Category Archives: writing

Water Poetry 1: The Haiku

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A few years back when I found myself in four countries in three months, I wrote four poems dedicated to a body of water in each of those countries. I also decided to write the poem in four poetic forms native to or popular in those countries. They included an Elizabethan sonnet about the Thames River, a villanelle about the Seine, an open-form or beat poem about the San Francisco Bay, and a haiku about the Tama River. I’ve since added a sijo about the Han River.

I’m going to print those here in a series, with an explanation about the poetic form so you can try it too. And periodically I’ll try to add more poems in different poetic forms around the world. I’m already planning to write a sijo about the Han River.

So today I present the haiku. Continue reading →

Life in the Urban Canopy

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I think one of the reasons I haven’t blogged much in the last two years is that living in a new country, newly married, with a new job, while writing my Phd, was just too overwhelming to write about. I honestly couldn’t pick and choose what to write about. And once I fell behind a little, it was too much to catch up. I’d have a great idea to blog about something like the sports club system here or organizing an international wedding, and bam! I’d be traveling to Korea for the first time since 1980 and that trip was a travelogue in and of itself. Continue reading →

The Quilting Sword v4.0

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This blog is the fourth incarnation of The Quilting Sword. The first incarnation was a photocopied zine with poetry and short stories about love fading into regret. The second was a Xanga blog, in which I documented my last days of living in England and the transition to Japan. The third was an unpublicized blog on Blogger in which I wrote a few essays on political events in East Asia. My good friend Thom was the only one who read it and he didn’t realize it was me for many months. I also do a blog with my wife about our adventures in marriage. That was fun but that too was updated less and less. Now it serves mostly as a respository of our photos from our many travels.

I lamented that none of them lasted but each served their purpose which was to help me document a period of my life. Now I’d like to put it all together and write about a combination of things:

A. Make wry observations about my life in Japan.

B. Write reviews of restaurants, cafes, bars, neighborhoods, museums, parks.

C. Incisively analyze and deconstruct the narratives of nationalism and politics in East Asia. Kind of share my findings for my PhD.

D. Comment on international sports and nationalism, as well as my beloved but troubled Lakers.

E. Display my photo collection of me meditating in a variety of locations around the world. It’s the only time I really meditate.

F. And finally, I really want to bring peace to the world. And clearly, blogging is one of the few avenues left to pursue this.

So enjoy! And may I update this blog daily.

Love,
Wind