Richard Grahn

Evanston, Illinois USA

I am a mixed-genre artist currently living in the city of Evanston, Illinois, the founder and developer of drifting-sands-haibun.org, and an active haibun, tanka prose, haiku/senryu, tanka, and haiga poet. I grew up surrounded by the woods and fields, lakes, and streams of Wisconsin and Maine. In the city, I enjoy every experience with nature I can get. I also enjoy sculpture, photography, music, and community web development. I don’t own a television and would like to keep it that way.

Enchanted

The poet eases into his favorite chair, fingers waiting eagerly for a puff of imagination to settle onto the keys. One by one, each digit moves, and slowly a dance ensues.

He searches for his partner. The muse alights in his mind. They step out onto the page and begin to twirl.

one

the storybook begins
with “once upon a time”
from there we’re left to find a way
to weave our dreams
between the lines

two

many yesterdays ago
there lived a pair on a hill
he walked each day to the spring
to fetch her a cup
of water

three

milady, your hands
fit into mine
as stars fit into the sky . . .
if this is all a dream
then please try not to wake me

one . . .

Haibun Today, Volume 13, Number 1, March 2019

My Journey as a Writer

I began writing poetry and prose in college. Not much—just enough to whet my appetite. I was pretty good at writing term papers and wound up helping several classmates with theirs. My first paper was a ten-page essay on the birth of jazz. My English teacher, Dr. Rittner, met with me after class almost every day to provide hints and tips. One of his mantras was a prescription for, “daily doses of dictionary.” He taught me many things that were and are instrumental in my pursuits as a writer.

hand-me-down shirt
with a pen in the pocket . . .
inky sunrise

For many years, I just wrote conventional poetry. Then, about five years ago, I became extremely ill and spent a lot of time in the hospital and then a nursing home. For the previous 15 years, I was completely absorbed by website design and had little time for writing, music, or art. The illness changed all that.

Joyce, a counselor at the nursing home, called me to her office one Friday. She said, “You seem bored. I have something for you,” and handed me a 30-page notebook and a pen and said, “Here, go do something creative with this.” I think she thought I would draw. Instead, that night, I sat down to write her a thank you note on the first page. After a few words, I realized I was writing a poem. So, I finished it. Then, over the course of the weekend, I filled that notebook with poems. After two more weekends, I had a collection of over 90 poems. Almost all were written about those I’ve crossed paths with throughout my life; the first poem was for Joyce.

I open the door
and a tabby slinks in . . .
warm milk by the fire

Eventually, I developed a desire to see this hand-written poetry typed up and printed out. A CNA at the nursing home told me she would help type them up. That was a great idea but it didn’t work out. Instead, she was sitting in the dayroom typing on a tiny, purple, keyboard-equipped, tablet computer one day when I mentioned, “that’s pretty cool.” She told me she hardly ever used it. I asked her if I could borrow it sometime. She said, “No, you can have it.” Wow, Shara! How you unchained my mind that day.

a breeze in the meadow
the stormy sky
fading

I began my first-ever attempt at compiling my poetry that weekend on my newly acquired purple gizmo, then set out to build a free website to post it on. Concurrently, I started writing new poems on the tablet, and began a memoir, no thoughts of publication on either front at that time.

During my stay in the nursing home, I came upon a Facebook group titled, Virtual Haiku, managed by Michael Rehling. There I started to learn about haiku and was later introduced to haibun.

I wrote and submitted my first haibun in the spring of 2018. Bob Lucky at Contemporary Haibun Online wrote me back with a couple of suggestions. One, that haibun most often have a title, and two, that he felt I could drop the second haiku. I followed his advice and he accepted the piece. I look back and realize just how—???—that haiku was and still is. The first haiku in the haibun, though, seems stronger now than it did when I wrote it. It has many facets I’m only starting to see as my exploration of the haiku/tanka genres continues. It was just the emotional relief I needed; a huge adrenalin rush. I don’t need that rush anymore to enjoy writing haiku and haibun, tanka, and tanka prose. It’s been less than four years since I first laid eyes on these forms but I’m addicted. There have been many publications since the first, but the first one was special. Thank you, Bob, for the long-lasting rush.

learning to tie my shoes—
the school bus is late
so I’m right on time

Illness brought me back to poetry, art, and music. I’ve recovered and now spend my days writing, sculpting, taking photos, and working on Drifting Sands, which is my way of saying thank you to the haibun community that I credit with saving my life, literally.

Here’s a compilation of my short-form poetry (much of it was written during my stay in the nursing home). There’s plenty there already but still, a lot of data entry to do:

Richard’s Poetry Blog

Daily Haiga, July 25 2019

Community Web Development

I began my web development carrier in 1998 by asking myself, “how do I create a blank web page?” I found a website with some basic HTML examples and built my first webpage (hosted on my own computer). It had a title and some text. I’ve spent the last two decades educating myself in this medium. Along the way, I learned database development and several computer programming languages. I have been an independent developer for about the last 20 years.

I moved to a rural county in Wisconsin in 2004. The county’s websites were either in shambles or non-existent. That included the nine Chambers of Commerce websites, the tourism website, and the county’s business development website. Businesses and organizations in the county were underrepresented on the Web—most didn’t have a website. So, I went to work creating an information hub from scratch. The result was GreenCountySpotlight.com (now defunct).

