Quotes

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This is a true revolution, Poetic first, because it denies poetry by transcending it. The arrangement as a poem is banished in favor of the automatic text, the dictation of the unconscious, the dream narrative. No concern for art, for beauty. Those are paltry goals, unworthy of attention. The poet’s soul is what it is.

Maurice Nadeau,  The History of Surrealism

 

Does the ocean have a soul?
          All the children tell the same story. 

Q&A Session Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (2013)

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sometimes you don’t know

You’re thinkin’: How does a person know if they’re crazy or not?  Well, sometimes you don’t know.  Sometimes you can go through life suspecting you are but never really knowing for sure.  Sometimes you know for sure ’cause you got so many people tellin’ you you’re crazy that it’s your word against everyone else’s.

— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner

 

How many truths are there?
          Building a cabinet of cabinets to leap through

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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A Collective Hunch

. . . for me it came at a time when nothing else seemed to be working. I got the kind of madness Socrates talked about, “A divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.” I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.

— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,  written by Jane Wagner

 

What is Albert Einstein doing on the other side?
          Thunder in a haiku 

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer John Levy (2017)

 

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I made some studies, and reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.

— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner

 

Am I falling or flying?
          The universe goes as far in as out.

Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2016)

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paul m. & Rene Magritte

The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

—  Rene Magritte

 

Paul Miller, a.k.a. paul m., has long been one of the major figures in English Language Haiku, writing gorgeous award-winning books including his most recent Few Days North Days Few, which won both a Kanterman Award  and Touchstone Award.  And as the editor of Modern Haiku since 2013, his role as a gatekeeper of the genre has been significant.

So you can imagine my surprise when Paul agreed to be one of the first haiku poets to bravely play The Question and Answer Game with me.  I am eternally grateful. Plus it was big fun.

Interestingly, many of the results fall into Magritte’s “unknown images” category, and I think that is why I love them so much.

 

What is loss of innocence?
          The negative image of a xylophone

 

What is history?
          The metallic feeling of a paper cut

 

Questions Michelle Tennison,  Answers Paul Miller (2014)

 

What is the River Styx made of?
          The symbol for interdimensional travel

 

What is in crowspeak?
          A 90-degree turn

 

What is the length of Big Ben’s minute hand?
          A pounding fist

 

Questions Paul Miller,  Answers Michelle Tennison (2014)

 

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Every time you grab at love you will lose a snowflake of your memory -Leonard Cohen

snow

What makes lovers leave?
          Sound becomes a scattering of birds

Question Paul Miller,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2014)

 

Is love
the answer
always?
          for the frozen inlet
          a moon made
          of swans

Question Sabine Miller,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2015)

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To Hold Space for Love and Laughter

Surrealism in Europe was born between the two World Wars.

Many of the surrealists had experienced first-hand the horrors of World War I. If this, which must have felt like the end of the world, was where logic and reason had led us, what were we missing? 

Adolf Hitler had his own opinion of surrealist art:

“Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.”

As a species we are perhaps never more dangerous than when we know all there is to know.

 

What is negative capability?
          A street no one drives down

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer Paul Miller (2014)

 

Who is writing this story?
          The center of a labyrinth 

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer Beverly Borton (2016)