Continent’s Edge by Jeanine Stevens (LANDMARKS Series)

Continent’s Edge
by Jeanine Stevens

Imagine a shoreline, its own salty foam.
Not by Muir Beach or Shelter Cove
but just beyond Red Hawk Casino—gold country:
scrub oaks and ghost pines.
Granite outcrops and below, ocean floor basalt,
marl‘s crumbly clay, shell fragments.
This is Wakamatsu Colony (1869), Japanese
farmers attempting to grow silk, tea trees, rice.
Where are the dwellings, bamboo groves?
Someone would know, perhaps
a grad student researching ancestry.
Near the trail, buttercups, vetch, Rat Tail radish
(a delicacy in Asia). I nibble spicy pods.
Streambeds dry, few miners’ flakes remain.
You may discover garnets in your shallow pan.
Over the foot bridge, simple joy
to walk planks: bounce, sponge, lift.
Tides, first sensory,
something of womb, suck
pull back—thrum tide.
Under a perigee moon, I wonder if bedrock
heaves, upends remains of shellfish?
Behind the electric fence, a Jersey mother has tender eyes.
Long time since I’ve been close to such
a large mammal, her heat shimmering,
dancing in amber sun.

Two identical calves recline,
slowly munching meadow grass.

PHOTO: Wakamatsu Farm in 2019, its 150th year, by Ken Mahar.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony was made up of a group of 22 samurai and one woman during the Boshin Civil War (1868–69) in Japan preceding the Meiji Restoration. This is believed to be the first permanent Japanese settlement in North America and the only settlement by samurai outside of Japan. The group purchased land from Charles Graner family in the Gold Hill region after coming to San Francisco in 1869. Though the group successfully displayed it produce during the 1869 California State Agricultural Fair in Sacramento and the 1870 Horticultural Fair in San Francisco, the farm as a Japanese colony only existed from 1869-1871. In 1969, the year of the colony’s centennial, it was proclaimed California Historical Landmark No. 815. The American River Conservancy purchased the 272-acre location, 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, in November 2010, with the National Park Service placing the site on the National Register of Historic Places.

PHOTO: Historical marker at Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony, Placerville, California.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: When I write in natural settings, it is usually a pattern of walk, stop, listen, and write, then begin again. This goes back to sixth grade and our bird walks every Friday afternoons. The poem “Continents Edge” was written in one afternoon, step by step, with periods of rest so I could to notice even smaller things like the ragged rattail radish and the bouncy footbridge. This pattern works well for me even in cities, say St. Mark’s Square in Venice. There is so much to take in just by sitting on a bench, watching people and pigeons, the Adriatic creeping over the stone steps.

PHOTO: The author and fellow travelers at Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeanine Stevens is the author of Limberlost and Inheritor (Future Cycle Press). Her first poetry collection, Sailing on Milkweed was published by Cherry Grove Collections. She is winner of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, The Stockton Arts Commission Award, The Ekphrasis Prize, and WOMR Cape Cod Community Radio National Poetry Award. Brief Immensity, won the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Award. Jeanine recently received her sixth Pushcart Nomination. She has participated in Literary Lectures sponsored by Poets and Writers. Her work has appeared in North Dakota Review, Pearl, Stoneboat, Rosebud, Chiron Review, and Forge. Jeanine studied poetry at U.C. Davis and California State University, Sacramento.

At Meiji Shrine by Rick Lupert (LANDMARKS Series)

At Meiji Shrine
by Rick Lupert

I
Long path from train
through gates, large like trees
A sea of umbrellas come

to visit the enshrined souls of
Emperor Meiji and his consort
the empress.

We wash hands
ritually like before a Jewish meal.
We bow and clap.

We drop coins in box.
People hang votive wood notes
like prayers in a Western Wall.

This is not an ancient place
But it is quiet like history.
Until young boy with his

bird sounds video game
forces us to move to a
more quiet corner.

The soul of the emperor
is broken up by rain drops.
We take him away in our wet clothes.

II
Young girl with Totoro Umbrella
visits Meiji Shrine. Totoro is
patron saint of umbrellas
and giant bunny as far
as I’m concerned.

III
I interrupt Addie’s moment to say
I would like to have a beverage with owls now.
Without a word she waves her hand
summoning me to hand her the backpack.
Who who.

IV
There are many places
I’m not allowed entry to.
I’m thinking of converting so
I can get some better pictures.

