Books in Brief
Reviewed by Rich Youmans
A Little Knowing
By Salil Chaturvedi
Independently published
2023, paperback/e-book, 46 pages
ISBN: 979-8-851819-21-6
$8.00 USD or ₹200 paperback/ $3.00 USD e-book
Available through Amazon or Pothi.com
In the title haibun of Salil Chaturvedi’s newest collection, a question arises about the darting of swallows—”Why do they fly around crazily like that?”—and a seven-year-old girl provides the perfect answer: “Because they know how to.” The entire collection seems infused with this spirit, an appreciation for the innate knowledge in all living things and how that knowledge manifests. The book includes 30 haibun along with 11 individually placed haiku that seem to stand alone but could also tie in to the haibun preceding or following it. Throughout, Chaturvedi observes the comings of goings of nature (particularly the birds, one of the author’s favorite pastimes), how humans connect with this natural world and one another, and how ultimately nature triumphs over human beings’ attempts to dominate. Underlying everything, like a river’s hidden current, is a wonder at how life flows of its own accord, and how there are more ways of knowing that we can imagine. (One favorite moment: as he and his friends are guided through woodlands by GPS, the “cicadas abruptly pause the shrieking of their dharma, pinpointing us with their silence.”) There’s a quiet sense of amazement throughout this collection, and a realization that the best recourse in any situation is often to simply be (a viewpoint nicely captured in the haiku, “fallen blossoms of panijata/finally, I stop/looking for meaning.” ) In one haibun, “The Flow,” Chaturvedi takes an early morning walk by the Mandovi River; after wondering what Jupiter’s moon-filled sky must look like and listening to a kingfisher’s chatter, he asks, “Aren’t we too small to know ours or anything else’s purpose?” That’s followed by a haiku that seems to encapsulate his view of life: “moving/ as the river wishes/anchored canoe.” It may be a little knowledge, but it’s enough.
Excerpt:
Wonderlust
Nothing better than ‘still travel.’ No visa, no tickets and no packing. Find a spot near a meadow, or a pond, or even a park around your neighbourhood, and sit still for about twenty minutes. Slowly the place reveals its crittered and feathered secrets. Over seasons, the stones begin to tell their stories.
more of what I don't know— rain on the river
Haibun Chowder: A Collection
By Bryan D. Cook
Independently published by B.D.C.Ottawa Consulting, Canada
April 2023, paperback, 112 pages
ISBN: 979-8-847741-83-5
$15.00 CAD
Available from the author as well as Amazon and other online booksellers
Reading Bryan Cook’s haibun is like sitting down with a good storyteller over a pint or cuppa and being regaled by episodes drawn from the author’s life. Those episodes are wide-ranging: childhood memories of being a diplomat’s son in Egypt and spending summers in the coal country of northeast England; university days in Canada; international trade missions and conferences (Cook retired as director general of energy science and technology in Canada’s federal government); adventures on vacations; or simply the joys (and frustrations) of fishing, boating, and pets. Sometimes the stories are a little quirkier: speculations about living on Mars, how one of Cook’s tonsils grew back after being removed. All together, they present a keen mind full of wonder and curiosity. The 84 haibun and two tanka prose are written in a traditional format, with one or (more often) several paragraphs capped by a poem; only a few have multiple poems (including “A Coal Miner’s Grandson,” which won the 2019 Genjuan International Haibun Contest). The prose is conversational and often leavened with self-deprecating humor. Most of the haiku or senryu offer related images or commentary that rely on the prose for their impact—they couldn’t really stand on their own—but at their best they add a touch of humor or poignancy.
Excerpt:
Tagged
Remember that chintzy sunburst wall sculpture fad of the early 1970s? I decide to weld one in the garage. Oxyacetylene torch melting dozens of fluxed brazing rods into a glowing golden pool.
Feeling a little dizzy and nauseated, I check into the poison control centre at the local hospital. Diagnosis, acute fluoride poisoning. Oxygen, I.V. and some pills. I pass out and the porter wheels me away.
Twelve hours later, my wife, worried about no news, telephones the hospital.
“Sorry, Missus, we have no record of your husband.”
“Well, he’s there for sure, so I am driving out to look for him.”
A frantic search and I’m found, still out cold, on a gurney, tagged and sheeted in a remote corridor beside the janitor’s storeroom.
At least the tag wasn’t on my toe!
house clearing our ornaments unloved on thrift store shelves