure, but there was so much variety that I quickly realized the 5-7-5 structure was not really important.

Lee Gurga (an award-winning haiku poet, former president of the Haiku Society of America and former editor of Modern Haiku) writes in his Haiku: A Poet’s Guide: “A majority of people among both poets and the general public seems to believe that haiku poetry is synonymous with haiku form, and that anything written in the three-line form they remember from elementary school is automatically haiku.” He then goes on to quote the Japanese scholar Shigehisa Kuriyama, who says “The 5-7-5 pattern by itself does not make a haiku.”

Gurga also gives the Haiku Society of America definition of haiku in his guide: “A poem recording the essence of a moment keenly perceived, in which nature is linked to human nature. Usually a haiku in English is written in three unrhymed lines of seventeen or fewer syllables.” The “moment keenly perceived” is the important thing here. A haiku is the essence of a moment, the poetry of a moment, in just a few impressionistic brush strokes. In good haiku there is always more unsaid than said:

clearing out

their mother’s house

last leaves on the maple

--Jack Barry

This poem give us a picture of the end of things, just moments before the season ends, before the house is no longer really their mother’s house. But in those ends we can see a glimpse of a new beginning, perhaps. The tree that will grow new leaves, the house that may become a home for another family. This is from the most recent issue of Modern Haiku, Volume 42:2, summer 2011. A few more examples may help:

transit of Venus...

something struggles

in the orb weaver’s web

--Lorin Ford

It’s a very rare thing to catch a glimpse of Venus moving against the face of the sun, just as it’s a rare thing to see an orb weaver at work with its prey. Visually, we can see the two small orbs, Venus and the spider, moving against the much larger forms of the sun and whatever the spider has caught. Though nature is beautiful in its diversity, we feel the passing of time and shiver.

Christmas

at the Playboy Mansion

the plastic trees

--Gregory Hopkins

This one hardly needs an explanation. It’s a good showcase of how haiku poets use nature to talk about human nature, and how with subtlety you can say much more than with a direct statement. The poem would be much less of a poem if the poet had said something like

Christmas

at the Playboy Mansion

plastic trees and silicone breasts

This version gives too much away, it makes what was implicit explicit and destroys the poetry of the original.

from the big bang to my funny bone

--Christopher Patchel

I don’t know if I can do this one justice, but as T. S. Eliot so rightly said, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” To me, this poem, with the laugh of a Buddha becoming enlightened, takes in the entire universe through the perspective of one small bone in one small human body. Banging your funny bone (and seeing stars, no doubt) is related to the Big Bang and suddenly the universe expands through this exquisite and ludicrous pain. That’s one of the real gifts of great haiku and great poetry: the sense of expansiveness, that there are larger things we are a part of. When you finish a great poem, regardless of the length, and you’re left with a wow on your lips or your mind reeling with possibilities and implications, then poetry has done its job.

a lightning-blasted pine in my pencil the black spine

--Peter Yovu

There is such powerful drama in this piece and such powerful peace. The blasted tree, a rough mirror of the pencil in the poet’s hand, which he uses to memorialize the same tree. And I think the rhyme (it’s quite rare to see rhyme work well in haiku) makes the poem sing.

panties tossed on the melon rinds wet in spots

--Chris Gordon

The heat of summer, and all that implies, comes through in every syllable. You almost feel a bit breathless reading this.

High Coup has printed some poems that I think are in the tradition of haiku. Each of the following are carefully and vividly presented scenes, and each leaves you wanting more, asking what else is going on or what led up to this:

from June 2011:

A white seagull floats

above the turbulent waves

of the parking lot.

--Michael Morris

February 2011:

Whispering tender

Terms of endearment in

My frostbitten ears.

--Megan Milligan

However, reading High Coup I find most of the poems are along the lines of little jokes or fortune cookie type sentiments, that tend to just stop at the end of the line, with little or no resonance.

William Higginson and Penny Harter in The Haiku Handbook say that writing a haiku is saying “It is hard to tell you how I am feeling. Perhaps if I share with you the events that made me aware of these feelings, you will have similar feelings of your own.” Haiku don’t tell you how to feel, they show you a scene and hope that you will come along.

In the end, what I’m trying to say (and what I say to myself every day) is, don’t limit yourself! Don’t settle for just writing jokes and a blind adherence to 5-7-5. Haiku can be so much more.

DAVID BOYER's haiku have appeared in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Mayfly, Acorn, bottle
rockets, Presence, Heron's Nest and other haiku journals. He was a featured poet in A New Resonance 5: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku.

* “A senryu is a poem, structurally similar to haiku, that highlights the foibles of human nature, usually in a humorous or satiric way. Many so-called "haiku" in English are really senryu. Others, such as "Spam-ku" and "headline haiku", seem like recent additions to an old Japanese category, zappai, miscellaneous amusements in doggerel verse (usually written in 5-7-5) with little or no literary value. Some call the products of these recent fads "pseudohaiku" to make clear that they are not haiku at all.” (From the Haiku Society of America.)

High Coup Journal - July 2011 Issue

2011-07-01T00:00:00.003-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

James Dye (Dubuque, IA)

Jack Granath (Kansas City, KS)

Amy Harris (West Lafayette, IN)

Lex Joy (Amherst, MA)

Jamie Lushbaugh (Terre Haute, IN)

Amit Parmessur (Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius)

Geoff Pope (Renton, WA)

Miriam Sagan (Santa Fe, NM)

Mitzi Sicking (Midland, TX)

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Editor's Note:

Each birthday a door

to new, unseen hallway

ending in a door.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Lex Joy

Philosophy class--

One more angry German man

says we know nothing...

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Amit Parmessur

Yellow cars speeding;

Farting thin cancerous clouds

like a wintry mouth

Bonnet on my head,

As a king on a tall stool

I watch worlds drying

With a toothless mouth

My multi-colored moustache’s

A dusty toothbrush

Two pharmacy bombs

sending me to paradise,

my doctor to hell

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Geoff Pope

“Shit!”

I heard my mom say

“Shit!” only once in her life —

door crushed ring finger

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Amy Harris

Sarah Palin: the

evolution of man will

not be televised.*

* RIP Gil Scott-Heron

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Jack Granath

Her body sculpted

by a summer dress--so much

for non-attachment.

She laughs, the purse strap

between her breasts, a lesson

in geography.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

James Dye

An intense debate

Does not deserve metaphors!

Fuck! You get the point?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Jamie Lushbaugh

Your sandpaper tongue

licks my face after your ass.

Thanks for the gross bath.

At Petsmart, select

The three-figure, plush cat tree.

He plays in the box

Um, no, officer.

I don't know whose pot that is.

You sure it's not yours?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Mitzi Sicking

Unneeded finger

When you, my fellow driver,

Ran the stop sign. Jerk.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Miriam Sagan

to escape the smoke

as ten thousand acres burns--

movie with mermaids

cherry blossoms float

on the edge of this haiku's

silent green pond scum

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

July 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Geoff Pope

do you suck and chew

on tips of the alphabet

until your mouth bleeds?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Send birthday money

or at least some more haiku

to assuage your guilt.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Looking Forward, Looking Inward: Volume 2

2011-06-25T00:00:00.014-04:00

As we prepare to begin our second year of publication, High Coup Journal would like to take a new direction with its "Five Questions" interviews. For a year we have brought you interviews with haiku-friendly editors and members of a slew of other professions outside our own community, trying to forge connections between this journal and the community at large.

This year, we'd like to try something different: while we'll still be featuring editor interviews from time to time, we're going to make our main focus catching back up with some of our previous authors and seeing what they're doing these days. We are a community, and we want our community's own voices to be highlighted now.

So be checking your e-mails shortly! We're going to start assembling a list of people who might like to be interviewed very soon.

Five Questions for a Poet Laureate: Joan Logghe

2011-06-22T21:18:00.001-04:00

As part of our continuing coverage of Axle Contemporary's "Haiku Roadsign" display in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we've managed to snag a great interview with the judge of the haiku contest that generated all the poems now found in and around the town. She's Joan Logghe, and in addition to being the judge of this contest, she's also the Poet Laureate of Santa Fe! Let's see what she has to say...

1. The city of Santa Fe was founded back in 1610, making it the oldest state capitol in America. How far back does the post of Poet Laureate go? Do you still get the traditional "butt of sack" awarded to you?

We just had our big Santa Fe 400 celebration and I was a poetry judge for the student poets who wrote about Santa Fe. Their poems were placed in a time capsule. I am the third Poet Laureate or as I call it PL so it began in 2006. The term is two years and I was preceded by the amazing Arthur Sze and the fabulous Valerie Martinez. No "butt of sack" for me, but ample opportunity for drink, a small stipend, and a full dance card. I have attended more galas and awards dinners than ever in my life. I think a nice case of wine or at least free parking downtown would be a wonderful addition to the PL life.

2. What sorts of educational activities are you involved in as Poet Laureate?

The educational aspect is one of the considerations in choosing the PL. I have been in the schools for over 30 years, first as volunteer and then it evolved into various Poet-in-the Schools gigs and in one case, Santa Fe Girls' School, eleven years as a poet-in-residence teaching once a week over three years. I am dedicated to enriching a culture of poetry in our community.

For this PL term I wanted to show young children how I fell in love with poetry and how much fun it is. I selected poems from my youth and beyond and with composer and musician, Jeremy Bleich, made a performance piece called "Joan and the Giant Pencil" after James and the Giant Peach. I used this name because I have been able to borrow a wonderful four foot yellow pencil called "Future" from Kathleen McCloud, a former writing student and awesome artist. The pencil comes to every school or museum or library with us, and I have two great poems about pencils that I found, one by US PL W.S. Merwin (enough initials for you?) and one by a Spanish language poet, Jesus Carlos Soto Morfin.

I move from poems I loved as a child to Frost and Dickinson and Carl Sandberg and my own poems. There are several bilingual poems as often our audiences have native Spanish speakers. The program is about 50 minutes long and it keeps attention even of very small children. They love Jeremy and the music, and it is interactive so they get to clap out gallops, or echo words as I read the poems. Some of the teachers then write with the students, though they are mostly very busy. We'll be at Santa Fe Children's Museum this July 14th and they are making a poetry festival there.

I have also done things as diverse as teaching poetry in the Community Gallery f the Santa Fe Arts Commission, at a show called "Mining the Unconscious" this past Saturday to speaking and reading at a variety of poetry or community events. Even if it is my upcoming Fourth of July appearance at the Pancake Breakfast on the plaza, I try and lure folks into loving poetry, or remembering they did as a child.

3. How did you get involved with the Axle Contemporary group?

I think I sat down in the Gallery/Van early on beside the Farmer's Market site. I knew Jerry Welman vaguely, and then it progressed to casually, and finally it is dearly. Matthew I just met on the van. Both of these men are so visionary and fun to hang out with. Then they asked me to judge the contest, lured only by my new Poet Laureate outfit. I had an insane schedule of things I had said "yes" to. I was feeling a slight 'No" welling up in me.

Once we met and talked, I knew it would be fun to work together and I could practice playing well with others (I tend to like being my own boss and co-conspirator). I have been to several of the Axle Contemporary openings, not as many as I would like as I live 25 miles north of town and value down time and taking a no-drive day every week. But I was bragging about them to everyone in town, even before I got to know them. i just think the step-van is the coolest idea and fits my art-for-the-people aesthetic, art in daily life ideal. I am a devotee and a van fan.

4. What challenges do you face when judging a contest?

One reason is I don't like to judge art, though I can be judgmental. I also have taught so many people and have many beloved students. I didn't want to have to choose and make people sad. I have been rejected as much as accepted in poetry. But the judging was anonymous, so that felt right. And haiku is brief, so that helped. The guys also did a preliminary read and sorted into two piles, but truthfully, there were ones in the pile they deemed not as strong that I loved, and so they are going to be on the sign. I am also aware of the total subjectivity of our personal taste.

We have all the schools of poetry in Santa Fe. It is a thriving poetry scene, so we have a wide range from the abstract language influenced schools to Slam and everything in between. I can think of other haiku poets in town who deserve the job more than I do... Miriam Sagan, a stunning haiku poet for decades, and Charles Trumbull who edits Modern Haiku and is past president of the Haiku Society of America... plus John Brandi, who is another favorite of mine and has made a lifelong relationship with haiku. Yet, I am glad I got the job, and we get to publish all of them which makes it a strong and varied group, from beginners to these seasoned haiku poets.

Once I got the poems, my husband and I went out to dinner in an Asian fusion restaurant and I ordered a margarita. I read quickly through the entire pile and he reviewed them as well. They were on little strips of paper, some almost like large fortunes, and it was as memorable and pleasant a judging experience as I have ever had. It felt good to do a drive-by reading, and then settle in at home and read carefully the next morning with a sobering cup of black tea. I had them selected within 24 hours.

5. What are your personal feelings regarding the haiku?

Do you mean "The haiku" as in all haiku, or the haiku submitted for Haiku Roadsign? I think we got excellent work and I tried to choose poems that were crisp, imaged, and respected at least one element of "the Haiku."

