Thank you to the editors at Setu Magazine, a bilingual publication, for including this piece
www.setumag.com/2024/03/jerome-berglund-and-marjorie-pezzoli.html
Be sure to check out Dr. Sunil’s insightful and delightful editorial and contributors www.setumag.com/2024/03/Lit-Art-Culture-Journal.html
Laundry
fold time
Moviola
the things we miss
between our lines (JB)
pretreat memories
holy t-shirt
reverent rag
mops up milk (MP)
grass stains fade
bag left
in an airport
being present (JB)
Split Sequence Haiku by Marjorie Pezzoli / Jerome Berglund
Seed Poem - Marjorie Pezzoli
fold time
pretreat memories
grass stains fade
This is the poem that inspired the seed poem for the collaboration with Jerome.
The anthology was released in March, more than honored to have read it at the San Diego Writers Festival on April 8th
Folding Laundry
as I fold laundry
I fold time
it takes me back to last week
when I danced the night away
enjoyed an ice cream cone
the simple joys of life
t-shirts will holes
that I can never part with
because you picked theses shirts for me
green marks from sitting in the grass
enjoying the music in the air
dogs playing in the park
stains of memories
that can never be erased
Marjorie Pezzoli
Some of my thoughts behind this poem -
Washing clothing, such a mundane necessity can be so much more than I ever thought.
It really hit me one day while pretreating stains, remembering what caused them.
Clothing contains seasons of life, they have time woven into them.
I still wear my mother-in-laws apron while cooking.
Remember how she made Swedish meatballs, how to get out
berry stains by pouring boiling water through the fabric.
The fuchsia shirt my mother wore to my wedding 38 years ago,
has a place in my closet along with my father's leather jacket.
I fit into “hand-me-up” t-shirts my son wore in middle school.
Jackets for 6th grade camp from both of my kids are happily worn by me.
Yes, it is bittersweet at times.
The t-shirts with holes were given to me by my daughter, Alyssa. Keepers for sure!
Seems like yesterday when we went shopping together and she bought them for me.
That was over ten years ago. She has not been physically with us since 2013.
Now when I wear her jacket it feels like a hug from above.
It is fun to measure time in different ways, Beau is our 5th dog, thirty-eight in people years.
My husband and I enjoy taking him to the park, pretreating new grass stains makes me smile.
Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun, and collaborative tan-renga, rengay, and split sequences he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku. His first full-length collections of poetry Bathtub Poems and Funny Pages were just released by Setu and Meat For Tea press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.
Jerome is one of the most creative people I know on the planet. Forever grateful to him for teaching me about writing split sequence poetry + sharing his resources and knowledge about Japanese short form poetry. This totally freed up my mind to know the traditional 5/7/5 syllable count is not always a must. It is a western constraint.
Haiku Society of America hsa-haiku.org
The Haiku Foundation thehaikufoundation.org/learn
Believe it or not - there are even one word haiku hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2022-issue45-3/Padhy-One-WordHaiku-Frogpond-45-3.pdf
Cor van den Heuvel, American Haikuist, has many wonderful examples of the possibilities for this writing form hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2011-issue34-1/bookreview.htm If you are a baseball fan or not - “Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written about the Game, click on his name for all book titles.
So why I am sharing all of this? It is because many people, and even prestigious institutions are unaware. Now I encourage you to take a deeper dive into what 3 lines can be.
till next week - Marjorie
Yes!! This is so good! I love the presentation of the poetry. I've been trying to do a similar thing with my own writing on my Substack, and I know that getting the words to form even the most basic of shapes can be such a nightmare. Really impressed by all the choices in the layout, as well as with the words themselves. Awesome stuff :)
Beautiful! Your reflections are just about as poetic as the poem itself.
And how cool! I didn't know for sure whether one-word poems were a thing, but I had thought about the concept. I never quite presented it as a poem, but I really like what this one word does to my mind:
warbler