*****

Recorded Reading (2:51): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ksuk5j3wz9pmbxtxl8lqi/two-poets.mp3?rlkey=3v46m7j263q6inu6zfopnzl44&dl=0

*****

Forty years and more ago, now internationally awarded Haiku master Ty Hadman rented a back room in this poet’s house for a number of months.

During that time, the poet wrote (and studied) exclusively Haiku poetry ~ eventually going on to read invitationally with half a dozen members of the Haiku Society of America, at a National Poetry Convention.

During that time, also, her first chapbook was released, “Didn’t We Dance?” by Artaud’s Elbow out of the old City Lights Bookstore, North Beach, San Francisco.

When not guiding and mentoring the (then very young) poet, Ty spent much of his time with scholar and fellow poet Jim Normington, translating a work which had recently been placed into his hands in stained, spotted handwritten manuscript form by its author’s wife dueing his last trip to Guatemala: Carlos Gutierrez Cruz’ “Your Life is in Your Hands.”

Carried in crowded saddlebags and sweaty shirt pockets across Mexico, read by firelight to groups of illiterate peasantry, astonished and elated to discover that anyone at all had taken the concern to notice their woeful plight ~ much less to write it down! ~ that humble little manuscript had helped to seed its Revolution.

In months and years to come, that book would make of Ty Hadman, in the rarefied world of Haiku, an internationally awarded authority.

But this poem was written back when he was just Ty and she only Ana, mutually in love with the Word of Truth…

*****

two poets

oblivious of the sirens
screaming around them
they spend every evening
immersed in their books
together like brothers
heads bowed o’er the pages
savoring every tiny dry word
in their mouths till it
gathers up juice and the rest of us
wonder
what it is
that is running in such waterfalls
down their cheeks

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to send a personal check to the poet’s ABLE account. It takes about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

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