I have a large section of haiku books on my shelves and I am an aficionado, but in no ways an expert. I once gave a friend pages and pages of my haiku and he said I had three true ones. I have been reading these poets in translation and appreciation since the 60s and so that gives me an ear and a sensibility. The thing that surprised me when I read the work submitted was how many poets ignored imagery and the natural world. I felt as if senryu gave too much permission to just talk in abstraction, and missed out on the delicate feeling of a haiku. I think of haiku is as much about heightening awareness, and hearing the reverberation as about what's on the page. I think image is the way in, and the difficult turn, twist, or surprise element was rare in our submissions, but I love when it happens. I also love what my friend Judyth Hill says in a great pantoum from her book Black Hollyhock, First Light: "There's a secret in haiku, I'll tell you / the fourth line is silent."

Haiku is the form most often taught in schools because teachers see the formula 5/7/5 and mistakenly think it is easy to teach. It is both subtle and sophisticated, and I was surprised that some of my friends whose poetry I love and adore, didn't have the sensibility of spare attention packed language.

We didn't count syllables, though I love Clark Strand's description of a dying haiku master, on his death bed, counting on his fingers. I also taught a ten year old friend who insisted on counting because it was more challenging. I think selecting the poems we got, choosing 32 of them, was a blast and so much easier that I expected.

JOAN LOGGHE (Santa Fe, NM) is Santa Fe's third poet Laureate, serving from 2010-2012. She began teaching poetry as a volunteer in her childrens' school thirty years ago. She continues to bring poetry into the schools, serving our young people, and has taught everywhere and to all ages, from Santa Fe Community College to Zagreb, Croatia. This year she was the keynote speaker at Santa Fe High graduation. Her most recent books are The Singing Bowl from University of New Mexico Press and Love & Death: Greatest Hits, from Tres Chicas Books with Miriam Sagan and Renée Gregorio.

New Word Order Reminder

2011-06-15T00:00:00.010-04:00

Hey everyone! Just a brief reminder that you have about two weeks to submit to the New Word Order contest. So far we've gotten 16 submissions and are looking to get several more before we're done. Your submissions don't have to be haiku-- our expert judge will show no prejudice but that of blind justice!

Check out the submission guidelines at the bottom of the page here.

Five Questions for Two Twitterers: Alison Kehler and Kelly Westhoff of Haiku by Two

2011-06-07T00:00:00.005-04:00

Let's get ready for Volume 2 of High Coup Journal! As you might have guessed from the June cover art, literary coupling will be something of a theme for this issue: many haiku coupled together into a series, such as in Henry Visotski's "The Death of the (Other) American Dream"; a book composed by two individual authors in distinct but unlabeled collaboration, such as in our upcoming book review; or a daily haiku Twitter feed by two friends, Alison Kehler and Kelly Westhoff. Let's see what the authors of Haiku by Two have to say...

1. So you’re about to hit 900 haiku... that’s like 9 complete hyakuin renga. Seriously, how do you keep it going?

ALISON:
Working with Kelly is the key. I know that I could not do this by myself. And I feel a sense of ongoing conversation doing this with Kelly, which is very motivating. My mother recently asked me, “How long are you going to continue your haiku project?” And I was all like, “What do you mean? We’re going to do this forever!”

KELLY:
It helps me to have a partner. This way, I’m accountable to someone else. Like a lot of writers, I get my best work done under deadline. For me, Alison is sort of like a deadline. Even if I don’t feel like writing, I know that I have to because I don’t want to let her down.

However, I think the real key for us is that we didn’t take on this project because we wanted to write haiku. We took on this project because we wanted to keep in touch with each other. Even though haiku is our medium, the whole purpose of Haiku By Two is that the poems are an ongoing conversation between two friends. Many of our haiku are deeply personal, and I think the fact that we’re sharing these touching details of our lives with each other is what keeps us going.

2. How do you tend to split up the workload?

ALISON:
When I said I could not do this without Kelly, I meant it. She drives the ship and I do my best to keep up with the division of labor. Sometimes I am behind and she sends me a nice email, like, oh…are you still going to review that book? For me, it works. I like piping in with my own artistic insights, but I’m the sort of creative person who needs another person to keep me focused.

KELLY:
Well, the truth of the matter is that the site is my main mode of procrastination. When I don’t feel like focusing on the other work that I’m supposed to be doing (which happens a lot), I wander over to Haiku By Two and start thinking about ways to update it. Yet I also derive a lot of pleasure from the site, which is probably how it has ended up as my preferred mode of procrastination.

3. So... sometimes the brain just goes blank. How do you get something to paper (or perhaps to keyboard) in those moments?

ALISON:
We have written many haiku about not knowing what to write about! I think that’s a part of the creative process. There are days in any medium where you feel uninspired and feel you have nothing to add. But I think continuity is the key to any art. So we keep going, we write about “nothing.” Or we suddenly find something when least expected. Or sometimes a haiku is just mediocre. That’s okay, too. It’s part of the process.

KELLY:
Here’s a haiku I posted on the site back in April 2010:

haiku-less, that’s me

I’m all out of fresh ideas

haiku-less, that’s me

I have gone through several dry spells where I feel like all the haiku I post are insipid or trivial or just plain bad. For me, that’s when I really fall back on that standard 5-7-5 syllable count. All I have to do, I tell myself, is come up with the count and then I can be done. And honestly, sometimes that’s the only way to make it through.

4. What effect has your poetic relationship had on your writing, and on your lives? Does it extend beyond the blog?

ALISON:
As the mother of a busy toddler, I rarely talk on the phone. Not even with my mom! I feel like I just don’t have the time or the space to have an extended phone conversation with anyone. So for me, Haiku By Two helps me feel like I have an ongoing conversation with a friend. I keep up with Kelly through the poetry and comments on the blog. I definitely feel close to Kelly because of this project. It has me thinking about her every day. I’ll be driving along and I’ll think “Oh, that reminds me of what Kelly wrote,” or I’ll just be sending her good vibes.

KELLY:
Well...first of all, haiku totally affected my reading choices. We didn’t decide to write haiku because we loved the format. We chose to write haiku because we were drawn to its brevity and straight-forward counting rules. It didn’t take long, though, for haiku to spark my curiosity. Soon after we started Haiku By Two, I was scouring the library for books that would explain the form.

Those reading choices then affected my writing as I started to look for ways to build in a break or reference a season in a less obvious way than saying “winter.”

Now, haiku has become a mode of thinking that I often fall into. For example, as I walk my dogs, I’m always on the lookout for some shift in nature that I can incorporate into haiku.

5. If our readers wanted to start a writing relationship like this, what would be some good pick-up lines?

KELLY:
Well, Alison and I knew each other long before Haiku By Two came about, so neither one of us had to go out and “pick up” a willing blogging partner.

But, if I were to try to set up something like this again, my advice would be that you really need to figure out what your goal is. If your goal is to share information, then you’ll be looking for a blogging partner with a different set of skills than if your goal is to have an ongoing conversation with a friend.

I would also recommend that you have clear posting guidelines. For us, it’s really helpful to know that each one of us has to post one haiku every other day. Having a very clear schedule makes it easy to plan ahead.

ALISON KEHLER writes haiku. She also makes soap. And she paints. And she teaches English to adult students. Plus, she is a mom to a busy toddler and a rambunctious puppy. She gathers ideas from each of her roles in life and incorporates them into her tiny poems.

KELLY WESTHOFF writes haiku when she should be doing something else. Like writing an article for her freelance career or grading papers for the college English classes she teaches. She finds inspiration for her haiku every time she takes her dogs for a walk.

High Coup Journal - June 2011 Issue

2011-06-01T00:00:00.025-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Ian Chung (Leamington Spa, England)

Temple Cone (Annapolis, MD)

Sam Franklin (Terre Haute, IN)

Michael Morris (Royse City, Texas)

Mark Skrzypczak (Jersey City, NJ)

John Tustin (Flushing, NY)

Henry Visotski (Brooklyn, NY)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor’s Note:

Missing the wedding,

we blasted the car speakers:

“No Woman, No Cry.”

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Mark Skrzypczak

Your entire life

Is the creative process

Open your damn eyes

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

John Tustin

Cooking up something

To fill and satisfy me

The recipe – you

Waiting for the words

My ideas like carrion

The buzzards circle dolefully

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Ian Chung

his belly flattens

ridges carved out for someone

other than yourself

napkin in his car

sticky with her red lipstick

and his betrayal

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sam Franklin

Judas

Iscariot kissed

a man for money--he was

a prostitute, yeah?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Temple Cone

Dualist, monist,

we’re all alike under these clothes--

lean, tired, scared shitless.

You mastered walking

as an infant and forgot

each step thereafter.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Henry Visotski

The Death of the (Other) American Dream

Faded cowboy boots

ancient Chevy, never used

covered, rusty gray

want to trust the myth

old weird America is

a gas tank away

road trip in the sun

will the waitress call me “hon”

out where cowboys ride?

so far all I see

is Starbucks and Applebee's

flanking either side

no Nelson or Cash

radio plays same old trash

Gaga, Nickelback

someone swiped away

the myth, the sweet old cliché

somewhere we lost track

inner city bound

nothing gained, we turned around

home with empty hands

mission was a bust

ancient Chevy gathers dust

think I’ll let it stand.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

June 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Michael Morris

A white seagull floats

above the turbulent waves

of the parking lot.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

School's out for summer;

haiku school has just begun

in each sprig of grass!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Five Questions for a Photographer: Ann Wright

2011-05-21T00:00:00.020-04:00

If you've been reading High Coup Journal for any length of time, you may have noticed that little photo credit to Ann Wright. Hopefully you've taken a little time to browse her extensive gallery of photography. What you may not know is that she has also been featured in CNN's iReport and CuteOverload.com. Oh, and we have her here today. Let's see what she has to say...

1. What's your favorite subject for photography?

It may sound a bit cliche, but I love doing nature photos. Nature cooperates a lot nicer than human elements for one, but there's so much that we pass by day to day, that we don't notice. I try to bring that to the forefront. You may not notice that tiny purple flower growing out of the crack in the sidewalk, but I do. More recently, snow is playing a huge part in my creativity. Capturing individual snowflakes, a dusting of snow on a branch, it's really the little things in life that matter the most.

2. Haiku in a way is like a snapshot composed in words. How do you compare photography to poetry?

Photography and poetry are so similar! Each tell a story from the point of view from the artist.

With poetry or

haiku, we are free to be

individuals.

No matter what form of writing you prefer (haiku, iambic pentameter, freestyle, etc), you get to see the world from someone else's point of view. You feel what they feel. Photography is no different. I focus on things that not everyone can really "see" day to day, I want people to see what I see, to feel what I feel.

3. You've been published on CNN's iReport and have a gallery on deviantArt. What's the difference between exhibition and publication?

For me, exhibition is almost a first step. You put yourself out there, get feedback, the world is your critic. With publication, you've been chosen. Someone, somewhere appreciates what you've done and has decided to help show the world what you see. Either one is very flattering, but being published is so much more fun!

4. How do you differentiate between "artful" photography and the kind of stuff that just ends up in the family photo album?

Family Photo Albums... For people who scrapbook or do the family album thing, those photos are there to capture a moment, a memory in an instant and bring you back to that place. They're kind of like an external filing system for your brain. Take a picture really quick so you can remember what happened. "Art" photography can be similar-- to capture a moment or a memory, but art photography captures the emotion that was attached to the event. Take for instance the famous V-J Day photo taken in Times Square of the sailor kissing a nurse. My father was 4 years old when that photo was taken, my mother not even born yet. Those people are of no relation to me, yet I can feel the sense of elation, joy, of utter celebration in the photo. Compared to that of a simple family album photo, they both may still be meaningful, but have very different empathetic emotions attached to them.

5. How do you decide on the exact moment to snap the shutter?

Timing is everything! You have to know the machine you're working with-- how fast the shutter clicks in every kind of light and the estimated speed of the subject your photographing. I recently attended a scrimmage of the South Bend Roller Girls, South Bend, Indiana's local roller derby team, where my timing was truly tested. Some are hits, some are misses, and sometimes you're just plain lucky!

ANN WRIGHT, formerly of Whitehall, Ohio, currently resides in Plymouth, Indiana uses a Nikon P90 Digital Camera. Featured on CNN iReport, CuteOverload.com, and published in the 2010 and 2011 Cute Overload Calendars along with High Coup Magazine. Online galleries can be found on Deviant Art and on Facebook.

Editorial: Why Do We -Ku?

2011-05-07T19:14:00.002-04:00

You might assume that as the editor of a journal devoted to haiku—exclusively to rigidly formalist haiku with a snarky bent, at that—that I am primarily a writer of haiku. A haikuist. A haikuer. A haikunik. Pick a suffix as you will—I don’t think it’ll fit very well.

My favorite poems are actually the exact opposite of haiku: epics. Beowulf. Don Juan. The Canterbury Tales. Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse, The Golden Gate. Perhaps a bit weird, eh? Perhaps a bit weird to devote a journal to poems three lines long with seventeen syllables each when the poems you love the best are three books long with seventeen cantos each?

Agreed. So why do I -ku?

I started to ask myself that question this past winter. In February, I sent out an e-mail to some past High Coup Journal authors in search of insight, asking them to reflect on the problem for me. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in my short career in the literary universe, having other people do your work for you is the key to success. Admittedly, some responses were more helpful than others:

I haiku because

spiders ingested my parents

this is how I cope.

