Contributor Spotlight Interview:
petro c.k.
petro c. k. lives in the aggressive greenery of Seattle, but lets no moss grow on him. His haiku and other short-form poems have been widely published in dozens of eminent journals and he has been nominated for several Touchstone and Pushcart awards. He is the founding editor of dadakuku and wears black all the time.
1. Basho, Buson, or Issa? (No saying Shiki, even if that's the correct answer.)
For me it's such a tough answer, as I appreciate each of their individual voices. Depending on my mood I tend to gravitate towards Issa or Basho. On the one hand I appreciate Issa's humor:
I'm going out,
flies, so relax,
make love.
On the other hand Basho's philosophical melancholy speaks to me as well:
first day of spring—
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn
This is likely a reflection of my own duality and contradictions within me. On the one hand I can be a thoughtful philosophical sort but then I can also be an incurable smart-ass who loves dad-jokes. So I'm likely cheating here but at least I didn't say Shiki!
2. Who is one person who has been a mentor to you in the short form community?
Pippa Phillips has been a great help throughout my time here, from answering questions and lending critiques, to having me involved in workshop groups; she's taken a step back recently from social media interactions but I'm grateful for her help.
And it must be said that you, Jerome, have been such a champion of my work, as well as everyone elses'. It's been inspiring having you cheerleading us all along, sharing valuable information, giving us prompts, and now, publishing us. I wouldn't have been motivated to write and submit as much without your continual encouragement.
3. Publications, where was your first and your most recent?
My first publication was in June 5, 2022 by the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, in their Haiku in Action column (Week 23):
summer cookout
smell of tar and garbage
baking downtown
A bit over a year later it has come full circle as my latest publication as of this writing is back in Haiku in Action (Week 60):
wildfire smoke
the double duty
of N95s
Much gratitude to Susan Burch and the rest of the team at NVHA and to all the other editors in between who saw fit to showcase my work this past year; this old dog is trying to learn new tricks, and the encouragement of them and the wider haiku community is so appreciated. You've all made me feel so welcome here.
4. Favorite horror movie or book, romance movie or book, writer or film director working in a language you can't fluently speak?
Aki Kaurismäki, a Finnish director perhaps best known for his mockumentary Leningrad Cowboys Go America, has a spare realism that goes straight to the heart of the eternal search of love and connection; his other minimalist films of quiet humanism and wry noir melodramas are the senryu of film. His deadpan tragicomedies known as the "Proletariat Trilogy" (Shadows of Paradise/Ariel/The Match Factory Girl) as well as The Man Without A Past are my favorites of his.
5. Favorite jazz, folk, blues singer or musician?
I could talk all day about music; I have DJ'ed for almost three decades and an entire room in my house is devoted to my music and video collection. Asking me to pick one as a favorite is impossible for me.
Recently I was gifted boxes of classic jazz records from a friend's father who passed away so I've been listening to a lot of the usual suspects like Mingus, Monk, and Miles, but I'm a big fan of free jazz and spiritual/Afro-jazz, so Pharoah Sanders figures prominently in my listening habits as well.
I listen to a lot of vintage pre-swing jazz and blues, and I have a collection of hundred-year-old 78rpm records. It's hard to say who's my favorite blues artist but really, one can't go wrong with the "Mother of the Blues," Ma Rainey.
And I'm going to really go out on a limb here and say Kraftwerk is my favorite folk artist. The common definition of folk music I feel is much too insular and limiting; what is "folk" music anyway? It is "music of the people," irrespective of what instruments are used. I believe Kraftwerk spurred on a new form of folk music for the modern age. The "traditional" folk music tends to be described along nationalist lines (i.e. Chinese folk vs. Norwegian folk vs. American folk, etc.) whereas the new folk music using electronic instruments crosses national borders and unifies people in a new form of communal expression.
When Kraftwerk started, they came up from the same radical movement in post-war Germany that wanted nothing to do with their parents' generation, one that brought them war, destruction, genocide, and the Nazi regime. They were looking for new expressions and forms that broke from "tradition" and expectations. For Kraftwerk's part, they invented electronic drums and spearheaded a new form of music using newly available synthesizers that didn't live in universities and gave inspiration for countless musicians that broke free from the musical hegemony of guitar-bass-drums, democratizing a new form of communal expression for a new generation and a new culture who gather in a religious ecstatic dance to the trance-inducing rhythms.
6. Who's a great haiku or senryu poet whose work speaks to you that you’d like more people to be aware of?
There are obviously so many worthy of mentioning, but one whose name I don't see often being bandied about is Stephen Toft. (@StephenToftPoet) I came across his e-chapbook "The Sounding Line" (Half Day Moon Press, 2022) last year. Masterful vignettes with a few dark Gothic verses that snap you out of any sense of bucolic zen—that there are just a few of them tucked within makes them all the more arresting:
the deep blue eyes
of the man
washed ashore
He has a couple other collections and appears in Red Moon anthologies, and seems to pop up in all the haiku journals out there, so he's most assuredly a well-known name to many, but I don't see his work being shared around, so he may not be given enough credit lately.
