Don Wentworth

review of
Don Wentworth's twenty-seven sparrows
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 9, 2021

Don Wentworth is Pittsburgh's Haiku enthusiast. He's the editor & publisher of LILLIPUT REVIEW. He was also a friendly librarian at the main library I go to. For people who have a deep interest in small presses such things are important. Small presses publish things that're too uncommercial for larger publishers to support.

"Haiku [..] is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a kireji, or "cutting word", 17 on (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a kigo, or seasonal reference. Similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryū." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku

Pages 5-31 each have a 3 line poem, they don't each have 17 syllables. E.G., on p 5:

"watching
a lone goose leaving —
we arrive"

"a lone goose leaving" cd be taken as a seasonal reference.

P 6:

"27 sparrows
on a wire —
no masks required"

I know next to nothing about haiku. I've read older ones & enjoyed them. They're elegant. It seems to me that haiku has come to mean, for many people, simply a short poem or a 3 line poem - perhaps more often than not w/ a nature reference, not necessarily a seasonal one. Perhaps these poems are more properly called senryū. I don't know, I'm sure Don wd. If the purpose of using such a short form is to express the most w/ the least, then one can appraise these poems on whether they 'work' for the reader in that way. There're 27 3 line poems, these cd be taken to be the "twenty-seven sparrows".

Many have references to non-human life: goose, sparrows, swallows, dog, leaf, kitty, orange tiger lily, squirrel, finch, dragonfly, worm, mourning doves, pear blossoms, Crow, pink tiger lily, milkweed, pine

The last:

"at last
the graveyard, too
abandoned"

No nature references in the end.. but life goes on.… (lisätietoja)