--Jacob Glenn

(Let it be known that I in no way want to belittle Jacob’s suffering. Descended from the brood of Shelob, last fell child of Ungoliant, giant spider attacks have been reported as recently as the 2941th year of the Third Age [or the 1341^st in Shire Reckoning]. Do not think that the destruction of the One Ring and the fall of Barad-dûr will stop them: Shelob dwells in Torech Ungol still.)

More on topic, one author’s response was short, direct, and to the point:

I read and write haiku because I have a short attention span. I also like Japanese culture.

--A. Jarrell Hayes

Another author sent me a 2,038-word response to my question. That’s 2,038 words written about a form containing 17 syllables. This level of ludicrous awesomeness has officially earned Richard Stevenson of Alberta, Canada, his very own bottle of AWESOME SAUCE:

AWESOME SAUCE awarded for EXTREME ANALYTICAL AWESOMENESS:

Richard Stevenson

I liked Richard’s response because he also managed to extend my question from “Why do you –ku?” to “Why would you –ku?”, as seen below:

…here's my question: How can this little art form be so popular -- indeed, I believe it's the most popular form of poetry on the planet, isn't it? -- and yet make no inroads into leading literary journals except those devoted exclusively to haikai poetry? Maybe I'm overstating the case, but certainly most litmags in Canada won't touch haiku with a ten-foot pole. They tend to regard it as a five-finger exercise in syllable counting and straightforward pretty description for elementary school kids…

--Richard Stevenson

I’d expected the other responses to trickle in slowly, but within a week I had nearly a dozen, and they kept coming for a month afterwards. Since High Coup Journal is an e-journal, I wasn’t surprised that a few authors made the logical connections to Twitter and technology:

To protect against

Twitter-based mass marketing

Write obscure haiku

--Cal Clugston

…it's the perfect type of poem for the iPad age. (As a marketing guy, I cannot ignore this fact even though I myself can sit through a three hour movie and not get bored.)

--Henry Visotski

Some centered purely on the fun of hammering out a short poem:

Mainly I -ku because it's fun. It's five-seven-five syllables of a smart aleck. Who wouldn't want to -ku?

--Mitzi Sicking

Much as it might damage my art-snob credentials, I have to agree with Mitzi. Part of the allure of haiku (to be specific, bad haiku—and to be even more specific, zappai) is that they’re so fun. High Coup Journal originated as a little game at the Indiana State University Writing Center, where my fellow tutors and I passed around a few sheets of paper, collecting haiku as we waded through an endless sea of Nursing 104 papers. (I promise you this: if I read another paper about why someone wants to be a nurse, I may put that someone in a hospital.)

Kaylin, Elise, Kaiulani, Caitlin Martin (who is currently my associate editor): why did we -ku? Partially because we needed a silent way to poke fun at Pearcy.* Partially because—to be honest—we were bored as hell and it was a witty little word-game to play. And indeed, some of the other contributors to High Coup Journal zeroed in on the “exercise” aspect of the haiku:

I think I enjoy the symmetry of haiku. It requires an agile mind to create the wording and still conform to the pattern. It builds the ability to say a lot with few words.

--Mike Lushbaugh

One way the form builds this ability is through repetition, repetition, repetition:

Of course, as anyone who has fallen in love with the history of the North American English language haiku tradition will tell you, writing haiku is a lot like panning for gold: you write a helluva lot of these little suckers before you get any good, and the ratio of ore to gravel is about 1 to 100, if not 1 to 1,000!

--Richard Stevenson (again)

I call this the “Russian Machine-Gun Effect”: accurate or not, if you shoot often enough, you’re bound to hit something. Whereas bullets cost money, though, haiku don’t cost a thing.

For others contributors, the compression of the idea becomes the goal:

While there are many poetic forms I enjoy writing in, the haiku remains my all-time favorite. I call the haiku, "a galaxy compressed in limited space." It's wonderful training for writers who abhor revising their work! Sometimes I will write a poem of, let's say, 30 lines, and then transform it to one of about 15 to 17 syllables.

--Salvatore Buttaci

I’ve always phrased this aspect of form as “The Jell-O Mold Effect”: the ideas are molten and unstable before they are poured, but once you take the raw materials and give them formal support, they congeal into a more enjoyable end-product. As any five-star chef or free-verse poet could tell you, the raw materials have to be good for the end product to be good. But the form is the recipe.

If you can't say it

in seventeen syllables

it ain't worth sayin'.

--Darcy McMurtery

The raw materials need to be high quality, but they don’t need to be complex. Haiku, like a recipe for coq au vin, can take simple ingredients and make something delicious:

I have a very concrete answer to that question. About nine months ago, Short, Fast, and Deadly did an all-Haiku issue ("for the love of God, no Haiku" is in their general submission guidelines) and, for some reason, it struck me to attempt it. I wrote two Haiku that day, one was accepted, and at that point it was one of my first acceptances. I very rarely sit down and attempt to write something specific, but that day I did.

A few months later I had some serious trouble writing anything, but I had fragments of things in my head I thought interesting. I decided if i gave them a rigid structure (like 5-7-5) and kept them short I could make somthing fully realized out of these fragments. I then wrote about a dozen Haiku in a few days. I found the necessity of structure stimulated my creativity. Four of those Haiku appear in High Coup Journal.

Then I stopped writing them. Occasionally I will have a shred of an idea, just something small and clever, and not have a bigger idea to write around it. Some die, some become Haiku.

I believe, at least for me, that Haiku is a small idea fully realized.

--John Tustin

So haiku can be a tool for capturing a fragment of an idea. But some people find the restraints to be of a more pleasurable sort (if you’re kinky like that):

I "-Ku" because this particular form of poetry, at least in its classic incarnation, provides an interesting limitation. And as we've seen with music (The White Stripes) and film (any Hitchcock production), limitations can inspire intriguing results. Plus, the haiku is something you can take as seriously as you want. A silly one can be just as good - and fun - and a genuinely pretty one.

--Henry Visotski (again)

Perhaps the point of the haiku—especially the formal haiku—is the inspiring struggle against the restraint. The restraint of form does not hold back emotion but rather creates it in the mind of the author, creating a level creative climax not possible in total freedom. The oppression of the body of writing…

…mmmwait a minute. I should probably stop writing too much more on this thought. Whilst “sizzlin’ hot word-bondage” might be fun amongst consenting adults, even High Coup Journal has some dignity.

(But seriously, if you want me to write more on this thought, I can give you my private phone number.)

Aaaaaaaaanyway…

I got a lot of good responses to my question, and I want to thank everyone who contributed. So why do I –ku? Reading the responses and taking the time to reflect on it, I think maybe it’s because I love the epic. The epic is the movie. The movie is a series of still images sped up to create the illusion of motion. Slow the movie down and the illusion fades into the still images truly at work. Haiku is a single frame in the epic of life, a single snapshot pulled a hectic world, and regardless of whether it involves jumping frogs or cherry blossoms, the haiku is our world in atomic form. As it was perhaps said best,

A bad haiku is

a poetic primal scream

uttered in three lines.

--Amy Harris

* Pearcy, you're a good man. I wish you bolf a happy tomorrow and a happy lifetime.

High Coup Journal - May 2011 Issue

2011-05-01T00:00:00.025-04:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Sara Bickley (West Carrollton, OH)

Salvatore Buttaci (Princeton, WV)

Samuel Franklin (Terre Haute, IN)

Rick Hartwell (Moreno Valley, CA)

Danielle Johnson (Clemente, CA)

Lex Joy (Durham, NH)

Taylor Lampton (New Brunswick, NJ)

Lauren McBride (Houston, TX)

Stephen Miller (Stockbridge, MA)

Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory (Jersey City, NJ)

Robert Petras (Toronto, OH)

John Tustin (Flushing, NY)

Annie Welch (Louisville, KY)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor's Note:

May, I ask you this:

where do you store all the joy

winter hid away?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sara Bickley

Standing humming hymns

outside the confessional

with the leaky door.

Dropped my cigarette.

Is it clean enough to smoke,

or does it matter?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

John Tustin

You still live with him

And I still sleep next to her

Good thing I’m patient

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Lex Joy

Thesis proposal.

Which work of literature

will I learn to hate?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Taylor Lampton

The Undergrad Thesis Shuffle

Reading. Reading. Notes.

Hypothesis? Nope! Again!

Reading. Reading. Notes.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Stephen Miller

You have enemies?

We can address that problem...

Nukes cure lots of things!

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Salvatore Buttaci

claustrophobia

in this tight economy

can be stifling

old man knitting brows,

lean on your question-mark cane.

Life’s a mystery.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Danielle Johnson

Stuffed Toy Cemetery

Seams busted open

Gloomy pile of marred plush toys

Tobin chews and chews

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Robert E. Petras

from "Redneck Haiku"

Second amendment

Tree-hugging sums-a-bitches

Mullet with crosshairs.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Annie Welch

Bourbon Haiku

The coming of fall

whispered in mid August as

corn turns to liquor

When I feel too seen

I can write in third person

as she finds shelter

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Lauren McBride

homo sapiens

are LGBT labels

so damned important?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Samuel Franklin

3:30 a.m.

Early morning Haute

with sleepless, stupid deskjob--

you may kiss my ass.

This is important

My fecal matter

matters a lot--but the smell

kills my gray matter.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Rick Hartwell

good haiku is like

tasty tidbits offered up

inviting your dreams

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

May 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Judy Blume

Are you there, God? It's

me, Adam-- Margaret got

knocked up. What's cracking?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Now that spring has sprung,

those haiku that spring to mind

should be sprung to us!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Five Questions for a Scientist: John Cho

2011-04-21T00:00:00.034-04:00

This month's "Five Questions" is with MIT Lincoln Laboratory scientist and SPAM Haiku Archive Master Emeritus (SHAME) John Cho. The Archive is no longer accepting submissions, but it's certainly worth browsing or checking out the printed book, SPAM-ku. Let's see what he has to say (now, in haiku form)!

1. Did the SPAM-ku phenomenon originate with you, or were these poems already floating around the Internet before you got involved?

Forwarded e-mail

Anonymous SPAM haiku

Origin unknown

2. What finally forced the SPAM-ku archive to close its doors to new submissions?

Job, marriage, children

Spring, summer, autumn, winter

Job, marriage, kids, cat

3. Could you explain for us-- preferably in 17 syllables-- what anisotropic scaling turbulence is? What relation does it have to wind shear?

Gravity-flattened

Big whorls have small whorls that lead

To a viscous grave*

4. Where do contrails come from?

Jets spew wet vapor

Condensation nuclei

Blue-sky Etch A Sketch

5. How does a knowledge of poetry influence a scientist (and vis versa)?

Poems have spanking

Signal-to-noise ratios

When tuned to the truth

* Apologies to Lewis F. Richardson

JOHN CHO supplied his bio in haiku form as well:

JFK shot down

JNC born in Tokyo

Makes Boston his home

You can find his CV at his MIT page here.

Miami University HOOOOOOOOOO!

2011-04-20T20:22:00.000-04:00

A bit of slightly belated but awesome news: our associate editor Caitlin Martin has received a teaching assistantship at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio! We're darned proud of her and hope to see a new crowd of Miami-ites.... Miami-ers... um... Buckeyes? No, that's Ohio State. Well, whatever people who go to Miami are called, we're proud she's one!

New Word Order Chapbook Details

2011-04-18T01:30:00.000-04:00

Just a heads up: there are now some details of the New Word Order Chapbook Contest on our submissions page. Also: still 13 days to contribute to the effort!

Five Questions for a Director: Steven Tsuchida

2011-04-15T00:00:00.024-04:00

Rather than give a book review during our SPAM month, we instead bring you an interview with Steven Tsuchida, director of the fabulous (in every sense of the word) 2004 short film Spam-ku: I Won a Haiku Contest about SPAM. We here at High Coup Journal consider this film to not only be beautiful but also to represent just about everything we stand for. Anyway, to the interview! Here we go...

1. The final scene in your 2004 short film is both humorous and really pretty frickin' eerie. What inspired it?

I would think no one could prepare for turning into a block of Spam. So there wasn't any direct inspiration. However, I grew up in Hawaii where SPAM consumption is the highest per capita in the United States. I myself have consumed an embarrassing amount of SPAM in my lifetime. It's quite common. It's even served in all of the McDonald's in town - as well as similar fine dining establishments. It's only when I came to the continental United States where I learned of the irony/sarcasm/humor of SPAM. I thought everyone ate SPAM. And, as far as turning into SPAM? Well, you know what they say... you are what we eat.

2. As a director, is it easier or harder to coach actors towards behaving in a sincerely awkward fashion?

Life is just as, or even more awkward, then the cinema. An actor simply needs to refer to their own lives and the awkwardness comes out. Even the coolest kid in school looks in the mirror and sees a little bit of geek reflected back. We are all awkward animals, so it's not a far stretch to act awkward.

The difficult part is being sincere. Meaning, the awkwardness needs to feel real and not an act. Awkwardness is intended for the viewer to feel sympathy to the actor. But if the audience feels like it is an act, the awkwardness is insulting, and you lose the sympathy vote for the actor. Sincerity is the key to acting.

3. (Total fanboy question, sorry): You got to work with Sarah Silverman a few times-- how was that???

It doesn't get better. No scratch that. If she ate Spam, it would be better.

