Sexy
HaikuTo: carlosamantea@yahoo.com Subject: Haiku Dear Sir:It is about three years that I study the Haiku and writing Haiku too.
I want to be subscribed in your site and if possible to introduce me English books in Haiku.
--- Massih Talebian
mtalebian@simamehrpa.com§ § § Hi, Massih:Your e-mail arrived at a perfect time. You are in luck. Robin Gill, one of the unsung all-time masters of haiku --- as translated into English --- has just released a new book on the subject of Senryu. This is what he wrote us a few weeks ago:
To: carlosamantea@yahoo.com
Subject: robin d gill's latest
Dear Carlolitalark-sama:
The Woman Without a Hole (& Other Risky Themes from Old Japanese Poems) (ISBN 9780974261850) and Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots (Dirty Themes from Eighteenth - Nineteenth Century Japanese Poems (ISBN 9780974261881) are the same book published under different titles as an experiment.
The book has more than 1,300 senryu and zappai from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
This is the type of haiku that the expert Blyth called unprintable.
The books include the original Japanese, and run over 500 pages., complete with index. The price is $30.
This is the Table of Contents.1. Colossal Endowment on Cloud Nine
2. Moon Duty, or Until She Falls Off Her Horse
3. Drown Not in the Very Wet Nurse!
4. Ox Horn, Devil's Tongue & Self Consolation
5. Losing Noses to Night Hawks
6. Navel-high Bobo & Mushroom Mara
7. Dry Kidney, or Semper Paratus
8. The Heavenly Octopussy & Herring Roe Ceiling
9. From Warm-up to Dying Aloud
10. Oh, No! The Poetess of Love is Missing What?
11. The Times are Good When They Hang Low
12. Good Bonzes Keep to the Narrow Path
13. Lady Doctors, Abortion & the Pill
14. Condoms as Dreams & Jellyfish ( 20c senryû)
15. Puppetry in the Land of the Rising Tongue!
16. Tea-shops Where the Sexes Come to Joust
17. Catamite Cat-Houses & their P/Matrons
18. Young-crowd, or the Fashionable Gay
19. Ugly "Dowry" & Hooded Turtles
20. Maid-servants, or Why They Hate Senryû
21. The World's Worst Come-ons
22. Chili Peppers & Lima Beans, or the Kids
23. Hair-burn in Bed, Hair-cuts in the Bath
24. Wearing Your Love Upon Your Head
25. The Isle of Wind-loving Women
26. Held in, Sadly Passed, Properly Cut . . .
27. Micturition Mimesis, or Sound Ideals
28. & Forget Not Paper, the Measure of Love
29. Ku that Fit No Chapter or Escape Me
30. The Blue Spot Papa Made Proves Mama's Pretty
The Author Notes:
Senryu are, after haiku, the best known genre of Japanese poetry in English.
A large proportion of the Japanese originals treat off-color subjects, so much so that books about the sexual practices of 18-19c Japan generally cite many senryu as documentation.
Yet, less than a hundred dirty senryu have been introduced in English until this book, with 1,300 translated senryu (and the originals).
Whether or not you have heard of senryu, if you are literate enough to practice what Emerson called "creative reading," these essays in sex, humor, Japanese poetry, urban legend, metaphor and translation should delight you.
--- robin d. gill
robindgill@gmail.com