7. Politically if you had the ability to fix one issue via policy changes what would it be?
Oh, to be king for a day. We are living in the age of the polycrisis, so it seems like rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic to focus on just one policy, but it is not hyperbole to say that climate change is an existential crisis of all humanity; if we don't get a handle on that before it's too late, all the other policy matters won't matter.
8. Describe a pet you treasure/d, your own or someone else’s.
Long ago a friend had a cat show up at her door and gave birth to kittens. One of those kittens came home with us, a black female who our friend called Cleopatra, but we just called her Clea for short. For the next 16 years she was a joyous and entertaining presence, very talkative and sassy, but also sweet and loving, and barely a moment went by when my lap was not occupied. She always wanted to be with me, greeted me when I came home from work, and was truly a friend and a member of our family. I never had a pet growing up, she was my first animal companion I ever had. It's been ten years since we had to say goodbye to her but I still miss her every day.
9. What season do you feel you write best or most frequently and why?
I've only been at this for a bit over a year so I can't speak to trends yet, but I was particularly productive this past fall. The distractions of summer activities were winding down and I was just getting more momentum in writing as I felt more confident of my abilities by then. It's summer now and I felt like I've slowed down in writing; summers here in the Pacific Northwest are perfect and precious so everyone here, me included, rushes to take full advantage of it before the grey curtains of rain sets back in again. I suppose I'll see you all in the fall!
10. If you could nominate one poem (not your own) from the last year and its poet for an individual Touchstone award, who and what would they be?
A brilliant eco-political reinterpretation by Alan Peat of the classic controversial haiku "tundra" by Cor van den Heuvel:
(Published in Modern Haiku Vol. 54.2 Summer 2023)
11. Who is one historical person whose activism or accomplishments especially inspire you, and why?
I tend to reflect the people I'm around and situations I'm in, so I've tried hard not to be overly influenced and inspired by any one particular person so I don't end up as a pale imitation; my inspirations come from many varied and disparate sources.
No one person stands out as a key influence above and beyond the others, but for the sake of argument I will single out one person I admire, Yoko Ono. It's a bit disjointed to think of her in a "historical" sense as she's still alive, but she certainly has made history. She was a pioneer of conceptual and performance art but until recently never got the credit for it that she deserved. John Lennon described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does."
She is most known for her music, with her avant-garde experimental recordings drawing a dividing line between people and attracting an undue amount of criticism. But such antipathy never deterred her creation or her vocal support of feminism and denunciation of racism and sexism within the music industry. She's been an activist for peace and human rights since the 1960s, and is still working tirelessly in many movements.
Thankfully, public appreciation of Ono's work has shifted over time, with recent retrospectives of her art and reissues of her music. As one who listens to a lot of difficult music, I am a fan of her avant-garde recordings, along with appreciating her conceptual art.
12. What have you learned about writing poetry you wish you realized earlier?
That haiku doesn't have to be 5-7-5! 😄
That was something I learned only just last year when I started writing haiku in earnest. But more broadly, for the longest time I tended to avoid poetry as I had the bias that most of it was too self-indulgent; I had read too much of what I thought at that time were pretentious loads of crap early on in college and I felt I didn't have the sophistication to find the wheat from the chaff. I had always enjoyed reading haiku as it suited my style; the strict length parameters simply give no space for stylistic crutches and grandiosity. But it took until just recently that I decided to give writing haiku a serious try and to learn more about it. Back then maybe I just wasn't ready for it. Nowadays, I feel my appreciation of poetry isn't where it needs to be, but it's getting better. Everything happens in due time, it seems. I do wish that I had started writing sooner but for me the lesson to take away from this is that it's never too late to start.
13. One food, drink, song you adore?
I'm into anything pickled/fermented; sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kombucha, beer, natto, etc. My gut biome must be off the charts!
I could be a typical goth and take about a favorite Cure or Bauhaus song, but one song that always sticks with me even after all these years since I first heard it as a wee child is "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry. It's a haunting work of American Southern Gothic; it implies much more than what is told, that something gruesome must've happened but the secrets are kept close. The best works of Gothic doesn't show the monster, but keeps the door locked and suggests what is behind it. Gentry's deep casual voice and spare guitar winds a tale told at the supper table while the background violin chorus rolls in the clouds, providing just enough dark flourishes to flesh out the tragic narrative.
14. In your poems what bird, plant, weather pattern has appeared frequently?
I'm such a cliché, that damn moon shows up most often! What is it about haiku poets and the moon?
old moon
jumping into the pond
without a sound
15. If you could get a roundtrip plane ticket and accommodations comped to any place, where would you visit?
I travel a fair amount, but I'm not a tropical paradise kind of person.
I'm no good in heat, and I find the idea of the typical "paradise" boring.
Plus I would have a running narrative in the back of my head of the exploitation of the locals. Instead I like going to less typical places and blend in with the locals. As for one place I haven't been to yet, I would love to go to the Up Helly Aa festival in the Shetland Islands. The extreme remoteness of the islands intrigues me (accessible to most visitors only by an overnight ferry from the coast of Scotland), but then add to the rugged beauty of the islands a festival to mark the end of the Yuletide season with a torchlight procession that ends with the exciting spectacle of the communal
burning of a Viking ship.
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