Report #49

This week's poem was written the night after my last Pine Creek reading and it contains a big error. There's a haiku from a small collection I have that has always resonated with me that I quote in this poem -- relying on my memory. But as Tom Waits says, "memory's like a train, you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away."

I remembered the poem being written by Bashō, since he is most featured in the book in question. Of course, it wasn't him at all, it was Buson. The poem, as translated by Sam Hamill, is as follows:

“This cold winter night
that old wooden-head Buddha
would make a nice fire”

So now the official version of my poem correctly identifies the haiku coming from Buson, which means the version that appears on this week's report is like a rare coin minted with some mistake, like a quarter with Washington sporting a Hitler mustache or the eagle on the back printed upside down with DDT running form its beak. A numismatist's dream.

Anyway, the poem is called "Cabin 2" and takes place in the rental cabin at Pine Creek where Richard Brautigan lived and wrote for a time. The poet Greg Keeler has some of his Brautigan stories posted at Troutball that you should check out.

Music for this episode, thanks to a gift from the harmonica king Buff Brown, is "Yesterday's Tomorrow" from Andrew Hill's Passing Ships (Blue Note, 2003). This album features Hill on piano; Joe Farrell on bass clarinet, alto flute, English horn, soprano sax, and tenor sax; Julian Priester on trombone, Dizzy Reece and Woody Shaw on trumpet, Bob Northern on French horn; Howard Johnson on tuba, bass clarinet, and late-night fries; Ron Carter on bass; and Lenny White on drums.


Click below to listen to the episode:
Report #49