PHOTO: Imperial Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, Japan, dedicated to the deified spirits of the Emperor Shoken (1852-1912) and Empress Shoken (1849-1914). The shrine was formally dedicated on November 3, 1920. Photo by Rom Rodinka, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I write my travel poems on location, typed into the Pages app on my phone while experiencing whatever it is the world has to offer. They’re almost unfiltered notes directly from my brain to the page to the books they show up in.

PHOTO: The author at Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, Japan (July 2019). Photo by Rick Lupert.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rick Lupert has been involved with L.A. poetry since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award and was a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for two years. He created the Poetry Super Highway  and hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years. His first spoken word album Rick Lupert Live and Dead, featuring 25 studio and live tracks, was released in March 2016. He’s authored 24 collections of poetry, including The Toyko-Van Nuys Express (Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020), and Hunka Hunka Howdy, Beautiful Mistakes, and God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion, and edited the anthologies Ekphrastia Gone Wild,  A Poet’s Siddur, A Poet’s Haggadah, and the noir anthology The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic Cat and Banana and writes the Jewish Poetry column “From the Lupertverse” for Jewish Journal. He is regularly featured at venues all over the world. Follow him on Facebook.

Author photo by Addie Lupert.

Culture Shock, flash fiction by Jane Boch (MY SWEET WORD Series)

Culture Shock
by Jane Boch

Carla no longer trusted chocolate. Her bite into the filled pastry contorted her face with sourness and disappointment.

“Bean paste,” Evan said, laughing.

Carla forced a swallow. “You knew?” she accused.

Carla would be in Japan for three weeks. She hoped this trip would propel her into an engagement with Evan, a U.S. Naval Officer, or prompt them to end the long-distance relationship. She couldn’t imagine marrying a man whose career demanded replacing chocolate with the gooey pastiness of mung beans.

A walk in Evan’s hilltop neighborhood led Carla to an overlook of the bay. Turning from the water view, she glimpsed a sign picturing a loaf of bread. Inside the shop, the fragrance of freshly baked goods, arranged on racks lining the walls, reminded her of the bakery in her hometown. She asked, “Sweet?” while pointing at a croissant topped with sugar.

The baker nodded and said, “Yes, sweet,” with a smile. Optimistic, Carla took two.

Sitting on a bench outside, she took a bite. The mouthful of hot, soft airiness mingled with cream cheese filling as luscious as the inside of a truffle. Yes, sweet, she thought. Maybe she could marry Evan after all.

IMAGE: Pai-Shuu (Japanese cream puffs)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This piece of flash fiction is crafted around my experience of trying out desserts in Japan when we lived in the city of Yokosuka. One of my favorite outings was a walk to the bakery with Jonathan in the stroller. The cream cheese inside the croissants was truly sweet.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Jonathan and I pose with the owner of the bakery where we were frequent customers, up the hill from our house in Yokosuka, Japan (December 2009).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jane Boch started writing in first grade, when she won a Young Author contest for a story about an ice cream cone and a roller coaster. As an adult, her frequent moves with her submarine Naval Officer husband took her to Japan for two years. She spends her days taking care of her two boys and a three-year-old Labrador retriever.

Snow Adventure, poem by Yoko Danno (My Perfect Vacation Series)

Snow Adventure
by Yoko Danno

In the dead of night,
out of the 11th floor of a downtown
apartment building, nebulous shadows
slip out of a window, gently glide down
along the deserted street,

by fluorescent moonlight
gathering speed,
slide down the ice-covered slopes―

resolute for adventures,
a boy, in a blue silk scarf,
dreaming of tropical fish swimming,
and a girl, in a red wool cap,
streaming long black hair in the cold wind,

ski down the soft skin of an enormous
white monster in hibernation,

heading for a point of cosmic contact―

By midday warmed
by the piercing sunshine,

trees shed heaps
of snow from their limbs

as if slipping out
of padded
white kimonos,

stand naked
in the slanting rays
like antennas,

to get ready
for communication

with meteors.

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH: I took this photo when I visited Mt. Zao in 2002, which is why I wasn’t included in it.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this poem, inspired by the frost-covered trees at Mt. Zao, a famous ski resort in Northern Japan’s volcanic region.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Yoko Danno lives in Kobe, Japan. For decades, she has written poetry solely in English. Her poems have appeared internationally in numerous journals and anthologies, online, and in print. Her books of poetry include Epitaph for memories (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 2002); The Blue Door, a collaboration with James C. Hopkins (The Word Works, 2006); a sleeping tiger dreams of manhattan: poetry, photographs and sound by Danno, Hopkins, and Bernard Stoltz (The Ikuta Press, 2008, and translated and published in Latvia, 2012); Trilogy & Hagoromo: A Celestial Robe (The Ikuta Press, 2010); and Aquamarine (Glass Lyre Press, 2014). Her translation, Songs and Stories of the Kojiki, the creation myth, songs and historical narratives, compiled in the 8^th c., Japan, was published by Ahadada Books (Toronto/Tokyo, 2008, and Red Moon Press, 2014). Visit her at http://ikutapress.com/danno3.html.