4. But back to your work, what're you up to these days?

I'm prepping a webisode starring Rick Fox.
That's right. RICK FOX!
Trust me. Hilarity will ensue.

5. Haiku is about the shortest form of poetry out there. Do you see any overlaps between haiku and short film?

Absolutely. The beauty of a haiku is that it maximizes an economy of words that will resonates far beyond it's tiny stature. What I love about an effective haiku is the "aha" effect that it instills. A great haiku illuminates a truth, connecting to the viewer on both a universal level and a personal level. There is a clarity to the words that sheds light on the human condition. Like a haiku, the best shorts work because of there simplicity in the idea and clarity in storytelling.

STEVEN TSUCHIDA loves SPAM.

Review: The Spam Museum

2011-04-07T00:00:00.006-04:00

It was week two of the epic family journey west. Two weeks, two kids, two adults, cramped car, you know the story. We had checked in with home the night before, and found a major storm had passed through leaving no damage, but no electricity. No reason to hurry home.

We stopped at the Minnesota Welcome Center on I-90 and found the brochure. Just up the road could possibly be the most interesting part of the trip, or possibly the worst. You see, we love unique roadside attractions. In our trips west, we have visited the World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well, the World’s Second Largest Hand Dug Well (if you have seen #1, you must see #2), the World’s Largest Ball of Twine and the infamous Prairie Dog Town. It would be difficult to top such sites, but this looked promising.

We traveled east to Austin, MN and followed the signs. There was nothing very unique about the town. In fact, as I recall, it was uber-ordinary, until we turned into the parking lot. There before us stood the SPAM Museum. New, gleaming, inviting; not at all what I was expecting. I am not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

At the entrance, we were greeted by friendly locals who welcomed us and served us little squares of SPAM, each impaled upon a pretzel. Nice presentation; more creative than the usual toothpick. Did I mention the “wall of SPAM?” The entire entrance to the museum is made of SPAM cans, floor to ceiling.

Once inside, we watched a short film on the history of SPAM, how it is made, and other fascinating trivia. It was all very entertaining, and at no time did they take themselves too seriously. It was all done with a wink. Then, it was off to see the exhibits. Here, we “experienced” interesting displays, such as SPAM’s role in WWII, played a SPAM Game Show, and many other interactive displays. It appealed to the kids as well as Mom and Dad, who had worked in the museum business for a number of years and are hard to impress.

I almost hate to spoil the ending, so if you are planning to go, please skip to the next paragraph.

If you cannot envision anyone wanting to experience SPAM, read on. You may change your mind. When we approached the last corner, we began to hear the familiar strains of Monty Python’s “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM.” Yes, there it was, the diner from the famous skit, recreated down to the last detail. The skit is played on video screens mounted above the counter. It was almost too good to be true!

As with any quality museum, you exit through the gift shop, where we were able to buy all things SPAM, from golf balls to underwear. Oh yes, we were also able to purchase any of the nine varieties of SPAM available. Somehow it seemed appropriate, even though I was not a big fan of the product.

The SPAM Museum is open seven days per week, with the usual holiday closings. Best of all, it is free of charge, quite unusual for a museum of this quality. The SPAM Museum is located at 1101 N. Main Street in Austin, Minnesota. The phone number is 1-800-LUV-SPAM. Well worth the drive, even if you find the product not of your liking, the museum is a blast.

MICKI MORAHN (BA- Indiana University, MA- Indiana State University) has worked for the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites as operator of an 1880s water-powered mill. She currently teaches American History for ISU in Corrections Education Program and at St-Mary-of-the-Woods MicCollege.

High Coup Journal - April 2011 Issue

2011-04-01T00:00:00.009-04:00

(Photo actually NOT by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN. This is an anonymous photo.)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Salvatore Buttaci (Princeton, WV)

Tom Carbaugh (Plymouth, IN)

Sarah Dubinsky (Dunellen, NJ )

Samuel Franklin (Terre Haute, IN)

Rick Hartwell (Moreno Valley, California)

Kevin James (Terre Haute, IN)

Edward Jones (Stevens Point, WI)

Hal O’Leary (Wheeling, WV)

Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert (Norfolk, MA)

Mitzi Sicking (Midland, TX)

Jari Thymian (Aurora, CO)

Henry Visotski (Brooklyn, NY)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor's Note:

SPAM: discovered love,

just like bad haiku, I think.

So sweet, so salty.

People might make fun of SPAM for being gross or slimy or covered in "spucus" (the fat that congeals at the top of a can that's so akin to mucus), but what has been enlightening about this contest is the fact that we've gotten some Hawaiians and WWII veterans who really stood up and said, Hey, SPAM is a food we like. As with anything (apart from haiku), we recommend SPAM in moderation. But just as they say "there are no atheists in foxholes," we suspect there are few vegans.

EDIT: Strike that. One of our veteran poets confirmed that he is now a vegetarian. Twelve years in the SPAM-a-lot army may have done that to him. And as for the contest, one good sport mentioned, "Although I am sad to not have won the grand prize, I can console myself with the fact that the grand prize was SPAM." Thank you all for submitting!

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Tom Carbaugh

It isn't Kosher,

but it's got the sodium

that your body needs.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sarah Dubinsky

How SPAM-alicious

The can's rendering of you

All pig and all parts

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Samuel Franklin

Sacrificial SPAM

Flesh-cube, poor piglets

were spiced and mashed to make you.

Thanks, piggy martyrs.

Best Sex Ever

Pink ‘neath her panties

reeked of slimy SPAM. Greasy

screw, lunch is on you.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Edward Jones

SPAM is like pussy:

more time's spent getting it out

than in eating it

SPAM is like pussy:

more men have died eating it

than have needed to

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Salvatore Buttaci

mostly pork shoulder

chopped in a glaze of aspic

sandwiched in white bread

a simple wedding--

they toast with empty glasses

and dine on hot SPAM

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Mitzi Sicking

Spam-alicious

Fry it up and slide

Between two white bread slices.

Slap your mama good.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Henry Visotski

Hey kids, daddy's home!

Delicious SPAM for dinner.

Now we feast like kings.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert

On a post-war Earth--

nuclear fallout; SPAM mutates;

it becomes sentient.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Kevin James

The Hawaiian steak

Should be something tropical

Not spiced shoulder meat

Here! Salty war meat!

It’s great food for the road and

Helps fight the Nazis!

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Hal O’Leary

Warmth

Warmth in a frozen

fox-hole, comfort surrounds us

my K-ration spam.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Rick Hartwell

Hawaiian delight

meaty subversive mixture

canned fat concoction

Ks Cs MREs

60 years Spam goes to war

move pork futures up

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

April 2011 AWESOME SAUCE and SPAM-KU SPECIAL winner: Jari Thymian

my grandma’s love-wich

homemade bread with pan-fried Spam

died, gone to heaven

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Look for SPAM all month,

and then we'll never again

tackle this topic.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Five Questions for a Rolling Art Gallery: Axle Contemporary

2011-03-24T18:19:00.000-04:00

We've got a super secret bonus interview this month with some more folks doing a Kickstarter.com project. They're Matthew Chase-Daniel and Jerry Wellman of Santa Fe, NM, and they are the brains behind Axle Contemporary, an art gallery on wheels.

The gallery embodies aspects of sculpture, installation, and performance art, all in the guise of a commercial art gallery. Anyway, their Kickstarter project involves buying this old sign...

...and displaying a different haiku on each side of it every week for sixteen weeks this summer. Basically, there are two kinds of people reading now: those who think this is the coolest thing they've ever seen, and those who are lying. Let's see what the guys have to say... but first, help 'em out! They've got about $1600 to go on the project in the next 37 days, and you could be the one to put them over the top.

1. How did a 1970 aluminum stepvan go from delivering Twinkies to delivering art to the people? (As a side-question, how do the people now get their Twinkies?)

The van has been around for over 40 years, and we can't tell exactly where it has been all that time. We do know that it was owned by a former Secret Service agent and Colorado Springs' foremost Elvis impersonator in the 1980s. We bought it last year from a guy named Chris, a stepvan aficionado in cutoff military fatigues. The idea of a mobile art gallery sprung out of our minds before we had a chance to censor it, a whim as much as a serious idea. Then somehow we bought the vehicle (so big, so shiny) and built the thing. As for where to purchase a Twinkie, well, not at Whole Foods.

2. The whole operation has a very gonzo/"Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" feeling to it. Any inspiration there?

The two of us grew up in different places and times that both intersected the road traveled by Furthur. We were not directly inspired by The Merry Pranksters in this project, but did look extensively at the Hippie School Bus Conversion as a model for vehicular renovation. We also looked at Haitian Tap Taps and ornate Central American buses. There was something about the shiny minimal old/new look of the van that seemed to emit a difficult to locate timeless glow. We haven't had anyone juggling sledgehammers in the gallery yet, but we are certainly open to the possibility.

3. So are you guys on the bus or off the bus? (Or maybe the van, in this case.)

We are always on the bus, not on the wagon yet, and most often in the van.

4. What're you doing with the sign after the haiku exhibition is over?

In our "Kickstarter" fundraising campaign we have offered it to the first person who pledges a donation of $1,200. (There are more affordable pledge levels there too). Otherwise, we'll use it for a future project or just have it out in the backyard for a while to enjoy the visual feast it offers.

5. How do you feel your taking the art to the people is different than taking the people to the art, like in a traditional gallery?

With our wheels and axles we have access to a much more diverse audience. Many people are too busy, too lazy, too intimidated, or too uninterested to breach the threshold of an art gallery or museum, or to open a book of poetry. By bringing the arts to the street we can use our gallery as a vehicle for creative engagement in the social sphere. We've become a driving force in the arts in Santa Fe, and seeing art in our van or poetry from your car always promises to be a moving experience. We want to playfully break down boundaries around people and art. The people can become inspired, engage their innate creativity, and become works of art themselves.

MATTHEW CHASE-DANIEL (né Chase) left New York City in 1970 for the Berkshire Mountains where he raised tadpoles, minnows, and a raccoon, learned to fall off a horse, and hunt morels, wild violets, and rainbow trout. In the early 1980s he made his way to the Ojai Foundation where he spent a year studying Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Lakota Sweat Lodge ritual, and Northwest Coast carving, while growing his hair into ragged dreadlocks, eating macrobiotic food, and wearing bedsheets in the style of a South Indian ascetic monk. Later in the decade, Chase-Daniel studied at Sarah Lawrence College (B.A.) and in Paris, France, where he studied cultural anthropology, photography, and ethnographic film production (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes & Sorbonne). Since 1989, he has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, renovating old houses, growing green chard, and making family and art. His photography and sculpture have been exhibited across the U.S. and in Europe and Japan. He has created public art projects in New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, Italy, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. His photography is represented by Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, California. He is the co-founder, co-owner, and co-curator of Axle Contemporary.

JERRY WELLMAN grew up near the Menominee reservation in frigid north-central Wisconsin. He left a not so promising job with a traveling carnival to go to school in California eventually graduating from CALARTS with an MFA. He works in many arts media. His documentary film Fairy Tracks, in search of the spirit in nature, played in film festivals throughout the world. His paintings have been seen in many museums and gallery exhibitions. He has also published several books including Shadows and What to do with a Dead Pinon. Along the way, pursuing his life as an artist, Wellman became a firefighter in the Yukon Territory, a woodsman in Alaska, an ordained minister, an indian trader (one who represents American Indian arts and crafts), a ceramic tile manufacturer, a teacher, a husband and father, and lately co-founder, co-owner, and co-curator of a mobile art gallery; Axle Contemporary. For Wellman, it's all art, or else art fodder.

Five Questions for an Chairperson: Jim Kacian

2011-03-21T00:00:00.029-04:00

Our interview this month is with Haiku Foundation Chairperson, Red Moon Press founder, and former Frogpond editor Jim Kacian. The Foundation, by the way, will shortly be wrapping up its HaikuNow! contest. You've got until March 31 to submit your haiku, and there's a cash prize! Seriously. Don't skip this. Anyway, let's see what he has to say...

1. Okay, back in December we asked current Frogpond editor George Swede what his favorite version of Matsuo Basho's frog poem was. As a former Frogpond editor yourself, what's yours?

As I'm sure you're aware, nearly everyone who has ever had a bit of Japanese has tried his/her hand at this poem. One of my favorite books of all time is Hiro Sato's One Hundred Frogs, which recorded most of the attempts up to the time of its publication. I'm not sure I can say definitively that I have a favorite version, but a couple versions that amuse me include Curtis Hidden Page's

A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps . . .

Apart, unstirred by sound or motion . . . till

Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps.

The audacity of such verbosity suggests a very great confidence, which, given the clarity that hindsight presents, was badly misplaced. Most of the other versions hinge on whether to "splash" or not, and I don't find myself that much in need of onomatapoeia to favor those versions. So I find it hard to better Bill Higginson's

Old pond . . .

a frog leaps in

water's sound.

I find this the most liquid rendering, especially how the frog's leap can be intuited to be headed into the sound as well as the water in this version.

Also fun in Sato's book are the many one-offs inspired by the hoary old classic, sonnets and short stories and what-all. And of course I had to try my own, year's ago:

old pond . . .

on it's banks, Basho—

the sound of his water

Probably we shouldn't linger on this . . .

