The poetry of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy

Book - 2017

"Over 125 poetic companions for all life's ups and downs. The Buddha once told a disciple that good spiritual friends are the whole of holy life. The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in such spiritual friendship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection--poets like Wallace Ste...vens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago. The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice--the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can't be matched by other modes of writing. Its unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets' lives. A short essay at the back of the book on "Mindful Reading" helps readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and illustrates the similarities between meditation and the mindful reading of poetry. Brehm also includes a guided meditation on sound that helps readers appreciate the sonic qualities of poetry and shows how the anthology might be used in ongoing spiritual practice"--

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Subjects
Genres
Poetry
Published
Boston : Wisdom Publications [2017]
Language
English
Physical Description
xxviii, 279 pages ; 17 cm
ISBN
9781614293316
  • Part one, Impermanence. "Jade Flower Palace" / Tu Fu ; "Summer grasses" / Matsuo Basho ; "Fields, a house, many mulberry trees, fine gardens!" / Han Shan
  • "I never longed for the wilder side of life" / Ryokan ; "'Detached' observer" / Saigyo
  • "Nothing gold can stay" / Robert Frost ; "Korean mums" / James Schuyler ; "The wild swans at Coole" / William Butler Yeats ; "Sonnet 73" / William Shakespeare ; "Autumn thoughts, sent far away" / Po Chu-i ; "Winter has withered everything" / Saigyo ; "12th moon, 14th sun" / Su Tung-P'o ; "This world of dew" / Kobayashi Issa ; "The Niagara River" / Kay Ryan ; "After reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead" / Lucia Perillo ; "The widow's lament in springtime" / William Carlos Williams ; "Delia Rexroth" / Kenneth Rexroth ; "October 9, 1970" / Andrea Hollander ; "If you knew" / Ellen Bass ; "A slumber did my spirit seal" / William Wordsworth ; "Mother I never knew" / Kobayashi Issa ; "In memoriam Mae Noblitt" / A.R. Ammons ; "The day Lady died" / Frank O'Hara ; "Dog" / Ron Padgett ; "Ambulances" / Philip Larkin ; "Death stoops over me" / Tomas Transtromer ; "February 23" / Yannis Ritsos ; "Train ride" / Ruth Stone ; "Encounter" / Czeslaw Milosz ; "January 4" / Yannis Ritsos ; "Death" / Bill Knott ; "Ode to a dead carob tree" / Pablo Neruda ; "Reconciliation" / Walt Whitman ; "Facing it" / Yusef Komunyakaa ; "I don't know how a day flew by us" / Anna Kamienska ; " Days" / Philip Larkin ; "The day" / James Schuyler ; "The moon is a house" / Ikkyu Sojun ; "Waka on impermanence" / Eihei Dogen ; "The old man" / Yosa Buson ; "I could name some names" / Lucia Perillo ; "They laugh at me, 'Hey farm boy!'" / Han Shan ; "In my medicine cabinet" / Jack Kerouac ; " The joke" / Ron Padgett.
  • Part two, Mindfulness. "Shoveling snow with Buddha" / Billy Collins ; "The snow man" / Wallace Stevens ; "Empty mirror" / Kenneth Rexroth ; "After ten years in the red-light district" / Ikkyu Sojun ; "Listening" / William Stafford ; "LIstening deeply" / Dick Allen ; "The white horse" / D.H. Lawrence ; "Clarifications" / A.R. Ammons ; "Aware" / Denise Levertov ; "Our two silences" / Anna Swir ; "In the depths of West Mountain, visiting the master" / Wei Ying-Wu ; "Coolness--" / Yosa Buson ; "Watching a white falcon set loose" / Li Po ; "Fine work with pitch and copper" / William Carlos Williams ; "The distant mountains" / Kobayashi Issa ; "Reflective" / A.R. Ammons ; "Auto mirror" / Adam Zagajewski ; "Tree at my window" / Robert Frost ; "No title required" / Wislawa Szymborska ; "A leaf" / Bronislaw Maj ; "In a station of the metro" / Ezra Pound ; "One look at plum blossoms" / Old Shoju ; "Now you see it" / Ron Padgett ; "Lighthouse" / Jane Hirshfield ; "Void in form" / Ikkyu Sojun ; "Study of two pears" / Wallace Stevens ; "The fish" / Elizabeth Bishop ; "Hyla Brook" / Robert Frost ; "The moon's the same old moon" / Shido Bunan ; "Zazn on Ching-t'ing Mountain" / Li Po ; "A double rapture" / Anna Swir ; "Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout" / Gary Snyder ; "This slowly driving cloud is pitiful" / Eihei Dogen ; "The night is fresh and cool" / Ryokan ; "I stand and look" / Walt Whitman ; "Here" / Philip Larkin ; "Filling station" / Elizabeth Bishop ; "The poor" / William Carlos Williams ; "I'm going to roll over" / Kobayashi Issa ; "Miracle fair" / Wislawa Szymborska ; "Li the mountain recluse stays the night on our boat" / Po Chu-I ; "Wrapping the rice cakes" / Matsuo Basho.
  • Part three, Joy. "First days of spring-the sky" / Ryokan ; "With Mao and Fang, visiting Bright Insight Monastery" / Su Tung-P'o ; "Children imitating cormorants" / Kobayashi Issa ; "Nothing satisfies some appetites" / Ryokan ; " The joy of fishes" / Chuang-Tzu ; "The could road's chocked with deep mist. No one gets here that way" / Han Shan ; "A field of cotton ..." / Matsuo Basho ; "Such a moon ..." / Yosa Buson ; "Full moon" / Kobayashi Issa ; "A cicada shell" / Matsuo Basho ; "A blessing" / "Horses" / Pablo Neruda ; "Horses at midnight without a moon" / Jack Gilbert ; "Under cherry trees" / Kobayashi Issa ; "Face to face" / Tomas Transtromer ; "She speaks a various language" / Marilyn Krysl ; "Quiet mountain hut" / Saigyo ; "It's all right" / William Stafford ; "The dunce" / Jacques Prevert ; "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" / Walt Whitman ; "My arm for a pillow" / Yosa Buson ; "After Quiet Joys at South Garden sent by P'ei Tu" / Po Chu-i ; "Ask me" / William Stafford ; "Ode to my socks" / Pablo Neruda ; "Inaction of shoes" / Ron Padgett ; "Priceless gifts" / Anna Swir ; "January 21" / Yannis Ritsos ; "Stills" / A.R. Ammons ; "My old landlady" / Han Shan ; "Calm because I'm unknown" / Fernando Pessoa ; "Credulity" / Tracy K. Smith ; "Aimless love" / Billy Collins ; "A brief for the defense" / Jack Gilbert ; "The city limits" / A.R. Ammons ; "What are years?" / Marianne Moore ; "Wrinkly lady dancer" / Alicia Ostriker ; "To waken an old lady" / William Carlos Williams ; "Getting old" / Jack Gilbert ; "Words from the front" / Ron Padgett ; "Getting old" / Jack Gilbert ; "Words from the front" / Ron Padgett ; "Why the aging poet continues to write" / Paulann Petersen ; "Old geezer" / A.R. Ammons ; "Don't say my hut has nothing to offer" / Ryokan.