Green County Spotlight was first and foremost a directory. It contained pages for virtually every business, organization, and tourist attraction in the county. The site had a complete, hand-built content management system (CMS) much like what Facebook offers today but Facebook still hasn’t caught up with what we created back then.

the village gathers
for a helping
of stone soup . . .
a stranger with a ladle
stirs the pot

Each directory listing on the site was completely customizable (images, text, links, and other media such as videos). First, we went through the phone book and entered each entity by hand (name and phone number). Once that was complete, we began to reach out to the various entities for more information, offering to create their custom pages for free if they weren’t able to do it themselves. What we compiled was a network of beautiful pages that showcased the county. Eventually, we were working with Chamber directors, state Congress-persons, city officials, schools, libraries, museums, the tourism department, and the business development corporation. The site had classifieds, an event calendar, news, maps, and the weather report.

The point being, we spent eight years working with local communities with widespread success. Then I moved away, went through a mess of gyrations, after which I came through and up with my next community project, Drifting Sands Haibun. Drifting Sands is a constantly evolving project (the Poet’s Hub is just one example of that). We’re staffed entirely by volunteers and the project which was originally paid for out of my own pocket now has donors who help defray the costs. Everything we do at Drifting Sands is about fostering the community of writers and readers of haibun, tanka prose, and their related forms. The Drifting Sands Poet’s Hub is a direct descendent of Green County Spotlight only this time, it’s pages for poets. The experience of working with the communities in Wisconsin has translated perfectly to this project.

hoping for a quick reply
he sends his email
by carrier pigeon

Artist Endeavors

I first declared myself as a music major in college and stuck with that for the first two years. Then I took a sculpture class and things got crazy. Soon, I was spending all my time in the sculpture lab. During my stay at Chico State University, I created about 50 works of art in everything from paper to glass to wood to bronze, copper, aluminum, and steel. Just about everything I gave away. I have one piece from that era.

After school, I moved to San Francisco and landed a job as a metal finisher. My friend, Larry, referred me saying, “He can do it. He’s an artist.” The company I worked for made custom light fixtures, everything from chandeliers to floor lamps. Local interior designers would come in with their drawings and we would make them a reality. It was my job to put the final touches on. I worked with those designers to develop custom finishes, most of which made the fixtures look like they were a hundred years old. There, I made connections that eventually lead to commissions with local design firms, working for some of the wealthiest people in San Francisco. All the time, I was creating sculptures.

blackbirds flock
in afternoon sky…
flash mob

I eventually wound up working for the renowned interior designer, Robert Hutchinson (named by Architectural Digest as one of the top 100 designers of the 20th century). He would come down from his office to the studio with a drawing of a piece of furniture on a Post-it note and tell me, “Make this,” and then leave me to it. We worked on interior design projects together and I eventually started landing my own gigs.

Around Y2K, I was hired as a patina artist at an art-bronze foundry in the East Bay. Workers at the foundry were almost exclusively artists. Each was entitled to use the foundry for their own projects. I created three sculptures while I was there—five copies of each. I finished one of each sculpture and have those sitting in my living room. I finished two more and sold them. The rest are in my closet, in pieces, waiting to be finished.

Now I work with discarded, reclaimed, repurposed Styrofoam. There’s one five-foot-tall sculpture taking up most of the dining room right now. All the pieces were rescued from a single dumpster.

he rattles the can
sniffs inside
the wind’s just right
this evening . . .
alleycat

I jump around from sculpture to writing to music on a daily basis. I find each of these to be meditative. Art and music influence my writing. Writing influences my art and music.

   

Photography and Haiga

Dad gave me my first camera when I was 14. He had a darkroom in the house and taught me how to develop black and white film. I accidentally dropped that camera over a cliff three years later in Korea.

I experimented with film until I got my first digital camera around 2004. My girlfriend, Polly, and I took day trips with that camera all around Green County, documenting everything we could, from storefronts and churches to barns and alpacas. Anything of interest we could use for Green County Spotlight.

you can’t take it with you
but you can leave it behind . . .
a glimpse through the lens
and the world stands still
but am I really here?

I’m primarily a landscape photographer but there is little landscape in Evanston so I stick mainly to studies of flowers and trees. I have taken to employing photography and haiku or tanka to make haiga. The genre appeals to me on both the poetic and artistic levels—a natural marriage of interests. You can find more of my haiga in this Poet’s Hub blog post on my personal Drifting Sands – Poet’s Hub blog.

Music

I like most forms of music, from classical to jazz, rock, and blues. Most of the music I compose is on the experimental side. I enjoy improvisation in art in general, but in music, for certain. I love instrumental music. Nothing thrills me like a Frank Zappa guitar solo, or a Stravinsky orchestral piece.

hair tousled by the wind
filled with the urge
to sing like a bird

Took my first piano lesson around ten—”Chopsticks,” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” None of it stuck. The same thing happened with my college piano classes, but I did learn and hold on to some music theory. I’ve created about 15 albums in the last three years, some just one song (I say song but they are purely instrumental). Some of it “noise,” some of it mellow, some of it upbeat. Every piece has a different flavor. The fact is that it’s mostly improvisation. Here’s a recent album for your listening pleasure. Enjoy.

Meditation

ommmmmmmmmmmmm…

chanting to the echoes
of dewdrops in a teacup
lips invoke
the ancient songs
of life

where petals fall
into the pond—
a blossom
opens up and shares
its secrets

between what is
and the great beyond
an ocean
in a seashell
pounds the shore

one moment and no more
to spend inside eternity
to leave behind
what’s never been
and seek what’s meant to be

…shanti

Atlas Poetica #34, September 2018

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