2. How does The Haiku Foundation relate to the Haiku Society of America? Is it like an East Coast/West Coast thang?

The Haiku Foundation has no formal relationship with the Haiku Society of America, other than wishing it well. We have completely different missions and goals and structures, and there is very little overlap in what we offer.

HSA is a membership organization primarily based around subscription to its journal, Frogpond, and is more a social organization. It's mission can be found on its website.

The mission of The Haiku Foundation is to archive the first century of achievement in English-language haiku, and to create opportunities for our second. To these ends, we are creating structures that will accomplish these goals—a hard-copy library, an online library, a bibliography—and others that will acquaint more people with the history of ELH—a timeline (in process), volumes such as Montage: The Book, and the Haiku Database (a project founded and implemented by Charles Trumbull which we hope in time to incorporate in toto on the THF website). We are a project-oriented organization, and have no membership, no dues, and no regular membership benefits per se: what we produce we make available to all, generally online. And like any nonprofit corporation, we are dependent for our funding on like-minded readers, writers and aficionados. We don't produce a journal or hold public elections.

3. The Haiku Foundation is fairly new-- what went into putting it together?

Our charter date is January 6, and we've just passed our second anniversary, but of course this is just our public face. We've been in process since 2005. The specific impetus for the creation of the Foundation was a casual comment from the Kiwi poet Ernest Berry, who wished he was able to find the winning poems from all the previous Henderson and Brady and Spiess and other contests in a single place. He thought another venture of mine, Red Moon Press, might be interested in creating a volume that collected them. That didn't seem like a feasible project for RMP to me, but it did trigger many other thoughts. Ernie will be pleased to see that we have just placed a version of his idea on the Foundation site, largely implemented by Paul Miller. This is precisely how the Foundation works: people identify projects that need doing, and the Foundation tries to help those people realize their visions.

I followed up this initial conception with conversations with many poets, to get a variety of opinions as to what might be seen to be necessary from haiku's perspective. I was not concerned so much with what best served poets, since HSA and other organizations already existed, so the goal was to serve haiku itself, expecting that poets would be served along the way. This enquiry proceeded largely as a thought experiment until Dave Russo, one of the implementers of Haiku North America in 2007, indicated his interest once that event was concluded. Dave's expertise as a web designer and implementer is seminal not only to the success of the Foundation, but to its very presence. Virtually every aspect of the Foundation that is accessible to others has Dave's fingerprints on it, and we simply couldn't have realized our goals without his involvement. Dave serves not only as the Webmaster of the Foundation but is also on the Board of Directors, as is Tom Borkowski, whose involvement was critical to our achieving nonprofit status in our first attempt, and who serves as a Board member as well as Treasurer of the organization. Billie Wilson joined us very shortly after Tom as Secretary to the Foundation, and is responsible for keeping us orderly and connected and moving in a forward direction, which she manages seemingly effortlessly. I fill the other officer position as President and also serve on the Board.

4. Total non-sequitur: your poetry has been translated into several languages. We often talk about the difficulty translating haiku from Japanese to English; do the same risks exist when translating haiku out of English and into another language, or does the separation from "the mother tongue" make this not as big a deal?

Translation is problematic for everyone, and it is amusing and irritating to see what sort of bollocks can be made of poems no matter the direction one travels. Certainly my own poems have lost nuance (and in some cases, basic content) in their migrations to other languages and cultures. It's a perennial problem and I can't say that my own efforts have solved any of the problems all translators face.

That said, one of the most fecund sources of inspiration is what Richard Gilbert has termed "creative misinterpretation." Certainly the notion of what haiku is has been illumined by just such misinterpretation—in fact, our whole notion of what Japan was at the time haiku was coming to the West now seems quaint and patronizing, and I suspect our notion of what haiku is, seen a hundred years from now, will seem the same. But in the quest to meet other conceptions of the real and the beautiful and the poetic we are stimulated as much by what we can't contextualize as by what we can, and this expands the range of what's possible. I hope that whatever people in Bulgaria and Egypt and Taiwan are making of my poems, that they at least are finding something that nourishes their own creative spark, and that they are enlarged by the conversation.

5. Where would you like to see The Haiku Foundation in ten years?

Our focus, as a start-up organization, has been on our short term vision and goals, and to this end we have the various things you'll find on the website: forums and a blog and various content areas that are designed to invite participation. But of course this is only part of what we hope to achieve. We have specific long-term goals that we are working towards simultaneously with these more obvious ones, though the time frame may not in truth be ten years.

In keeping with our mission to archive our first century of achievement in ELH, we are working towards creating a hard-copy library of every book ever produced in the genre. This is a daunting challenge, of course, but more because of the explosion of haiku publishing that is taking place. What has been produced in the past is static, and either some volumes are available or they aren't, and we keep looking. But keeping up with current output is challenging, not only for sheer numbers but for the many unexpected places one needs to look to find all such offerings.

And of course, having assembled such a library, we would like a place to house it. We are exploring opportunities of linking with an institution that would be capable of maintaining such a library, which might be a university or artist colony or other such facility that would value our work. There is also the option of creating or purchasing our own building, which would require capital funding that we have not approached to this point. And in any of these venues we envision a Haiku Hall of Fame, where our outstanding poets might have a place where their achievements might be viewed in a sympathetic context. Likely these would all be in the same location.

Parallel to our hard-copy library is our online library, where haiku books would be made available to scholars, students, poets and interested persons without the difficulties of tracking them down, especially useful for rare or out of print books. We also look forward to a day when we host a variety of gatherings, from conferences to readings to potluck suppers where poets can gather and share their work and their lives. We would like to offer scholarships and incentives to poets as well, which might be implemented at any of these venues.

We have only begun to envision what the Foundation will have to offer in years to come. I'm sure other energies and visions will help expand this earliest imagining. However, the long-range goal of creating new opportunities that serve haiku will remain, I am certain, central to all such visions.

Thank you for your interest in the Foundation and for the opportunity to tell your readers a bit about what we're doing, and hope to do, at THF. I hope they will all feel free to explore the site and bring their energy and interest to bear on the future of haiku. As Harold Henderson wrote, "Haiku will be what poets make of it." We are happy to be doing our part to see that this rings true.

JIM KACIAN is Founder and President of The Haiku Foundation, founder of Red Moon Press (the largest press dedicated to haiku in the world—which makes it a very small enterprise), author of 15 award-winning books and thousands of haiku, some of which have been translated into more than fifty languages. You can learn more about him if you're interested by checking out his bio on Wikipedia.

Happy Purim!

2011-03-19T00:00:00.002-04:00

A three-cornered hat:

if it had four or two, it

wouldn't be my hat.

Review: Haiku Wars

2011-03-15T00:00:00.104-04:00

Lanoue, David. Haiku Wars. Winchester, VA: Red Moon, 2009. 184pp.

Let's start off with a brief summary of this haiku novel. A bodhisattva reincarnates in the form of the telepathic pet weasel of a man identified only as Poet. Poet is a member of the...

*snaps fingers* Are you still following me? I thought I saw your eyes glaze over there for a second.

I want to deal with the key problem of Haiku Wars before I get into the fact that I actually basically loved it. See, there are the jokes that you know you can tell in any situation. Up the risqué-factor, the offensive-factor, or the absurd-factor, and you're going to start losing some people. But in losing some people, the ones you keep are going to love the joke all the more. It's why we got beaten up in middle school for quoting Monty Python's Flying Circus all the time but were free to do so to our hearts' content during Chess Club.

(I hope that's a "we" thing. I really do.)

I want to quote just a bit more than what could commonly be called "fair use" to illustrate this best. The members of the New Orleans Haiku Club-- of which Poet is a member-- are debating the need for juxtaposition in the haiku form, which in turn descends into a discussion of whether the haiku needs to be defined at all:

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

"Does haiku need defining?" Sylvia's quiet voice piped in.

"Oh yes, definitely!" Poet answered, and I could tell by the increased urgency of his petting that he was winding up for a lecture.

"Without definition, the word 'haiku' ceases to hold meaning. Or, putting it in another way, if it's not defined, then anything can be a haiku. Why not a sonnet or a limerick? What makes a limerick not a haiku?"

"There once was a man from Nantucket..." Van interjected.

Poet ignored this. "If we don't have definitions in mind when we use words, we can't make sense."

"If defining's so important, why don't we just check the dictionary?" Janette suggested.

"Because" (Poet in full lecture mode now) "the dictionary only records common usage: what the majority of people speaking the language think when they use the word, 'haiku' at the time of the dictionary's publication. But this can lag way behind what poets of haiku are saying... and discovering. Haiku is an art, so someone's always pushing its envelope. A great innovator, a trailblazer, might take haiku where it's never been, and then the world, and dictionaries, will follow-- but later. There's always lag-time."

"So!" Van slapped his knee. "You admit that haiku is evolving!"

Poet squeezed me hard, but then his fingers relaxed completely as he realized the corner into which he had painted himself.

"I rest my case," Van said.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

The common reader is going to take this scene (as narrated by the telepathic weasel, mind you) to be obscurely scholastic at best. But I can guarantee you any reader who has been in a few creative writing workshops has sat through this same debate before. And once we get into the convention being held by the New Orleans Haiku Club, the intense rivalry between Kusuban-san and Muya-san, the missing manuscript of incredible import, and the "Head-to-Head Haiku Death Match," our audience keeps getting narrower and narrower and our narrow audience keeps laughing harder and harder.

I think a few parts of this are a little hokey, sure. Even as the author is attempting to create a farce, I think the use of an animal narrator just becomes a little too weird to deal with, especially when Poet is trying to get suspected manuscript thieves to pet his weasel to establish a firm telepathic bond. (In other news, "pet my weasel" is my new pickup line.) But as much as I kept wanting to distance myself from the people in the book, I kept realizing that each laugh proved how much I was a member of that circle.

After all, I'm writing a review of a book called Haiku Wars.

So all in all, if you read High Coup Journal, you're probably going to like this book. If you don't read High Coup Journal, you're never going to hear my warning about the book anyway. I feel obliged to put both of my ratings below-- but don't fool yourself into thinking anything but the first applies to you.

FINAL RATING(S):

FOR HAIKU NUTS:

4.5/5 AWESOME SAUCES

FOR NORMALLY SANE PEOPLE (WHO I DOUBT MAKE UP MUCH OF OUR READERSHIP):

3/5 AWESOME SAUCES

Five Questions for an Editor: Taylor Lampton

2011-03-07T00:00:00.012-05:00

Our first interview of March is with The Scarlet Sound's Taylor Lampton. Her publication began as a New Brunswick, New Jersey, adaptation of the Santiago en Cien Palabras project and has grown into an e-journal. Let's see what she has to say...

1. The Scarlet Sound, huh? Tell us that's closer to a "blue note" than it is "the brown note."

Well the sound in question certainly does not cause any involuntary movements other than a smile here and there. The Scarlet Sound is defined as the sum of individual heartbeats coming together as one through artistic community. Rather than a specific kind of "note" I would argue in favor of a "beautiful cacophony." Like any great symphony, this sound brings seemingly unrelated, clashing sounds and rhythms together creating one sound -- a sound of beauty. The opportunity for those sounds to combine and become a cohesive unit leads to the beauty. The Scarlet Sound is both the name of the sound we look for, the summation of those heartbeats, and it is the opportunity for those heartbeats to come together.

2. Your journal publishes poetry, short fiction, humor, film, visual art, and photography. That's quite a wide swath of art to choose from. What sort of unifying elements are you looking for?

We tend to look for pieces, no matter the genre, that expose the heart of the artist. It's not about a particular theme. It is about expression and recognition. What does that mean in terms of what you'll see on our pages? It means that you'll find the work of real people and not those people who write flowery words for the sake of self-worship or the "artistic" photographs that make no sense to someone who hasn't "gotten it" from extensive study of "the field." Our artists are recognized by showcasing their heartbeats, and we hope that our artists can then appreciate hearing from all the different kinds of artists we have in our community.

3. Could you explain a bit more about the South American movement that you mention you're trying to connect to in the publication?

Sure thing! There are a few examples, but I'll explain Santiago en Cien Palabras (Santiago in 100 Words). The goal was to have the people of Santiago, Chile write 100 words or less about the town, their thoughts, stories, whatever. These pieces were then compiled into these booklets that were free reading material for the public transportation system in the city. A person could pick one up and read it while on the metro and then drop it off at their stop or take it home for a bit. It was a hit! The experience let the people of the city provide art for other people in the city, bolstering an appreciation of the arts and providing a community identity.

The Scarlet Sound originally got its start at Rutgers University, which happens to have the largest transportation system in a University in the States. It just made sense to unite an underground artistic community with the Rutgers ideas of tolerance and recognition. We even had the bus system! Throughout time, The Scarlet Sound has taken on a new face as an entirely online arts publication and is now even open to the general public. We took the idea that art creates community, coupled that with our first home's values, and now we have the publication we have today.

4. Let's shift gears to haiku and linguistics, since we do the former and you do the latter. Why isn't syllable-counting in English the same thing as syllable-counting in Japanese?

Well without boring your readers with some intense linguistics, I can say that some languages permit some things to happen while others don't. For instance, in English we can say words that start with the sounds "st" like in "stop sign." Spanish, however, does not allow that and you'll find native Spanish speaker's accents include sayings like "estop sign" to take care of that. This same kind of rule applies to Japanese. It doesn't allow a bunch of consonants to be strung together without having vowels. The word "strength" then is totally not okay in Japanese. Japanese speakers would have to say that as "strengethah." So "strength" is one syllable in English, and at least three in Japanese. Tada! Hope that made sense.

