Netsuke Frog - Breaking The Silence

Mini woodblock print from my sketch of an antique Japanese netsuke frog (unsgd) at Bristol Museum.

“Breaking the silence

Of an ancient pond,

A frog jumped into water -

A deep resonance.

This poem was written by our master on a spring day. He was sitting in his riverside house in Edo, bending his ears to the soft cooing of a pigeon in the quiet rain. There was a mild wind in the air, and one or two petals of cherry blossom were falling gently to the ground. It was the kind of day you often have in late March - so perfect that you want it to last for ever. Now and then in the garden was heard the sound of frogs jumping into the water.”

From Matsuo Bashō - The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Translated from the Japanese by Nobuyuki Yuasa.

It has been a little quiet over here at Into The Wood so it’s lovely to be woken by the sound of Bashō’s frog and see this beautiful blossom on my journey home. 

Close to home and heart. Cherry plum blossoming in late March.

Books

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō - Translated from the Japanese by Nobuyuki Yuasa

Gwendraeth Press Book Marks

Fab couple of days printing with wilderness poet, Suzanne Iuppa. Suzanne wanted to print bookmarks in preparation for publishing a book of poems by her friend and poet Laurence James. We each worked out ideas for the bookmarks by cutting up elements of the book cover design (abstracted wave and rope images) and the Gwendraeth Press logo. Suzanne assembled the paper cutouts until she was happy with a design. She then stuck the paper cutouts in place, traced the design and transferred the outline to the lino. 

We carved our lino blocks and printed the first batch in green on the Adana 8 x 5, then blue and finally Laurence’s initials were printed in gold using Univers lowercase type. 

Suzanne Iuppa has published two books. ‘Well Spring’ inspired by healing wells in Wales (Gwendraeth Press) and 'On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage’ (Alyn Books) inspired from her 200 mile walk following pilgrimage routes from South and West Wales.

Well Spring

“On the morning of March 21, 2014 I started my season-long search for ten Holy and healing wells in Wales, which I continued until the evening of Summer Solstice in June. The places I eventually found have been documented in ancient texts, and by biographers of our Celtic Saints; by book writers and modern day bloggers.  To assist me, I had been given some wonderful insight and information by legend-gatherer, photographer and writer Phil Cope. I had maps. I had boots and waterproofs and a hat and my trusty rucksack and the support of close friends and pen and paper, to write the start of poems which I first had a hint of, somewhere behind my held breath, whilst peering at St Teilo’s Well in Pembrokeshire in 2012, journeying on a long wet pilgrims' walk to St Davids.” Suzanne Iuppa, ‘Well Spring’ - Introduction to the Wells. 

On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage

"Coming upon these poems is like coming upon the wanderer. Like Suzanne, this pilgrim would commit all he saw - beautiful, wild, Godly - to words passed down in ink. A profound and spiritual evocation of the Welsh and their landscape, captured in this latterday pilgrim-poet’s stanzas." - Clare Dudman, author of A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees

'On Track - Poems from Welsh Pilgrimage' is available to buy from Alyn Books 

Suzanne will be performing her poetry in The Speaking of Nature Tent at MereFest 2017.

Merefest 16th September 2017.

A Japanese Wood-Carving. Poem by Amy Lowell

Celebrating National Poetry Day

A Japanese Wood-Carving

High up above the open, welcoming door

It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim. 

Once, long ago, it was a waving tree 

And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves 

Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.

The winter snows had bent its branches down,

The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers, 

Summer had run like fire through its veins, 

While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs, 

And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups. 

Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among 

Its branches, breaking here and there a limb; 

But every now and then broad sunlit days

Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves. 

Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us

It does not speak of mossy forest ways, 

Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch; 

But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea! 

An artist once, with patient, careful knife, 

Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea. 

Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back 

By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue 

And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light. 

Among the flashing waves are two white birds 

Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy 

At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,

Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up, 

Their dripping feathers shining in the sun, 

While the wet drops like little glints of light, 

Fall pattering backward to the parent sea. 

Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows, 

Or skimming some white crest about to break, 

The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop 

And play with ocean in a summer mood. 

Hanging above the high, wide open door, 

It brings to us in quiet, firelit room, 

The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes, 

Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll, 

And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.

Amy Lowell