Guest Poet: Tom Clausen
Since February 2000 Yu Chang, John Stevenson, and Hilary Tann have been meeting once a month to present their haiku for discussion and possible revisions. These meetings have taken place at the Tai Pan restaurant on Route 9 in Halfmoon, NY. In addition to the poems, the three of them have shared leisurely meals of three, four, and five hours with dim sum served at intervals throughout. If you have only experienced dim sum as offered by a buffet restaurant you would probably be surprised at the variety of flavors, textures and style of presentation at a place like Tai Pan, which makes every dish fresh to order. For those of you who have never had dim sum in any form, it is a Chinese specialty consisting of various meat, vegetable and dessert dishes served in small portions, each a bite or two. Patrons either order a series of dishes from the menu or select them from a cart. The term dim sum translates as “little hearts.”
Beginning in October 2000 our “dim sum” haiku group set aside some poems for a publication. Here is the first issue of a series that we intend to carry forward on a biannual basis, publishing in the spring and autumn. Each issue will contain a selection of poems discussed in the workshop plus the work of a guest writer. We are very pleased that Tom Clausen, a librarian at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and a fine poet, has accepted the invitation to be our first guest.
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Sample Poems
most of the rain
not falling
on me
Tom Clausen
folded inside
my mother’s letter
Welsh poppy seeds
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curling tighter
a leaf
catches fire
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raising the blinds
the moon
is whole again
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Upstate Dim Sum 