5. You mention a belief that "art can create community." What does "community" mean in the digital age?

Something I absolutely love about the digital age is that community doesn't just mean who lives next to you. It has to do with what you do and what you love. Your community can be as small as a group of close friends and as large as the entire world! The Scarlet Sound's community of artists that have been published have come from all over the United States, which is awesome. Isn't it awesome that we get to choose our community now with how we choose to be involved with technology? I can make friends via twitter in New Zealand or publish an artist in Hong Kong. The globe is a super small place now, and that means community gets to take up more and more geographical space. In the end, I hope our community at The Scarlet Sound can network with their fellow artists and learn how their community works even when spread out all around the world.

TAYLOR LAMPTON is a student and Linguist, though many times those overlap. The Scarlet Sound embodies one of her greatest passions by utilizing creativity and the arts to foster community. Though primarily a scientist and a ridiculously involved undergraduate student, she enjoys writing, photography, and video editing. Taylor is an award-winning public speaker and speech writer and was also recently published in the High Coup Journal.

New Word Order LAUNCH

2011-03-05T12:33:00.000-05:00

[read more at Kickstarter.com]

Today High Coup Journal announces one of our most exciting projects, in collaboration with Drafty Attic Press. (Don't make that out as being too big a thing-- they're both me, Mike Miller, the editor.)

We've decided we're tired of chapbook contests that charge entry fees, so we're launching our very own chapbook contest. No fees, none of that "print-on-demand" baloney. You win and we design and publish your chapbook. Then we'll ship you 25 copies to send off to reviewers and place in your local bookstores while we provide an online bookstore through which you can sell the rest.

Now let's get one thing straight: donating doesn't have any impact on your chances of winning the contest. No donation is necessary to participate and/or win, and sending us money doesn't raise your chances of being chosen. We'll have an outside judge, Darla Crist, making all the decisions here.

Let's get another thing straight: your submissions don't have to all be in haiku form. That's fine if you want to, but we're looking for the best possible poetry, period. We just want to publish a chapbook for an up-and-coming poet.

So how can you help us out the most, at this point? Awareness. Post a link to our Kickstarter page on Facebook, the shorter link on Twitter, tell your rich aunts and uncles... whatever you can do. We want to make this effort a success, and we need your help to do it.

Teaser: New Word Order

2011-03-05T02:35:00.000-05:00

More details coming shortly...

High Coup Journal - March 2011 Issue

2011-03-01T00:00:00.009-05:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Dominique Allen (Terre Haute, IN)

William Cullen (Brooklyn, NY)

Christopher Dolle (Terre Haute, IN)

Bat-Ami Gordon (Antelope Valley, CA)

Amy Harris (West Lafayette, IN)

David Hollander (Bloomington, IN)

Chris Loft (Adelaide, Australia)

Jamie Lushbaugh (Terre Haute, IN)

Darcy McMurtery (Seattle, WA)

E. Joyce Moore (Indianapolis, IN)

Aaron Owens (Terre Haute, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor's Note:

Well folks, this issue
will be just a little weird...
please read why below:

I didn't set out to make High Coup Journal a political journal, but in the recent Twitter-storm of #libya and #egypt tags, I couldn't help but notice that some of them were in haiku form. One might suggest that haiku isn't the most efficient way to share information about important breaking events, but one also might suggest that it is the best way to pack the most emotion into the fewest characters. So we've tried to share some of those haiku in this issue along with preserving the merry whimsical madness we pride ourselves on here at the journal.

To those of you in North Africa: let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

William Cullen

her yellow panties

on the tequila bottle

today's mardi gras

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

David Hollander

let us hope for peace
as our Arab cousins pay
freedom's bloody price

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Jamie Lushbaugh

I blush at his touch,
which is awkward when married.
I still feel sixteen.

Daddy ignored you?
Live up to his standards, be
An asshole magnet.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

E. Joyce Moore

Possibilities
Dashed upon the shore of life
Riptide's waves its fate.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Darcy McMurtery

The mirror speaks truth
and I reach for my eye cream.
Outside the crow laughs.

Lady Friends

When Grandpa started
banging floozies we didn’t
know what to call them.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Amy Harris

Xenophobia
good fences make good neighbors
on the Rio Grande

Insomnia calls
every night, 2 a. m.
when the moon is bright

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Aaron Owens

Tso Very Tasty

Oh, General Tso!
Your noodles cut through my gut
Like a katana

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Dominique Allen

My future is writ
Upon quick-drying cement
Where's my jack hammer?

White frozen crystals
cake my car in icy sheets
Fuck you, troposphere.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Chris Loft

Just one step away -
his supporters fade like dust -
wind blows in the sand

Rulers come and go -
but in the markets and squares -
people shall be free

That man must go now -
if he says he has no shoes -
then he can have mine

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Bat-Ami Gordon

this revolution
inspirational model
scares authorities

contagious revolution
contaminated regime
immunization

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

March 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Christopher Dolle

Snowflakes fuck and grow

Outside apartment windows,

While we lay in bed.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Lion or a lamb?

Hell if we know. Send in your

poems regardless.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Announcing NaPoWriMo & SPAMku Reminder

2011-02-28T00:00:00.007-05:00

Novelists have NaNoWriMo in November, and poets have NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, in April. Just think about it-- what's easier to write one of every day than a haiku?

Also, you've got about two weeks left to get in your SPAM-ku, as the deadline is March 15. Remember, this is for the big prize: your very own can of delicious (?) SPAM mailed to your door.

Awesomeness at Four and Twenty

2011-02-23T17:48:00.000-05:00

We'd like to take a moment to point out some awesomeness over at Four and Twenty journal: a special edition featuring poems and artwork by the students in Laura Truitt’s fifth grade class at York Elementary in Vancouver, Washington.

It's neat to see a poetry journal-- something usually stereotyped as stuffy, effete, and distant-- actually doing good in the community, and for me as an editor it's an inspiring piece of work. All those people who go on about how "this young generation" is going nowhere obviously haven't read Dillon Lumen's "Wasteland of Fear," Megan Sarygen's "Butterfly," or Kaelan Skimhorn's "From Dawn to Evening." It's not just that they're good poems for kids-- they're flat-out good poems, period.

So massive props to the kids in Ms. Truitt's class at York Elementary and massive props to Four and Twenty. Go check out their work.

Five Questions for an Editor: Liam Wilkinson

2011-02-21T00:00:00.001-05:00

Our February interview comes to you from jolly Yorkshire, England, with Prune Juice's editor, Liam Wilkinson. Let's see what he has to say...

1. Senryu and kyoka: the evil twins of haiku and tanka?

I like the idea! Senryu and kyoka let us explore ourselves within our environment and, unlike haiku, aren't usually concerned with the natural world. A senryu, depending on its author, might 'happen' in a shopping mall or in an office. The best ones are like magnifying glasses hovering over some strange but universally recognisable aspect of living in this mad, mad world. As a result, many senryu and kyoka are funny and, occasionally, wickedly witty. Jack Kerouac called senryu 'pops' and modernised the idea of writing these very short poems.

2. Does British English differ from American English when writing syllabic poetry? Like, does "colour" have more syllables than "color"? Or... like... if you wanted to write a poem about Nottinghamcestershirestershire-upon-Tyne, would the spoken-length of the word change?

Sorry to disappoint, but modern English senryu and kyoka, and haiku and tanka for that matter, aren't concerned with syllable counting. Some of finest writers of senryu never use the 5-7-5 pattern. This ain't a word game.

3. So are we correct in understanding that the senryu form essentially came from a Mr. Senryu at some point?

Senryu is named after Edo poet Senryū Karai (1718-1790). Senryu was a pen name and translates, literally, as 'river willow.'

4. And the form is well represented by the noble prune because...

A prune, like a senryu, gives one the chance to, erm, get it all out... so to speak!

5. You mention in your journal that both the senryu and the kyoka can be "a vent, a portal, an opening through which we can feed our minds and end up cleansed." So we're doing something more important with these poems than just spouting nonsense and running off at the mouth?

Absolutely. A good senryu/kyoka writer knows how to tap into both the soul of the writer and the reader. A senryu a day keeps the monsters away.

LIAM WILKINSON is a poet and musician from Yorkshire, England. He edits Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu and Kyoka. His blog can be found at http://liamwilkinson.blogspot.com

Miller's New England Haiku Dictionary

2011-02-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm the editor of this journal-- I get to shamelessly self-promote sometimes. Drafty Attic Press has agreed to publish my first chapbook, Miller's New England Haiku Dictionary. Or perhaps a more appropriate phrasing of this is that I got myself a long-armed stapler and am making chapbooks by myself in my grandma's attic.

Shhhhhh. Quiet, you.

Anyway, they're now for sale for $5.00 a pop. Buy one for yourself. Buy one fo' yo' kids.

I'd say supplies are limited, but that's only because I haven't made any more copies yet than the one that's sitting in my hands. But you can change that! Order yours today!

Review: Morning Haiku

2011-02-15T00:00:00.004-05:00

Sanchez, Sonia. Morning Haiku. Boston: Beacon Hill, 2010. 104pp.

We try not to be too "establishment" here at High Coup Journal, and the fact that this book comes recommended by Chiuna Achebe, Joy Harjo, and Maya Angelou made me a bit wary at first.

That was stupid and bullshit. This book is awesome.

Whereas "artistic" haiku can often feel bloodless and detached, Sanchez injects some white-hot passion into her writing, as seen in this poem from the "duende" series:

my thighs

sing the flesh

off the guitar

All of these haiku come grouped together in strings, most of which are dedicated to either historical or living African-Americans. And yes, there's a series dedicated to St. Augustine of Hippo-- remember, Augustine was an African. Plenty of the Roman Empire was African.

Playboy of North

Africa, burning the streets before

you learned to genuflect

The significance of Sanchez's poetry resonates even closer to home with her poems dedicated to Oprah Winfrey, Toni Morrison, and Ms. Angelou. A favorite series of mine is dedicated to Emmett Till, which ends up with the following:

your death

a blues i could not

drink away.

Sanchez describes her collection well in her "haikugraphy," when she says that "this haiku, this tough form disguised in beauty in insight, is like the blues, for they both offer no solutions, only a pronouncement, a formal declaration-- an acceptance of pain, humor, beauty, and non-beauty, death and rebirth, surprise and life. Always life. Both always help to maintain memory and dignity."

Essentially, Sanchez takes this form and takes it to school. I learned a lot from reading her, and I hope you do as well.

FINAL RATING:

5/5 AWESOME SAUCES

Five Questions for a Naughty Haikuist

2011-02-07T00:00:00.035-05:00

Happy almost Valentine's Day! In honor of that holiday that a few of us are looking forward to and a lot of us are going to spend drinking vodka straight out of the bottle and watching Bridget Jones's Diary, here's an interview with the author of the Twitter feed Naughty Haiku, the content of which is in no way safe for work but guaranteed to get you twitterpated. Let's see what she has to say...

naughty haiku tweets

nuggets of poetic form

soiled by dirty words

1. Define "sexy."

'Sexy' is that which ignites the libido, fires the sexual imagination and forges new fantasies in the mind. It's what arouses that playful part of you that yearns to tease and to be teased. It's subjective and yet contagious; it makes you, and vicariously those around you, feel sexy.

Sunlight in her hair

Summer dress around her feet

Hot under his gaze

2. What makes haiku a sexy form of poetry?

Much of human sexuality, and kink, revolves around the idea of limitation or restriction in some way, be it movement, control, or one or more of the senses. Picture that special someone (or yourself) blindfolded, or with hands tied.

Mmm.

What? Oh yes, sorry... by removing a sense like sight you remove the distraction it normally offers, encouraging him or her to focus on the way they feel inside. By restricting movement, or control, you also remove the burden of responsibility some people subject themselves to, and which blocks them from really feeling.

The haiku is similarly liberating in its restrictive form. The strict format focuses the author's thoughts onto the image, or sensation, they really want to convey. Haiku is so brief it offers just a taste, a little juicy, bite-size morsel, of something bigger. In a few syllables you try to conjure up as sexy, graphic or exciting an image as you can, but then you have no choice but to hand it to the reader to do the rest of the work; to imagine, flesh out and toy with in their mind. It's the perfect tease.

Sexual power

He pulls forward to kiss me

Restrained by his bonds

3. You were stuck on 666 followers for about two weeks just a little while back... any worries that your Twitter feed had become just a little bit *too* naughty?

I was beginning to take that as a sign, yes. It seemed that every time I got a new follower, someone else unfollowed as though to keep me at that number. I was starting to check my follower list for beasts from the book of Revelation.

I know that the subject matter will put some off, since many people are not anonymous on Twitter, and I suspect that adds to the number of people who read the blog I use as an archive, rather than following me directly. I'm not too worried though. I know that followers enjoy what I write because they say so, and because it's so easy to unfollow me if they don't. In truth, Twitter is such a transitory, quick-flowing format, my individually crafted little poems are quickly swept away in the torrent. To get more followers I'd need to post more frequently but of course, despite the brevity of the form, haiku can be time-consuming to craft. And the subject matter is really very distracting. I've managed about one a day for the last year or so, helped by submissions from loved-ones, friends and talented followers, and I've got a head full of ideas for many Naughty Haiku of the future.

