
Download poetry chapbook (pdf): Hotsprings + Stubbed Toe, by Dave Olson, 2004
cycle of modern haiku-ish sudden poems – written in bursts in Japan, Olympia, Utah, Guam and other sundry locales – assembled into themes, connected by sinews
Download poetry chapbook (pdf): Hotsprings + Stubbed Toe, by Dave Olson, 2004
After arriving in Japan for the first time, i began exploring Japanese poetic forms – realizing that the didactic 5-7-5 structure *wasn’t the point* / Then combining with impressionist colours seen on a recent ramble in Europe, Read it a series combining, in a fashion, Japanese forms with European colours and “new-world” themes.
Then with brother Bob’s upcoming wedding, compiled a bunch of these creations into a little book and read (with translation) at his wedding (mostly to blank stares of bewilderment.
A few years later in Guam, did a proper layout and production run (maybe 50?) and mailed the chapbooks out around the world. Used hemp/cereal straw paper from China (ordered from Paul Stanford in Oregon) which was rough going through copy machines of the day –especially my complicated double-sided / zigzag layout with topstitch binding – of course sewn with hemp twine.
I don’t have one of the “finished ones” in my archive, but do have the original layout production master / will eventually dig out > in the meantime, here is the cover (not hemp paper) + Pay special attention to my proto-Creative-Commons non-copyright on the erstwhile colophon and the pseudonym (do you know the origins?)
While I have few delusions about my poetry chapbooks being “popular” this one especially seems to have disappeared into the wind with nary a sound (despite it being one of the projects of which i am most proud).
Note: a few of these poems were used/re-mixed in a collection from 2004 (assembled in Olympia) called “Hotspring and Stubbed Toe” which was distributed digitally and will be available shortly in this archive as part of #daveo50 series.
Bamboo dish
pointing skyward listening
perhaps
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
10 years later
trees taller
concrete the same
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
If only this mountain
two fingers taller
I’d climb it to the sky
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
Found you like a seashell
picked up
before cutting my toe
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
Coral green
your eyes
follow me to sleep
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
Wiping shelf
dust lands
on tidy counter
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
Kept wondering, wandering
taking notes
from time to time
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
Daydreaming all afternoon
til darkness
changes the dream
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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004
Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)
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