marlene mountain
letter essays
jume 1989

outgrown

dear hiro 6/15/89

I've finally had a chance to read and enjoy your article on Japanese Love Poems. Lady Izumi is a character; I like her humor ('no longer tell which is who') and self-assuredness ('but not one piece will be lost').

Truly good to see Sojo's piece. It's the first Japanese sequence that I guess I've seen. Too bad it was not appreciated. I find it very moving. And subtle. I esp like 'Long day: our hands touched each other, remain in touch.' It kind of reminds me of something I could have written. I'd like to see you publish some Japanese sequences in FP or MH. Probably no one else has seen them either.

Since returning, I've been gathering all my sequences and renga links on disks--since 1979 (and some before). Quite a bit of work and frustration with computer/printer. Gotten them dated by month. Plan to send to Cor one day soon if he wants to see them--maybe you'd like to take a look? More that 150 pages and so hard to deal with my danged printer, that I'll probably just send the one copy. It's an expanded version of 'tonight i am mountain' that Rod was going to print, but I backed out because I felt I'd outgrown it. Now with the POP and later pieces added, it's a whole new thing. Though again I feel even that part is in the past. Hoping to write stuff this year that might bring it all together for me. So far I can't read it, only to type and correct mistakes. In a way, it's spooky to look back on my life, the woes, etc.

Would you also want to take a look at the essays, etc. I brought to Cor? It's just shy of 20 years of yak-yak about haiku. Documents some of the change that took place in my attitude toward haiku. Maybe he'll loan it to you. If you have the time and energy for it.

all for now, mainly wanted to say hi
 

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