And then the book, and then the sit-com. Or maybe not... Naughty Haiku really *is* a little too naughty for that.

Grabs her from behind

Mistaken identity

Risk of court action

4. How do you demarcate the line between naughty/passionate/sexy and crude/disgusting/creepy? Any advice for writers?

There's no universal line, and there will always be those who are sensitive or easily offended, especially if you are in sexual territory. Everyone defines those things differently. If anything, 'naughty' or 'kinky' is actually what is just on the other side of your reader's line. I aim to experiment with that line, and surprise people from time to time. Shocking can be sexy, but so can subtle word-play or an unexpected twist. I try to keep it playful.

That which is 'crude' can evoke quite different reactions around the dinner table than in the bedroom; something that might be disgusting in one scenario can be very sexy in another. Context is all, and it's important to set people's expectations. In the case of Naughty Haiku, 'Naughty' is probably an understatement so I hope my warnings are enough to avoid anyone being truly offended. And I fret continually about the time I publish them since the time considered 'after the watershed' (eg when television channels permit swearing) depends on the timezones. But the joy of Twitter, and Haiku, is that posts are so brief that if you don't like one it's quickly forgotten. I try to write from many different perspectives, and with many fantasies in mind, so there will hopefully be something to whet almost every appetite, amongst other things.

Having said all that, one of the most important skills a writer can learn is to trust themselves and just write; writing about what turns them on. Write for your target audience, and never forget that your target audience is you.

In the restaurant

she leans over, whispers filth

he asks for the check

5. What's the most important thing for people to remember this Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day isn't about the package offered by the local restaurant or corporate attraction, but about reminding someone special what they mean to you. Sometimes it's about reminding yourself how special you are. That means identifying what makes you and your partner smile, and revelling in it. For most people a truly personal gift, or a thoughtful poem (no matter how brief), is much more romantic than the pre-printed message in a Hallmark card or a pre-packaged box of chocolates (not that they don't have a place - yum). Do something you enjoy and be inventive... create something that's uniquely romantic and sexy to you. Make someone's heart flutter!

the perfect present

in the bedroom she waited

gift-wrapped and spread-legged

CLAIRE has been writing tiny, poetic nuggets of filth for over a year now and, helped by friends, loved-ones and talented Twitter followers, has written enough to keep readers, and herself, in a state of perpetual arousal. You can read them for yourself on Twitter and Blogger, but be warned: the format may be playful, but the content is definitely not safe for work.

She's "working" from home

writing some Naughty Haiku

in her underwear

CLAIRE has a surname, and a respectable day-job, and hides the former to preserve the latter. She dreams of one day being a successful published author, and knows that she's going about it very much the wrong way.

High Coup Journal - February 2011 Issue

2011-02-01T00:00:00.027-05:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Sara Bickley (West Carrollton, OH)

Salvatore Buttaci (Princeton, WV)

Rosemary Foster (Bloomington, IN)

Antoine Hayes (Baltimore, MD)

Amanda Hillenburg (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada)

Megan Milligan (Las Vegas, NV)

Matt Tuckey (Manchester, England)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor's Note:

Love is in the air.

That's right, airborne-- shit got real.

Call the CDC.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Matt Tuckey

Silent Treatment

What is she thinking?
Her silence speaking volumes
How have I fucked up?

Serengeti

Hyenas scrounging,
Like ruthless, gathering flies
On rotting gazelle

All I Am

I am just a man
With a disability
I’m not a genius

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Salvatore Buttaci

married but at war,
once a year they declare a
valentine's day truce

you promised me love
would mend my heart, but I was
treated and released

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Rosemary Foster

Dearest professor--
I hope that's chalk on your crotch.
You're super creepy.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Sara Bickley

Psalm thirty-nine, verse
eleven (or thirty-eight,
twelve) — two translations:

God is a clothes moth,
ravenous for wool; our lambs
are resacrificed.

God is a spider,
sucking back our gossamer,
spinning in reverse.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Amanda Hillenburg

Single white preacher
Loves long walks by the fountain
Sluts need not apply

Show me your glory
And by that I mean titties
Care for my number?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Antoine Hayes

Flawless*

I lack nothing, but
The ability to know
What I am lacking.

*from Hayes's 100+1 Haiku

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Megan Milligan

Freddie Mercury Haiku

Freddie Mercury
Overbite larger than life
Like his vocal chords.

Roadkill Haiku

Little dots of fur
The side of the road littered
With bunny pancakes

A Cold Haiku

Cold November wind
Caresses my body like
A rough lover

Whispering tender
Terms of endearment in
My frostbitten ears.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

February 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Matt Tuckey

The Gale

Hard wind bends the tree

Old man stoops, grips walking stick,

Standing, defiant.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Though we love you all,

we would love you even more

if you would put out.

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Five Questions Page

2011-01-29T13:00:00.001-05:00

Realized it might be a good idea to make a separate page for "Five Questions" feature, so expect to see that shortly. And a brand new High Coup is nigh... coup?

EDIT: Aaaaand here it is.

Review: Pirate Haiku

2011-01-21T00:00:00.005-05:00

Spradlin, Michael. Pirate Haiku. Avon, MA: Adams, 2010. 186pp.

Our review of Michael Spradlin's Pirate Haiku is long overdue! No, seriously, it's like a month late, and then another week late. But let no one suggest that has anything to do with the quality of the book. It's actually a pretty clever little romp around the Caribbean and across the Pacific Ocean to a strange place called... Japan.

Pirates are simple.

We like rum, guns, wenches. And

women like bad boys.

If there were one poem that best summarized this book, that's probably it. Fans of any of the previously-mentioned vices will probably get a snicker as they leaf through this book. It occasionally gets a little blue, though, so if you're considering getting the book for a young scalliwag, you might want to wait until after the Bar Mitzvah. Or you may just be dealing with a particularly mannish boy. Decide for yourself:

In Jamaica I

spent nearly all my time with

a wench name of Belle.

Oft' I watched her dance.

A dark-haired beauty, my Belle

shivered me timber.

Admittedly, the rum/guns/wenches combo does start to fall a little flat on rereading, but there's more to the book than simply a jumble of references to pirate-y things. Though the following is perhaps one of the best g-ddamned pirate puns I have ever heard:

My ears have no holes.

I find earrings expensive--

at a buck an ear.

Get it? Buck an... right. It's awesome. 'Nuff said.

As opposed to another haiku book we reviewed by the same publisher, Pirate Haiku isn't simply a compilation. It tracks the voyages, exploits, ninja attacks, maroonings, battles, hand-and-leg amputations, and general mayhem associated with the fearsome One-Leg Sterling in a sort of journal form. What I like best about the work is the prose introduction explaining the "history" behind the pirate himself: "What we know of One-Leg Sterling is this: he was probably Richard Sterling, who as a young boy was stolen by pirates from his family's home near Cape Fear, North Carolina." And further explanation takes place in the journal itself:

I want to tell my

story in the haiku form

I learned here last time.

But it is very

hard to count syllables when

you have just one hand.

The history (or "pirateology," as the field is named) really makes the book work, in my opinion. It's a lot like Rohan Kriwaczek's An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin or Peter Schickele's The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach.

(Is it worth noting that it also makes the work like the editor of this journal's still-to-be-published master's project? Not at all.)

Anyway, the frame-story makes the book a winner. I think Spradlin could have gone a little further to make the individual haiku a little more punny, but the overall narrative, combined with an explanation for the reason why it's all in haiku involving a lengthy island stay near Japan, causes the book to flow really well. It's delightfully absurd. And besides, pirates beat ninjas any day of the week.

FINAL RATING:

4.5/5 AWESOME SAUCES

Reminder: The SPAM-ku Special

2011-01-20T17:26:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder, people: we are dedicating our April 2011 issue to the noble meat-ish product, SPAM. This contest will actually feature a prize: besides publication in High Coup Journal, the winner of the SPAM-ku Special will be mailed a tin of Hormel's most notoriously delicious meat. Useful as a doorstop.

The deadline is March 15.

High Coup Journal - January 2011 Issue

2011-01-01T00:00:00.016-05:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

IN THIS ISSUE:

Rosemary Foster (Bloomington, IN)

Edward Jones (Stevens Point, WI)

Julie Kelsey (Germantown, MD)

Hal O'Leary (Wheeling, WV)

Mitzi Sicking (Midland, TX)

Dariel Suarez (Miami, FL)

John Tustin (Flushing, NY)

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Editor's Note:

To weight loss and to

for once in our silly lives

making new mistakes.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Mitzi Sicking

You failed your paper?

I cannot imagine why.

Oh deer, there, their, they're.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Hal O’Leary

THE FAILURE.

Let no man guess that

'neath this smiling face there lies

a forsaken man

LOVE

Truest love, a scarf

thrown loosely about the neck

but never stifling

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Rosemary Foster

Write Haikus in math

Wonder why I got a C

No correlation…

Uh, linear algebra

Can I have some numbers please?

No! I changed my mind

My dearest Vista

Please go die now stupid whore

Facedesking for real

Asshole family

Hey! Merry fucking Christmas

Go fall off a cliff

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

John Tustin

I smoked the rose down

Until it became brittle

Until it was brown

Angels in my heart

Devils inhabit my soul

One guess who wins me

Naked in the snow

Numb and breathing hard and fast

It hurts like life does

You, like a painting.

I come up close. What colors!

What composition!

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Dariel Suarez

I would rather have

the salmon’s courage than a

Taoist belief.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Julie Kelsey

this makeshift sofa

so soft and comfortable

my fat snoring dog

finally, coffee

my mug – now cold – upended

the toddler’s cry

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Edward Jones

family photo

hangs perfectly straight, upright

right until I leave

in my rage, I toss

things indiscriminately -

yes, willy-nilly

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

January 2011 AWESOME SAUCE: Dariel Suarez

Under the shade of

this tree, man will never find

enlightenment, just figs.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

A resolution:

write a haiku every day

and send them to us!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com

Five Questions for an Editor: George Swede

2010-12-21T00:00:00.006-05:00

As an early Christmas (or fairly late Hanukkah) (or reeeally early Purim) present, we've got a great interview for you: George Swede, editor of the Haiku Society of America's flagship journal, Frogpond. Let's see what he has to say....

1. What's your favorite translation of Matsuo Basho's famous "frog haiku"?

It's by Makoto Ueda in his book Bashō And His Interpreters, Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 140:

   the old pond--
   a frog jumps in,
   water's sound

Professor Emeritus Ueda is fully bilingual and only such a translator could detect all the nuances in the original Japanese and put them into English.

2. What relationship do modern American haiku writers (haikuists? haikuers?) have to the old Japanese poets? Are there ways we can learn from/expand on what they have done? Do American writers move in new directions?

Most serious haiku poets do at some time study the classical Japanese masters. The work the old masters have produced is archetypal and is thus one reliable measure against which American poets can judge what they have written.

We certainly can learn from them the discipline needed to create lasting images.

As for moving in new directions, this is inevitable if a poetic form is to survive. Evolution is vital or extinction results. The modern Japanese haiku poets have evolved in various directions since the late 1800s and so have English-language haiku poets, starting in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

3. What role does the Haiku Society of America have in creating and/or fostering community in the United States?

Under the current President, Ce Rosenow, the HSA has become energized and created all kinds of outreach programs. Visit the HSA site and you'll see the wide range of its activities.

4. In the 2004 HSA definition of the haiku, a type of poetry called "zappai" ("miscellaneous amusements in doggerel verse (usually written in 5-7-5) with little or no literary value") is separated from senryu and haiku. Do zappai have their place as well?

All poetic forms and sub-forms have their place in the constant evolution of poetry. Zappai are no exception. High Coup Journal publishes a lot of zappai and thus ensures this form's survival. We have to protect all forms of poetic expression. The more there are, the better the chances for poetry to survive in its constant struggle against all the other art forms.

5. How can our readers get more involved, both with the HSA and Frogpond?

Readers can get more involved with HSA simply by joining. Members get the yearly three issues of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America, as well as Ripples, the HSA Newsletter. Ripples informs members about all the haiku news in North America--regional meetings, workshops, special events, recently published collections, etc. As a member of HSA, one also gets the right to vote each year for who sits on the Executive Council, which includes the Frogpond editor.

Frogpond has an open submission policy, that is, someone does not have to be a member of HSA to get work published. Usually, 40% to 45% of poems, reviews and articles come from non-members who then purchase the individual copy in which their work appears. For the full submission policy, go to the sample issue of Frogpond online.

GEORGE SWEDE has published 35 collections of poetry, 17 of them only haiku or tanka. He has been the editor of Frogpond since January 2008. His two latest collections were both published by Inkling Press in May 2010: Joy In Me Still (haiku) and White Thoughts, Blue Mind (tanka). For more information about these books go to George Swede.com. If you want to know more about Swede's life and work, go to Wikipedia and/or to his extensive George Swede web site.

A Very Special Half-Birthday

2010-12-13T00:00:00.012-05:00

Six months ago today, High Coup Journal was born! And we'd like to delineate something here:

High Coup Journal = HCJ, which rearranged is JHC. Not to say that has any connection to a certain special day coming up in about twelve days, but...

