HCSHR 6:10 - Bruce Feingold, everything with an asterisk

everything with an asterisk by Bruce H. Feingold (Red Moon Press: 2022). 82 pages, 4.5” x 6.5”. Perfect softbound.  ISBN 978-1-947271-99-9.   

Review by Jerome Berglund

Fans of the innovative, enchanting haiku poetry of Bruce H. Feingold (which include, one learns from back blurbs, Alan Summers, Stanford M. Forrester, and Deborah P Kolodji endorsing this fresh, riveting collection) will be elated to discover a new installment to his impressive oeuvre just hit shelves.  It is his fifth published book by Red Moon Press, an impressive feat to accomplish while also staying quite busy chairing the Touchstone Awards and practicing psychology in Northern California. 

            breaking apart 

the flow of a stream 

below the ice

This collection follows his stellar arrhythmia from 2020. Understandably, after overcoming intense health challenges which informed the poet's last and this current collection literally and thematically, Feingold situates one vital organ centrally in his experience and worldview.  He describes haiku as ‘an art of the heart’ and cites ‘open-heartedness’ as an essential quality for a haijin to foster.  The previous work was steeped in pervasive, excruciating struggles physical and sociopolitical that are visibly afflicting our generation. It veritably oozes with the rust and poverty so characteristic of one side of the haikai tradition. In his new book Feingold proves himself every bit as accomplished and adept at capturing eloquently the levity and peaceful slice-of-life vignetting which represent the other half of the short form coin.  That proves possible even amidst profound external conflict and turmoil.  Bruce demonstrates impressively that those moments are to be no less treasured, and indeed make for a uniquely edifying treat to experience.  Such is particularly true in the wake of that ceaseless, free-floating doom and gloom our planet and its inhabitants have been nobly enduring for what feels an eternity at this stage in the pandemic fallout.

everything with an asterisk provides a distinctly welcome breath of fresh air tonally. Without ignoring the arduous difficulties and harrowing losses this era has wrought on the haikuist and his readers alike, Feingold nonetheless focuses on being grateful for what he still possesses.  In this uncertain existence, it's encouraging to note that for the author includes a new grandson safe and sound, as well as an admirably holistic spirituality and philosophical outlook on current events! The overwhelming joy represented by returning to a semblance of normalcy within the contexts of our families, jobs, communal settings, the glory of leaving this dark chapter of human history behind us provide further silver lining.  These transitions are equally relevant administrationally too, an astute poem paying homage to the Lennon/Ono classic ‘Imagine’ charmingly notes. 

Alan Summers posits that karumi advocate Basho would approve of this collection. I’ll add I think Shiki would be equally taken with the shasei evinced stunningly within. Articulating Bruce’s keen eye and capable mastery for observing society and nature’s awe-inspiring wonders, capturing with a Buddhist sensibility the driving universal mechanisms they strikingly reflect, the reader and student of these traditions can benefit enormously from thoughtfully perusing and immersing themselves in the subtle complexities of everything.    

            spring mist 

the emerald tips 

of new growth

The cover image, of waves beating against a rocky shoreline, with a few scrubby plants fiercely poking up displaying endearing determination, truly captures the indomitable spirit and impetus this book imparts.  In his afterword Feingold mentions the new addition to their family, a prodigious ‘joy and hope for a better future’ that presence and addition makes for, introduces into the equation.  Undertaking a school of poetry which can at times become grim, risk surrendering to bleakness and nihilism, it’s refreshing to encounter such a remarkable haiku collection communicating a thriving sense of optimism, drive for reform and positive change. (There are also some gut-busting senryu, including a very memorable suggestion for Covid book clubs.)

dewdrops 

on a lemon blossom 

what might be

 This volume is a sterling example of the haiku the globe could benefit from reading and writing! 

 Bruce H. Feingold has published four collections of haiku: A New Moon (2004), Sunrise on the Lodge (2010), old enough (2016), and arrhythmia (2020). Feingold’s work has won Haiku Canada’s Betty Drevniok Award and the Haiku Poets of Northern California’s International Senryu Contest, and he had a haiku of his shortlisted for the THF Touchstone Individual Haiku Awards in 2011. Since 2015 he has chaired the Touchstone Awards committee and has served as vice president of the Haiku Poets of Northern California since 2016. Resides in Berkeley, California.

Jerome Berglund has published book reviews and scholarly articles in Frogpond, Fireflies Light, Valley Voices, GAS: Poetry, Art and Music, Setu Bilingual Journal, he has also shared short form poetry in the Asahi Shimbun, Bottle Rockets, Ribbons, and Modern Haiku.

 *****

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