by Neal Whitman, “Poetry Prof”
My title this month is borrowed from the rockabilly hit* first recorded by Buddy Holly in 1958. Poet David Whyte ponders the puzzle of the heartbeat in his book of essays, The Heart Aroused where he notes that a dull, unwavering heart rate can be the sign of a heart about to die — one nudge and it can careen into complete chaos and death — whereas, a healthy, robust heartbeat is full of little flourishes and, with a little nudge, settles back into a life-giving beat.
In 2008, Elaine and I took a Highway One North road trip to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary (May 20). It was a great way to celebrate our beating hearts. When we got to the town of Mendocino, we stayed in the romantic Old Mendocino Hotel where local performers entertained guests in the lounge that evening. Most of all, we were taken by Todd Walton on the guitar and his wife Marcia Sloane on the cello. We detected strong heart sounds. A bonus was Todd’s recital of his own short stories. We learned, then and there, what a terrific writer he is. [So, do yourself a favor and visit his website: underthetablebooks.com.]
Todd is not only a novelist and short story writer, he is a poet, and we have been exchanging email and notes & cards on a fairly regular basis. Something I love in the poetry world is the connections we make with each other. These connections can be made in person as Todd and I have been able to do, or with poets you meet only online. Some poet friends can even be — how can I put it? — ”mentors in spirit” who walked the Earth long ago, but whose words live with us today.
Chen Li, one of the most prolific poets in China today, wrote last month in Poetry, “Traveling in the family of poetry is one of the most substantial and warmest link in the lonesome journey in the universe.” He finds that reading Japanese haiku inspires him to write about contemporary life in similar forms, and, in fact, some of his poems are are tributes to or variations of classical haiku. For example, here we have his translation of Shiki’s haiku:
He washes his horse with the setting sun on the autumn sea.
And, inspired by Shiki, here is his own experiment with a form he calls “microcosmos.”
He washes his remote control
with the moonbeams infiltrating
between two buildings
Of course, you do not have to write poetry to be a member of the family. Since, as I have professed in the past, a poem unread is a poem not yet finished, everyone who reads poetry is welcome to the family reunion. As the President of the Robinson Jeffers Association said at our 2008 conference, “Readers who love poetry read, reread, and remember Jeffers. Jeffers lives today… He lives because he is read.”
Last month, Todd emailed me: “Thought of you when a friend sent me the following quote.”
Everything has a heart. It bears on us to be sensitive to the beating of little hearts and big hearts in places we don’t necessarily expect them to be. Everything wants to be worthy, loved, accepted into the whole. It is one of the haiku poet’s duties to pay attention to small things.
Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Here I profess the belief that, while the stethoscope allows us to listen to the human heart, the poet tells us why the heart beats. From Todd’s friend to him, from Todd to me, and now from me to you, be still, my beating heart. Thus, my own “microcosmos,” published in Bear Creek Haiku #91.
still
still