Tags
haiku, little poems, poetry, Published Poems, senryu, Woodnotes
alone in the waiting room
checking the plant
for reality
Woodnotes #9 (spring-summer 1991)
27 Friday May 2022
Posted haiku, Published Poems, Woodnotes
inTags
haiku, little poems, poetry, Published Poems, senryu, Woodnotes
alone in the waiting room
checking the plant
for reality
Woodnotes #9 (spring-summer 1991)
24 Tuesday May 2022
Posted bottle rockets, haiku, Published Poems, senryu
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bottle rockets, haiku, little poems, nature, poetry, Published Poems, senryu, summer
letting her
walk all over me
ladybug
bottle rockets 4:2 ( #8 spring-summer 2003)
23 Monday May 2022
Posted Frogpond, haiku, Published Poems, senryu
inTags
a couple arguing…
with and against
the wind
Frogpond 21:2 ( 1998), 47
01 Sunday Dec 2019
Posted americana, Chapbooks, haiku, Haiku Way of Life, Lynx,, tanka, Published Poems, senryu, tanka
inTags
book review, chapbook, family, family life, haiku, home, homework, life, poems, poetry, senryu, tanka, writing
Homework by Tom Clausen. Saddle-stitched, full color cover, 4″ x 6″, 36 pages. $10., ppd. ISBN: 1-903543-00-2. Order from Snapshots Press, 132 Crosby, Liverpool, L23 8XS, England.
To quote the jacket notes: “Focusing squarely on domestic life, this collection of haiku, senryu, and tanka is often funny, often sad and always paradoxically both familiar and eye-opening.” It cannot be said better nor more succinctly what this newest book by Tom Clausen contains. I can only add my continuing praise for Tom’s work. It is always a revelation and delight how he seizes on the tiniest experience, and through his examination of it and the cool observation his own feelings, carries it over into a major event. This leaves the reader wondering, “Now, why did I not notice that?” and “Why did I not think of that as material for a poem?”. It seems that tanka is especially designed for the methods of Tom Clausen. Even when aware of the smallest thing, he is also aware of how that thing or event is affecting him. This occurs even in his haiku.
While some purists might fault his haiku for not being closely enough aligned with the nature-nature viewpoint, his sensibilities are absolutely accurate for tanka. This collection gains, I think, by the inclusion of his haiku (which often portray the lighter moments of family living). They seem to play off and actually highlight the attributes of his tanka. Altogether, the editing and arrangement of the poems seems especially fine and relevant. For anyone who has grown up in a family or is living in a family now, this book will take away those terrible moments of aloneness when one felt that no one else in the world ever had such moments of doubt, despair and pure undiluted joy. Tom has been there, and he has the courage to face them directly and honestly, and to continue to hang with the feelings until he has created pure poetry out of them.
no longer me
it proves a mystery who it is
I’ve become
walking around this house
with my family there inside
I sort of knew
my coffee cup
was empty –
so much I look in it
just to see
The sensitivity of the editor, John Barlow, is shown in the choice of a drawing done by Tom’s young daughter, Emma Clausen, as cover along with the insider joke of the title of the book – Homework. Delight piles on delight with this one. Review written by Jane Reichhold
19 Saturday Oct 2019
Posted cats, Frogpond, haiku, poems and photos, Published Poems, senryu, Tom poems at other sites
in19 Saturday Oct 2019
Posted americana, autumn, close up details, haiku, Ithaca, leaves, nature, paths, poems and photos, trees
inTags
autumn, haiku, little poems, photography, photos, poems, poetry, senryu
dress rehearsal-
i get up
out of bed
18 Friday Oct 2019
Posted cats, haiku, Heron's Nest, nature, poems and photos, Published Poems, senryu, Tom poems at other sites
inTags
cats, haiku, Heron's Nest, little poems, nature, poems, poetry, senryu
heron’s nest september 2019
my cat
looks so many places
beyond me
18 Friday Oct 2019
Tags
bottle rockets #41
dress rehearsal-
i get up
out of bed
18 Friday Oct 2019
Posted Akitsu Quarterly, haiku, moon, nature, paths, plants, poems and photos, Published Poems, Tom poems at other sites
in18 Friday Oct 2019
Posted Dim Sum, haiku, poems and photos, Published Poems, Tom poems at other sites
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dim sum- 2019/1- little poems by tom clausen
a new day
the distance
from last night’s dreams
riding a thermal
over the ferry
a gull
news of his death…
my get-well card
on the way
she puts on
her cowboy hat
to pump gas
Great Plains…
in the distance
a whole train
two chairs
watching
the river flow
our checkered past-
colorful leaves carpet
the rainy path
pickup game
this way and that
sneaker squeaks
forever stuck
in 1958
our encyclopedia
our hearts
for each other
in dispute
moose scat
I bring home
a photo
before
the trail was there
trail marker
by myself…
working out what
not to say
half moon-
i remember
i forgot
leaves falling…
she carries her little person
in front
climate change-
my wife
turns up the heat
a crop
of political signs
no man’s land
on the dock
the fixed stare
of a fake owl
close to home
I find myself
again
at my parents’ stone
I whisper
you brought me here
breakfast…
asking what she wants
for dinner