...wait, no. It has literally nothing to do with that. Hmm.

Our first command in our first post was SUBMIT, though... so perhaps we're leaning a different direction.

Basho Meets Banksy: Christine Forster

2010-12-10T11:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, so here's a bonus interview for you all, because Ms. Forster's Kickstarter project to write 1000 haiku for 1000 strangers is still running. Donate if you can; read no matter what! Let's see what she has to say...

1. Short answer prompt: Compare and contrast Kickstarter and the aristocratic artistic patrons of old.

I think Kickstarter has truly given artistic agency to the people and allowed them to choose they believe is worth funding. It's about experiencing and affirming art as a community now, versus a few select uber-weathly art sugar daddies determining tastes. People want to do something good, and feel like they're part of something new and different. That's why Kickstarter works so well. The old form of patronage may have been the best system for past eras, but now I think the model is shifting to fit the present.

2. 1000 haiku... that's going to take a while. I mean, perhaps not as long as 1000 sestinas, but still... what inspired you to take on this project?

After a friend told me about Kickstarter, I knew I had to create a project around haiku. I started writing them in grad school, and they kept the creative part of my brain lit up while I was in a spirit-crushing grad school program. After I graduated, I felt burned out on academic and professional aspirations. I realized that I needed to create an artistic project to focus on instead. The specifics of the project came to me in the middle of sleeping one night--I had a dream about 1000 Haiku. Honestly, I think I was too mesmerized by the sight of those three zeros in "1000" to question it. It's a very ambitious but not impossible number.

3. Skirting the edges of legality? You realize that would effectively make you the Banksy of haiku, no?

I can only hope to be that a fraction that incredible. I love Banksy. In fact, in my project launch email to friends and family, I described 1000H1000S as a "Basho meets Banksy" moment. Even though I love the privacy of a small art form like haiku, I'm intrigued by public spaces and who gets to use them for what means. Why should business and corporations get to print ads on every blank space in the world? I think it's time that we get to see more beautiful, non commercial words and images in public spaces, and if that means taking a risk and putting some haiku out there, then so be it.

4. For a $1000 donation to the project you would seriously tattoo a haiku on yourself?

Why not? I can think of many worse tattoos I've seen. I was really curious to see if anyone would sponsor me at that level, but so far no one. It was more of a joke than anything, but I'd follow through with it.

5. Why do so many artists get so squeamish when money starts to become involved?

Oh, boy. I think people in general get squeamish about money. In a culture that promotes greed, you're hesitant to get too involved with the stuff, lest you lose all your priorities and start fantasizing about swimming pools filled with cash, gilded toilets, etc. On the flip side, there's this perpetuated glamorization of the starving, suffering artist and the idea that if you're not suffering horribly, then you can't make art.

Also, we live in a ridiculously demanding consumer culture where we've been taught to think that "the customer is always right". Once money enters the equation, it feels like a business deal where you have to negotiate and compromise, and that can be a vulnerable position to be in. I think artists should be conscientious and mindful about their funding sources, but being a martyr doesn't make for a good artist.

CHRISTINE FORSTER is working up a bio for us. But here's her blog: http://landofteeny.blogspot.com/ .

Five Questions for a Techie: Chris Kish

2010-12-07T00:00:00.003-05:00

This interview is with editor Chris Kish of 1st World View, a social technology website/blog. He has recently started a Twitter feature known as the "Electronic Haiku," which shares tech news highlights in 17-syllable bites (or should that be "bytes"?). Let's see what he has to say...

1. Okay, what happens when you mix the traditional nature-based Japanese art form of haiku with up-to-date news on technology? No, this isn't a joke, this is what you're doing. Explain. Please. You have piqued our interest.

It actually comes together really well, and for a few different reasons. Haiku are designed in a way that allows you to create a poem completely from a single thought, if you want to do that. Whether you see something interesting while taking a walk, or you think of some crazy observation on human behavior while you’re waiting to be seated at a restaurant, it doesn’t take long to write something about it in Haiku format. Even if it’s not perfect, or not complete, you can create the poem immediately after the idea hits you. You can write a Haiku in your head while you’re driving. Because the Haiku is such a fun and practical way to express ideas, I thought it would also be a fantastic way to express single opinions on technology and technology news.

Twitter was the inspiration for Electronic Haiku, along with the fact that I’ve been working on a more straight-forward technology website/blog (www.1stworldview.com) for about a year now and have enjoyed using Twitter to expand its audience. I noticed I was often just posting links and small comments, just another series of tweets that blend into the rest of people’s timelines. I was lacking a sense of energy and style, I guess. I wanted to come up with a way to give people more than just a relay of the technology news they could find at Engadget or TechCrunch, and more than just opinions that people could also find at those major tech sites. The whole point of 1st World View is to give people technology news and opinion in an easy-to-read, entertaining style, so "Electronic Haiku" fit right in.

With Haiku poetry on Twitter, we can relay not only technology news of the day, but include our thoughts and opinions as well. This way people can learn about new stories in technology, read an opinion or two on the matter, and enjoy poetry, all at the same time. A lot of technology news we read tends to take on a dry tone and becomes too technical, so "Electronic Haiku" will hopefully add some calming flavor into the mix.

I think using Haiku to discuss technology news pushes me to reconsider these stories from different perspectives and helps me to more thoroughly develop opinions on these topics. You might think you know how you feel about something, but write a Haiku about it and see how much more specific your opinions on the matter become. Because you have to consider your word choices so carefully, the format naturally pushes me to consider different angles. We only just started "Electronic Haiku," but what we’ve created so far seems pretty cool.

2. We always hear about the "must-have" electronic gift of the season. Anything you would warn us off of this time around?

Wait to buy your tablets, and your 3D televisions. Out of any gadgets that will be popular this season, I would avoid picking those up just yet. If that’s the thing your son or sister wants more than anything, of course, give them what they want. But those newest forms of technology are going to be changing, improving, and lowering in cost very rapidly in the near future.

This applies to most technology, except video games which come in obvious generations of systems. I think this concept currently applies to tablets more than anything, simply because they’ve been around the least amount of time. 3D Televisions also fall into that category; I mean, think back to the release of flat screen plasma televisions. I remember a family friend purchased one, about 32 inches, for over $2,000. Within a couple years he was looking at the new TV prices and kicking himself.

I’ll take this quick opportunity to suggest the best gift of the season - Xbox Kinect. At this point in time, people seem to be down on it, but that is only due to the lackluster wave of games released with it. Once some mature, adult-oriented games are released, things will change. If you are a fan of video games, just imagine what these game developers will come up with when you control the games with your body.

3. What effect do you think social networking (or other communications technologies) have on individuals' opinions and tastes? Is this connectedness an overall good or bad thing?

It connects and disconnects us at the same time, an idea that was captured so well in the new Windows Phone commercials. People walking around on the street, but just staring down into a 4-inch abyss of information. Social networking does connect us, but it tends to take the opposite effect in other ways. I love David Fincher’s The Social Network because it showed Zuckerberg as a symbol for Facebook itself: have a ton of friends without actually having any friends.

People are spending more time communicating with close friends, but they also spend a lot time communicating with “friends” they have never met in person, and will never meet, and that isn’t a great thing. I feel like younger people are developing online friendships and taking them a little too far, and I bet a lot of kids would prefer an online friendship to one in person. Social networking helps to keep people in touch, but it makes friends spend less time together in person.

For me, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are tools to help stay in touch with friends who have moved. I am 25, so many of my friends have recently spread across the country, and Facebook helps me find out what’s going on with them. On the other hand, I never communicate with in-town friends on Facebook, or Twitter. I chat with them on Gmail, but only because it’s so easy on my phone and helps me save on text messaging costs.

As far as affecting opinions and taste, I think social networking is amazing. As people constantly submit quick ratings and opinions on products, we will slowly grow a better understanding of all the products out there. The main problem was that people only went online and gave reviews of a product when they had something to complain about. Now, since it’s so quick and easy to submit good or bad reviews, we can get a more accurate user rating for products. Time will constantly improve this system of user reviews.

4. The Internet has been great for all of us to get our thoughts out there immediately; unlike the letter-writers of old, however, our communications are increasingly ephemeral. How do you think society will handle this loss of permanent records of communication?

Although I don’t always reach my goal of posting once every day on 1stworldview.com, I do multiple posts every week. Over the last year or so, I have amassed a nice collection of writing. Even though I save all of the articles onto my computer, I still worry every time I open up the website that everything will be gone. That just happened to my sister’s website and she does not think she will ever get it back.

In the end, though, I can just save it in Word, save it to my back up hard drive, save it to a flash drive, print it, and I’m set. When it comes down to it, the things that matter will be saved. They will be saved multiple times in multiple places.

In a way, the increasingly ephemeral online world serves as a kind of filter, weeding out the best of the best. If someone sends out a Tweet that is just one of the most ingenious, insightful sentences of all time, you can bet money that people will find it. It will spread, and suddenly it will be on websites, blogs, Facebook, and of course, splattered all over Twitter.

Even if you haven’t written the next society-altering Tweet, you can save it in many different ways and in many different places. You can even print it! So, I actually don’t think society will have to deal with a loss of permanent records.

5. How can the worlds of technology and poetry benefit from cross-pollinating?

They will both benefit from one-another in different ways. While poetry has been dissected and twisted around to fit any subject matter and style possible, I think technology will add a sense of intelligence and respectability. A lot of poetry is just psuedo-symbolic gibberish, overly layered in emotions and twisted around to be complicated for the sake of being falsely complex. Instead, let’s make poetry about facts and figures. Instead of writing poetry just to create poetry, let’s write poetry that has a more concrete purpose. I think crossing technology news into Haiku poetry will not only add to the fun, playful nature of the poems, but will force us to come up with wordplay and opinions we otherwise would never have thought of.

Poetry, on the other hand, can also benefit from technology news. I created 1stWorldView, then "Electronic Haiku," for people like me. I love technology, but I don’t have degree in CSS and JavaScript. I love using Twitter, but I have no idea how it works. I am a writer, but I love technology and wish I could enjoy reading more about it (or at least understand more of what I’m reading). I often read tech articles and find myself mentally drifting to something completely unrelated. By providing technology news and opinions from a very basic perspective, we hope to simplify technology news so its entertaining and interesting to people who aren’t necessarily in the technology industry, but still use smartphones, tablets, laptops, Facebook, and Google.

Branching off from this idea came "Electronic Haiku." By integrating Haiku poetry into the world of technology news, people will be exercising their brains in multiple ways. Not only will they be enjoying technology news and opinions, but they will be enjoying art as well. Art is basically just a representation of life through one medium or another, so it makes sense that we would explore technology through an artform like this. If anything, "Electronic Haiku" will add some moisture to currently dry tech news. The fact that Twitter is such a perfect tool for posting "Electronic Haiku" seems fitting. Crossing technology news into Haiku poetry should symbolize how technology has become such a natural part of life.

CHRIS KISH is a writer living in Phoenix. An Arizona native, he graduated from the University of Arizona and currently works as lead writer and editor of the social technology blog 1st World View as well as the in-house writer for a local marketing company. Chris is interested in creative writing for film, television, and video games. He enjoys blogging about social technology, watching the English Premier League, cycling, and playing Halo.

High Coup Journal - December 2010 Issue

2010-12-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

(Photo by Ann Wright, Plymouth, IN)

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Al Fogel (Miami Beach, FL)

Edward Jones (Stevens Point, WI)

Maggie Lawson (Christchurch, NZ)

Ray Scanlon (Rehoboth, MA)

Mitzi Sicking (Midland, TX)

Annie Welch (Louisville, KY)

Henry Visotski (Brooklyn, NY)

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Editor's Note:

Candles of romance

stuck in a hanukkiyah:

eight days long and hot.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Henry Visotski

In school I majored

In Liberal Arts. Dear Sir,

Can you spare a dime?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Maggie Lawson

cherry cheeks and prayers

painful hindsight swells beneath

in haemorrhoid hues

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Al Fogel

doubting dyslexic

wondering whether or not

there might be a dog

host of fireflies

greeting guests at motel six:

"we'll leave the light on"

hanging upside down

girl in sexy shoes walks by

fall head over heels

practicing Yoga

for years standing on my head

now have shoe fetish

newlyweds board ship

suckerfish attach to shark

whose the real sucker?

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Mitzi Sicking

Achoo! Common colds

Settle into lungs, making

Killer pneumonia.

-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-oOo-

Edward Jones

looking to the sun

i bow, saying: here, look at

my balding head, please

there, in a back room

i find, among other things,

many, many things

in the silence, a sneeze--

startled looks, sneering faces

feelings of hate, anger

a box of kittens

thrown hard from a New York bridge--

single wasted box

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Ray Scanlon

In the three decker,

rude neighbor may burn in hell:

he practices drums.

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Annie Welch

I write to impress

I am doing it right now

do you feel special?

she wears cracked earrings

made of mirrors that hang low

with no reflection

You must be the one

to change swords back to words. Start

Erasing your lips.

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December 2010 AWESOME SAUCE: Annie Welch

She just found out that

lies make her angry. Rotting

words glazed with cherries

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So the year's over,

but we are not (as of yet):

submit your haiku!

highcoupjournal {at} gmail.com