Self-Portrait with Umeboshi, poem by Robert Okaji (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

Self-Portrait with Umeboshi
by Robert Okaji

Our resemblance strengthens each day.

Reddened by sun and shiso,
seasoned with salt,

we preside, finding
comfort in failure. Or does
the subjugation of one’s flavor for another’s

define defeat? The bitter, the sour, the sweet
attract and repel

like lovers separated by distances
too subtle to see.
Filling space becomes the end.
What do you learn when you look through the glass?

Knowing my fate, I say fallen. I say earth.

NOTE: Find out more about Umeboshi at wikipedia.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Okaji’s work has appeared in Boston Review, Otoliths, Prime Number Magazine, Clade Song, and Vayavya, among others. He lives in Texas with his wife and two dogs.

Japanese Garden, poem by Clara Hsu (Half New Year Poetry Series)

JAPANESE GARDEN

by Clara Hsu

arched

sky                 water

bridge

half moon

June

slips

by

in a pair of geta

koi in red kimonos

things to wear

under

shades

a

bell

IMAGE: “Water Lilies and Koi Pond” by Elaine Plesser. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Clara Hsu practices the art of multi-dimensional being: mother, musician, purveyor of Clarion Music Center (1982-2005), traveler, translator and poet. Since 2009, she has co-hosted the monthly San Francisco Open Mic Poetry Podcast TV Show with John Rhodes. In 2013, she co-founded Poetry Hotel Press with Jack Foley. Clara has been published internationally. Her book of poetry, The First to Escape, is due to be released in the summer of 2014.

May, haiku by Nimuae

MAY
by Nimuae

Welcome the May as
life weaves a new spring from her
pink and white blossoms. 

IMAGE: “Pink cherry blossoms” by Sonja Quintero. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

Flower haiku by Matsuo Bashō

LITTLE YELLOW FLOWER
by Matsuo Bashō 

Slender, so slender
its stalk bends under dew –
little yellow flower

Photo: James Jordan, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Novelist Haruki Murakami explains why The Great Gatsby is so great

In 2006, Haruki Murakami, author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, accomplished a long-standing goal — translating The Great Gatsby into Japanese. Murakami has discussed his reverence for the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel many times over the years — and has written a compelling afterword to his translation. Read Murakami’s moving love letter to Fitzgerald’s masterwork at scribd.com.

Here are some excerpts from Murakami’s heartfelt homage to The Great Gatsby…

When someone asks, ‘Which three books have meant the most to you?’ I can answer without having to think: The Great Gatsby, Dostoevesky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. All three have been indispensable to me (both as a reader and as a writer); yet if I were forced to select only one, I would unhesitatingly choose Gatsby. Had it not been for Fitzgerald’s novel, I would not be writing the kind of literature I am today (indeed, it is possible that I would not be writing at all, although that is neither here nor there).

Whatever the case, you can sense the level of my infatuation with The Great Gatsby. It taught me so much and encouraged me so greatly in my own life. Through slender in size for a full-length work, it served as a standard and a fixed point, an axis around which I was able to organize the many coordinates that make up the world of the novel. I read Gatsby over and over, poking into every nook and cranny, until I had virtually memorized entire sections.

Remarks such as these are bound to perplex more than a few readers. ‘Look, Murakami,’ they’ll say, ‘I read the novel, and I don’t get it. Just why do you think it’s so great?’ My first impulse is to challenge them right back. ‘Hey, if The Great Gatsby isn’t great,’ I am tempted to say, inching closer, ‘then what the heck is?’…Gatsby is such a finely wrought novel – its scenes so fully realized, its evocations of sentiment so delicate, its language so layered – that, in the end, one has to study it line by line in English to appreciate its true value.”

Moon Haiku by Matsunaga Teitoku

MOON HAIKU
by Matsunaga Teitoku (1571-1654)

Many solemn nights
Blond moon, we stand and marvel…
Sleeping our noons away. 

PHOTO: The moon rises behind the helicopter from the original Batman television show, which people can ride at the New Jersey State Fair, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in East Rutherford, N.J.  (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)